Race & Class in the US: The Legacy of Ted Allen

A Talk By Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Good afternoon. This is a special honor. I not only thought the world of Ted Allen, but I saw him as one of my chief mentors. One of the unusual things about speaking with Ted is that I felt that he listened to me, heard me out, respected me and my opinions, and even when there was disagreement, did not write me off. I wish that I could say that these characteristics were widespread in the Left. We will all miss Ted.

I was asked to discuss Ted's contributions on the matter of race and social control. In order to do this, let me identify what I believe to be several key elements. From there I would like to discuss their continued relevance, particularly in terms of the dynamics of the US class struggle and the future of the union movement.

    * Race is a social construct; it has nothing to do with biological sciences. As the National Geographic documentary "The Journey of Man" noted by way of conclusion: We are all Africans. That is, there in only one race, and that is the human race, descendants of people who originate in Southern Africa more than 60,000 years ago.

* Race, as we have come to understand it, was developed on the basis of the English invasion and occupation of Ireland. The process of the suppression of the indigenous population was accompanied by the construction of the notion of race and racial inferiority. Ted, in the first volume of The Invention of the White Race, details what he concludes must be understood as the racial oppression of the Irish. This suppression of the indigenous people was accompanied by the creation of a privileged status for the colonizers.

    * Race was brought to the Western Hemisphere with the European invasion and applied as part of the process of the colonization. Race, then accompanied the development of capitalism, having a certain relative autonomy, but nevertheless being instrumental in its development. Race and color came to be linked in connection with the African slave trade and the suppression of the Native American. Race also served as the mortar in the building of capitalism. As such, it is not something that can be withdrawn without having a fundamental impact on capitalism.
    * In order to guarantee control over a rather unruly population, race -- in this case white supremacy -- existed as a dividing line, and with it the creation of a relative differential in treatment between those classified as white and those not. The differential in treatment began with the amalgamation of European immigrant groups into the category of "white." Other categories were created for non-Europeans, and some categories were transitional, with a case in point being the Irish. The differential in treatment was not insignificant: Africans could be slaves, while Europeans could not.

    * The racial dividing line, and particularly the failure of white liberals, progressives and radicals to challenge the system of white privilege, has served to undermine movements for social justice. Racism, then, is not simply about bad ideas, but is based on a system constructed over hundreds of years. This system reinforces, on a daily basis, the notions of superiority/inferiority, or relevance/irrelevance.

I am not going to review the polemical exchanges that took place in the 1970s around these views. Actually it seems fairly clear that Ted was overwhelmingly correct in his observations. At the same time, it is important to look at this question of race and social control not simply as a historical question, but as a question facing us in the contemporary world and the actual class struggle.

A few months ago I had a one-on-one discussion with a union leader about a host of issues. The discussion shifted to the question of race and the union movement. I suggested that visionary union leadership needed to advance an anti-racist practice both within and without the union movement. This leader looked at me and said that he was going to play Devil's Advocate. How much he was advocating for the devil versus himself I don't know. In any case, he went on to say that he could not see why he, as a white person, had an interest in an anti-racist practice, as such. He said he did not want to be told by people of color that "he would never understand..." and other such things. He said that he was not even sure what an anti-racist practice was, even though he himself was against racism.

This discussion had an emotional and intellectual impact on me. The discussion, taking place around the time that Ted died, could not have been an odder coincidence.

The US union movement is in deep trouble for a host of reasons that need not be repeated right now. Yet, there is a historic problem that runs throughout the entire history of organized labor, whether during good times or bad. The US union movement has never "gotten" the question of race. There have been unions and unionists that have gotten it, of course, but as a movement there has been an almost complete failure.

When the US union movement thinks about race, it may or may not think about such things as: Black folks, minorities and diversity, immigrants, and discrimination. In general, however, it externalizes the problem. I mean this in different ways. One, it views the problem as a problem outside of the union movement, that is, a problem that is imported from outside. Two, it is a problem for people of color, rather than race being a problem for white people. Three, if it is a problem for any white people, it is a problem for some other white people.

For a white union leader to tell me that thinking in terms of anti-racism is archaic or unhelpful shows that even among progressives there has been a failure to appreciate the depths of race and racist oppression in the USA.

The political Right understands the importance of race. It is important for them in terms of creating a united front in favor of the status quo. It is the creation of a reactionary but very real unity of "us" against "them."

I was reading something recently about the 2004 elections. It discussed this problem of white working people who have voted against their own interests. The article pointed out that central to this was the question of race. This was precisely correct.

In the AFL-CIO we developed in 1997 something called Common Sense Economics, an educational program aimed at speaking with workers about issues of class and capitalism. Some of you are probably familiar with it, and I am very proud of it. But there was a problem inherent in it that we attempted to address, but could not entirely, in part because of the ideology of the US union movement.

Common Sense Economics was premised on the need to get workers to understand their class interests and, as a result, become mobilized in a progressive direction. Now, don't get me wrong. This must be done, but in order to get any workers to understand their interests as workers -- and I don't mean only their interests as employees of a particular firm -- they must understand race.

An article from the American Political Science Review (Desmond S. King and Rogers M. Smith, "Racial Orders in American Political Development," February 2005, p.6), though discussing the ante-bellum South, had observations that are just as valuable in looking at today's situation when it comes to race. The article noted:

The ruling circles have developed an effective approach that encourages one section of the working class, and in general a section of the oppressed, to see itself as unique and having a special relationship with those at the top. This problem plagues virtually every social movement. Examples include tax reform movements that are defeated because people at the bottom believe that some day they, too, may be at the top and so they don't want to be penalized at that time. Or, those who do not wish to see themselves as poor because to be poor means to be Black and unworthy. Somehow the poverty of whites is supposed to be superior to the poverty of Blacks and Latinos.

The issue of social control becomes even more deadly the deeper one gets. One of the interesting features of US history is that race continues to evolve. Thus, many people who today are considered white people would not have been considered white 200 years ago, or in some cases, even 100 years ago. Chicanos, on the other hand, had this bizarre experience of being classified as "white" (as opposed to "Black," for instance) as a result of provisions in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the US war with Mexico. Nevertheless, in real-world terms, they were treated much the same as African Americans in the Jim Crow South through segregation, land theft, language discrimination and a host of other forms of national oppression. This classification reversed itself a couple of times until ultimately they are simply classified as "Hispanics." These changes in classifications obviously have nothing to do with advances in the natural sciences, but instead to political conditions.

At present, as part of addressing the changing demographics of the USA, and in need of re-creating a dominant demographic bloc, we are witnessing a phenomenon which has the potential to split the political Right, but could as well have ramifications for progressives. There are moves to adopt Cubans and Mexicans/Chicanos as white people. All the makings of this can be seen in the 2000 and 2004 elections. It is very different than the opportunistic conservative initiatives to peel off some of the Black vote. This is an orchestrated effort to say that you too -- as Latinos, at least some of you -- have a place within the conservative (read: white) bloc. The political Right is far from unified on this, and most Left and progressive forces, let alone liberals, have not a clue as to how to address this potential development.

The complications, resulting from the evolution of race as a mechanism for social control, elude most of organized labor. In this sense, anti-racism is not about making white people better humans or getting a better understanding of people of color. It truly is about understanding power dynamics and struggle in the USA. And, from the standpoint of the union movement, it should be a matter of concern if we wish to develop a genuine labor movement.

So let me return to the union leader I mentioned earlier. Part of the response to him is that the US union movement has traditionally tried to build class consciousness on the basis of economic struggle. Specifically, the idea is "us" against the "boss." In some cases, this is framed more broadly, as it was in the 2004 Presidential elections. In 2004 we were presented with a damning picture of the economic policies of the Bush administration and their allies. In the case of 2004, this was -- at least according to the AFL-CIO -- supposed to trump any sympathy for Bush that the Iraq war had engendered. It did not work out that way, as you know.

Yet the union movement continues to believe that economics trumps everything else. I listen to populists like Jim Hightower give devastating analyses of the operations of the rich and powerful, and indeed they are compelling. I have seen such oration move workers, whether they are union leaders or members, or neither. But at the end of the day, this does not build class consciousness.

To paraphrase an old saying, class consciousness is not only about understanding the enemy, but it is also about knowing what to do about the enemy. In this case, it is not enough for people to understand that they are being stepped upon. It is not enough to understand that there are rich who are trying to get richer. It is not even enough to know that there are other people who are facing the same problem.

Class consciousness will emerge to the extent that workers understand the nature of the enemy and what the enemy is actually doing to play off one against the other. In this case, the question is whether white workers will understand that race is effectively self-imprisonment, with all that this entails.

Thus, to the white union leader I would suggest that labor revitalization will be forestalled in ignoring race. The history of this country has shown repeatedly that the race card can normally trump narrow economics. The race card goes to the heart of the very being of a white person. If the identity of a white person is tied into their being white, and part of the bloc dominating this country, if not the world, then economics becomes a distraction. I have been searching for this fascinating quote from Sigmund Freud which I once stumbled across where he said that a Roman plebian, no matter how oppressed, could take heart in the fact that they were a Roman citizen and therefore -- at least in their own minds -- part of ruling the world. Whiteness has accomplished the same thing in the USA, that is, providing the uniform to wear in service not only of the empire, but as well in the battle against other members of their own class.

Thank you.