Racist killing of George Floyd ignites US rebellion
The racist police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has ignited an unprecedented movement of protest within the US. It is crucial to understand why.
Anti-racism
Anti-racists oppose premature lifting of lockdown
Anti-racist call on the government not to end the lockdown till it is safe and for a public inquiry into the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on BAME communities.
Marxism and the anti-racist struggle
First published: 24 July 2007
Those who suffer from an oppression are the only people who understand all its implications and ramifications. It is for this reason that it is a basic principle that women must lead the struggle against women’s oppression and sexism, that gay and lesbian people must lead the struggle against homophobia and, to take the subject of the present posting, that those communities oppressed by racism must have the leading role in the movement against it.
Racism is of course used to divide the whole of the working class. But above all, racism is a set of institutions and ideology which justifies the oppression and exploitation of the non-white majority of humanity.
Marxism, John Stuart Mill and the veil
First published: 23 October 2006
Lenin, in The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, gave the classic formulation of the relation of Marxism to previous thought: ‘the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism… (it) provides men… with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced.’ (Lenin, Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 19, pages 21 –28.)
Fight racism
First published: November 1998
Racism has become a key political weapon deployed more and more frequently by mainstream capitalist parties in Western Europe, Australia and the United States over the last decade. A recent example is the governing Christian Social Union (CSU) campaign in Bavaria which featured a poster stating: ‘If you want more foreigners don’t vote CSU’. The head of the CSU parliamentary caucus in Bonn stated in July ‘Foreigners and criminals are two topics which unfortunately go together’. The campaign was so racist that the local far right withdrew their candidates on the grounds that the CSU had already adopted all of their policies!