Barack Hussein Obama Jr. Communist In Secret Part II

Step Father Lolo Soetoro b.1935-d.1987

As a 30 year old Indonesian student pursuing and completing his Masters at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro met and married Ann Dunham Obama in 1965. The marriage lasted 10 years. Lolo Soetoro returned to Indonesia alone in 1966 after being called home for his army service. Six year old Barack and mother Ann Dunham Obama Soetoro followed Lolo Soetoro to Jakarta a year later in 1967, where Lolo a Muslim, enrolled Barry/Barack Obama/Soetoro into a Jakarta Wahabi Madrasa,- a Muslim school for children which taught the militant brand of Islam.

Excerpt from Obama’s Dreams From My Father

"With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chili peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy)," Obama wrote. "Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share."
Soetoro worked for the Indonesian government and later a U.S. oil company before he and Obama's mother divorced in the late 1970s. Soetoro died of a liver ailment (perhaps too much tiger meat, lol- Steve) in 1987 at age 51.

From the Blog An American Expat In Southeast Asia

20 JANUARY 2007
Tracking Down Obama in Indonesia

Barack Hussein Obama the Senator from Illinois has formed an exploratory committee to explore a presidential bid. Obama has had a remarkable rise from lawmaker to politician in less than ten years appearing suddenly onto the political scene.
New on the scene, Obama remains a charismatic man of mystery, very little is known on him. His only remaining relative seems to be his half-sister Maya Kassandra Soetoro or as she is known now Maya Soetoro-Ng.
What is particularly intriguing though for many is that Obama has not been seen to have been forthcoming with his past with regards to the time he spent in Indonesia.
Either he wishes to forget his past or perhaps he has something to hide.
In any event, I have now spent over twenty years of my life here in Southeast Asia, am well versed with the culture and speak the language. With regards to Obama's Indonesian past, I now find myself intrigued to find out more about Obama and his life in Indonesia.

The House on Dempo Street Vanishes

Jakarta - More on the US story of the senator, Barack Obama, in Indonesia.

During this short period of time, Barack was believed to have lived in a house on Dempo Street near Amir Hamzah Park and the city center of Jakarta. However, currently the occupants of the house and the residents in this area have never heard of either Barack or Barry.

Tracking down the past of US senator in Indonesia is quite difficult, The only quite strong information detikcom was able to obtain was from a Onny Padmo, Barry's classmate in class 4 of Besuki primary school, Menteng, Jakarta near the city center around 1971.

Onny admitted to attending Barry's birthday party at his house at that time. Barry's house was supposedly on Dempo Street near Amir Hamzah Park. But, Onny didn't quite seem to remember the exact address. As you know, that was over 35 years ago.

Detikcom investigated the area, on Monday (3/7/2006). However, several residents who have lived in this area for quite a long time had never heard of the Barack name or Barry. They had also never heard of the Lolo Soetoro name, Ann Dunham, or Maya Kassandra Soetoro.

Lolo Soetoro was the husband of Ann and the stepfather of Barry. Ann was a US citizen and the mother of Barry. Whereas Maya was the stepbrother of Barry, the child of Ann and Lolo.

In fact, Barry together with his mother and his stepfather lived in Indonesia for quite a long time. Apparently Barry went to Primary School here for only one year in Primary 4, but the information from Maya Soetoro is that Barry had lived in Indonesia between the years of 1968-1973.

However, the exact location of Barry's house for 5 years remains unclear.

The only thing that is certain, according to Onny, is that "Barry" lived on Dempo Street.

"I had previously attended Barry's birthday party in the house, not far from Amir Hamzah Park", said Onny, Barry's school friend during 1971. It wasn't far from Amir Hamzah Park, said Onny, Barry's school friend from 1971. At the time, Dempo Street was still be worked on.
It was just off Amir Hamzah Park although not right in front. The road closer to the mosque at that time was quite famous.

One of the residents who had lived a long time in the Amir Hamzah Park area, Ari (aged 55), when being questioned by detikcom claimed to have never heard of a Barack, Obama or Barry. He had also never heard of a person named Lolo Soetoro.

"As I remember in the 1960's many Dutch lived near this area." If there was a Negroid child, I would have known, said Ari. Apart from Dutch though, in this area there also lived many descendants of the Dutch Ambonese.

Haji Mamiati, who had lived in the area since the 1950's also admitted to not knowing of an Ann Dunham, Lolo Soetoro or Barry.

He claimed that in the Amir Hamzah Park area, during the 1960's there were many foreigners.
Mamiati claimed thought that he had indeed seen a black negro child who had curly hair that live in No. 2 Dempo Street sometime around the 1970's.

However, he said the negroid child was claimed to have been from Papua.

"Indeed there was a negroid child, but they claimed that the child was from Irian." said Mamiati.

Could it be, that the negroid child mentioned by Mamiati was in fact "Barry"?

It is difficult to say, the house on No. 2 Dempo Street existed only during the time of the Dutch. Now the place where the house supposedly stood houses a dentist and there are many other new houses in the area - Dempo has changed over the years.
Original story


Reverend Dr.Jeremiah Wright b.1941-


Pastor Emeritus after 36 years as Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Under his pastor ship membership grew from 90 members in the 1970’s to 8500 today.

Barack Obama as a young community organizer, targeted the black churches of Chicago as a source for voter registration and ‘union type” dues paying membership/tactics. He was a star pupil member of Rev Wright’s church for more than 20 years. Wife Michelle and Obama were married by Rev Wright in October 1992.

The church's mission statement is based upon systematized Black liberation theology that started with the works of James Hal Cone.

Black Liberation Theology peaches the black victimization at the hands of white capitalist oppressors.


Wright also an anti-Semite….

The Anti Defamation League released a statement condemning Wright's remarks as "inflammatory and false. The notions of Jewish control of the White House in Reverend Wright's statement express classic anti-Semitism in its most vile form."


The Marxist Roots of Black Liberation Theology

BY ANTHONY B. BRADLEY PH.D.

( Rev. Dr Bradley is a Black Professor of Theology at COVENANT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ST LOUIS)

What is Black Liberation Theology anyway? Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright catapulted black liberation theology onto a national stage, when America discovered Trinity United Church of Christ. Understanding the background of the movement might give better clarity into Wright's recent vitriolic preaching. A clear definition of black theology was first given formulation in 1969 by the National Committee of Black Church Men in the midst of the civil-rights movement:
Black theology is a theology of black liberation. It seeks to plumb the black condition in the light of God's revelation in Jesus Christ, so that the black community can see that the gospel is commensurate with the achievements of black humanity. Black theology is a theology of 'blackness.' It is the affirmation of black humanity that emancipates black people from White racism, thus providing authentic freedom for both white and black people. It affirms the humanity of white people in that it says 'No' to the encroachment of white oppression.
In the 1960s, black churches began to focus their attention beyond helping blacks cope with national racial discrimination particularly in urban areas.
The notion of "blackness" is not merely a reference to skin color, but rather is a symbol of oppression that can be applied to all persons of color who have a history of oppression (except whites, of course). So in this sense, as Wright notes, "Jesus was a poor black man" because he lived in oppression at the hands of "rich white people." The overall emphasis of Black Liberation Theology is the black struggle for liberation from various forms of "white racism" and oppression.
James Cone, the chief architect of Black Liberation Theology in his book A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), develops black theology as a system. In this new formulation, Christian theology is a theology of liberation -- "a rational study of the being of God in the world in light of the existential situation of an oppressed community, relating the forces of liberation to the essence of the gospel, which is Jesus Christ," writes Cone. Black consciousness and the black experience of oppression orient black liberation theology -- i.e., one of victimization from white oppression.
One of the tasks of black theology, says Cone, is to analyze the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ in light of the experience of oppressed blacks. For Cone, no theology is Christian theology unless it arises from oppressed communities and interprets Jesus' work as that of liberation. Christian theology is understood in terms of systemic and structural relationships between two main groups: victims (the oppressed) and victimizers (oppressors). In Cone's context, writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the great event of Christ's liberation was freeing African Americans from the centuries-old tyranny of white racism and white oppression.
American white theology, which Cone never clearly defines, is charged with having failed to help blacks in the struggle for liberation. Black theology exists because "white religionists" failed to relate the gospel of Jesus to the pain of being black in a white racist society.
For black theologians, white Americans do not have the ability to recognize the humanity in persons of color, blacks need their own theology to affirm their identity in terms of a reality that is anti-black -- “blackness” stands for all victims of white oppression. "White theology," when formed in isolation from the black experience, becomes a theology of white oppressors, serving as divine sanction from criminal acts committed against blacks. Cone argues that even those white theologians who try to connect theology to black suffering rarely utter a word that is relevant to the black experience in America. White theology is not Christian theology at all. There is but one guiding principle of black theology: an unqualified commitment to the black community as that community seeks to define its existence in the light of God's liberating work in the world.
As such, black theology is a survival theology because it helps blacks navigate white dominance in American culture. In Cone's view, whites consider blacks animals, outside of the realm of humanity, and attempted to destroy black identity through racial assimilation and integration programs--as if blacks have no legitimate existence apart from whiteness. Black theology is the theological expression of a people deprived of social and political power. God is not the God of white religion but the God of black existence. In Cone's understanding, truth is not objective but subjective -- a personal experience of the Ultimate in the midst of degradation.
The echoes of Cone's theology bleed through the now infamous, anti-Hilary excerpt by Rev. Wright. Clinton is among the oppressing class ("rich white people") and is incapable of understanding oppression ("ain't never been called a n-gg-r") but Jesus knows what it was like because he was "a poor black man" oppressed by "rich white people." While Black Liberation Theology is not main stream in most black churches, many pastors in Wright's generation are burdened by Cone's categories which laid the foundation for many to embrace Marxism and a distorted self-image of the perpetual "victim."
Black Liberation Theology as Marxist Victimology
Black Liberation Theology actually encourages a victim mentality among blacks. John McWhorters' book Losing the Race, will be helpful here. Victimology, says McWhorter, is the adoption of victimhood as the core of one's identity -- for example, like one who suffers through living in "a country and who lived in a culture controlled by rich white people." It is a subconscious, culturally inherited affirmation that life for blacks in America has been in the past and will be in the future a life of being victimized by the oppression of whites. In today's terms, it is the conviction that, 40 years after the Civil Rights Act, conditions for blacks have not substantially changed. As Wright intimates, for example, scores of black men regularly get passed over by cab drivers.
Reducing black identity to "victimhood" distorts the reality of true progress. For example, was Obama a victim of widespread racial oppression at the hand of "rich white people" before graduating from Columbia University, Harvard Law School magna cum laude, or after he acquired his estimated net worth of $1.3 million? How did "rich white people" keep Obama from succeeding? If Obama is the model of an oppressed black man, I want to be oppressed next! With my graduate school debt my net worth is literally negative $52,659.
The overall result, says McWhorter, is that "the remnants of discrimination hold an obsessive indignant fascination that allows only passing acknowledgement of any signs of progress." Jeremiah Wright, infused with victimology, wielded self-righteous indignation in the service of exposing the inadequacies Hilary Clinton's world of "rich white people." The perpetual creation of a racial identity born out of self-loathing and anxiety often spends more time inventing reasons to cry racism than working toward changing social mores, and often inhibits movement toward reconciliation and positive mobility.
McWhorter articulates three main objections to victimology: First, victimology condones weakness in failure. Victimology tacitly stamps approval on failure, lack of effort, and criminality. Behaviors and patterns that are self-destructive are often approved of as cultural or presented as unpreventable consequences from previous systemic patterns. Black Liberation theologians are clear on this point: "People are poor because they are victims of others," says Dr. Dwight Hopkins, a Black Liberation theologian teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Second, victimology hampers progress because, from the outset, it focuses attention on obstacles. For example, in Black liberation Theology, the focus is on the impediment of black freedom in light of the Goliath of white racism.
Third, victimology keeps racism alive because many whites are constantly painted as racist with no evidence provided. Racism charges create a context for backlash and resentment fueling new attitudes among whites not previously held or articulated, and creates "separatism" -- a suspension of moral judgment in the name of racial solidarity. Does Jeremiah Wright foster separatism or racial unity and reconciliation?
For Black Liberation theologians, Sunday is uniquely tied to redefining their sense of being human within a context of marginalization. "Black people who have been humiliated and oppressed by the structures of White society six days of the week gather together each Sunday morning in order to experience another definition of their humanity," says James Cone in his book Speaking the Truth (1999).
Many black theologians believe that both racism and socio-economic oppression continue to augment the fragmentation between whites and blacks. Historically speaking, it makes sense that black theologians would struggle with conceptualizing social justice and the problem of evil as it relates to the history of colonialism and slavery in the Americas.
Is Black Liberation Theology helping? Wright's liberation theology has stirred up resentment, backlash, Obama defections, separatism, white guilt, caricature, and offense. Preaching to a congregation of middle-class blacks about their victim identity invites a distorted view of reality, fosters nihilism, and divides rather than unites.
Black Liberation Is Marxist Liberation
One of the pillars of Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ, is "economic parity." On the website, Trinity claims that God is not pleased with "America's economic mal-distribution." Among all of controversial comments by Jeremiah Wright, the idea of massive wealth redistribution is the most alarming. The code language "economic parity" and references to "mal-distribution" is nothing more than channeling the twisted economic views of Karl Marx. Black Liberation theologians have explicitly stated a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for the black church because Marxist thought is predicated on a system of oppressor class (whites) versus victim class (blacks).
Black Liberation theologians James Cone and Cornel West have worked diligently to embed Marxist thought into the black church since the 1970s. For Cone, Marxism best addressed remedies to the condition of blacks as victims of white oppression. In For My People, Cone explains that "the Christian faith does not possess in its nature the means for analyzing the structure of capitalism. Marxism as a tool of social analysis can disclose the gap between appearance and reality, and thereby help Christians to see how things really are."
In God of the Oppressed, Cone said that Marx's chief contribution is "his disclosure of the ideological character of bourgeois thought, indicating the connections between the 'ruling material force of society' and the 'ruling intellectual' force." Marx's thought is useful and attractive to Cone because it allows black theologians to critique racism in America on the basis of power and revolution.
For Cone, integrating Marx into black theology helps theologians see just how much social perceptions determine theological questions and conclusions. Moreover, these questions and answers are "largely a reflection of the material condition of a given society."
In 1979, Cornel West offered a critical integration of Marxism and black theology in his essay, "Black Theology and Marxist Thought" because of the shared human experience of oppressed peoples as victims. West sees a strong correlation between black theology and Marxist thought because "both focus on the plight of the exploited, oppressed and degraded peoples of the world, their relative powerlessness and possible empowerment." This common focus prompts West to call for "a serious dialogue between Black theologians and Marxist thinkers" -- a dialogue that centers on the possibility of "mutually arrived-at political action."
In his book Prophesy Deliverance, West believes that by working together, Marxists and black theologians can spearhead much-needed social change for those who are victims of oppression. He appreciates Marxism for its "notions of class struggle, social contradictions, historical specificity, and dialectical developments in history" that explain the role of power and wealth in bourgeois capitalist societies. A common perspective among Marxist thinkers is that bourgeois capitalism creates and perpetuates ruling-class domination -- which, for black theologians in America, means the domination and victimization of blacks by whites. America has been over run by "White racism within mainstream establishment churches and religious agencies," writes West.
Perhaps it is the Marxism imbedded in Obama's attendance at Trinity Church that should raise red flags. "Economic parity" and "distribution" language implies things like government-coerced wealth redistribution, perpetual minimum wage increases, government subsidized health care for all, and the like. One of the priorities listed on Obama's campaign website reads, "Obama will protect tax cuts for poor and middle class families, but he will reverse most of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers."
Black Liberation Theology, originally intended to help the black community, may have actually hurt many blacks by promoting racial tension, victimology, and Marxism which ultimately leads to more oppression. As the failed "War on Poverty" has exposed, the best way to keep the blacks perpetually enslaved to government as "daddy" is to preach victimology, Marxism, and to seduce blacks into thinking that upward mobility is someone else's responsibility in a free society.
Anthony B. Bradley is a research fellow at the Acton Institute, and assistant professor of theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. His Ph.D. dissertation is titled, "Victimology in Black Liberation Theology." This article was originally published on the newsletter of the Glen Beck Program. Watch Bradley’s guest appearance on Beck’s CNN Headline News show here.

Ground Breaker Carol Moseley Braun b.1947-

The almost firsr black communist president. A test run if you will. Braun represents the continum link in the Chicago Marxist chain from Harold Washington to Barack Obama.
Braun is a player in Chicago’s power politics.

Carol Braun born in Chicago, started her career as a U. of Chicago educated Civil Rights attorney. She entered politics in 1978, later became the first black US Senator 1992-1998. Ambassador to New Zealand 1999-2001. Ran for the 2004 democrat presidential nomination.

Currently practicing private law.

Her Senate voting record revealed her support for – Partial Birth Abortion
Pro Gay Marriage, opposed Communications Decency Act

Was investigated for $250,000 in missing campaign funds. The IRS twice asking DOJ to investigate, without success.

Unafraid to play the” race card”.

In 1998, after George Will wrote a column reviewing the allegations of corruption against her,[5] Moseley Braun responded to Will's comments, saying that "I think because he couldn't say nigger, he said corrupt,"[6] She also compared Will to a Ku Klux Klansman, saying "I mean this very sincerely from the bottom of my heart: He can take his hood and put it back on again, as far as I'm concerned."[7] Later, Moseley Braun apologized for her remarks.[6]

This excerpt from American Thinker…..showing the connection between Braun and Obama

Barack Obama is ACORN. Mirror man is not interested in ACORN? John Fund says that Obama "carefully declined to say whether he would approve a federal cutoff of funds to the group," and that the President "took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella." His success in that drive led to the election of Democrat Senator Carol Moseley Braun, and made Obama "a hot commodity on the community organizing circuit. He became a top trainer at Acorn's Chicago conferences. In 1995, he became Acorn's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by Acorn employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names."

From New Zeal… a New Zealand based blog……….

Barack Obama's spectacular rise in Chicago politics is not a one-off. It is part of a long established pattern.

The left side of Chicago politics likes to come together to back promising candidates for high office.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and more latterly the CPUSA offshoot Committees of Correspondence, have worked together on several occasions to elect "progressive" Democrats.

This alliance started in 1983 with the election of Chicago's first black mayor Harold Washington.

It has worked since to elect Barack Obama to the Illinois State Senate, the US Senate and now the US presidency.


In between Washington and Obama, it helped elect Carol Moseley Braun to the Illinois State Legislature and the US Senate. In some ways Moseley Braun, the first black female Senator in US history was a trial run for the Obama phenomonon.

Moseley Braun's rise was closely linked to both Washington and Obama's. Like them, she was the product and protoge of the far left side of Chicago politics.

Born in 1947, Carol Moseley was raised by a medical technician mother a "socialist" father who worked as a guard in the Cook County Jail.

While still in high school Carol Moseley staged a one-person sit-in at a restaurant that refused to serve her, succeeded in integrating an all-white beach and marched with Martin Luther King.

After law school, Moseley Braun worked as a prosecutor in the United States Attorney's office in Chicago. In 1978 she won a seat in the Illinois State Legislature.

Later she worked for Judson Miner's law firm, as did Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and and former Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn.

Moseley Braun became Chicago Mayor Harold Washington's legislative floor leader and sponsored bills to reform education, to ban discrimination in housing and private clubs and to bar the State of Illinois from investing funds in Apartheid South Africa.

Harold Washington was a lifelong Communist Party associate, elected to Chicago's mayoralty in 1983, by a communist/socialist led black/white "liberal"/Latino coalition.

Moseley Braun also had ties to the Communist Party.

In November 1979 she was a co-sponsor of the founding conference of the US Peace Council, a CPUSA front and an affiliate of the Soviet controlled World Peace Council.

Moseley Braun's Peace Council co-sponsors included US Congressmen John Conyers and Ron Dellums, both lifelong CPUSA front operatives and later DSA members.

In May 1987 Moseley Braun helped sponsor, with CPUSA leaders Angela Davis and Herbert Aptheker, a benefit for Chicago Communist Party veterans Claude Lightfoot and Jack Kling.

Also in 1987 Moseley-Braun joined Harold Washington's multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and gender-balanced "Dream Ticket" to successfully run for the office of recorder of deeds. Washington died in office shortly after the election.

While serving as recorder of deeds Moseley-Braun decided to run for US Senate in the 1992 election-with CPUSA backing.

I quote CPUSA official and Obama activist Tim Wheeler, writing in a 1999 issue of People's Weekly World on Chicago CPUSA chairman and Save Our Jobs (SOJ)committee leader, Frank Lumpkin;


Lumpkin also led SOJ into independent political action. They played an important role in the election of Harold Washington as mayor of Chicago, a historic victory over the most entrenched, reactionary political machine in the U.S. Bea (Lumpkin's wife) writes that "At that time, Washington and Lumpkin had a special relationship ... Washington seemed to draw strength from Lumpkin's participation. At meetings rallies, street encounters, whatever, Washington would call Frank over and say, 'When I see you, I know things are in good hands."

Lumpkin was later appointed by Harold Washington to taskforces on hunger and dislocated workers.

Wheeler continues;

SOJ was also an important factor in the election of Charles Hayes, African-American leader of the Meatcutters union, (a covert member of the CPUSA) to take the Congressional seat vacated by Washington, and the election of Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

While Carol Moseley-Braun was close to Chicago's Communist Party, other socialist groups also helped her to win elections.

In 1991/92, about a third of the members of the CPUSA broke away to form a new organisation, the Committees of Correspondence. Well known members of CoC include black academic Angela Davis, linguist/activist Noam Chomsky and Timuel Black, Professor (emeritus) City College of Chicago and longtime friend and associate of both Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack Obama.

One lifelong CPUSA member to join the CoC was Chicago activist Hannah Cohen.

From the CoC's Portside;

Hannah was active in Chicago, in what became a lifetime of political and electoral activism. Throughout the new upsurge of the 60s, 70s and 80s, Hannah was an active participant. She was active in teachers union, peace and community groups in Chicago, and later in the international campaign that won the freedom for Angela Davis.

Hannah became a community volunteer in the mayoral campaigns of Harold Washington, and was one of the key volunteers in the election campaign of Carol Mosley Braun, the first African American woman elected to the United States Senate.

DSA also backed Moseley Braun.


One woman, closely associated with the DSA, long time Chicago Democratic Party activist, Sue Purrington played a role in Mosely Braun's decision to run for Senate.

From the Chicago DSA website

The 34th Annual Dinner was held on May 1, 1992 at the Congress Hotel in Chicago. The Master of Ceremonies was Michael Lighty, who was then the Executive Director of DSA. Sue Purrington, the Executive Director of Chicago NOW, and Dr. Quentin Young, President of Physicians for a National Health Program, were the honorees. The featured speaker was Jose LaLuz, who was the National Education Director of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.

Sue Purrington

We honor you as a career fighter for women's rights and equality...

You were instrumental in persuading Carol Moseley Braun to start her campaign to become Senator from Illinois then you produced votes to back up your pledge of support.

Incidentally both Quentin Young and Jose Laluz are DSA members. Young is a long time friend, neighbour and political supporter of Obama's. He was present at the famous meeting in Chicago in 1995 at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn where State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Obama as her chosen successor.

Jose LaLuz, also a leader of Committees of Correspondence and a Peace Council supporter, is currently president of Latinos for Obama.

Another DSA activist associated with Moseley Braun was Milt Cohen.

A long time Chicago Communist Party activist, Cohen later joined the New American Movement, then DSA.

According to the Chicago DSA's New Ground, Cohen was a friend of Harold Washington's.

In 1982, Rep. Harold Washington issued a challenge to register 50,000 new voters in preparation for the coming mayoral election. Milt helped organize a grassroots movement which met the challenge by more than double. Later he chaired the Chicago Coalition for Voter Registration.

Milt joined the 1983 Washington campaign full-time. He later said that hard-won victory was his greatest satisfaction. The Washington movement clearly reflected Milt's long-time priorities: anti-racism, political independence, and progressive multi-racial coalitions.

A few months after his election, Washington issued a proclamation declaring Milton M. Cohen Day a day for Chicagoans to honor a man "who has dedicated his life to the unceasing struggle for the civil and economic rights of all people and has worked for 50 years in the cause of progressive change and reform politics in Chicago and a more democratic, humane and peaceful America and world." Mayor Washington noted that to honor Milt Cohen is to honor "thousands of rank-and-file activists who work day and night in the struggle for jobs, justice, and peace."

And of Moseley Braun's;

Carol Moseley Braun's election to the Senate in 1992 was another landmark for Milt. He had helped recruit Braun for her first legislative race in 1978, and one of his last projects before leaving Chicago was soliciting DSA members to participate in the Braun campaign.

Chicago DSA put a big effort into Carol Moseley Braun's successful Senate campaign.

From Chicago DSA's New Ground;

Progressive forces in Illinois made history November 3 by electing Carol Moseley Braun as the first African-American woman to the US Senate.

Braun beat beat Republican millionaire Rich Williamson soundly, 57%-43%. Former DSA Youth Organizer Jeremy Karpatkin directed Braun's field operations. Chicago DSA contributed volunteers and money to Braun's campaign.

Barack Obama also played a role in Carol Moseley Braun's Senate victory-perhaps the decisive role.

From Chicago Magazine January 1993

A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape-and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama...

The most effective minority voter registration drive in memory was the result of careful handiwork by Project Vote!, the local chapter of a not-for-profit national organization. "It was the most efficient campaign I have seen in my 20 years in politics," says Sam Burrell, alderman of the West Side's 29th Ward and a veteran of many registration drives.

At the head of this effort was a little-known 31-year-old African-American lawyer, community organizer, and writer: Barack Obama...In 1984, after Columbia but before Harvard, Obama moved to Chicago. "I came because of Harold Washington," he says. "I wanted to do community organizing, and I couldn't think of a better city than one as energized and hopeful as Chicago was then."

By 1991, when Obama, law degree in hand, returned to Chicago...black voter registration and turnout in the city were at their lowest points since record keeping began.

Six months after he took the helm of Chicago's Project Vote!, those conditions had been reversed...Within a few months, Obama, a tall, affable workaholic, had recruited staff and volunteers from black churches, community groups, and politicians.

He helped train 700 deputy registrars, out of a total of 11,000 citywide. And he began a saturation media campaign with the help of black-owned Brainstorm Communications...The group's slogan-"It's a Power Thing"-was ubiquitous in African-American neighborhoods. \"It was overwhelming," says Joseph Gardner, a commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the director of the steering committee for Project Vote! "The black community in this city had not been so energized and so single-minded since Harold died."

"I think it's fair to say we reinvigorated a slumbering constituency," says Obama. "We got people to take notice."

As for Project Vote! itself, its operations in Chicago have officially closed down. Barack Obama has returned to work on his book, which he plans to complete this month..."We won't let the momentum die," he says. "I'll take personal responsibility for that. We plan to hold politicians' feet to the flames in 1993, to remind them that we can produce a bloc of voters large enough that it cannot be ignored."

Nor can Obama himself be ignored. The success of the voter-registration drive has marked him as the political star the Mayor should perhaps be watching for. "The sky's the limit for Barack," says Burrell.

Some of Daley's closest advisers are similarly impressed. "In its technical demands, a voter-registration drive is not unlike a mini-political campaign," says John Schmidt, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and a fundraiser for Project Vote! "Barack ran this superbly. I have no doubt he could run an equally good political campaign if that's what he decided to do next."

Obama shrugs off the possibility of running for office. "Who knows?" he says. "But probably not immediately." He smiles.

Project Vote of course was an affiliate of the radical community group ACORN, to which Obama was long connected.

When Obama successfully ran for an Illinois State Senate seat in 1995/96 he was endorsed by DSA. He also joined and was endorsed by the New Party, a front for ACORN, DSA and the Committees of Correspondence.

On March 13th 1998, Saul Mendelson, a lifelong socialist activist died in Chicago.


Mendelson had been a member of various Trotskyist factions in the 1930s and '40s before joining the US Socialist Party and later DSA.

In 1983 Saul Mendelson played a significant role in the election of Harold Washington.

The Saul Mendelson Memorial Service was held on Sunday, March 29, 1998, at the First Unitarian Church, Chicago.

According to Chicago DSA leader, the late Carl Marx Shier (who addressed the gathering);

At the memorial service held at the 1st Unitarian Church on South Woodlawn, speaker after speaker recounted Saul's contributions...speakers included Deborah Meier...Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, State Senator Barak Obama, Illinois House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie and a good friend from New York, Myra Russell.

The concluding remarks were made by an old friend, Harriet Lefley, who is now Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami Medical School.

Deborah Meier was a former Trotskyist and Socialist Party comrade of Saul Mendelson's and a leader of Chicago and Boston DSA.

Alderman Toni Preckwinkle and Illinois House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, are both leftist Democrats with ties to Chicago's socialist community. Both endorsed Barack Obama in his successful 2004 bid for the US Senate.

Harriet Lefley was a Trotskyist in the 1940s, with Saul Mendelson.

Eulogies also came from Quinn Brisben, (Socialist Party presidential candidate 1976, 1992) and David McReynolds (Socialist Party presidential candidate 1980, 2000).

Both Brisben and McReynolds are also DSA members.

State Senator Barack Obama probably knew Saul Mendelson through their mutual activism in Independent Voters of Illinois, an organisation investigated for communist infiltration as far back as the 1940s.

In 1998 Moseley Braun, enmired in constant scandal, lost her US Senate seat.

President Bill Clinton looked after her however, appointing her as ambassador to an unsuspecting New Zealand.


By 2004 she was back in Chicago talking of running for her old Senate seat. After much to-ing and fro-ing, Moseley Braun instead made a short-lived run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Seizing the opportunity, Barack Obama ran for Moseley Braun's old Senate seat and was elected-with the active support of the Chicago Communist Party and the Young Communist League.

Perhaps the timing was right? posted by Trevor Loudon





The DSA manafesto (note the Chicago Address)

Toward a Socialist Theory of Racism
by Cornel West
Honorary Chair,

Democratic Socialists of America

What is the relationship between the struggle against racism and socialist theory and practice in the United States? Why should people of color active in antiracist movements take democratic socialism seriously? And how can American socialists today learn from inadequate attempts by socialists in the past to understand the complexity of racism? In this pamphlet, I try to address these crucial questions facing the democratic socialist movement. First, I examine past Marxist efforts to comprehend what racism is and how it operates in varying contexts. Second, I attempt to develop a new conception of racism which builds upon, yet goes beyond the Marxist tradition. Third, I examine how this new conception sheds light on the roles of racism in the American past and present. Last, I try to show that the struggle against racism is both morally and politically necessary for democratic socialists.Past Marxist Conceptions of RacismMost socialist theorizing about racism has occurred within a Marxist framework and has focused on the Afro-American experience. While my analysis concentrates on people of African descent, particularly Afro-Americans, it also has important implications for analyzing the racism that plagues other peoples of color, such as Spanish-speaking Americans (for example, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans), Asians, and Native Americans.There are four basic conceptions of racism in the Marxist tradition. The first subsumes racism under the general rubric of working-class exploitation. This viewpoint tends to ignore forms of racism not determined by the workplace. At the turn of the century, this position was put forward by many leading figures in the Socialist party, particularly Eugene Debs. Debs believed that white racism against peoples of color was solely a "divide-and-conquer strategy" of the ruling class and that any attention to its operations "apart from the general labor problem" would constitute racism in reverse.My aim is not to castigate the Socialist party or insinuate that Debs was a racist. The Socialist party had some distinguished black members, and Debs had a long history of fighting racism. But any analysis that confines itself to oppression in the workplace overlooks racism's operation in other spheres of life. For the Socialist party, this yielded a "color-blind" strategy for resisting racism in which all workers were viewed simply as workers with no specific identity or problems. Complex racist practices within and outside the workplace were reduced to mere strategies of the ruling class.The second conception of racism in the Marxist tradition acknowledges the specific operation of racism within the workplace (for example, job discrimination and structural inequality of wages) but remains silent about these operations outside the workplace. This viewpoint holds that peoples of color are subjected both to general working-class exploitation and to a specific "super-exploitation" resulting from less access to jobs and lower wages. On the practical plane, this perspective accented a more intense struggle against racism than did Debs' viewpoint, and yet it still limited this struggle to the workplace. The third conception of racism in the Marxist tradition, the so-called "Black Nation thesis", has been the most influential among black Marxists. It claims that the operation of racism is best understood as a result of general and specific working-class exploitation and national oppression. This viewpoint holds that Afro-Americans constitute, or once constituted, an oppressed nation in the Black Belt South and an oppressed national minority in the rest of American society.There are numerous versions of the Black Nation Thesis. Its classical form was put forth by the American Communist party in 1928, was then modified in the 1930 resolution and codified in Harry Haywood's Negro Liberation (1948). Some small Leninist organizations still subscribe to the thesis, and its most recent reformulation appeared in James Forman's Self-Determination and the African-American People (1981). All of these variants adhere to Stalin's definition of a nation set forth in his Marxism and the National Question (1913) which states that "a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." Despite its brevity and crudity, this formulation incorporates a crucial cultural dimension overlooked by the other two Marxist accounts of racism. Furthermore, linking racist practices to struggles between dominating and dominated nations (or peoples) has been seen as relevant to the plight of Native Americans, Chicanos, and Puerto Ricans who were disinherited and decimated by white colonial settlers. Such models of "internal colonialism" have important implications for organizing strategies because they give particular attention to critical linguistic and cultural forms of oppression. They remind us that much of the American West consists of lands taken from Native Americans and from Mexico.Since the Garveyite movement of the 1920s, which was the first mass movement among Afro-Americans, the black left has been forced to take seriously the cultural dimension of the black freedom struggle.




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Marcus Garvey's black nationalism rendered most black Marxists "proto-Gramscians" in at least the limited sense that they took cultural concerns more seriously than many other Marxists. But this concern with cultural life was limited by the Black Nation Thesis itself. Although the theory did inspire many impressive struggles against racism by the predominantly white left, particularly in the 1930s, its ahistorical racial definition of a nation, its purely statistical determination of national boundaries (the South was a black nation because of its then black majority population), and its illusory conception of a distinct black national economy ultimately rendered it an inadequate analysis.The fourth conception of racism in the Marxist tradition claims that racist practices result not only from general and specific working-class exploitation but also from xenophobic attitudes that are not strictly reducible to class exploitation. From this perspective, racist attitudes have a life and logic of their own, dependent upon psychological factors and cultural practices. This viewpoint was motivated primarily by opposition to the predominant role of the Black Nation Thesis on the American and Afro-American left. Its most prominent exponents were W. E. B. DuBois and Oliver Cox.Toward a More Adequate Conception of RacismThis brief examination of past Marxist views leads to one conclusion. Marxist theory is indispensable yet ultimately inadequate for grasping the complexity of racism as a historical phenomenon. Marxism is indispensable because it highlights the relation of racist practices to the capitalist mode of production and recognizes the crucial role racism plays within the capitalist economy. Yet Marxism is inadequate because it fails to probe other spheres of American society where racism plays an integral role especially the psychological and cultural spheres. Furthermore, Marxist views tend to assume that racism has its roots in the rise of modern capitalism. Yet, it can easily be shown that although racist practices were shaped and appropriated by modern capitalism, racism itself predates capitalism. Its roots lie in the earlier encounters between the civilizations of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, encounters that occurred long before the rise of modern capitalism.It indeed is true that the very category of "race"denoting primarily skin color was first employed as a means of classifying human bodies by Francois Bernier, a French physician, in 1684. The first authoritative racial division of humankind is found in the influential Natural System (1735) of the preeminent naturalist of the 18th century, Caroluc Linnaeus. Both of these instances reveal European racist practices at the level of intellectual codificaton since both degrade and devalue non-Europeans. Racist folktales, mythologies, legends, and stories that function in the everyday life of common people predate the 17th and 18th centuries. For example, Christian anti-Semitism and Euro-Christian anti-blackism were rampant throughout the Middle Ages. These false divisions of humankind were carried over to colonized Latin America




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where anti-Indian racism became a fundamental pillar of colonial society and influenced later mestizo national development. Thus racism is as much a product of the interaction of cultural ways of life as it is of modern capitalism. A more adequate conception of racism should reflect this twofold context of cultural and economic realities in which racism has flourished.A new analysis of racism builds on the best of Marxist theory (particularly Antonio Gramsci's focus on the cultural and ideological spheres), and yet it goes beyond by incorporating three key assumptions:1. Cultural practices, including racist discourses and actions, have multiple power functions (such as domination over non-Europeans) that are neither reducible to nor intelligible in terms of class exploitation alone. In short these practices have a reality of their own and cannot simply be reduced to an economic base.2. Cultural practices are the medium through which selves are produced. We are who and what we are owing primarily to cultural practices. The complex process of people shaping and being shaped by cultural practices involves the use of language, psychological factors, sexual identities, and aesthetic conceptions that cannot be adequately grasped by a social theory primarily focused on modes of production at the macrostructural level.3. Cultural practices are not simply circumscribed by modes of production; they also are bounded by civilizations. Hence, cultural practices cut across modes of production. (For example, there are forms of Christianity that exist in both precapitalist and capitalist societies.) An analysis of racist practices in both premodern and modern Western civilization yields both continuity and discontinuity. Even Marxism can be shown to be both critical of and captive to a Eurocentrism that can justify racist practices. Although Marxist theory remains indispensable, it obscures the manner in which cultural practices, including notions of "scientific" rationality, are linked to particular ways of life.A common feature of the four Marxist conceptions examined earlier is that their analyses remain on the macrostructural level. They focus on the role and function of racism within and between significant institutions such as the workplace and government. Any adequate conception of racism indeed must include such a macrostructural analysis, one that highlights the changing yet persistent forms of class exploitation and political repression of peoples of color. But a fully adequate analysis of racism also requires an investigation into the genealogy and ideology of racism and a detailed microinstitutional analysis. Such an analysis would encompass the following:1. A genealogical inquiry into the ideology of racism, focusing on the kinds of metaphors and concepts employed by dominant European




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(or white) supremacists in various epochs in the West and on ways in which resistance has occurred.2. A microinstitutional or localized analysis of the mechanisms that sustain white supremacist discourse in the everyday life of non-Europeans (including the ideological production of certain kinds of selves, the means by which alien and degrading normative cultural styles, aesthetic ideals, psychosexual identities, and group perceptions are constituted) and ways in which resistance occurs.3. A macrostructural approach that emphasizes the class exploitation and political repression of non-European peoples and ways in which resistance is undertaken.The first line of inquiry aims to examine modes of European domination of non-European peoples; the second probes forms of European subjugation of non-European peoples; and the third focuses on types of European exploitation and repression of non-European peoples. These lines of theoretical inquiry, always traversed by male supremacist and heterosexual supremacist discourses, overlap in complex ways, and yet each highlights a distinctive dimension of the racist practices of European peoples vis-a-vis non-European peoples.This analytical framework should capture the crucial characteristics of European racism anywhere in the world. But the specific character of racist practices in particular times and places can be revealed only by detailed historical analyses that follow these three methodological steps. Admittedly, this analytic approach is an ambitious one, but the complexity of racism as a historical phenomenon demands it. Given limited space, I shall briefly sketch the contours of each step.For the first step-the genealogical inquiry into predominant European supremacist discourses-there are three basic discursive logics: Judeo-Christian, scientific, and psychosexual discourses. I am not suggesting that these discourses are inherently racist, but rather that they have been employed to justify racist practices. The Judeo-Christian racist logic emanates from the Biblical account of Ham looking upon and failing to cover his father Noah's nakedness and thereby receiving divine punishment in the form of the blackening of his progeny. In this highly influential narrative, black skin is a divine curse, punishing disrespect for and rejection of paternal authority.The scientific logic rests upon a modern philosophical discourse guided by Greek ocular metaphors (for example Eye of the Mind) and is undergirded by Cartesian notions of the primacy of the subject (ego, self) and the preeminence of representation. These notions of the self are buttressed by Baconian ideas of observation, evidence, and confirmation which promote the activities of observing, comparing, measuring, and ordering physical characteristics of human bodies: Given the renewed




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appreciation and appropriation of classical antiquity in the 18th century, these "scientific" activities of observation were regulated by classical aesthetic and cultural norms (Greek lips, noses, and so forth). Within this logic, notions of black ugliness, cultural deficiency, and intellectual inferiority are legitimated by the value-laden yet prestigious authority of "science", especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. The purposeful distortion of "scientific" procedures to further racist hegemony has an important history of its own. The persistent use of pseudoscientific "research" to buttress racist ideology, even when the intellectual integrity of the "scientific" position has been severely eroded, illustrates how racist ideology can incorporate and use/abuse science.The psychosexual racist logic arises from the phallic obsessions, Oedipal projections, and anal-sadistic orientations in European cultures which endow non-European (especially African) men and women with sexual prowess; view nonEuropeans as either cruel revengeful fathers, frivolous carefree children, or passive long-suffering mothers; and identify non-Europeans (especially black people) with dirt, odious smell, and feces. In short, non-Europeans are associated with acts of bodily defecation, violation, and subordination. Within this logic, non-Europeans are walking abstractions, inanimate objects, or invisible creatures. Within all three white supremacist logics which operate simultaneously and affect the perceptions of both Europeans and non-Europeans black, brown, yellow, and red peoples personify Otherness and embody alien Difference.The aim of this first step is to show how these white supremacist logics are embedded in philosophies of identity that suppress difference, diversity and heterogeneity. Since such discourses impede the realization of the democratic socialist ideals of genuine individuality and radical democracy, they must be criticized and opposed. But critique and opposition should be based on an understanding of the development and internal workings of these discourses-how they dominate the intellectual life of the modern West and thereby limit the chances for less racist, less ethnocentric discourses to flourish.The second step, microinstitutional or localized analysis, examines the operation of white supremacist logics within the everyday lives of people in particular historical contexts. In the case of Afro-Americans, this analysis would include the ways in which "colored," "Negro," and "black" identities were created against a background of both fear and terror and a persistent history of resistance that gave rise to open rebellion in the 1960s. Such an analysis must include the extraordinary and equivocal role of evangelical Protestant Christianity (which both promoted and helped contain black resistance) and the blend of African and U. S. southern Anglo-Saxon Protestants and French Catholics from which emerged distinctive Afro-American cultural styles, language, and aesthetic values.




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The objective of this second step is to show how the various white supremacist discourses shape non-European self-identities, influence psychosexual sensibilities, and help set the context for oppositional (but also cooptable) non-European cultural manners and mores. This analysis also reveals how the oppression and cultural domination of Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and other colonized people differ significantly (while sharing many common features) from that of Afro-Americans. Analyses of internal colonialism, national oppression, and cultural imperialism have particular significance in explaining the territorial displacement and domination that confront these peoples.The third step-macrostructural analysis-discloses the role and function of class exploitation and political repression and how racist practices buttress them. This step resembles traditional Marxist theories of racism, which focus primarily on institutions of economic production and secondarily on the state and public and private bureaucracies. But the nature of this focus is modified in that economic production is no longer viewed as the sole or major source of racist practices. Rather it is seen as a crucial source among others. To put it somewhat crudely, the capitalist mode of production constitutes just one of the significant structural constraints determining what forms racism takes in a particular historical period. Other key structural constraints include the state, bureaucratic modes of control, and the cultural practices of ordinary people. The specific forms that racism takes depend on choices people make within these structural constraints. In this regard, history is neither deterministic nor arbitrary; rather it is an open-ended sequence of (progressive or regressive) structured social practices over time and space. Thus the third analytical step, while preserving important structural features of Marxism such as the complex interaction of the economic, political, cultural, and ideological spheres of life, does not privilege a priori the economic sphere as a means of explaining other spheres of human experience. But this viewpoint still affirms that class exploitation and state repression do take place, especially in the lives of non-Europeans in modern capitalist societies.Racism in the American Past and PresentThis analytical framework should help explain how racism has operated throughout United States history. It focuses on the predominant form racism takes in the three major historical configurations of modern capitalism: industrial capitalism, monopoly capitalism, and multinational corporate capitalism. It is worth noting that although we have been critical of Marxist explanations of racist practices, Marxist theory remains highly illuminating and provides the best benchmarks for periodizing modern history. U.S. industrial capitalism was, in part, the fruit of black slavery in America. The lucrative profits from cotton and tobacco production in the slave-ridden U.S. South contributed greatly to the growth of manufacturing (especially textiles) in the U. S. North. The industrial capitalist order in the North not only rested indirectly upon the productive labor of black slaves in the South, it also penetrated the




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South after the Civil War along with white exploitation and repression of former black slaves. In addition, U.S. industrial capitalism was consolidated only after the military conquest and geographical containment of indigenous and Mexican peoples and the exploitation of Asian contract laborers. On the cultural level, black, brown, yellow, and red identities were reinforced locally, reflecting the defensive and deferential positions of victims who had only limited options for effective resistance. For example, this period is the age of the "colored" identity of Africans in the United States.The advent of the American empire helped usher in U. S. monopoly capitalism. Given both the absence of a strong centralized state and a relatively unorganized working class, widespread centralization of the capitalist economy occurred principally in the form of monopolies, trusts, and holding companies. As the United States took over the last remnants of the Spanish empire (for example, in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam) and expanded its economic presence in South America, U. S. racist ideology flourished. Jim Crow laws consciously adopted models for apartheid in South Africa were instituted throughout the South. Exclusionary immigration laws supported by the lily white American Federation of Labor were enacted, and reservations ("homelands") were set up for indigenous peoples. Mexican and indigenous peoples were removed from their lands through the use of force and by the courts. A settler colonial regime was established in the Southwest to oversee the extraction of raw materials and to subject the Mexican population.At the same time, America opened its arms to the European "masses yearning to be free," principally because of a labor-shortage in the booming urban industrial centers. In this period, a small yet significant black middle class began to set up protest organizations such as the NAACP, National Urban League, and the National Federation of Afro-American Women. Limited patronage networks were established for black middle-class enhancement (for example, Booker T. Washington's "machine"). This period is the age of the "Negro" identity of Africans in the United States. Some influential blacks were permitted limited opportunities to prosper and thereby seen as models of success for the black masses to emulate. Despite its courageous efforts on behalf of black progress, the NAACP in this period could not help but seen as a vehicle for severely constricted black gains. The NAACP was defiant in rhetoric, liberal in vision, legalistic in practice, and headed by elements of the black middle class which often influenced the interests of the organization.The emergence of the United States as the preeminent world power after World War II provided the framework for the growth of multinational corporate capitalism. The devastation of Europe (including the weakening of its vast empires), the defeat of Japan, and the tremendous sacrifice of lives and destruction of industry in the Soviet Union




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facilitated U. S. world hegemony. U. S. corporate penetration into European markets (opened and buttressed by the Marshall Plan), Asian markets, some African markets, and, above all, Latin American markets set the stage for unprecedented U.S. economic prosperity. This global advantage, along with technological innovation, served as the hidden background for the so-called American Way of Life a life of upward social mobility leading to material comfort and convenience. Only in the postwar era did significant numbers of the U.S. white middle class participate in this dream.Aware of its image as leader of the "free world" (and given the growing sensitivity to racism in the aftermath of the holocaust), the U.S. government began to respond cautiously to the antiracist resistance at home. This response culminated in the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision (1954) and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 respectively. The ramifications of the court decision and legislation affected all peoples of color (and white women) but had the greatest impact on those able to move up the social ladder primarily by means of education. As a result, the current period of U.S. multinational corporate capitalism has witnessed the growth of a significant middle class of peoples of color. Overt racist language even under the Reagan administration has become unfashionable; coded racist language expressing hostility to "affirmative action", "busing", and "special interests" has now replaced overt racist discourse.As the legal barriers of segregation have been torn down, the underclass of black and brown working and poor people at the margins of society has grown. For the expanding middle class of people of color, political disenfranchisement and job discrimination have been considerably reduced. But, simultaneously, a more insidious form of class and racial stratification intensified: educational inequality. In an increasingly technological society, rural and inner city schools for people of color and many working class and poor whites serve to reproduce the present racial and class stratified structure of society. Children of the poor, who are disproportionately people of color, are tracked into an impoverished educational system and then face unequal opportunities when they enter the labor force (if steady, meaningful employment is even a possibility).In the past decade, American multinational corporate capitalism has undergone a deep crisis, owing primarily to increased competition with Japanese, European, and even some Third World corporations, a rise in energy costs brought about by the OPEC cartel, the precarious structure of international debt owed to American and European banks by Third World countries, and victorious anti-colonial struggles that limit lucrative capital investments somewhat. The response of the Reagan administration to this crisis has been, in part, to curtail the public sector by cutting back federal transfer payments to the needy, diminishing occupational health and safety and environmental protection, increasing low wage service sector jobs, and granting tax incentives and giveaways




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to large corporations. Those most adversely affected by these policies have been blue collar industrial workers and the poor, particularly women and children. Thus Reagan's policies, which are often supported by the coded racist language of the religious right and secular neo-conservatives, are racist in consequence. Poor women and children are disproportionately people of color, and jobs in the "rust belt" industries of auto and steel played a major role in black social mobility in the postwar period.Socialism and Antiracism: Two Inseparable Yet Not Identical GoalsIt should be apparent that racist practices directed against black, brown, yellow, and red people are an integral element of U. S. history, including present day American culture and society. This means not simply that Americans have inherited racist attitudes and prejudices, but, more importantly, that institutional forms of racism are embedded in American society in both visible and invisible ways. These institutional forms exist not only in remnants of de jure job, housing, and educational discrimination and political gerrymandering. They also manifest themselves in a de facto labor market segmentation, produced by the exclusion of large numbers of peoples of color from the socioeconomic mainstream. (This exclusion results from limited educational opportunities, devastated families, a disproportionate presence in the prison population, and widespread police brutality.)It also should be evident that past Marxist conceptions of racism have often prevented U. S. socialist movements from engaging in antiracist activity in a serious and consistent manner. In addition, black suspicion of white-dominated political movements (no matter how progressive) as well as the distance between these movements and the daily experiences of peoples of color have made it even more difficult to fight racism effectively. Furthermore, the disproportionate white middle-class composition of contemporary democratic socialist organizations creates cultural barriers to the participation by peoples of color. Yet this very participation is a vital precondition for greater white sensitivity to antiracist struggle and to white acknowledgment of just how crucial antiracist struggle is to the U. S. socialist movement. Progressive organizations often find themselves going around in a vicious circle. Even when they have a great interest in antiracist struggle, they are unable to attract a critical mass of people of color because of their current predominately white racial and cultural composition. These organizations are then stereotyped as lily white, and significant numbers of people of color refuse to join.The only effective way the contemporary democratic socialist movement can break out of this circle (and it is possible because the bulk of democratic socialists are among the least racist of Americans) is to be sensitized to the critical importance of antiracist struggles. This "conscientization" cannot take place either by reinforcing agonized white consciences by means of guilt, nor by presenting another grand




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theoretical analysis with no practical implications. The former breeds psychological paralysis among white progressives, which is unproductive for all of us; the latter yields important discussions but often at the expense of concrete political engagement. Rather what is needed is more widespread participation by predominantly white democratic socialist organizations in antiracist struggles whether those struggles be for the political, economic, and cultural empowerment of Latinos, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans or antiimperialist struggles against U.S. support for oppressive regimes in South Africa, Chile, the Philippines, and the occupied West Bank.A major focus on antiracist coalition work will not only lead democratic socialists to act upon their belief in genuine individuality and radical democracy for people around the world; it also will put socialists in daily contact with peoples of color in common struggle. Bonds of trust can be created only within concrete contexts of struggle. This interracial interaction guarantees neither love nor friendship. Yet it can yield more understanding and the realization of two overlapping goals: democratic socialism and antiracism. While engaging in antiracist struggles, democratic socialists can also enter into a dialogue on the power relationships and misconceptions that often emerge in multiracial movements for social justice in a racist society. Honest and trusting coalition work can help socialists unlearn Eurocentrism in a self-critical manner and can also demystify the motivations of white progressives in the movement for social justice.We must frankly acknowledge that a democratic socialist society will not necessarily eradicate racism. Yet a democratic socialist society is the best hope for alleviating and minimizing racism, particularly institutional forms of racism. This conclusion depends on a candid evaluation that guards against utopian self-deception. But it also acknowledges the deep moral commitment on the part of democratic socialists of all races to the dignity of all individuals and peoples, a commitment that impels us to fight for a more libertarian and egalitarian society. Therefore concrete antiracist struggle is both an ethical imperative and political necessity for democratic socialists. It is even more urgent as once again racist policies and Third World intervention become more acceptable to many Americans. A more effective democratic socialist movement engaged in antiracist and anti-imperialist struggle can help turn the tide. It depends on how well we understand the past and present, how courageously we act, and how true we remain to our democratic socialist ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy.




Join DSAto Change the USA!We are socialists because we reject an economic order based on private profit, alienated labor, gross inequalities of wealth and power, discrimination based on race and sex, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships.We are DSA because we work on developing a concrete strategy for achieving that vision, for building a majority movement that will make democratic socialism a reality in America. We believe that such a strategy must acknowledge the class structure of American society and that this class structure means that there is a basic conflict of interest between those sectors with enormous economic power and the vast majority of the population.You are invited to join this grand enterprise of fundamentally changing our civilization. Join DSA to help change the U.S.A.! Yes! I want to join the largest socialist organization in the U.S.A. Dues include subscriptions to DSA's national magazine, Democratic Left, and Chicago DSA's newsletter, New Ground. Regular and Sustainer dues include dues to support Midwest DSA. Dues are:___ $75 Sustainer; ___ $45 Regular; ___ $20 Low income or student.Enclosed is a contribution of $ _______ to help your work.___ Please send me more information about DSA.Name: Address: City, State, Zip: Phone: Email: Return to: Chicago DSA, 1608 N. Milwaukee, Room 403, Chicago, IL 60647. Please make your check payable to Chicago DSA. Contributions and dues are not tax - deductible.

End Part II

Part III Thursday 10/15/09

Steve