HOW TO BUILD A 21ST CENTURY LABOR MOVEMENT: CONFRONT WHITE SUPREMACY
Lessons from the “Great Redemption”
In their noble efforts to comfort panicked progressives, movement veterans have asserted that we’ve been through this before. In an article comparing what Trump can and cannot do in terms of immigration and trade to the past Administrations of Clinton, Bush and even Obama, David Bacon noted that “Trump will do what the system wants him to do, and certainly will not implement a program of radical reform.” And Bacon is not the first to define strategy under Trump to those of recent past presidents.
While the general intention is helpful, the current political moment is not at all like the past Democratic or Republican presidencies of the last two decades. Rather, it is best likened to the era following American Reconstruction-roughly between 1865 and 1877 — known as the Great Redemption. Eric Foner best summarized in the New York Times the lingering understanding of this period by many southern whites when he shared “For decades, these years were widely seen as the nadir in the saga of American democracy. According to this view, Radical Republicans in Congress, bent on punishing defeated Confederates, established corrupt Southern governments presided over by carpetbaggers (unscrupulous Northerners who ventured south to reap the spoils of office), scalawags (Southern whites who supported the new regimes) and freed African-Americans, unfit to exercise democratic rights. The heroes of the story were the self-styled Redeemers, who restored white supremacy to the South.”
With the turn-out of thousands of the most extreme sections of the Republican base mobilized by racism, xenophobia and the superiority of the white Christian man — many of whom had not been to the polls in decades if ever at all — Donald Trump was able to upset the established sections of his party to win the 2016 presidential election. This was historic not simply through the buffoonery of Trump, but also by the upsurge in radical right-wing populism which attracted a mass of working class white voters to the polls aligned with that extreme base, and all while many who previously made up the Obama coalition were generally uninspired by the Clinton candidacy. Like many southern whites in 1865 who were angry at big ‘northern’ industrialists who had as much interest in cheap labor as southern plantation owners, many white voters in Trump’s base felt they had been wronged by the 1% and even some elements of the government.
While labor unions have historically played an important role in clarifying that frustration and pointing out the true benefactors of white workers’ exploited labor, unions are about as weak if not weaker than they were during Reconstruction. And frankly, many did not take on race as aggressively in this election than they should have.
And so instead of identifying their actual exploiters (of which Donald Trump is one among many) and joining with immigrant communities, Muslims and communities of color to make progressive change around their shared self-interests, working class white communities invested in the reactionary solutions touted by the extreme right that spoke to their narrow, fear-based self-interests.
It is important, before continuing, to note that the right-wing populism currently unraveling in the United States (and around the globe) is not one monolithic movement. Bill Fletcher meticulously described the nuances when he said “…within the Right there are different tendencies that have different objectives and visions. Neofascists, for instance, wish an end to political democracy. They wish to radically reconstruct society in order to bring forth a new version of capitalism, frequently by eliminating certain populations. There are other currents within the Right that are conservative but are not prepared to do away with democratic institutions. What this can mean is that there are wedges that sometimes can be driven between different tendencies. It also means that there are certain forces on the Right, e.g., the neofascists, that have no interest in non-violence and are prepared to take swift action against opponents. There are no grounds for compromise with the neofascists.”
The work of progressive labor organizers in this moment is not to align with the self-interests of the neofascists sections of right-wing populism. Rather, it should aim to understand and elevate the shared self-interests of those who believe in democracy, but are acting more out of fear than hope.
Like many white southerners lamented after Reconstruction, many Trump voters felt that the benefits of “Big Government” were not going to them as much as it was to “lesser deserving” individuals. These individuals were mostly freed Black workers, who they were now ‘forced’ to recognize as full human beings. In 2016, Black Americans still make up a large percentage of perceived ‘undeserving’ antagonists, but now have company from immigrant, Muslim and refugee communities. “Across rural America, the Rust Belt, Coal Country and other hotbeds of Trump-ism, voters have repeatedly expressed frustration that the lazy and less deserving are getting a bigger chunk of government cheese,” remarked Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post.
Additionally, many continue to rage against the idea of being forced into “political correctness”, today’s version of recognizing the formerly enslaved as full citizens. Reverend J.C. Austin noted in The Hill, “The overriding emotion behind rejecting both political correctness in general and saying “Happy Holidays” in particular is one of anger: anger at feeling forced to change one’s behavior as a concession to the concerns or beliefs of others; anger at feeling that the concerns and beliefs of white Christians, in particular, are being actively and intentionally displaced in our culture in order to favor those of other religions and racial/ethnic backgrounds.”
Maybe most importantly, a comparison between the current moment and the Reconstruction era implores us not to underestimate the extremes the ultra-right will go to in order to enforce white supremacy and the rule of a small minority. These extremes often exceed the traditionally accepted goals of capitalism, which use more subtle, hegemonic tactics to stymy the exploited and dispossessed from joining together to challenge the rule of law.
For example, Reconstruction was followed by the Great Redemption, a period where local bands of Christian white men were encouraged to form vigilante groups to directly self-enforce the accepted southern rules, putting Black people back in their place through violence, forced imprisonment and murder…all encouraged, though not always directly implemented, by the government. While southern Democrats rolled back legal protections in government, “Vigilantes assassinated, whipped, or threatened thousands of {pro-Reconstruction} Republicans; most of their victims were black, though many were white. Many vigilantes were part of the newly created Ku Klux Klan, a loose network rather than a single organization of racial terror, though hundreds of black and white Republicans were also killed by impromptu mobs. Republican voters were intimidated, ballots were destroyed, and dozens of Republican politicians were assassinated,” Bradley Proctor noted for Vox.
Meanwhile, under Trump, the Tea Party (also not actually one single organization) are now in position to govern, while many anti-Semitic and nationalist white supremacist groups are experiencing a re-birth — growing exponentially over the last decade. In many cases, they are emboldened to take matters into their own hands.
At a bus station in Toms River, New Jersey, a pick-up truck proudly posted what looked to be a hunting license in its rear window — a common sticker in the Pinelands of the state. But upon closer observation it was actually a license to hunt immigrants — racist propaganda that has made appearance throughout US history when villainizing the antagonists of white Christian men.
In ordering a radically racist ban on Muslim travel while also appointing Jeff Sessions, an admitted supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, to the position of attorney general Trump is further signaling his Administration’s rollback of the legal protections for immigrants while encouraging vigilante “justice”.
So while this moment represents an opportunity to unite a broader spectrum of workers, immigrant and non-immigrant, against a clear and rather flagrant villain, it also presents the possibility of more vigilante violence, surveillance, raids, and separations.
Reconstruction-era freed Black workers were forced into legal agreements to stay tied to the land (sharecropping), and leaving without a pass could in a best scenario get you picked up for truancy and placed into forced labor for US Steel, for example, or in a worse scenario get you killed by citizen officers. Those providing sanctuary to these Black workers were also targeted with violence. Today’s movement leaders should be weary of similar arrangements proposed for immigrant/refugee and Muslim families — expanding guest worker programs but eliminating the rights of guest workers and making it perilous for any immigrant worker to move around without a “pass” of some sort, lest they be imprisoned, harmed or captured in forced labor situations. Already after the Trump Administration’s executive order to defund sanctuary cities — areas where local officials refuse to cooperate with regressive immigration enforcement — municipal governments are getting calls threatening to turn them in after being black-listed by the new president.
Historically oppressed workers are often targeted for exploitative jobs because they are seen as having less protection to fight-back than “other” (white American Christian male) workers. As Maurice Weeks recently noted on Medium, “When George Pullman was hiring his staff of Porters following the Civil War, he purposely chose dark skinned black staff, many of whom were former slaves, knowing that he could exploit them for wages and that they would play into the racial stereotypes and roles of the mostly white passenger base. Unsurprisingly, the porters faced horrible treatment in every aspect of their job. Passengers referred to porters as “George” or “boy” and worse, the job required nonstop work with virtually no sleep and the pay was abysmal. And even though this all occurred during what was a golden age for labor organizations starting to stand up for the rights of the poor and working class, the fact that porters were all black at a time when Jim Crow was gaining its strong footing in the country left them mostly out of the conversation as far as major unions went.”
Likewise, immigrant — documented and undocumented — are currently targeted for jobs that put them in precarious situations, often recruited because of it. Undocumented workers are simply not protected in the event of stolen wages, overtime, or being paid below poverty levels. And in the case of temporary visa holders, many are bound to one employer who could threaten their families and their livelihoods if they step out of line.
Yes Magazine shared the experiences of guest workers when reporting “In the small town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana., Martha Uvalle and her co-workers at C.J.’s Seafood, a Walmart supplier, faced abuses many Americans imagine only take place in poorer, faraway countries: They were forced to work shifts of up to 24 hours, with no overtime pay; threatened with beatings if their breaks lasted too long; and, on at least two occasions, locked inside the facility to work. Some fell asleep at their workstations from exhaustion.”
Repression of this sort does not benefit the white worker. It benefits the employers, and drives wages down for everyone — including white American Christian males.
The good news is that the historic arc of our country and of movements worldwide has demonstrated that working people can overcome these divisions in order to create a more perfect union. The Pullman Porters successfully organized a union that the company and the labor movement had to recognize, deeply integrating the need for social justice into the fight for rights at work. Louisiana guest workers used a similar strategy to bring the largest company in the world to its knees, when all bets would have them go unnoticed. And so too will Black, immigrant and refugee communities of this era.
So long as rank and file leaders and progressive organizers build campaigns that align us around our shared self-interests — safe housing, healthcare, a good job where we have a voice, food, security for our children, or the ability to age with dignity — marrying the struggles for social justice with those of economic security, our generation will also rise out of the ashes of backward fantasized fear-mongering and into a united 21st century labor movement.
