Current Events > any material on union organizing that crossed races?

(+) Yeah! (+)

@Antifar @averagejoel @Godnorgosh

I know of this one vaguely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_dock_workers_and_unionization

but I'm sure there's a broader context and history that I am missing
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how much do you know about the Black Panther Party? they primarily focused on class issues, and were the ones that started the Free Breakfast program in the US
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The New Orleans strike was going to be my example.

The book Subterranean Fire is a really great history of the labor movement in the US, and it's where a lot of my knowledge of this history comes from. It's not specifically about cross-racial organizing, though

I've heard really great things about this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Hammer-Hoe-Alabama-Communists-Depression/dp/1469625482
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averagejoel posted...

how much do you know about the Black Panther Party? they primarily focused on class issues, and were the ones that started the Free Breakfast program in the US

Not much! What would you recommend I read to get learned?

Antifar posted...

The New Orleans strike was going to be my example.

The book Subterranean Fire is a really great history of the labor movement in the US, and it's where a lot of my knowledge of this history comes from. It's not specifically about cross-racial organizing, though

I've heard really great things about this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Hammer-Hoe-Alabama-Communists-Depression/dp/1469625482

Thanks, pierre-broseph proudhon

I've been reading up on the history of the labor movement in my state, haven't come across much black and white organizing sadly
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Balrog0 posted...

Not much! What would you recommend I read to get learned?

first: the Black Panthers' Ten-Point Program. it's short and gets their point across extremely well

second: Huey P. Newton's autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide

third: Malcolm X's autobiography

Bacon's Rebellion, though it predates Marx by ~200 years, is also worth looking into - essentially, poor whites and poor blacks got pissed, joined forces, and burned down the capital of Virginia. really rustled some upper class jimmies

it's important to note, though, that "crossing races" is not generally a direct goal of Marxist movements and leaders - it happens because all marginalized people benefit from addressing the issues relevant to Marxist thought
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Thanks my man

The fact that poor people of different races rarely (almost never?) make common cause seems like a serious flaw in Marxist thinking regarding class liberation to me!
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it has less to do with Marxist ideology and more to do with the bourgeoisie being really good at creating in-fighting to save their own asses.

like those one-time bonuses that wal-mart employees got after the tax cuts were announced. it's nothing more than a trick to get the working class on their side. and, to some extent, it worked.

that recent story about the Tim Hortons cutting benefits after the minimum wage increase is the other side of the same coin: the owners would still have more money than they knew what to do with - they sent the email from their second home in Florida. it's another attempt to turn the workers against policies that are objectively beneficial to them. it didn't work as well, for various reasons

this is where the police force in the US has its roots: after Bacon's rebellion, slave owners were fucking terrified that they would be ousted from their positions of power, so they created slave policing jobs for poor white people, giving them a vested interest in maintaining this oppressive system

it's all the same shit to prevent solidarity among the working class, and it's really effective: people who make $15/hour get mad when they hear that that's going to be a new minimum wage because basically the entire society is set up to prevent class consciousness
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