China: “Beautiful faces have beautiful dreams,”

Source

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

Just going through some old material and came across this piece. I think it is still relevant today and not just for women in China but here at home and throughout the world. I wrote this is December 2005. RM

“Beautiful faces have beautiful dreams,” says Wang Yaoyao, a contestant in the Miss Artificial Beauty contest held in China’s Hubei province.  Ms Wang is special, a product of the new China, and a product of the free market.  Ms Wang is a representative of the plastic surgery business that is sponsoring the contest.   In a country of 1.3bn people, despite some 800 million of them living in poverty, global corporations and the budding Chinese bourgeois are wringing their hands at the potential for moneymaking.

Ms Wang is free you see; free to make herself beautiful, beautiful for Proctor and Gamble, Hollywood, and the men and women that will use her new found looks to sell soap or perfume. But for Ms Wang it is more than that, it is her ticket to the good life in the new China.  The 21 year-old Wang, (not long an adult) received free plastic surgery on the condition that she promote the hospital that did the procedure.  The plastic surgeon was generous, giving her, according to the Financial Times, “a nose job, double eyelids, a smaller chin, thicker lips and a tummy tuck”.  Ahh! sweet commerce.  Can the old regime be blamed for wanting to isolate itself from the west?   After all, it was not really the west they were protecting themselves against, but bourgeois culture that turns everything in to a commodity.

Ms. Wang, an advertising executive tells the Financial Times, “Even if your smart and good at what you do, nobody will listen to what you have to say if you’re ugly.  But if you’re beautiful, people want to be close to you immediately. Then you can talk to them and get your message across.” How sad is this? It is not confined to China of course.  Women in the US who do not fit the standard of beauty determined by bourgeois culture and the men who dominate it face the same barriers.

Could you imagine the response were clinics here in the U.S. operating on American women, especially ones of European descent, making them look more Chinese.  There’d be racist attacks on Asian Americans. The capitalist press would be whipping up nationalism and fear of being taken over by the “Yellow Peril”.  Chinese, Japanese, South East Asian doctors offices would be firebombed.  Asian teachers would be victimized in the schools.

But in China the beauty pageant is a moneymaker and they are flourishing.  It is not just the plastic surgery business that sees dollar signs.  The perfume industry, clothing, makeup, and let’s not forget the auto industry, all see a bright future in the disfigurement of human beings.  After all gentlemen, you’ll need the right car, the right watch, the right suit to capture one of these beauties.  The beauty pageant market, like any other, is facing saturation point according to the Times.  But as the market ebbs and flows, the damage to millions of young girls, and the young men who expect this beauty of them will be devastating, both psychologically and physically, not just the surgery, but suicides and sickness as the reality sets in and women become slaves to this idea which fails to produce results, fails to make them “happy”.

Admittedly, there are millions of Chinese women, particularly in the rural areas, whose dreams are far more basic than Ms. Wang’s; food, shelter and a job. And I am not able to judge the impact of the phenomenon from afar, but the pace of change in Chinese society is considerable by most accounts.  The economic potential is significant as global corporations like P&G, Volvo, Clark’s shoes and Malaysia Airlines (religious condemnation of capitalism doesn’t seem to be an obstacle here) invest in these pageants.  In 2003, Chinese women bought $9bn worth of beauty products and this is only the tip of the iceberg from global capitalism’s point of view.   The more they convince women they are ugly and that this is why they cannot achieve success, the greater the investment potential.

Like all aspects of the roaring Chinese economy it is quite likely this bourgeois consciousness and the economic basis for it will be cut across by the increasing frustration of the Chinese masses.  Incidents of social unrest in China have increased 600% over the last decade.  Massive wealth alongside extreme poverty does not go unnoticed and each small release of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s boot off the necks of the Chinese workers increases their confidence.  There is no doubt that there is no reversal for the Chinese bureaucracy, not without major social upheaval.  The capitalist road has been traveled too far.  But the future is unsure.  The massive reserves held by China may give a certain leeway to the bureaucracy, maybe they can make some considerable concessions in the face of an increasingly restless population; no one can be sure what the future holds except that it is a volatile situation.

Despite the propaganda of the western press, bourgeois individualism and selfishness cannot exist alone in the consciousness of the Chinese workers.  In the last analysis, consciousness has a material base and in the case of China, it has had 50 years without the market.  But it has had its effect.  “When I ask my male students what they dream of, they say owning a car and being with a beautiful woman.  They never used to talk like that.” One university professor tells the Times.  That’s progress.  (1)

As I read this article that spurred me to write this commentary, I was reminded of Marx and Engels’ comments on the global nature of the market.  I am adding them as a reminder of their genius.

“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country........ In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

You can’t beat that.

Karl Marx/Frederich Engel’s The Communist Manifesto 1848

(1) The article from which these details were taken is, The China Doll Revolution

Financial Times 11-05-05 FT Weekend Section

On Abortion: The Princess and What It Was Like

Ursula Le Guin on Abortion: “The Princess” & “What It Was Like”

Excerpted from “The Princess” originally published in Dancing at the Edge of the World, 1982:

“Once upon a time, long, long ago, in the Dark Ages, there was a princess … She went to a college for training female royalty, and there, at the associated college for training male royalty, she met a prince … Although the princess was on the Honors List and the prince was a graduate student, they were remarkably ignorant about some things …This was long ago, remember, in the Dark Ages, before sex was obligatory, before the Pill…

Perhaps you can imagine what happens next in this story? Like all fairy tales, it follows a familiar path; there is a certain inevitable quality to the events.

“We have to get married!” the princess said to the prince. “I’m going home to my mother,” the prince said to the princess. And he did. He went home to his family palace in Brooklyn Heights, and hid in the throne room.

The princess went to her family palace on Riverside Drive and cried a lot … She cried so hard that her parents finally saw what had to be the matter. And they said, “OK, it’s OK, honey, and if he won’t marry you, you don’t have to have the baby.”

Now, you may recall that in the Dark Ages abortion was not legal. It was a crime, and not a minor one.

The princess’s parents were not criminal types. … And yet now, without hesitation, they resolved to break the law, to conspire to commit a felony. And they did so in the reasoned and deeply felt conviction that it was right, that indeed it was their responsibility to do so.

The princess herself questioned the decision, not on legal grounds, of course, but ethically. She cried some more and said, “I’m being cowardly. I’m being dishonest. I’m evading the consequences of my own actions.”

Her father said, “That’s right. You are. That cowardice, dishonesty, evasion, is a lesser sin than the crass irresponsibility of sacrificing your training, your talent, and the children you will want to have, in order to have one nobody wants to have.”

He was a Victorian, you see, and a bit of a Puritan. He hated waste and wastefulness….

It was an old family friend, a child psychologist, who finally found the right contact, the criminal connection. … They were really slick, that outfit … They never used the word “abortion,” not even that cute euphemism “A.B.” The doctor offered to restore the hymen. “It’s easy, he said. “No extra charge.” The princess did not wish to be rebuilt like a Buick and said, “No. Get on with it.”…

The princess went back to college … She got her B.A. a few months after she got her A.B., and then went on to graduate school, and then got married, and was a writer, and got pregnant by choice four times. One pregnancy ended in spontaneous abortion, miscarriage, in the third month; three pregnancies ended in live normal birth. She had three desired and beloved children, none of whom would have been born if her first pregnancy had gone to term. …

If there is a moral to my tale, it’s something like this. In spite of everything the little princess had been taught by the male-supremacist elements of her society, … by the existence of a law declaring abortion to be a crime, by the sleek extortion of the abortionist—despite all those message repeating ABORTION IS WRONG!—when the terror was past, she pondered it all, and she thought, “I have done the right thing.”

What was wrong was not knowing how to prevent getting pregnant. What was wrong was my ignorance. To legislate that ignorance, that’s the crime. I’m ashamed, she thought, for letting bigots keep me ignorant, and for acting willfully in my ignorance, and for falling in love with a weak, selfish man. I am deeply ashamed. But I’m not guilty. Where does guilt come in? I did what I had to do so that I could do the work I was put here to do. I will do that work That’s what it’s all about. It’s about taking responsibility.…

What was it like, in the Dark Ages, when abortion was a crime…? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t tell her dad, because he’d go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself, body and soul, into the hands of a professional criminal?…You know what was like for her.  You and I know; that’s why we’re here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady today and always.

Excerpted from “What It Was Like” (2012), published in Words Are My Matter, 2016:

Rape in the Military

Perhaps readers of this blog will recall the case of Vanessa Guillen. Guillen was a Pfc at Fort Hood in Texas. She was beaten to death by a fellow soldier after he found out she was filing sexual harassment charges against him.

The video above was included in an article in the Army Times. Initially, on reading the article I thought it was yet again an attempt by the state and its institutions to legislate decency, after all, I thought to myself, I don't need to be told it is inappropriate to ogle at a woman's breasts let alone touch them without permission.

But I think I came to that conclusion without enough thought and the movie helped me rethink it. The other thing is that the military is not a defensive force but an offensive one; no nation on earth can invade the United States, especially one like Iran. It was be suicidal. In order for young working class men and women to be sent in to conflicts that are predatory in nature and not in any way in their economic or social interests, they have to be convinced the enemy, an Iraqi, an Iranian and so forth, is a lesser human being.

It is common knowledge that the military is a haven for sexual predators and the culture of chauvinism and nationalistic/patriotic fervor, is fertile ground for racists and racial views to flourish. One can only guess at the opportunities for sexual assault and rape for some individuals in an invading western nation in the underdeveloped world.

The other important point to consider is the class structure of any military in class society. The officer ranks and the top brass are always from the upper middle or ruling class layers; workers cannot be trusted. It is working class people that die in these predatory conflicts for raw materials and markets.

The military as it is, an organ of class society will never eradicate sexist or racist behavior.

Poetry: She Was Beautiful

 

She Was Beautiful

 by Suzanne Reynolds*

When she was a little girl

they told her she was beautiful

but it had no meaning

in her world of bicycles

and pigtails

and adventures in make-believe.

Later, she hoped she was beautiful

as boys started taking notice

of her friends

and phones rang for

Saturday night dates.

She felt beautiful on her wedding day,

hopeful with her

new life partner by her side

but, later,

when her children called

her beautiful,

she was often exhausted,

her hair messily tied back,

no make up,

wide in the waist

where it used to be narrow;

she just couldn't take it in.

Over the years, as she tried,

in fits and starts,

to look beautiful,

she found other things

to take priority,

like bills

and meals,

as she and her life partner

worked hard

to make a family,

to make ends meet,

to make children into adults,

to make a life.

Now,

she sat.

Alone.

Her children grown,

her partner flown,

and she couldn't remember

the last time

she was called beautiful.

But she was.

It was in every line on her face,

in the strength of her arthritic hands,

the ampleness that had

a million hugs imprinted

on its very skin,

and in the jiggly thighs and

thickened ankles

that had run her race for her.

She had lived her life with a loving

and generous heart,

had wrapped her arms

around so many to

to give them comfort and peace.

Her ears had

heard both terrible news

and lovely songs,

and her eyes

had brimmed with,

oh, so many tears,

they were now bright

even as they dimmed.

She had lived and she was.

And because she was,

she was made beautiful.

~ Suzanne Reynolds, © 2019

Photo credit: Nina Djerff

Model: Marit Rannveig Haslestad

 *Suzanne Reynolds  Ramblings and Rumunations

It Took The Chinese Revolution of 1949 to End This

October is the 71st anniversary of the Chinese Revolution that overthrew capitalism and landlordism and proclaimed the People's Republic of China on October 1st 1949. In the report the narrator points out that the Chinese government ended the centuries old practice in the 1950's but neglects to mention it took a revolutionary overthrow of the predominantly feudal system that did this along with the victory over colonial and imperialist powers seeking to exploit China, it's people and its resources.

The Chinese Communist Party was a peasant party predominantly and took power through guerilla warfare. But my point here in sharing this video is to stress the history of the oppression of women and this is just a small example of it. In some parts of the world today, particularly places like Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic countries headed by wealthy families, women are still a long way from equal rights. And here in the US, the assault on rights already won are under assault driven to a great extent by the increased power and influence of right wing Christian fanatics in politics.

You Can Survive Domestic Violence. It's never the Victim's Fault.

Some years ago I published  some notes I found after my mother had a stroke that led to her death. She described the stress she dealt with when my father drank. The aggressive posturing, fists raised, insults and never being sure whether she should speak or stay silent as either one could make him angry. Like my friend's comments below, she said she was always walking on eggshells.  The author is a friend I have known for some years and the comments speak for themselves. In my mother's time she said the shame and society meant these things stayed in the home. But it's always better to share your experiences so other victims of domestic violence get to see they are not alone and it's not their fault. RM

                                                *********************

I don’t talk about this much but I was in a very toxic relationship for 9 1/2 years with the father of my kids. I walked away torn and broken to pieces. I was 40 pounds overweight and having to seek therapy to save myself and my kids.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do but if I stayed I knew I’d never be happy and my kids would think that it is OK to grow up in a household where the parents are constantly at each other‘s throats. That is not normal!! Most people put up with it and go through the motions for the children but from my experience that’s not the best move. It can cause long-term trauma.

It didn’t help that their father was abusing alcohol and suffered from childhood trauma himself so I was always walking on egg shells. He was never physically abusive with me but he would get in my face and scream and me like he was a drill sergeant and him being six feet three inches tall against my five feet eleven and a half was very intimidating so the mental and emotional abuse that I went through for those 9 1/2 years took it’s toll on me.

Even given all of what he put me through I still love the man I spent nearly a decade with him and he is the father of my children. This is the first time I speak of this but I have never demeaned him on social media and will never. I am only speaking for the women out there that think that they should stay for the sake of the children but in reality they need to think long term affects.

Four years ago on Mothers Day I left having to start all over again with my two children one being six and one being 10 months old. It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do but I have been blessed with a great partner who adores me, treats me like a queen and loves my children. I never thought I’d see the day. I’ll be 40 in November And I can finally say that I am the happiest I have ever been.

Britain: Racism in our political system

Diane Abbot MP Source

This first appeared on the UK website, LeftHorizons.

Personal note. I saw Diane Abbott in the House of Commons reading out a list of the racist and violently sexist messages and threats she has received. It was shocking to say the least and I have nothing but admiration for someone who can maintain their humanity and decency under such pressure.  I'd welcome the opportunity to shake her hand. Richard Mellor

By Joe Langabeer

June 6, 2020

As we see the horrific crimes being committed by police and politicians across the USA, its reflection has been seen here in the UK. Many people have started to wake up and realise that racism is systemic within the very foundations of our society. The countless number of black people beaten and murdered by the those who were supposed to protect us is horrifying, and it should be commended that humanity is finally starting to take notice. 

However, the institutions that have been elected and remain in power are still systemically racist. The list of the Tories’ atrocities on BAME communities is a very long and disturbed history. Windrush, Grenfell, Tory MPs and their revolting rhetoric. These have all led to the building blocks of modern racism and to the perception of it as ‘acceptable’, but nothing recently has been as damaging or vile as the consistent attacks on Labour MP Diane Abbott. 

Diane Abbott has made many fights for the BAME community, yet her legacy has been tarnished by right-wing politicians, the media and to some extent, the right wing in her own party. 

Working class Jamaican family

Perhaps it is time to register some of the contributions she has made to British politics. She was born into a working-class Jamaican family and started her career in politics in 1982. Before politics, she studied history at Cambridge. In an interview in The House Magazine entitled ‘Diane Abbott: “Jamaicans have a lot of self-belief, you know”’, she remembered that when she had wanted to take the entry exams at Oxford and Cambridge, her teacher had said, “I don’t think you’re up for it”. Abbott’s reply was “But I do, and that’s what matters.”

She graduated from in History and went into Civil Service work, to became a race relations officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties. She also became a press officer for Ken Livingston when he was working under the GLC, before it was dissolved in 1986 by Thatcher. 

Abbott was elected to Westminster City Council until she stopped serving in 1986. In 1987, she was elected into the house of commons as an MP in Hackney North & Stoke Newington. Diane Abbott was the first black female MP to be elected into parliament. Keith Vaz, Bernie Grant, and Paul Boateng were all elected along with Diane Abbot in 1987, making them the first 4 MPs of colour to be elected in Westminster.

An overview of Black Sections

Diane Abbott was one of the founding members of Labour’s Black Sections. Black Sections was a group set up for black supporters of the Labour Party to get greater representation in their CLPs. The group was formed in 1983 and was disbanded in 1993 to become the Black Socialist Society, to become BAME Labour in 2007, which is the current representation. 

The book The Politics of Race in Britain and South Africa: Black British Solidarity and the Anti-apartheid Struggle shows how the struggles of disenfranchised and urban areas led to an increase in black representation in local left labour governments. This created an opportunity for black voices to be heard in the Labour Party’s structures and hierarchies. 

The initiatives of Black Sections were to demand more representation within the Labour Party’s systems and propose that more black people should represent the party that most of them voted for. This has also been documented extensively in the book The Changing Pattern of Black Politics in Britain. The NEC had at first met Black Sections with refusing them being an official grouping, but after a national survey sent out to the party, the NEC favoured the Black Sections and it officially became a grouping within the Labour Party. 

This is also well documented in The legacy of Black Sections and was part of the reason that Diane Abbott, Keith Vaz, Bernie Grant and Paul Boateng were able to be elected in in 1987. Without Black Sections, the Labour Party would not be as representative in ethnic communities as it is today, although there is still has a very long way to go. 

Abbot won over 70% of her constituency vote

This brief overview of Black Sections is an important element in history of our movement. They were not always treated with warmth, and Neil Kinnock disapproved of them and with sections of the PLP attacking them. Much of this was detailed in a 2008 Guardian article, Celebrating Black Sections. Diane Abbott has been an MP now for 32 years. She was always one of the critics in the New Labour project, pushed against the Iraq War and was a champion for civil rights and left-wing policies that only certain Labour politicians could ever dream of. In her own seat, she won 75% of the vote share in 2017 and in even in 2019 took 70%. Diane Abbott has continued to be a popular member of parliament in her constituency for all these years. 

Even with all that to be admired about her character and influence, she has been and still is subjected to the most insidious forms of racism from members of the public and the right-wing press, and it is now clear from the leaked ‘Anti-Semitism’ report, even from sections of the right-wing Labour apparatus. 

In a report published by Amnesty International in 2017, it was revealed that black and Asian women MPs were abused online more than any other group. This report also found that Diane Abbott was subjected to the most amount of abuse and sometimes amounted to up to a third of all the abuse being sent to MPs. Much of it was focused on sexual threats and derogatory comments about her gender and race. 

Worst examples of racist abuse of any MP

When people say, racism doesn’t exist in the UK, they are very much mistaken and are ignorant to what is happening. The disgraceful and continuous abuse of Diane Abbott is one of the worst examples of racist abuse and she has been subjected to it since she entered parliament. I have been personally told by people that she is a “waste of space” and “useless” and I would call them out on their remarks; if they suggest back to me that what was said was “not racist” I would ask why is it that they never use this type of language for any other politician? 

I am not talking about people who are clued-up politically. It is people who have never discussed politics and yet always refer to Abbott in derogatory language. It is important to recognise that singling out a black, woman MP, when not commenting on any other in the same vein, can only be seen as a racist remark. It is subconscious racism and it festered through British society. 

Boris’s remarks on “letterboxes”s and “picaninnies”, Tory MP Desmond Swayne refusing to apologise for ‘black-facing’ and also suggesting that the protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement “have it coming to them”, is the type of rhetoric that proves how racism is in-built. There is, in fact, little disparity between the USA and the United Kingdom. Of course, Britain has its own historical brand of racism: the history of an empire built on slavery and colonialism. This is something that is never taught in schools and it is about time that it should be. 

Leaked ‘anti-Semitism’ report

Diane Abbott has been subjected to the most demonstrable, racist abuse that an MP could ever experience. In an interview with Owen Jones for the Guardian, she said she had received countless numbers of death threats and that has made party staff workers going sick, as a result of the stress and the abuse they receive. 

We must also mention the ‘anti-Semitism’ report that was leaked a month ago and the disgusting treatment of Abbot by right-wing and anti-Corbyn sections of the PLP and party staff. All these incidents and many more have demonstrated racism in one way or another in our movement and it must always be met with resistance from all members of the Party and its affiliated groups. 

It is a good step forward that people are educating themselves on the politics of race; but it is not enough. The best solution is to organise. White and black people must come together and set up political campaigns and organisations affiliated with the Labour Movement to fight racism in all it is ugly forms. On a personal note, Diane Abbott was the most inspirational MP to me and she has fought through so much adversity, but she will always give me the strength and integrity to fight for a socialist; equal future. 

Study: Internet Racism Has Strong Affect on Black Teens

Black teens experience numerous racial assaults daily. Source: Rutgers

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I was talking with a friend in Ireland recently and she was telling me about the image that is perpetuated about the working class Irish male; the drinker, the failed family man pumping out the kids. A hard worker sure, but a failure, even consciously or not a failure in ones own mind. Up until the early 1960’s when I was a young teenager, Ireland was basically an economically backward country, its development held back like most of the former British colonies, and Ireland was the first. The six northern counties Britain kept after partition in 1921 as industry, particularly shipbuilding, was there as well as the majority of the country’s Protestant population. 

“This greater failure, to save Ireland from British domination weighed heavily on the conscience of the Irish male” my friend told me, as family, responsibility, country are all woven in to one. I have written before that the racist assault on the Irish included the women who I remember hearing on more than one occasion that they were either “Nuns or whores.” There is much similarity between the Irish in relation to England and the Mexicans and other immigrants from the US south. The Irish did most of the building of the roads and infrastructure in the UK and many great songs were written about that.

What we think of ourselves is not just some individual whim. It is not something independent of the world around us, of society. When I flip through the few channels I have, I sometimes stop for a second or two at some old cowboy movie just in time to capture the dialogue between two cowboys, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” says one white man to the other. “What would I think about that if I were a Native American?”, I ask myself. Rage? Sadness? Surely a sense of despair for many of them, as they too were not able to save their land and way of life from the invaders and many of them died trying  All workers are victims of class oppression, but capitalism doesn’t stop there, the dominant ruling class must rest on some section of society at the expense of others.

If you watch the Beatles when they came to the US and all the young girls screaming and crying at them, I see that they are all white girls, daughters of European immigrants. Black folks weren’t listening to that music were they? Even if they liked it, racism would have kept them from venues. Look what happened to Allan Freed. He may well have been guilty in the Payola Scandal but the real threat he posed was that the music he was playing, the mixture of blues, R&B and jazz brought Black and white youth in to the same halls. They came by the thousands. Ben Fong Torres wrote of him:

“He did it by way of his show, and by concerts he staged in New York and elsewhere, events that began to draw white as well as Black youth. For this, he was called a race-mixer and worse. The recording industry’s establishment feared his championing of the independent labels that dominated rhythm & blues, blues, and jazz music. Freed began making enemies.

Soon, parents groups, church leaders, and the press who deemed much of the music obscene and got much of it banned from radio.

The New York Daily News called the music “an inciter of juvenile delinquency” and pointed to Freed as a chief offender.”

More proof that, Racism Does Not Begin in the Home or the Individual

Like Martin Luther King but in a different way, Freed was uniting Blacks and whites. “In 1958, Freed faced controversy in Boston when he told the audience, ‘It looks like the Boston police don't want you to have a good time.’ As a result, Freed was arrested and charged with inciting to riot, and was fired from his job at WINS.”  Wikipedia. He was right. The police, as an arm of the state, didn’t want Blacks and whites mixing. The whole basis of white skin privilege and the total exclusion of Black people from all aspects of society (not even citizens) was the boat that kept US capitalism afloat and the masters at the helm.

Imagine you are a part of a section of society, a distinct group, Catholic, Muslim, Black, Indian, Asian, gay and so on, and in film, art, mainstream music, you never see people that look like you that have your experience or express it. You produce you own, but it is outside of society as a whole. I am thankful people like Freed were instrumental in ensuring Blues, the music of Black America came to the UK. Like Peter Norman, who supported Carlos and Smith in the 1968 Olympics and was shut out of sport for it, Freed was destroyed for his actions. They were both alcoholics when they died young.

When I go downtown, or especially when I go to Oakland, the vast majority of the people that are homeless and sleeping rough or in tents are Black folks. What do young Black kids think when they walk around in their neighborhoods or elsewhere and pretty much everyone living like that is Black like them? It has to have an impact. That is why the election of Barack Obama as US president was so important for Black Americans. I know friends that voted for him though they had no illusions in his politics or the idea that he would do much if anything at all about the economic crises that affect Black working class communities. “I just want my son to see a cultured, educated Black family in a powerful position in America and who is not a gangster.” a woman friend told me.

I believe that Jesse Jackson’s tears at that huge rally in Chicago as Obama became the Democratic candidate for the highest office in the land, were real. Like Jackson or not, he was next to Martin Luther King on that balcony in 1968 supporting a strike of Janitors, members of my former union. Compared to Trump, George W Bush or Obama, Jesse Jackson deserves some respect.

Black Teens Face Racial Discrimination Multiple Times Daily, Suffer Depressive Symptoms as a Result

I thought about this because a friend In Kentucky brought to my attention the effect racism has on Black teenagers. He has experience working with them and understands them as he was one of them.  He shared a new Rutgers University Study the title above, that found, “The rise in hate crimes against Black U.S. American youth since the 2016 presidential election (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2018) provides a stark indicator that anti-Blackness continues to be deeply woven into the U.S. societal fabric.” Those white workers that support Trump, the ones who have some semblance of critical thinking, should reflect on that rise in racist attacks on blacks and immigrants when they justify their support on the basis he's added a few bucks to their 401K.

The study concludes that the Internet is a “major” source of discrimination directed at Black youth and one of the causes of the frequency of this racial discrimination is that the Internet is anonymous. We all experience that; people who call all sorts of vile names, make all sorts of ridiculous claims and so on because they’re safe behind a computer screen.

This is particularly harmful for Black youth, according to the study, as they spend more time on the Internet than,”…. kids of other races and ethnicities.” Consequently, these microaggressions occur on a daily basis and many times throughout the day. Hair, skin tone, and physical appearances are aspects of mockery and teasing. “…discrimination happens, whether it is being teased by peers, asked to speak for their racial group in class or seeing a racist post on social media,”says the author of the study.

“Racial teasing is important….” The study claims, “… because it is one of the most common ways adolescents communicate about race,” The study is published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

For young children, coupled with all the other social aspects of institutionalized racism that I touch on above, the damage can be significant. It is not just Black children of course, we are all sickened by this system in which everything is a commodity, including our bodies and our life activity (labor power).  But there is no doubt that in the history of the United States it is this division, this use of color to undermine solidarity between the oppressed, throwing the exploited white worker a bone while excluding an entire race of people from even the most rudimentary benefits of class society that has been the dominant means of social control and the maintenance of the capitalist system of production and the class that governs it.

In his introduction to volume one of Theodore W Allen’s The Invention of the White Race, Jeffrey B Perry details the four “defining characteristics” of racial oppression as Allen saw it. These are: “a) declassing legislation, directed at property holding members of the oppressed group; b) the depravation of civil rights; c) the outlawing of literacy; and d) the displacement of family rights and authorities.”

Studies like the one quoted here are useful, but tell the victims of racial discrimination nothing they don’t already know; the same with the oppression of women or of labor in general. The reason official government panels on poverty are dominated by academics and others committed to capitalism and in its pay, rather than poor folk, is that poor people know more about poverty than academics and also are very clear about what policies would solve it. It's not rocket science.

Poverty, racism, sexism, war, environmental catastrophe, are an integral aspect of the capitalist mode of production. Recognizing this reality is a first major step to eradicating them.

Katie Hill, Revenge Porn and the Hypocrisy in US Politcs

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Among the headlines in the US at the moment is the resignation of Katie Hill, an up and coming young Democratic Congresswoman from California. Hill resigned after it became known that she had an affair with one of her campaign workers and nude photos of her, taken without her consent, were published in the media. Hill’s husband, who she is in the process of divorcing, claimed that he was hacked and had nothing to do with leaking the pictures although it appears likely he was looking for some way to discredit his wife. Hill has referred to him as an abusive husband.

Rather share my own views on that I will allow a woman to speak for me, Caroline Reilly writes in the New Statesman , “Sending nudes to someone who turns out to be untrustworthy would be no more a mistake or fault on my part than getting into bed with someone who turns out to be predatory or violent – and implying in any way that it is only perpetuates the culture that allows predators to exploit nude photos by sharing them non-consensually. And as with sex, when people exploit and rob someone of their consent by disseminating their nude photos, it’s a crime. What Hill’s ex is doing to her is sexual violence. When rabid, uptight congressmen froth at the mouth over the possession of even more photographs of her, they are revealing themselves to be sexual predators and they should be treated in accordance.” 

Driven from politics by revenge porn Source:LGBTQNation

Let’s reflect for a second on the impeachment process working through the US body politic. We have a president in the White House who is clearly a degenerate and sexual deviant. He has boasted about how, as a wealthy individual and celebrity he can sexually abuse women with impunity. He is a misogynist and a racist, of this there can be no doubt. Who would have thought we would have a president of the United States endorsed by the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and various fascist and white supremacist organizations? This is not enough to impeach Trump, a process the US ruling class and politicians in both parties would rather avoid.

Instead, the one and only reason the impeachment process has begun at all is because Trump allegedly pressured a leader of a foreign state to investigate a political opponent whose own credibility when it comes to corruption and political impropriety is highly suspect.  When Trump pointed his figure at the Reuters reporter and said that,  “Biden and his son are stone cold crooked, and you know it………and so do we…” it will strike a tone with many American people because it is what they perceive US politics to be, mistaking class allegiance on the part of the representatives of both parities for character flaws and corruption in the criminal sense.

It is a testament to the inherent racist and sexist nature of US capitalism that this serial sexual abuser is still in office. And what sort of party is it that has not expelled him? It shows how deep the far right, and the Christian right in particular has embedded itself in the Republican morass.

Hill has publicly admitted that her relationship with a staffer was “inappropriate” but attacked the “double standard” when it comes to sexuality: “We have men credibly accused of sexual assault who are in boardrooms, in the supreme court, in this very body and, worst of all, in the Oval Office”, she said this week as she placed her final vote to begin impeachment proceedings before resigning.

What does it say about the attitude of the body politic or both parties to women’s rights?  One can be a racist and a sexist and still be president of the USA but don’t ask foreigners to help you defeat a political opponent at home. What is it like to be a Latino or immigrant form Mexico or Central America here in the US? Trump has emboldened the most backward sections of US society. They have always been there, he has just given them confidence to come in to the open. This is not necessarily a bad thing; let us all see them.

All the palaver about how great our political system is and how free we all are in the US compared to the rest of the world. “Make America Great Again” says Trump, parroted by his supporters ad nauseum. We all know what that means, undo and roll back all the gains working class people, women, people of color, immigrants, organized labor have made over the decades.

This does not mean there aren’t some genuine and courageous figures that have entered politics, many of them seeing no alternative but the Democratic Party. Ilhan Omar, the Somali representative from Minnesota is one. She has been savagely attacked by Trump and his supporters, accused of hating America and being a terrorist and supporter of the terrorist attacks on 911. I faced some minor instances of this myself. It seems democrat rights for some are OK as long as one doesn’t challenge their myopic view of the world. What normal person would not be impressed with Omar’s questioning of the killer Elliot Abrams, Donald Trump’s envoy to Venezuela with regard to his role in El Salvador and US support for fascist death squads.

The US ruling class as a whole does not want to impeach Trump as it further undermines the aura of almost divine guidance constructed around their so-called democracy. My guess is that that other Wall Street party will try to prolong the process in the hope the electoral process will work better this time as long as they can get enough dirt on Trump. The Wall Street Journal makes it clear, “Impeachment is never something to be celebrated. It risks doing grave damage to public confidence in government and worsening America’s already polarized politics. An election that cast Trump from office would be the soundest and most enduring rebuke to this presidency.”
The more sober bourgeois are wary of damaging their precious bourgeois democracy further in the eyes of the US working class. Some 100 million boycotted the process in 2016. No party seriously appeals to this bloc.

The pathetic whining of the Democratic Party power says nothing in the face of this crisis for fearing of stoking the anger that exists beneath the surface of US society; the problem with Trump and some sections of the US ruling class is that they are moving too far too fast and are overconfident. This party can in no way shape or form be described as an opposition.

We are living in volatile times and we are witnessing a global resistance to the violence of the market and capitalism. How quickly movements can arise. Ecuador, Lebanon, Chile, Hong Kong, and in the Amazon basin as indigenous people confront capitalism’s destruction of the rain forest and their culture. Millions of young people are leading the fight against the catastrophe of climate change. In terms of time frame, these movements seemed to have arisen out of nowhere. The endless wars, hunger, environmental catastrophe, this is what capitalism offers for the future. As a mural in Derry Northern Ireland where I visited last week points out, “Only when the last tree has died and the last fish been caught and the last river been poisoned will we realize we can’t eat money.”

I know next to nothing about Katie Hill except that I applaud her courage and the tenacity she has shown in the face of a violent assault on her as a woman in the patriarchal quagmire of US politics. She ended her speech saying, with regard to the struggle of women for social equality, “We will not stand down. We will not be broken. We will not be silenced. We will rise, and we will make tomorrow better than today. Thank you, and I will yield the balance of my time – for now but not forever.”

There is much to be positive about.

Sexual Assault and Rape: Chanel Miller's Powerful Statement.

This video above is a short animated film issued by the woman that was raped behind a dumpster after a frat party at Stanford University. The case received a lot of attention, especially after the judge that heard it, as the rapist requested a trial, handed down a six month sentence.  For the longest time her name was simply Emily Doe or, as she says, the "unconscious" woman and other such terms.

The Judge was eventually recalled and the victim we now know, was Chanel Miller and she has written her account of the rape and the subsequent trial. The rapists name was Brock Turner who was a star athlete and potential Olympic swimmer.  This animated film is short but I would like to strongly  urge anyone reading this to watch the 54 minute CBS 60 minute video below.  If you don't have time to watch it all at once, please return to it; it's important to watch it all. I realize millions of people including myself are aware of this case and Ms. Miller's statement but this is the first time I have watched or read it in full.

"RAINN - the rape, abuse and incest national network, the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the US - puts the figure at one in six US women being the victim of an attempted, or completed, rape. Every 92 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. Out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, 995 perpetrators will walk free."

In the comments section to the animated film above I wrote:
"My wife and me watched your longer statement from 60 minutes. You are an amazing person Ms. Miller and I hope that one day I might have the honor of meeting you in person. I am about to put both video's up on my blog as we have a readership in numerous countries around the world. Thank you so much for not allowing this experience to crush you and instead using it to give strength to all the women who have had similar experiences and suffered in silence due to the complete failure of society to address the problem. Brock Turner's behavior has a lot to do with his class privilege in capitalist society and the patriarchy and racism on which it is built. The media, art, sport, most forms expression in our society let people like Brick Turner know that he is special, he has special privileges and women are there for his entertainment; his actions are not open to question. I had intended perhaps to watch just a little of the 60 Minutes video but it was just too powerful. Thanks again."


 In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught 'em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom

And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence

*Bob Dylan The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

Celebrate International Women's Day

Turkish Women Celebrate International Women's Day 2016

After the Socialist Party of America organized a Women's Day on February 28, 1909, in New York, the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference suggested a Women's Day be held annually. After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations. Source: Wikipedia

In celebration of International Women’s Day we share this article which first appeared in the Militant Newspaper in Britain in 1985 and was republished on the British website, Left Horizions.  During the British Miners strike, women against pit closures were visiting areas building solidarity and raising funds for the striking workers. Some of them spoke at a rally my local, Afscme Local 444, had at our employer’s offices in downtown Oakland CA. The author of this article was a Labor Party councilor and is still active in the Party. I had the honor of meeting her in Dublin Ireland last year.

Women's role in the Pit Strike

By Lynne Faulkes

All over the world women have been involved in the struggle to defend and improve their own and their families’ lives. From nearly every continent there are reports of strikes marches and demonstrations.

In Britain the crucial role of women in the miners strike has been acknowledged everywhere.

This is not been just supportive in defence of men’s jobs, as some cynics have claimed; the miners wives have proved that far from their place being in the home, they have been a central part of the strike itself. As well as being in the forefront of picketing, speaking and meetings and raising finance, we have also kept the strike going through kitchens and welfare centres. In many cases their determination alone has kept the miners out.

For the first time, many wives have seen beyond their own four walls and have proved the necessity of involving women as an integral part of the labour movement. This must be kept up when the strikes are over, to help them cope with the adjustments needed in getting back to “normal” life, and also to use the energies and tenacity shown during the strike, to help revitalise the unions and the Labour Party.

This is even more so when unemployment is high and services have been cut; pressure to stay at home, becoming totally involved in caring for the family, (the sick, handicapped and elderly, as well as children) with no apparent time or energy for activities in the labour movement.

But at the same time, the impossibility of coping with all the problems –  at home, jobs, housing, education, health, transport, leisure facilities and places for under-fives, low pay, and so on – mean  that many women and men forced to take action to defend and improve living conditions. This in spite of the backward restraining influence of the family played on by the Tories and the media.

Not always restricted to the home

But women in particular have not always been restricted to the home. In wartime, women were positively encouraged to work and crèches and nurseries were set up to help them.

Today’s key institutions: the family, private property and the state, were once non-existent. They developed at a certain period of history as a result of specific social and economic conditions, and will survive only so long as those conditions continue to exist.

In an economy based on satisfying need not profit, the family would not be a burden to the working class and relations with children and each other would be a pleasure.

There is nothing more guaranteed to breed frustration and isolation, lack of confidence and apathy today, than if men and women are allowed to retreat into the home, with its never-ending problems and endless housework.

For most people the main problem in getting active in the labour movement is the responsibility of the family. Demands for equal opportunities are meaningless without the parallel provision of good childcare and adequate maternity and paternity rights. To ease the problems of illness, we need to guarantee good social healthcare and help for the disabled and elderly.

We also need first-class community restaurants and laundries. We have seen excellent examples of this during the miners strike, with the soup kitchens – just imagine what would be possible with first-class facilities and food! So we can concentrate on the development son of ourselves and society.

Instead of being diverted by pressing social problems, we also need decent housing education support these demands are realisable in a socialist society when the resources talents and abilities of men and women can be used to benefit all with tremendous advancement of productive forces, with all the advantages of technology and industry, men and women would be able to fully develop personally, free from economic burdens.

The labour and trade union movement is the only force in society capable of radically improving the position of women working class men and women. It is crucial that the labour movement response to these needs. Taking up the struggle for economic and social emancipation is a vital aspect of transforming the Labour Party and the trade unions into fighting organisations capable of carrying through the socialist change of society, both here and throughout the world.

March 7, 2019