By Connor Harney
As I write this, I am filled with hopeful dread. Dread at the prospect of what could come to pass—an America more brutal and repressive like the regimes it has installed abroad. Hope that the uprisings across the country might mean we have finally found the exit to the labyrinth at history’s end. It has become common among many on the left to call the current political economic order zombie neoliberalism. What they miss with that analysis is that it has always been a zombie, a shambling embalmed corpse with an insatiable appetite for labor living and dead—cannibalizing the product of all generations past. It feeds and infects, leaving in its wake a world after its own image. Corpses are not born, but they also do not die, they rot and decay. The stench of carrion marks the eternal present America has found itself in since the 1970s.
In this moment when the motor of history seems to be once again started, if in what may only be fits and stops, it seemed appropriate to go back to this article that was originally written in the wake of the murders of Mike Brown and Freddie Gray. In it, I tried to lay out the links between poverty, racism, and police violence. There is little in the main body, I would change. There are a few things that I would emphasize now that I did not then, which I will address here, and a few strategical points that will be added as concluding remarks.
Even as cities burn from coast to coast, there appears to be less of condemnation of the destruction of property. That reactions seem to come only from the most craven conservative voices and the most milquetoast liberals. What I think, whether right or wrong, is that many Americans have felt in the more than half-decade since Ferguson that they have no power—a sense only more pronounced by the recent trauma of the worldwide pandemic. This feeling of powerlessness is made known at both the barricade and the ballot box.
The fact that almost half the country does not vote, should tell you all you need to know about the state of the country and its politics. They are a vacuous empty spectacle that does nothing, but provide jobs for talking heads and water cooler talk for opposing spectators in the professional-managerial class. At the same time, this feeling of powerlessness manifests itself in uprisings as well, they’ve become a safety-valve for a beaten and battered populace to unleash pent up rage in the primal scream of protest. When I first wrote this piece, these uprisings were less cyclical, and most importantly, many did not understand the images of rebellion, their own experience of other kinds of powerlessness outside of that imposed by the historical racial caste system has taught them to.
Just as people have learned to understand the place of their own struggle alongside that of others, people find in these moments the strength that they have together. Indeed, it will only be together that we will overcome 50 years of stasis, our representatives certainly feel no need to do anything to earn our representation. As avatars of current order, both Trump and Biden epitomize the rotten bankruptcy of neoliberalism—it’s utter exhaustion under the current conditions. The careers of both men were born and sustained by the new political economic system forged from the crises of the seventies and institutionalized by the Reagan revolution of the eighties. One made his bones in the new politics of plutocracy and the other a plutocrat who build his fortune through the capture of politics. Both vultures not only helped picked clean the corpse of the New Deal order, they got fat from it. Now the skeleton of American society they left behind is on the verge of collapse, and neither has anything on offer.
Both men find themselves more and more in a world that no longer exists, the rot has set in, the zombie gnashes its teeth, but seems unable to feast. Leaving them both Quixotic figures, fighting windmills, the ghosts of a formerly triumphant America. Trump finds solace in imperial brutality, unleashing death squads that were once reserved for freeing the developing world from Communists and terrorists, while Biden finds comfort in politics of performative conciliation, harkening back to a time of more civilized barbarism—before empire came home.
The question as people begin to feel the movement of history again is this: ‘will this be the end of the zombie’s long walk or will it find its appetite once again? Will this decayed matter give us fertilizer to plant the seeds of the new world?’
On a 2014 trip to Washington D.C, I could feel revolution in the air. The discrepancies in income were visible even blocks apart. High-end grocery stores were less than a quarter of a mile from public housing, which created the appearance of a war zone. Barbed wire menacingly lined the walls of the façade surrounding these buildings. I was surprised at the lack of police presence at first sight. Instead, every building was watched by at least three private security guards. When police appeared, they appeared in full combat attire: flak jacket, helmet, and what seemed to be a semi-automatic rifle. It was obvious to me at the moment, that the only way to sustain such disparities in income was through this show of force. Only through the militarization of the police and the supplementation by private security can the tensions created by such a reality be eased. It is no surprise killings of young black men by white police officers has resonated such response public outcry across the nation. The riot is merely the means by which those living under these conditions have tried to make their voices heard. Protest is simply giving voice to the voiceless.
To say that these movements have sprung up sporadically out of nothing ignores the historical currents of the last fifty years. With the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, some believed the work had been done, hence the eventual acceptance by some of the idea of a post-racial America. Yet, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explained in a speech in 1967, “The gains in the first era of struggle were obtained from the power structure at bargain rates. It didn’t cost anything to integrate lunch counters.” Further, “It didn’t cost the nation a penny to guarantee the right to vote. Now we are in a period where it will cost the nation billions of dollars to get rid of poverty—to get rid of slums, to make quality integrated education a reality. That is where we are now.”[1] King made this prescription nearly sixty years ago, but for the most part it has been unheeded. Instead, we are in much the same place we were in 1967. This desire to gain economic and social rights along with the legal rights the black community had just gained gave birth to the black power movement of late 1960s and 1970s. Frustration in the lack of progress through non-violence gave rise to black-nationalist groups like the Black Panthers and their paramilitary the Black Liberation Army. These groups were brutally repressed by the Federal Government throughout that period and rendered irrelevant as a force for mass mobilization by the early 1980s. While conditions have only deteriorated in recent decades, for the most part organized movements have been few and far between. Instead, there have been infrequent uprisings against the continued oppression of poverty. The 1992 riots, for example were in response to the beating of Rodney King by the LAPD. This vicious act of violence was broadcast for the entire world to see—brought condemnation, but no change.
In American society, poverty and race often go hand, and for the historical reasons of slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration are often disproportionately affected by fluctuations. The recession of 2008 has served to heighten existing disparities in wealth and brought upon a spirit of questioning of the very institutions that many in American society hold so dear. Occupy Wall Street brought forward a new dialogue that questioned the very tenets of capitalism. Suddenly, the rhetoric of the 1% and 99% became part of the everyday vernacular of many Americans. While the movement itself has petered out, its legacy still remains. Today, low-income service workers are organizing across the country for a living wage. With all of these issues, there is one elephant continuously in the room, and that is the authority of capital and the capitalist system. To question any income equality is to question the very legitimacy of the system itself, and this awakening of consciousness has certainly shown no signs of slowing. Those who feel the failings of this system the most are the ones living in urban centers across the nation—as they are slowly pushed out by the processes of gentrification, outsourcing, and automation, as well as cuts to social programs meant to curb the worst abuses of poverty.
Black and Hispanic communities who represent generally between 20% and 40% respectively of those living in poverty nationwide are disproportionately affected by this turn of events. This stands in stark contrast to the white communities, which represent 10% or less of those living at the poverty level. In the nation’s capital this difference is even more astounding. The black community represents 36% of those living in poverty and the white community represents only 5%.[2] The real level of these discrepancies is probably much higher, as these statistics are calculated using the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of poverty, which is woefully inaccurate from any sort of moral calculus. For instance, the poverty threshold given for a family of five in 2014 was just under thirty-thousand dollars.[3] Given these convergences of forces, it is almost as if American society has written off the plight of these communities in favor of the continued progress for the rest. It seems that American society has decided that black and brown lives do not matter. Is it surprising, then, that a new level of consciousness has arisen, in the wake of violence against young black men and women by police in urban areas? The protests that have emerged in response and that will likely continue to do so, represent the woeful cry of the unheard, who feel they have been stripped of their humanity.
One of the most frequent criticisms of these uprising has been the destruction of property. This phenomenon can be explained and justified on multiple levels. First, businesses represent part of the apparatus of oppression. They represent the process of gentrification and are viewed by members of those communities as the invading armies of an occupational force. These businesses are symbolic of the urban diaspora of black communities from their homes. The traditional inhabitants are being replaced by urban white professionals, who bring with them skyrocketing property values that are for the most part untenable for those living on one or two minimum-wage jobs. There is also the understandable disillusionment with the system that has failed these communities. These protests have let out the pent-up rage and cynicism, acting as a social-safety valve. Instead of rushing to judge the victims, it is our duty to question the very system that has relegated an already vulnerable community to the misery of poverty, despite the radical promise of the 1960s—a system that has not only failed to live up to that compact made all of those decades ago, but has choked, shot in the back, and severed the spine of the very will of the people. For those not convinced of the role of violence in protest, I will leave you with words of Malcolm X, who pointed out the hypocrisy of those who denounce protest simply because it does not comply with their own peaceful vision for social change:
If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.[4]
We as a people should all stand in solidarity with the oppressed people of this nation, from Ferguson to Baltimore, and decry the violence of the state.
To which now we must add Minneapolis, and of course the cities in between now and then that have similarly erupted in righteous fury against those that act as an occupying force in communities across the United States.
It remains unclear what will come of this nationwide rebellion against police violence and the stripping of state functions down to its essentials function as a repressive apparatus deployed to maintain class division.
While this moment appears exceptional, particularly in the light of the ongoing pandemic and economic depression, we should remain sober in our analysis, but also strident in our support. Frederick Engels reminds of this lesson, writing in February, 1848:
Our age, the age of democracy, is breaking. The flames of the Tuileries and the Palais Royal are the dawn of the proletariat. Everywhere the rule of the bourgeoisie will now, come crashing down, or be dashed to pieces.[5]
Of course, in hindsight, we know that the Revolutions of 1848 failed, ushering in an age of absolutist authoritarianism. The rebellion was crushed, but the specter of communism continued to haunt Europe, and later the whole world. But the more important lesson to draw in this case is that our optimism of the will should be tempered by pessimism of the will.
We never know what will happen, but we should always act according to an analysis of our material conditions. In this case, without a working-class party, one that represents working people of all stripes, then these protests, like the ones that came before, will burn out without a change in the status quo—body cams and diversity training have utterly failed to stem the tide of police violence, and any likely concession that does not either outright abolish the police or remove their power over the stat purse likely will not either.
How then should communists orient them in these uncertain times? Support the struggles of the oppressed no matter their likely outcome. Continue to organize your workplace, link those struggles to those of community. Just as some bus driver unions have refused to transport arrested protesters in an act of brave solidarity. Help educate and learn from those in struggle. It is only our ability to understand our world that we can change it. Finally, remain militant, but not dogmatic. Understand that insurrection and the fight for reform our not mutually exclusive, one may right for one moment and not in the next.
Whatever happens, let’s make sure the ruling class never forgets the name George Floyd.
Notes
[1] Martin Luther King Jr., “Hungry Club Speech,” May 10th, 1967, http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/hungry-club-speech (accessed September 25, 2015), pg 3.
[2] The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity,” State Health Facts, http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/ (accessed September 25, 2015).
[3] United States Census Bureau, “Poverty Thresholds,” Poverty, https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/index.html (accessed September 30, 2015).
[4] Malcom X, “Message to the Grassroots,” October 1963, http://genius.com/Malcolm-x-message-to-the-grassroots-annotated/ (accessed September 25, 2015).
[5] Friedrich Engels, “Revolution in Paris,” in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1845-48, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, n.d.), 356, https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1848/02/27.htm.
