Portside

Should we win socialism and eliminate capitalism in the U.S., significant racist stratification of the working class will continue. We will need to systematically root it out and defeat the racist forces within the working and middle class.

This is the second in a series of columns looking at Left strategy today. Key to Strategy #1 focused on the first component of Sun Tzu’s dictum that to prevail in battle it is necessary to “know the enemy and know yourself.”

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Racial justice forces need to win governing power within the current system and then continue to build the strength to dismantle the racist state and replace it with an antiracist one: fight against the white republic and for antiracist democracy.

How will we use our talents and skills to best meet the challenges of these times? How will we do what the movement most needs us to do? The answers can only be unearthed in community, within organizations, or the circles to which we are accountable.

To build a strong and durable left, healthy leadership and process is necessary. When accountability can be built, it makes for a stronger organization, and if it’s successful, leadership isn’t so lonely and exhausting.

This is a battle between those who want to ensure permanent white minority rule vs. all those who believe this country must become a multiracial democracy. It’s daily trench warfare on every front, with USA's future if not the entire planet at stake.

There is need to invest in different structures, organizing alongside or outside of the traditional unions, base-building and nonprofit organizations for multi-year struggles, especially worker organizing and scaled disruptive direct action.

I’ve seen how powerful talking to a voter face to face can be and how important it is to reach out to people in person. I worry that too many of us think a campaign can be won on advertising and the power of a sound political platform alone.

Rather than looking at abortion as a personal, private decision and defending it on that basis, we should expose how the power structure is using restrictions on abortion and birth control to extract our unpaid labor.