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Vol. 72/No. 31      August 4, 2008

 
Defend, extend affirmative action
(editorial)
 
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says that “affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America.” White workers get short shrift with these programs, he implies. He goes as far as to state that affirmative action “doesn’t really matter.” Republican candidate John McCain openly opposes affirmative action.

Affirmative action programs address continuing institutionalized racism and sexism by giving preferential treatment in hiring, education, and housing to Blacks, other oppressed nationalities, and women. The racist inequalities confronting Blacks and other oppressed nationalities, like the sex inequalities women face, are constantly reinforced and reproduced by the capitalist job market. The bosses use race divisions as one of their main tools to keep the labor movement divided and weakened. Any measure that makes it harder for the employers to discriminate against part of the working class is an advance for the whole class.

Affirmative action programs are needed, not to make up for the past, but to deal with the discrimination that exists today. The official unemployment rate for Black workers, for example, is almost three times the rate for whites, underscoring that Blacks are still the last hired and the first fired. Blacks make up 41 percent of the prison population, but just 13 percent of the overall population.

For capitalist politicians like Obama, vague rhetoric about “long-term solutions” serves to obfuscate the class issues involved. He doesn’t point the finger at the racism inherent in capitalism, he blames Black men for abandoning “their responsibilities.” He doesn’t call for the government to take measures against rising unemployment, he proposes giving money to “faith-based” organizations to dispense charity. He doesn’t call for defending and extending affirmative action with quotas to make it effective, he worries about the programs being “properly structured.”

The fight for affirmative action really does matter. It is only along a course of defending affirmative action and demanding enforcement of quotas that a strong and united labor movement can be built capable of defending working people in the battles to come with the employers and their government.
 
 
Related articles:
Obama takes distance from affirmative action  
 
 
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