July 14, 2021 • 40 mins
Historian Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley is the Gary B. Nash Professor of History at UCLA and the author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Dr. Kendi and Dr. Kelley have a deep discussion on the roots of the modern American labor movements, racial capitalism, and how we can create an antiracist world that benefits all workers. For further reading, resources, and a transcript of this episode visit https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/be-antiracist-with-ibram-x-kendi.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. On April ninth, two twenty one, the nation's eyes
were on Bessemer, Alabama, the scene of the latest battle
for labor rights. Officials from the National Labor Relations Board
(00:37):
began unsealing mail in ballots from three thousand, two hundred
and fifteen employees at an Amazon warehouse located in central Alabama.
The National Labor Relations Board has mailed ballots to nearly
six thousand Amazon workers will decide whether to join the
Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union. Months of multiracial organizing
(01:01):
called for a union that could secure a living wage,
job security, and safety for all workers at the warehouse.
In the end, pro union workers lost the battle for
unionization against the second largest private employer in the United
States by more than a two to one margin. Union
(01:22):
representatives filed a challenge to the results with the National
Labor Relations Board. Stewart Applebaum, the president of the Retail
Wholesale and Department Store Union, said Amazon workers felt intimidated.
What I think you saw in the results, despite the
number of people who signed cards, was a real fair
(01:44):
that they were going to lose their jobs if they
voted for the union. Fear busted up another potential union,
but it wasn't just fear. One worker asserted, Amazon is
just a game with rules learned. The rules, play the game,
move up, win. The truth is the rules are not
(02:07):
set up for most workers to win. If they were,
economic inequality would not be so widespread, there would not
be so many people working full time in still drowning
and poverty. I'm abramax Kendy, and this is b anti racist.
(02:31):
What has prevented workers from winning has not just been
union busting, fear in individualism, but racism. In the past,
some labor struggles ignored the racism faced by workers of color,
but not the campaign in Bessemer, where eighty five percent
of the workers at the Amazon facility were black. Mona Darby,
(02:56):
a poultry processing plant worker, helped lead the unionization effort.
She told The New York Times that one day, a
white man approached her and said Amazon didn't want a union,
that he didn't want her black ass on our property.
According to Darby, she responded, You're going to see my
(03:16):
black ass out here all day every day. Leaders confronted
race and racism head on as they pushed for the
labor rights of these workers. One of the leaders called
the drive as much of a civil rights battle as
a labor battle. The conjoining of the civil rights and
labor battles is as old as black labor organizing. Well
(03:40):
into the mid twentieth century, white lead unions excluded their
black peers. The racism within the labor movement compelled black
workers to form their own unions like the Brotherhood of
Sleeping car Porters, and then as the unions were desegregating
during the Civil Rights era, they were fighting for their
right to live. Over the last few decades, there has
(04:05):
been an all out attack on two of the institutions
that were most crucial to the prosperity and defensive workers
after the Great Depression, the government and the union. The
effects linger. In twenty twenty, just shy of eleven percent
of American workers were members of a union, but Bessemer
(04:26):
became the beacon for a renewed drive among American workers
to unionize. Though the union effort did not succeed, the
union is re emerging, and when the union is re emerging,
in anti racist America is emerging. Welcome to Be Anti Racist,
(04:48):
an action podcast where we discuss how to diagnose, dismantle,
and abolish racism, How to save humanity from the divisiveness
of racist ideas and the destructiveness of racist power and policy.
How to free humanity through the unity of anti racist
ideas and the constructiveness of anti ti racist power and policy.
(05:11):
On be anti Racist, we discuss how to make the
impossible possible and how to bring into being what modern
humans have never known, A just an equitable world. You ready,
Let's roll race and gender and Citizenship's status determines wages,
(05:45):
it determines employment opportunities, It determines a kind of labor
you do, whether it's skilled, unskilled, unprotected, unpaid, paid. All
this is shaped by value racial value. Historian Robin DG.
Kelly's work has been essential to analyzing the racial character
of capitalism, or what scholars are not calling racial capitalism.
(06:08):
Doctor Kelly is the Gary B. Nash Professor of History
at UCLA. He's written several books and articles that grapple
with labor rights, black radicalism, and anti racist possibilities. They
include Hammer and Hoe, Alabama Communists during the Great Depression,
and one of my favorites, Freedom Dreams The Black Radical Imagination.
(06:35):
Doctor Kelly and I sat down recently to discuss the
past present in future of the multiracial labor movement in
the United States, we had Bessemer on our minds. Doctor Kelly,
I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time.
I can't tell you what an honor is for me
(06:56):
to be talking to you. You know, I feel like
we've had a connection going way back. I feel like
I was almost at your graduation in two thousands, you know,
listening to you first, I just want to ask you
how you're feeling. You're reflecting on what seems to be
just a critical moment on the life of this nation,
(07:17):
in the life of black people, in the life of
labor organizing, in the life of so many elements of
our society. It's interesting because, you know, it gets this
question all the time, going back to Rachiard Brooks, going
back to Frederick Douglas. You must be honest, what does
it mean to live in society that pretends to be
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a democracy and you act according to the rules, and
you still get killed, you still lose your job, you're
still broke, you still disrespect it no matter what. It's
the sort of thing that could produce a level of
pessimists in which I haven't gotten there yet. But it
also reveals that we refuse to be pessimistic. Yeah, we
(08:03):
just refuse our protests, our struggle, our resistance, our signs
that we not only can win the semblance of justice,
but we don't have a choice. We just have to fight.
Not long ago, there was just an incredible effort to
organize a union Amazon site Deep South. And obviously that
(08:29):
unionization effort was not successful. But at this point in time,
reflecting on that, how would you frame it? I see
what happened in Bessemer as a huge victory. The fact
that they could even begin to organize workers at this
highly police, predominantly black, predominant female plant in the Deep South,
(08:51):
and they had less than a year. I mean they
began organizing right at the beginning of the pandemic. That's
no time to really build momentum. Amazon spend millions of
dollars to beat back to union. But more importantly, there
was a way in which a generated solidarity not just
in the US, but around the world. All this attention
(09:14):
was on what's going to happen in Bessemer. In bringing
attention to it, people are now talking about things like
what are the labor reforms we need. You know, we're
both historians, so we know that victory and defeat never
capture what actually happens. They're just like two narrow So
(09:35):
many struggles that appeared to be great victories end up
producing reforms that actually don't advance struggle, and vice versa.
Things that seem to be defeats actually become mobilizing tools
lessons for ongoing struggle. But the one thing that's consistent
in all this is that the struggle doesn't stop. I've
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never seen it happened where a group is defeated and like,
you know what, we'll just give up, you know, it's
not worth it. I've never seen that in history, Like
it just never happens. And that's consistent aspect of all
these struggles that we just keep moving like has been
in Harding says, you know, it's like a river. It
is fascinating because even the best summer unionization effort seemed
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to me to also shine a light on other labor
movements that had been happening for years that nobody was
talking about, that nobody was recognizing what should people be
looking for to understand it and how should people be
seeking to support it? Right? I mean Alabama is a
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unique place. It has a long history. We often right
off the South as reactionary, backward. There's all these epithets
that you give from liberal media in particular exactly, but
the South has been the heartland of American radicalism period. Yes,
the one place where social democracy might have actually happened
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was in the South. I mean, Alabama has a long
history mine workers, steel workers, domestic workers, sharecroppers, and they've
been fighting back and setting a labor agenda even during
the nineteen thirties when certain categories of labor like role
workers just were not covered by the new deal, not
(11:27):
covered by National Labor Relations Board or minimum wage. And
you know, it's true that they fought. Sometimes they lost,
but they persevered. So in terms of this new labor movement,
these union efforts, I would argue are linked to an
older tradition of community based organizing because they don't succeed
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without community support. When Walmart workers in Greensboro, North Carolina,
were trying to organize to get a living wage, it
was the city council and black ministers and black civil
rights organizations that supported them. In LA, when they're trying
to shut down the Vanni's plant was next and black
community that supported them. So in other words, people who
(12:13):
may not work in a plant will work in the shop,
will work at the store. Those kinds of community based
links are very important, and if we don't have those,
labor can't win. We're told that unions are the problems.
Unions are the takers capital, they're the makers. And so
this is beginning to change, and it comes from the bottom,
(12:35):
the very bottom of the labor for us. I'm Robin D. G. Kelly.
You're listening to be anti racist with Ibram x Candy.
In many ways, the union and the debate around the
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union has long been obviously a fraud issue, and so
you have people who don't know what to think about unionization.
And what's also clouding maybe even their picture of the
union is the police union. Oh god, yeah. I think
in many ways we have to get back down to
the basics about what a union is and what a
(13:19):
union is supposed to do. How would you sort of
respond to that person who they've heard their whole lives
indeed that unions are takers. Now they see police unions
defending cops who killed people. Right, So let's begin at
the beginning. There was a time in the early twentieth
century when there was an effort to create a police union.
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So in nineteen eighteen, police officers who were definitely underpaid,
it was definitely dangerous work. They had to pay for
their own uniforms, had to pay for everything, and they
went on strike. But the police strike of nineteen eighteen
was much closer to what we think of as a
labor strike. They had solidarity with other workers. And these
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were the days when police were sometimes taking stands against
capital in favor of labor. There were times when police
were like, you know what, these are my cousins. They
work at the plant. We're not going to go beat
them up. In other words, the police are supposed to
do the state's work in private capital's work of repressing
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labor workers. Right, they couldn't do it. And so what
happens is, by time you get to like the thirties,
more and more police officers are not only trying to unionize,
but the state everywhere local municipalities are saying, the CIO
in the AFL cannot come and unionize police because if
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they do, their loyalties will be split. So right around
in nineteen forties they said, you know what. Police officers
can't be unionized because they have to be like the military,
because you know, there's no military union, and so their
loyalties cannot be split. We tell them to beat up people,
to beat up workers, we tell them to shoot to
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protect private property. They cannot question the orders. So therefore
there's kind of anti union push. They remade the unions
as these so called benevolent patrolman's leagues and that sort
of thing, as kind of social organizations meant to protect
police officers. But what do they protect. They protect their
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right to commit violence and violate people's constitutional rights without penalty,
in other words, qualified immunities. What they're fighting for bigger weapons.
What they're fighting for the right to basically do whatever
they want to do. In the nineteen seventies had this
whole series of police strikes. Some of these strikes were
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like against pay cuts, but a lot of these strikes
were against what the increase in black patrol officers when
they started hiring black hops places like Chicago, New York elsewhere,
they like, this is bad or the other thing it
was striking against were like civilian review boards. So when
people organize and said this behavior is unacceptable, we need
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to have some kind of civilian review. They went on strike,
and see these were strikes against oversight. Strikes will allow
them to do violence work without penalcy. That is not
what a union does. And indeed, that's why they're better
known as fraternal orders, as many of them call themselves.
And I don't think it's ironic or coincidental that the
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kukux Klan was a fraternal order, and that indeed slaveholders
formed fraternal orders. And those organizations protect their members, they
shield them, they enforce the code of Silence, the thin
blue line, they enforce all that. That's what these organizations do.
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It is not about protecting workers' rights. It's not about
protecting the rights of clerical workers who work for the
department or people who actually clean up police departments. I mean,
it's about protecting perpetrators of violence. And that's what it is,
which is why they cannot be allowed to be part
of trade unions and labor organizations SCIU, you know, Service
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Employees International Union. They actually have some police unions within
their realm. And so there's a movement with an SCIU
saying you need to kick them out because they're protecting
the folks who are killing us and destroying labor organizing.
I wonder if also this current labor movement is benefiting
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from a growing critique of capital and capitalism and growing
awareness of the relationship between racism and capitalism. I would
argue that it's not so much new as researching. It's
like you could see these waves in the late nineteenth century,
for example, in eighteen seventy seven, with the official end
of instruction in eighteen seventy seven is also the same
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year as a Great Railroad strike and the same year
that Saint Louis had a commune, much like the Paris Commune,
that there was revolutionary activity among black, white immigrant workers,
and so the idea that capitalism should be replaced, the
discussions about socialism as an alternative, the idea that labor
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creates all value, all that's circulating in the eighteen seventies
and eighteen eighties. And part of the reason for the
resurgence or growth of lynching in violence was precisely because
they're putting down movements like the Greenback Labor Party, like
the Readjusters, like the Populace, like the Nights of Labor,
who are saying we need a cooperative commonwealth. Capitalism not
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working for us, and so the EBB and Flow nineteen
nineteen is a recognition in the Seattle General Strike that
capitalism and racism are not working the same thing in
the nineteen third these so the questions how does it
flow in their back And even when you think about
understanding what capitalism is, you know, we're dealing with massive inequality,
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mea mega wealth and concentration of wealth through the most
exploredive means, and in a culture where that kind of stuff,
even among our people, is valorized. It's almost like the
poor white saying one day I will have my own plantations. Yeah,
so I'm not going to challenge slavery even though it's
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exploiting me because I can be a slaveholder one day. Yes, yes,
And it's the same thing with capitalism. You know, think
about the whole hip hop support of Trump and Trumpism.
You know, it wasn't everybody. It wasn't like my friend
Boots Riley, who's been waging Warren Trump from the get go.
But people are enamored with wealth accumulation, and we hold
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up those who are the wealthiest who are black and say,
these are people, this is what's success looks like rather
than question how was that wealth produced in the first place,
how was it accumulated, Why is it concentrated? Why are
so many of us poor? And so we're at a
crossroads where there's a real ideological battle between those who say,
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you know, we need to replace it with something, whether
we call the socialism, we call it abolition or whatever,
versus those who say, we just need to get Lebron
James to give us more money. If we get that,
that will be straight. And so we've been here in
the whole history of our struggle has been this struggle
with the question of capitalism in the nineteen sixties and seventies.
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In the nineteen thirties, after World War Two, Paul Robinson
and William L. Patterson and Luis Thompson Patterson saying that
the only way to address the problem of state violence
is to a reorganization of our society and our economy.
So this is a longstanding battle which won't be dissolved
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anytime soon, but one that we always have to keep
at the forefront. I think definitely. And I don't know,
tell me if you're seeing the same thing. I'm seeing
a growing number of white Americans who are indeed recognizing
some of the problems that you just addressed as relates
to capitalism. And then there's a growing number of people
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of color who are recognizing that people of color are
not the problem, that indeed it's racism. But some of
those people of color, even though they recognize racism as
a problem, they do not see capitalism as a problem.
And even though some of those white folks who see
capitalism as a problem either argue that racism doesn't exist
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or do not view it as reinforcing capitalism in some way.
So how would you speak to both of those groups,
because what they view as the problem obviously is going
to dictate how they can see of a solution. You
hit it right on the head. There are those who
say the struggle is around labor and capital, the struggles
around class in that race is a feature of it,
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and if you deal with the class issue, then racism
will with their way. On the flip side of those
who say, you know what the problems are capitalism, the
problem really is state violence, anti blackness, and a psychological
deep hatred of black bodies without actually addressing what is
the source of that hatred in the first place, The
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fact that these bodies were sources of wealth for some
people and sources of accumulation and exploitation. To me, it's
a kind of dead end debate. I think that there
are some white folks, really good will, who actually understand
both and think about groups like Surge, you know, standing
up for racial justice. They actually keep emphasizing the racialized
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character of capitalism and that anti racism is a necessity
for all people. But an anti racism without a critique
of capitalism doesn't advance us. Some of the best evidence
for that is Spring twenty twenty, where all these corporations
came out the woodwork, including Jeff Bezos who dropped ten
(23:28):
million dollars on all these organizations, including Black Lives Matter,
including the Urban leacp ACLU. And of course ten million
dollars for him is like a penny for me, well,
not even a penny, it's like one end or something
like that. But the fact that he could drop that
money and say Black Lives Matter and entreat his employees
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the way he treats them as second class citizens, as disposable,
and so only a critique that brings together all those
elements and gender oppression and sexual oppression that sees these
things as connected can actually advance a struggle moving forward.
(24:29):
It seems to me that those who make the case
that capitalism is essentially not racist, or that capitalism is
actually an economic system that is about freedom, is about
supplying and demanding, typically their definition lends itself to them
(24:51):
describing it as a not racist phenomenon, and those who
have a different definition of capitalism but a different reading
of history talk about its intersection of racisms. Do you
find that I'm mentioning this because it is such a
struggle to talk about anything which we don't have in definitions,
which we don't have a common reading of history, in
(25:12):
which we're not willing to acknowledge facts and its material
reality exactly. And in fact, one of my concerns with
the way that the phrase racial capitalism is used is
that sometimes it's misunderstood to mean that it's a particular
type of capitalism, like there's a good capitalism and it
is racial. We can just get the racial part out.
(25:34):
It's funny because it kind of mirrors the story of
South Africa, where there's a big struggle in South Africa
about whether or not we win the political struggle. First,
we dismantle a parth aid while keeping capitalism in place.
The Freedom Charter suggested a different plant, slightly different planets
should say we have to dismantle both together. And so
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the lesson, of course in South Africa is that they
did not dismantle the capitalism part, and so that means
the racial continued. What was racial was endemic. The term
racial capitalism actually signals that race and capitalism or co constitutive,
they're made together. The ground upon which capitalism emerged initially
was one that was already based on racialized difference. And
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you know this from stamped at the beginning, which is
sitting on my shelf right behind me. Race is not
just identity, but it is a structural power, and it's
a means of structuring power through difference. Racial capitalism is
not a type of capitalism, It is capitalism. It's like
Ruth Wilson Gilmore says, capitalism is already always racial because
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of the logic of the societies in which capitalism emerges,
which is, you have differential value. I think the central
story of racial capitalism isn't always centered on say the
violence of slavery, which is true, or dispossession, which is true.
Or imperialism. But one of the secrets to racial capitalism
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or to capitalism is the capacity of capital in the
state to capture the white working class and tie its
identity to race, to whiteness, and to masculinity, and it works.
The second thing is that there's racialized boundaries delineating between
what's working what's non work. Even something as basic as
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like what's paid labor and unpaid labor. Race has a
lot to do that and gender. So you've got all
these black and brown women who do domestic work and
oftentimes do that work for very little money, and do
unpaid labor without any opportunity to be able to make
a living and survive. And then the third thing is
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that something as basic as access to land, access to resources,
access to loans, access to sustainable life, access to a
decent wage, the hierarchy is racial. The amazing thing about
it is that the racism of capitalism affects the poorest
white people terribly because they believe that their white skin
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is the one thing that makes them better, despite the
fact that any system based on differential treatment, on differential
wages means that those at the bottom get pushed even
further down. So if you're a poor white person, or
un a poor white person, the very racial structure that
you think is benefiting you keeps you down. And then
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you get even more pissed. Yes, because because you're not
treated like a legitimate white person. And then who do
you take your anchor out? Not on capital, not on
the system, not on the system that denies you healthcare,
the system that denies you a living wage. You take
it out on the black and brown people who you
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think are taking their jobs and denying you your right
to be white. Yeah, you know, we're thinking about the
struggle to unionize, the struggle to free the working class,
to empower the work people. Where should we start, Where
should we go? Where should we organize? When I vote?
Freedom Dreams Way Back is one of my favorite books.
(29:18):
By the way, thank you. I appreciate that it's like
twenty years ago. One of the points I kept hammering
home was that all the visionary ideas about what kind
of society we want to build were never created in
a think tank or from the smartest people, but through struggle,
through this constant, constant struggle to change the world. In
(29:41):
your work, you spend a lot of time talking about
policy that policy actually does make a difference in how
to be anti racist. We can't just change hearts, you
know what. We got to actually implement policy that could
have a function, And I think something is basic as
the Proact, which is legislation that restores the right to
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organize without a whole lot of disruption on the part
of employers, without doing things that once we're considered illegal.
The Proact would allow for what we call close shops.
Close shops basically means that everyone who gets the job
has to be in the union, and then your dues
are taken from your paycheck. And that's not a bad
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thing because it means that you have a strong union
that will fight for you. And so the kind of
strategies and tactics that Amazon was able to use to
basically win this election, those things would be rendered illegal
under the proactes such as a basic basic thing. I mean,
of course, we always need people to be organized and
organized and organized, but I think we're seeing organizations, We're
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seeing organizations under incredible dress still proceeding. But it's very
hard to organize in a world of social media and
atomization where people feel deep sense of alienation. You know,
when Marx was writing as young Marks, his concern was
less about capital operations and more about alienation. And that's
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what we're facing now. We have whole generations of people
who just feel alone, and when in the context of
making their statements they're critiqued or this pushback, I mean,
they just dump, you know, saying like I'm just gonna
unfriend you, I'm gonna get rid of you. So one
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of the things that we are not good at right now,
which I think is a very important tool of not
just a tool, but an ethic of organizing, is how
do we be together, argue with one another, disagree, make mistakes,
and still keep building together. I'm gonna get myself in
(31:52):
trouble for this, but I'm just gonna say anyway, you know,
I'm about to retire. So I'm so frustrated with this
idea that you dismiss every single person who doesn't have
the right language or understanding as hopelessly racists. For example.
Those are the people we got to hold onto. All
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the people who make errors, all the people make mistakes,
people whose gender politics are problematic, how do you transform
them by bringing them in the circle and struggling with them.
That's not to accept the behaviors to struggle with them.
We cannot adopt a pessimistic stands that says everybody's anti
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black and so therefore there's no possibility of alliance. So
just forget it. That is not our history. Our history
is a history of actually standing with people who don't
even like us, to build solidarity, not to give up ground,
not to allow people to run over us. And in
doing that you learn how to win. And we can't
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afford not to win because we're on the verge of
human collapse catastrophe and we need each other more than ever.
That's more of a philosophical but it's also tectical advice
about how we move forward, because if we can't do that,
we can't build a union, right, we can't. No true
words have been said. We have to treat people like people,
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people who can change, people who can grow. And indeed,
that's one of the reasons why I tried to emphasize
being anti racist as a journey, just like struggle, right
is a journey, just like organizing, and organizing takes a
tremendous amount of compassion to welcome that person in who
(33:42):
broke the strike last time, For those who haven't read
doctor Kelly's work. Do like me and read all his books.
But what you oftentimes talk about is not just the
black radical tradition, but the black radical imagination. So what
should we be imagining right now? We're actually in a
really unique position. All this talk about abolition has actually,
(34:06):
I think, really inspired a new way of imagining a
different future. And I want to emphasize that because you know,
all these terms that circulate, they always eventually get coopted.
Next thing, you know, we're going to have like Amazon
and Target talking about abolition. I just know what's going
to happen. But I'm really thinking about the work of Marimcaba,
(34:31):
of Angela Davis, of Gina Dent. In fact, Angela, Gina Dent,
Erica Miners, and Beth Richie has this new book coming
out called Abolition Feminism Now, which is probably one of
the richest expressions of what I would think of as
a black radical imagination, which imagines a world that's really
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dedicated to eradicating all forms of oppression, that there's no hierarchy,
there's no list, there's nothing off the table, ending state
sanctioned violence, replacing the police with genuine, noncarsual paths to safety,
freeing the body from constraints, protecting the earth, environmental justice
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is not something that's distinct to a particular side movement,
but that's something we're all in, ending precarity, rejecting the
very system of carcerality, and also ending capitalism and replacing
them with something else, Because any imagination without imagining a
world beyond capitalism, is not ending all forms of exportation
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and oppression. It's not genuinely abolitionists. So I'm actually probably
more enthusiastic than ever. We're in a unique place, I think,
And why are we there? Twenty six million people in
the streets, thousands coming out in the streets in Ferguson
week after week after week, thousands coming out after the
(35:59):
killing a trade of our Martin streets are filled with
people who are our thinkers. The killing of BEYONDA Taylor
produced a well spring of ideas, not just from black
people either. So I think that we're in a great moment,
a great moment. We'll see what happens. Thank you so much,
doctor Kelly. I hope people listening learned as much as
(36:23):
I did, because indeed, whenever I read you and listen
to you, there's so much to learn and gleam and
just the clarity of thought. I think it's critical in
this moment. It is mutual, and I appreciate everything you do.
And I'm so glad you got this platform, because boy,
it replaces a lot of nonsense. Yes, thank you so much. Yeah,
(36:44):
I appreciate it. I was a graduate student when I
began to understand racial capitalism. I took a history course
on the political economy of the Third World. It was
(37:07):
my first intensive study of capitalism and its history, meaning
I first learned about capitalism through studying its impact and
spread in the Third World or what's now called the
Global South. I learned about the central role of enslaving,
slave trading, and colonizing in the development of global capitalism,
(37:30):
of racial capitalism. I've been learning from scholars like doctor
Kelly ever since. But I've also learned that talking about
the racial history of capitalism can be as fraught as
talking about the racial history of America. The refusal to
speak honestly about racism extends to a refusal to speak
(37:53):
honestly about capitalism, and both extend to the refusal to
speak honestly about the role of the union in building
a racially and economically just nation. The union organizing at
the Amazon Where House in Bessemer, Alabama offers a stark
contrast to the labor organizing of the past. The new
(38:16):
labor movement in Bessemer and beyond is poised for success
because of the inclusion and leadership of an increasingly black, brown,
and female labor force. We are in a unique moment
for union organizing. Workers are learning the rules of collective
power and pushing forth to win. Though union membership in
(38:40):
the United States has declined since the mid twentieth century,
when asked, sixty five percent of Americans say they approve
of unions. Since the Bessemer vote, over one thousand Amazon
employees across the country have shown an interest in union
drives at their facilities. But you and I can support
(39:02):
union efforts in our communities. You and I can support
local and federal bills that make it easier to unionize.
But as we unionize, we must recognize the shared and
unique needs of workers across all racial groups. We must
build an anti racist labor movement that can secure victories
(39:24):
that benefit all working people. We must build the union.
We must be anti racist. Be anti racist is a
production of Pushkin Industries and Our Heart Media. It is
written and hosted by doctor Ibram's Kindy and produced by
(39:45):
Alexandra Garton with associate producer Brittany Brown. Our engineer has
been Talliday, Our editors Julia Barton, and our shore runner
is Sasha Matthist. Our executive producers are Alta Mullat and
Mia Lobel. Many thanks to Timmy Win and doctor Heather
Sandford at the Center for Anti Racist Research at Boston
University for all of their help at Pushkin. Thanks to
Heather Fame, Carli mcgleiori, John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. Can
(40:09):
find doctor Kendy on Twitter at d r Ebram and
on Instagram at ebram x K. You can find Pushkin
on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can
sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To
find more Pushkin podcast listen on the Aha Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or whatever you like to listen
Pushkin. On April ninth, two twenty one, the nation's eyes
were on Bessemer, Alabama, the scene of the latest battle
for labor rights. Officials from the National Labor Relations Board
(00:37):
began unsealing mail in ballots from three thousand, two hundred
and fifteen employees at an Amazon warehouse located in central Alabama.
The National Labor Relations Board has mailed ballots to nearly
six thousand Amazon workers will decide whether to join the
Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union. Months of multiracial organizing
(01:01):
called for a union that could secure a living wage,
job security, and safety for all workers at the warehouse.
In the end, pro union workers lost the battle for
unionization against the second largest private employer in the United
States by more than a two to one margin. Union
(01:22):
representatives filed a challenge to the results with the National
Labor Relations Board. Stewart Applebaum, the president of the Retail
Wholesale and Department Store Union, said Amazon workers felt intimidated.
What I think you saw in the results, despite the
number of people who signed cards, was a real fair
(01:44):
that they were going to lose their jobs if they
voted for the union. Fear busted up another potential union,
but it wasn't just fear. One worker asserted, Amazon is
just a game with rules learned. The rules, play the game,
move up, win. The truth is the rules are not
(02:07):
set up for most workers to win. If they were,
economic inequality would not be so widespread, there would not
be so many people working full time in still drowning
and poverty. I'm abramax Kendy, and this is b anti racist.
(02:31):
What has prevented workers from winning has not just been
union busting, fear in individualism, but racism. In the past,
some labor struggles ignored the racism faced by workers of color,
but not the campaign in Bessemer, where eighty five percent
of the workers at the Amazon facility were black. Mona Darby,
(02:56):
a poultry processing plant worker, helped lead the unionization effort.
She told The New York Times that one day, a
white man approached her and said Amazon didn't want a union,
that he didn't want her black ass on our property.
According to Darby, she responded, You're going to see my
(03:16):
black ass out here all day every day. Leaders confronted
race and racism head on as they pushed for the
labor rights of these workers. One of the leaders called
the drive as much of a civil rights battle as
a labor battle. The conjoining of the civil rights and
labor battles is as old as black labor organizing. Well
(03:40):
into the mid twentieth century, white lead unions excluded their
black peers. The racism within the labor movement compelled black
workers to form their own unions like the Brotherhood of
Sleeping car Porters, and then as the unions were desegregating
during the Civil Rights era, they were fighting for their
right to live. Over the last few decades, there has
(04:05):
been an all out attack on two of the institutions
that were most crucial to the prosperity and defensive workers
after the Great Depression, the government and the union. The
effects linger. In twenty twenty, just shy of eleven percent
of American workers were members of a union, but Bessemer
(04:26):
became the beacon for a renewed drive among American workers
to unionize. Though the union effort did not succeed, the
union is re emerging, and when the union is re emerging,
in anti racist America is emerging. Welcome to Be Anti Racist,
(04:48):
an action podcast where we discuss how to diagnose, dismantle,
and abolish racism, How to save humanity from the divisiveness
of racist ideas and the destructiveness of racist power and policy.
How to free humanity through the unity of anti racist
ideas and the constructiveness of anti ti racist power and policy.
(05:11):
On be anti Racist, we discuss how to make the
impossible possible and how to bring into being what modern
humans have never known, A just an equitable world. You ready,
Let's roll race and gender and Citizenship's status determines wages,
(05:45):
it determines employment opportunities, It determines a kind of labor
you do, whether it's skilled, unskilled, unprotected, unpaid, paid. All
this is shaped by value racial value. Historian Robin DG.
Kelly's work has been essential to analyzing the racial character
of capitalism, or what scholars are not calling racial capitalism.
(06:08):
Doctor Kelly is the Gary B. Nash Professor of History
at UCLA. He's written several books and articles that grapple
with labor rights, black radicalism, and anti racist possibilities. They
include Hammer and Hoe, Alabama Communists during the Great Depression,
and one of my favorites, Freedom Dreams The Black Radical Imagination.
(06:35):
Doctor Kelly and I sat down recently to discuss the
past present in future of the multiracial labor movement in
the United States, we had Bessemer on our minds. Doctor Kelly,
I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time.
I can't tell you what an honor is for me
(06:56):
to be talking to you. You know, I feel like
we've had a connection going way back. I feel like
I was almost at your graduation in two thousands, you know,
listening to you first, I just want to ask you
how you're feeling. You're reflecting on what seems to be
just a critical moment on the life of this nation,
(07:17):
in the life of black people, in the life of
labor organizing, in the life of so many elements of
our society. It's interesting because, you know, it gets this
question all the time, going back to Rachiard Brooks, going
back to Frederick Douglas. You must be honest, what does
it mean to live in society that pretends to be
(07:38):
a democracy and you act according to the rules, and
you still get killed, you still lose your job, you're
still broke, you still disrespect it no matter what. It's
the sort of thing that could produce a level of
pessimists in which I haven't gotten there yet. But it
also reveals that we refuse to be pessimistic. Yeah, we
(08:03):
just refuse our protests, our struggle, our resistance, our signs
that we not only can win the semblance of justice,
but we don't have a choice. We just have to fight.
Not long ago, there was just an incredible effort to
organize a union Amazon site Deep South. And obviously that
(08:29):
unionization effort was not successful. But at this point in time,
reflecting on that, how would you frame it? I see
what happened in Bessemer as a huge victory. The fact
that they could even begin to organize workers at this
highly police, predominantly black, predominant female plant in the Deep South,
(08:51):
and they had less than a year. I mean they
began organizing right at the beginning of the pandemic. That's
no time to really build momentum. Amazon spend millions of
dollars to beat back to union. But more importantly, there
was a way in which a generated solidarity not just
in the US, but around the world. All this attention
(09:14):
was on what's going to happen in Bessemer. In bringing
attention to it, people are now talking about things like
what are the labor reforms we need. You know, we're
both historians, so we know that victory and defeat never
capture what actually happens. They're just like two narrow So
(09:35):
many struggles that appeared to be great victories end up
producing reforms that actually don't advance struggle, and vice versa.
Things that seem to be defeats actually become mobilizing tools
lessons for ongoing struggle. But the one thing that's consistent
in all this is that the struggle doesn't stop. I've
(09:57):
never seen it happened where a group is defeated and like,
you know what, we'll just give up, you know, it's
not worth it. I've never seen that in history, Like
it just never happens. And that's consistent aspect of all
these struggles that we just keep moving like has been
in Harding says, you know, it's like a river. It
is fascinating because even the best summer unionization effort seemed
(10:22):
to me to also shine a light on other labor
movements that had been happening for years that nobody was
talking about, that nobody was recognizing what should people be
looking for to understand it and how should people be
seeking to support it? Right? I mean Alabama is a
(10:45):
unique place. It has a long history. We often right
off the South as reactionary, backward. There's all these epithets
that you give from liberal media in particular exactly, but
the South has been the heartland of American radicalism period. Yes,
the one place where social democracy might have actually happened
(11:06):
was in the South. I mean, Alabama has a long
history mine workers, steel workers, domestic workers, sharecroppers, and they've
been fighting back and setting a labor agenda even during
the nineteen thirties when certain categories of labor like role
workers just were not covered by the new deal, not
(11:27):
covered by National Labor Relations Board or minimum wage. And
you know, it's true that they fought. Sometimes they lost,
but they persevered. So in terms of this new labor movement,
these union efforts, I would argue are linked to an
older tradition of community based organizing because they don't succeed
(11:49):
without community support. When Walmart workers in Greensboro, North Carolina,
were trying to organize to get a living wage, it
was the city council and black ministers and black civil
rights organizations that supported them. In LA, when they're trying
to shut down the Vanni's plant was next and black
community that supported them. So in other words, people who
(12:13):
may not work in a plant will work in the shop,
will work at the store. Those kinds of community based
links are very important, and if we don't have those,
labor can't win. We're told that unions are the problems.
Unions are the takers capital, they're the makers. And so
this is beginning to change, and it comes from the bottom,
(12:35):
the very bottom of the labor for us. I'm Robin D. G. Kelly.
You're listening to be anti racist with Ibram x Candy.
In many ways, the union and the debate around the
(12:59):
union has long been obviously a fraud issue, and so
you have people who don't know what to think about unionization.
And what's also clouding maybe even their picture of the
union is the police union. Oh god, yeah. I think
in many ways we have to get back down to
the basics about what a union is and what a
(13:19):
union is supposed to do. How would you sort of
respond to that person who they've heard their whole lives
indeed that unions are takers. Now they see police unions
defending cops who killed people. Right, So let's begin at
the beginning. There was a time in the early twentieth
century when there was an effort to create a police union.
(13:42):
So in nineteen eighteen, police officers who were definitely underpaid,
it was definitely dangerous work. They had to pay for
their own uniforms, had to pay for everything, and they
went on strike. But the police strike of nineteen eighteen
was much closer to what we think of as a
labor strike. They had solidarity with other workers. And these
(14:04):
were the days when police were sometimes taking stands against
capital in favor of labor. There were times when police
were like, you know what, these are my cousins. They
work at the plant. We're not going to go beat
them up. In other words, the police are supposed to
do the state's work in private capital's work of repressing
(14:26):
labor workers. Right, they couldn't do it. And so what
happens is, by time you get to like the thirties,
more and more police officers are not only trying to unionize,
but the state everywhere local municipalities are saying, the CIO
in the AFL cannot come and unionize police because if
(14:49):
they do, their loyalties will be split. So right around
in nineteen forties they said, you know what. Police officers
can't be unionized because they have to be like the military,
because you know, there's no military union, and so their
loyalties cannot be split. We tell them to beat up people,
to beat up workers, we tell them to shoot to
(15:12):
protect private property. They cannot question the orders. So therefore
there's kind of anti union push. They remade the unions
as these so called benevolent patrolman's leagues and that sort
of thing, as kind of social organizations meant to protect
police officers. But what do they protect. They protect their
(15:34):
right to commit violence and violate people's constitutional rights without penalty,
in other words, qualified immunities. What they're fighting for bigger weapons.
What they're fighting for the right to basically do whatever
they want to do. In the nineteen seventies had this
whole series of police strikes. Some of these strikes were
(15:56):
like against pay cuts, but a lot of these strikes
were against what the increase in black patrol officers when
they started hiring black hops places like Chicago, New York elsewhere,
they like, this is bad or the other thing it
was striking against were like civilian review boards. So when
people organize and said this behavior is unacceptable, we need
(16:19):
to have some kind of civilian review. They went on strike,
and see these were strikes against oversight. Strikes will allow
them to do violence work without penalcy. That is not
what a union does. And indeed, that's why they're better
known as fraternal orders, as many of them call themselves.
And I don't think it's ironic or coincidental that the
(16:42):
kukux Klan was a fraternal order, and that indeed slaveholders
formed fraternal orders. And those organizations protect their members, they
shield them, they enforce the code of Silence, the thin
blue line, they enforce all that. That's what these organizations do.
(17:03):
It is not about protecting workers' rights. It's not about
protecting the rights of clerical workers who work for the
department or people who actually clean up police departments. I mean,
it's about protecting perpetrators of violence. And that's what it is,
which is why they cannot be allowed to be part
of trade unions and labor organizations SCIU, you know, Service
(17:25):
Employees International Union. They actually have some police unions within
their realm. And so there's a movement with an SCIU
saying you need to kick them out because they're protecting
the folks who are killing us and destroying labor organizing.
I wonder if also this current labor movement is benefiting
(17:48):
from a growing critique of capital and capitalism and growing
awareness of the relationship between racism and capitalism. I would
argue that it's not so much new as researching. It's
like you could see these waves in the late nineteenth century,
for example, in eighteen seventy seven, with the official end
of instruction in eighteen seventy seven is also the same
(18:12):
year as a Great Railroad strike and the same year
that Saint Louis had a commune, much like the Paris Commune,
that there was revolutionary activity among black, white immigrant workers,
and so the idea that capitalism should be replaced, the
discussions about socialism as an alternative, the idea that labor
(18:35):
creates all value, all that's circulating in the eighteen seventies
and eighteen eighties. And part of the reason for the
resurgence or growth of lynching in violence was precisely because
they're putting down movements like the Greenback Labor Party, like
the Readjusters, like the Populace, like the Nights of Labor,
who are saying we need a cooperative commonwealth. Capitalism not
(18:58):
working for us, and so the EBB and Flow nineteen
nineteen is a recognition in the Seattle General Strike that
capitalism and racism are not working the same thing in
the nineteen third these so the questions how does it
flow in their back And even when you think about
understanding what capitalism is, you know, we're dealing with massive inequality,
(19:21):
mea mega wealth and concentration of wealth through the most
exploredive means, and in a culture where that kind of stuff,
even among our people, is valorized. It's almost like the
poor white saying one day I will have my own plantations. Yeah,
so I'm not going to challenge slavery even though it's
(19:43):
exploiting me because I can be a slaveholder one day. Yes, yes,
And it's the same thing with capitalism. You know, think
about the whole hip hop support of Trump and Trumpism.
You know, it wasn't everybody. It wasn't like my friend
Boots Riley, who's been waging Warren Trump from the get go.
But people are enamored with wealth accumulation, and we hold
(20:03):
up those who are the wealthiest who are black and say,
these are people, this is what's success looks like rather
than question how was that wealth produced in the first place,
how was it accumulated, Why is it concentrated? Why are
so many of us poor? And so we're at a
crossroads where there's a real ideological battle between those who say,
(20:24):
you know, we need to replace it with something, whether
we call the socialism, we call it abolition or whatever,
versus those who say, we just need to get Lebron
James to give us more money. If we get that,
that will be straight. And so we've been here in
the whole history of our struggle has been this struggle
with the question of capitalism in the nineteen sixties and seventies.
(20:47):
In the nineteen thirties, after World War Two, Paul Robinson
and William L. Patterson and Luis Thompson Patterson saying that
the only way to address the problem of state violence
is to a reorganization of our society and our economy.
So this is a longstanding battle which won't be dissolved
(21:10):
anytime soon, but one that we always have to keep
at the forefront. I think definitely. And I don't know,
tell me if you're seeing the same thing. I'm seeing
a growing number of white Americans who are indeed recognizing
some of the problems that you just addressed as relates
to capitalism. And then there's a growing number of people
(21:33):
of color who are recognizing that people of color are
not the problem, that indeed it's racism. But some of
those people of color, even though they recognize racism as
a problem, they do not see capitalism as a problem.
And even though some of those white folks who see
capitalism as a problem either argue that racism doesn't exist
(21:57):
or do not view it as reinforcing capitalism in some way.
So how would you speak to both of those groups,
because what they view as the problem obviously is going
to dictate how they can see of a solution. You
hit it right on the head. There are those who
say the struggle is around labor and capital, the struggles
around class in that race is a feature of it,
(22:19):
and if you deal with the class issue, then racism
will with their way. On the flip side of those
who say, you know what the problems are capitalism, the
problem really is state violence, anti blackness, and a psychological
deep hatred of black bodies without actually addressing what is
the source of that hatred in the first place, The
(22:40):
fact that these bodies were sources of wealth for some
people and sources of accumulation and exploitation. To me, it's
a kind of dead end debate. I think that there
are some white folks, really good will, who actually understand
both and think about groups like Surge, you know, standing
up for racial justice. They actually keep emphasizing the racialized
(23:05):
character of capitalism and that anti racism is a necessity
for all people. But an anti racism without a critique
of capitalism doesn't advance us. Some of the best evidence
for that is Spring twenty twenty, where all these corporations
came out the woodwork, including Jeff Bezos who dropped ten
(23:28):
million dollars on all these organizations, including Black Lives Matter,
including the Urban leacp ACLU. And of course ten million
dollars for him is like a penny for me, well,
not even a penny, it's like one end or something
like that. But the fact that he could drop that
money and say Black Lives Matter and entreat his employees
(23:51):
the way he treats them as second class citizens, as disposable,
and so only a critique that brings together all those
elements and gender oppression and sexual oppression that sees these
things as connected can actually advance a struggle moving forward.
(24:29):
It seems to me that those who make the case
that capitalism is essentially not racist, or that capitalism is
actually an economic system that is about freedom, is about
supplying and demanding, typically their definition lends itself to them
(24:51):
describing it as a not racist phenomenon, and those who
have a different definition of capitalism but a different reading
of history talk about its intersection of racisms. Do you
find that I'm mentioning this because it is such a
struggle to talk about anything which we don't have in definitions,
which we don't have a common reading of history, in
(25:12):
which we're not willing to acknowledge facts and its material
reality exactly. And in fact, one of my concerns with
the way that the phrase racial capitalism is used is
that sometimes it's misunderstood to mean that it's a particular
type of capitalism, like there's a good capitalism and it
is racial. We can just get the racial part out.
(25:34):
It's funny because it kind of mirrors the story of
South Africa, where there's a big struggle in South Africa
about whether or not we win the political struggle. First,
we dismantle a parth aid while keeping capitalism in place.
The Freedom Charter suggested a different plant, slightly different planets
should say we have to dismantle both together. And so
(25:56):
the lesson, of course in South Africa is that they
did not dismantle the capitalism part, and so that means
the racial continued. What was racial was endemic. The term
racial capitalism actually signals that race and capitalism or co constitutive,
they're made together. The ground upon which capitalism emerged initially
was one that was already based on racialized difference. And
(26:20):
you know this from stamped at the beginning, which is
sitting on my shelf right behind me. Race is not
just identity, but it is a structural power, and it's
a means of structuring power through difference. Racial capitalism is
not a type of capitalism, It is capitalism. It's like
Ruth Wilson Gilmore says, capitalism is already always racial because
(26:40):
of the logic of the societies in which capitalism emerges,
which is, you have differential value. I think the central
story of racial capitalism isn't always centered on say the
violence of slavery, which is true, or dispossession, which is true.
Or imperialism. But one of the secrets to racial capitalism
(27:02):
or to capitalism is the capacity of capital in the
state to capture the white working class and tie its
identity to race, to whiteness, and to masculinity, and it works.
The second thing is that there's racialized boundaries delineating between
what's working what's non work. Even something as basic as
(27:25):
like what's paid labor and unpaid labor. Race has a
lot to do that and gender. So you've got all
these black and brown women who do domestic work and
oftentimes do that work for very little money, and do
unpaid labor without any opportunity to be able to make
a living and survive. And then the third thing is
(27:46):
that something as basic as access to land, access to resources,
access to loans, access to sustainable life, access to a
decent wage, the hierarchy is racial. The amazing thing about
it is that the racism of capitalism affects the poorest
white people terribly because they believe that their white skin
(28:13):
is the one thing that makes them better, despite the
fact that any system based on differential treatment, on differential
wages means that those at the bottom get pushed even
further down. So if you're a poor white person, or
un a poor white person, the very racial structure that
you think is benefiting you keeps you down. And then
(28:36):
you get even more pissed. Yes, because because you're not
treated like a legitimate white person. And then who do
you take your anchor out? Not on capital, not on
the system, not on the system that denies you healthcare,
the system that denies you a living wage. You take
it out on the black and brown people who you
(28:57):
think are taking their jobs and denying you your right
to be white. Yeah, you know, we're thinking about the
struggle to unionize, the struggle to free the working class,
to empower the work people. Where should we start, Where
should we go? Where should we organize? When I vote?
Freedom Dreams Way Back is one of my favorite books.
(29:18):
By the way, thank you. I appreciate that it's like
twenty years ago. One of the points I kept hammering
home was that all the visionary ideas about what kind
of society we want to build were never created in
a think tank or from the smartest people, but through struggle,
through this constant, constant struggle to change the world. In
(29:41):
your work, you spend a lot of time talking about
policy that policy actually does make a difference in how
to be anti racist. We can't just change hearts, you
know what. We got to actually implement policy that could
have a function, And I think something is basic as
the Proact, which is legislation that restores the right to
(30:03):
organize without a whole lot of disruption on the part
of employers, without doing things that once we're considered illegal.
The Proact would allow for what we call close shops.
Close shops basically means that everyone who gets the job
has to be in the union, and then your dues
are taken from your paycheck. And that's not a bad
(30:25):
thing because it means that you have a strong union
that will fight for you. And so the kind of
strategies and tactics that Amazon was able to use to
basically win this election, those things would be rendered illegal
under the proactes such as a basic basic thing. I mean,
of course, we always need people to be organized and
organized and organized, but I think we're seeing organizations, We're
(30:48):
seeing organizations under incredible dress still proceeding. But it's very
hard to organize in a world of social media and
atomization where people feel deep sense of alienation. You know,
when Marx was writing as young Marks, his concern was
less about capital operations and more about alienation. And that's
(31:12):
what we're facing now. We have whole generations of people
who just feel alone, and when in the context of
making their statements they're critiqued or this pushback, I mean,
they just dump, you know, saying like I'm just gonna
unfriend you, I'm gonna get rid of you. So one
(31:32):
of the things that we are not good at right now,
which I think is a very important tool of not
just a tool, but an ethic of organizing, is how
do we be together, argue with one another, disagree, make mistakes,
and still keep building together. I'm gonna get myself in
(31:52):
trouble for this, but I'm just gonna say anyway, you know,
I'm about to retire. So I'm so frustrated with this
idea that you dismiss every single person who doesn't have
the right language or understanding as hopelessly racists. For example.
Those are the people we got to hold onto. All
(32:15):
the people who make errors, all the people make mistakes,
people whose gender politics are problematic, how do you transform
them by bringing them in the circle and struggling with them.
That's not to accept the behaviors to struggle with them.
We cannot adopt a pessimistic stands that says everybody's anti
(32:36):
black and so therefore there's no possibility of alliance. So
just forget it. That is not our history. Our history
is a history of actually standing with people who don't
even like us, to build solidarity, not to give up ground,
not to allow people to run over us. And in
doing that you learn how to win. And we can't
(32:57):
afford not to win because we're on the verge of
human collapse catastrophe and we need each other more than ever.
That's more of a philosophical but it's also tectical advice
about how we move forward, because if we can't do that,
we can't build a union, right, we can't. No true
words have been said. We have to treat people like people,
(33:21):
people who can change, people who can grow. And indeed,
that's one of the reasons why I tried to emphasize
being anti racist as a journey, just like struggle, right
is a journey, just like organizing, and organizing takes a
tremendous amount of compassion to welcome that person in who
(33:42):
broke the strike last time, For those who haven't read
doctor Kelly's work. Do like me and read all his books.
But what you oftentimes talk about is not just the
black radical tradition, but the black radical imagination. So what
should we be imagining right now? We're actually in a
really unique position. All this talk about abolition has actually,
(34:06):
I think, really inspired a new way of imagining a
different future. And I want to emphasize that because you know,
all these terms that circulate, they always eventually get coopted.
Next thing, you know, we're going to have like Amazon
and Target talking about abolition. I just know what's going
to happen. But I'm really thinking about the work of Marimcaba,
(34:31):
of Angela Davis, of Gina Dent. In fact, Angela, Gina Dent,
Erica Miners, and Beth Richie has this new book coming
out called Abolition Feminism Now, which is probably one of
the richest expressions of what I would think of as
a black radical imagination, which imagines a world that's really
(34:54):
dedicated to eradicating all forms of oppression, that there's no hierarchy,
there's no list, there's nothing off the table, ending state
sanctioned violence, replacing the police with genuine, noncarsual paths to safety,
freeing the body from constraints, protecting the earth, environmental justice
(35:14):
is not something that's distinct to a particular side movement,
but that's something we're all in, ending precarity, rejecting the
very system of carcerality, and also ending capitalism and replacing
them with something else, Because any imagination without imagining a
world beyond capitalism, is not ending all forms of exportation
(35:37):
and oppression. It's not genuinely abolitionists. So I'm actually probably
more enthusiastic than ever. We're in a unique place, I think,
And why are we there? Twenty six million people in
the streets, thousands coming out in the streets in Ferguson
week after week after week, thousands coming out after the
(35:59):
killing a trade of our Martin streets are filled with
people who are our thinkers. The killing of BEYONDA Taylor
produced a well spring of ideas, not just from black
people either. So I think that we're in a great moment,
a great moment. We'll see what happens. Thank you so much,
doctor Kelly. I hope people listening learned as much as
(36:23):
I did, because indeed, whenever I read you and listen
to you, there's so much to learn and gleam and
just the clarity of thought. I think it's critical in
this moment. It is mutual, and I appreciate everything you do.
And I'm so glad you got this platform, because boy,
it replaces a lot of nonsense. Yes, thank you so much. Yeah,
(36:44):
I appreciate it. I was a graduate student when I
began to understand racial capitalism. I took a history course
on the political economy of the Third World. It was
(37:07):
my first intensive study of capitalism and its history, meaning
I first learned about capitalism through studying its impact and
spread in the Third World or what's now called the
Global South. I learned about the central role of enslaving,
slave trading, and colonizing in the development of global capitalism,
(37:30):
of racial capitalism. I've been learning from scholars like doctor
Kelly ever since. But I've also learned that talking about
the racial history of capitalism can be as fraught as
talking about the racial history of America. The refusal to
speak honestly about racism extends to a refusal to speak
(37:53):
honestly about capitalism, and both extend to the refusal to
speak honestly about the role of the union in building
a racially and economically just nation. The union organizing at
the Amazon Where House in Bessemer, Alabama offers a stark
contrast to the labor organizing of the past. The new
(38:16):
labor movement in Bessemer and beyond is poised for success
because of the inclusion and leadership of an increasingly black, brown,
and female labor force. We are in a unique moment
for union organizing. Workers are learning the rules of collective
power and pushing forth to win. Though union membership in
(38:40):
the United States has declined since the mid twentieth century,
when asked, sixty five percent of Americans say they approve
of unions. Since the Bessemer vote, over one thousand Amazon
employees across the country have shown an interest in union
drives at their facilities. But you and I can support
(39:02):
union efforts in our communities. You and I can support
local and federal bills that make it easier to unionize.
But as we unionize, we must recognize the shared and
unique needs of workers across all racial groups. We must
build an anti racist labor movement that can secure victories
(39:24):
that benefit all working people. We must build the union.
We must be anti racist. Be anti racist is a
production of Pushkin Industries and Our Heart Media. It is
written and hosted by doctor Ibram's Kindy and produced by
(39:45):
Alexandra Garton with associate producer Brittany Brown. Our engineer has
been Talliday, Our editors Julia Barton, and our shore runner
is Sasha Matthist. Our executive producers are Alta Mullat and
Mia Lobel. Many thanks to Timmy Win and doctor Heather
Sandford at the Center for Anti Racist Research at Boston
University for all of their help at Pushkin. Thanks to
Heather Fame, Carli mcgleiori, John Schnars, and Jacob Wiseberg. Can
(40:09):
find doctor Kendy on Twitter at d r Ebram and
on Instagram at ebram x K. You can find Pushkin
on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can
sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To
find more Pushkin podcast listen on the Aha Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or whatever you like to listen
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