One of the litmus tests of the consolidation of white Marxist-Leninists on the struggle against racism is their response to the day to day questions and problems, errors and weaknesses facing the organization. What do people get upset about? What do they demand action on from their leadership? What priorities do they give various political questions? What is genuinely of concern to them? If we measure the consolidation of anti-racism by this simple test we see that in relation to sexism, the struggle against racism is far down the list.
One of the manifestations of this phenomenon is the frequent hue and cry that comes from the base of the organization regarding the organization’s interest in the struggle against sexism, for this question is raised as_ if_ the organization had itself together on the struggle against racism. And at the same time we never hear this indignation, this protest about the organization’s weaknesses around racism, never! Recently many comrades have been prone to complain about the organization’s failure to develop a genuine fraction to take up work in the women’s movement. But not a single one even inquired as to whether or not the organization has established a similar form for work in the Black liberation movement. What questions concern us?
When the organization’s perception was that a serious sexist error had been committed by Sa. and was being compounded by the EC a protracted, bitter struggle erupted in the organization, a struggle that persisted for three solid months and completely paralyzed a great deal of the organization’s work. Yet not too long ago a basis existed to at least suspect that Comrade La. had made some racist errors in relation to Sm. What was the response to this? Was there a protracted struggle in the organization? Was there a demand to bring La. to task for her transgression? Comrade Sm. eventually left the EC and the organization; she returned and left again. But still not a whimper, not a sign of protest! What questions concern us?
It has frequently been raised by many individuals throughout the organization that the leadership does not give enough attention to the problems of single women, and that this reflects a sexist bias within the organization. Great amounts of thought and time are occasionally placed in speaking to this problem, both in channels and through informal discussions. Yet not once has it been raised in the context of this problem, the position of Y., the position of a single Black member of the organization. Is she invisible? What questions concern us?
Throughout the history of the PWOC there have been questions raised and struggles taken up to deal with the problem of sexism in the personal relations of our cadre, for it is correctly understood that the organization has a responsibility to intervene here when sexism is acting as a direct obstacle to the political development and political work of women cadre. Yet throughout the history of the PWOC has there ever been raised the question of racism in the context of inter-personal relationships? No, this question has never been raised. What questions concern us?
Recently the DC published an organizational report in the context of it having been reduced to an all-white body. Yet it failed to even identify this retrogressive development as a question to be spoken to and analyzed in the document. What would have occurred had the body lost all of its women members? Would there have been an analysis of this development in the Organizational report? And if not would not the rank and file demand such an analysis? What questions concern us?
Sexism is a serious problem in the PWOC requiring, in its own right, an all-sided summation and a protracted struggle for ideological consolidation. But what we are speaking to here is a definite tendency at play in the organization, a tendency to counterpose sexism and racism, a tendency to liquidate the struggle against racism in this context, and as a result a disservice is done to both. There is no better example of the racist and sexist character of this tendency than our recent experience with the struggle around Take Back the Night.
In order to really appreciate the politics of the Take Back the Night struggle it is necessary to return to its origins, for as in all ideological debates an opportunist line will always seek out and search for increasingly sophisticated covers to conceal and obscure its backward point of view. And the starting point of this struggle is A’s critique of the editorial in the TBN broadside and her call for it not to be distributed at the demonstration.
Comrade A. develops her attack along the following lines, the editorial, “counterposes racism and sexism, liquidating the struggle against sexism. . .to say that the slogan Take Back the Night is ill-conceived because of the implicit racism of the slogan is, to my mind, bending over backwards to elevate the struggle against racism over the struggle against sexism. . .Objectively speaking sexism is a primary division in the class along with racism – a division which is an obstacle to the unity necessary to forge an effective assault on the bourgeoisie. To consistently elevate the struggle against racism over the struggle against sexism – particularly when dealing with an issue such as rape (my emphasis) is to liquidate the struggle against sexism.”
What we will focus on here, and what should be clear from a reading of A’s critique is that A, not the editorial, counterposes racism and sexism; that it is A’s line, not the editorial, that is a liquidationist one, a line calling for the liquidation of the struggle against racism and through it a line that deals a death blow to the struggle against sexism as well. Moreover, A’s understanding of the relation between racism and sexism is thoroughly abstract, since it is precisely in the context of dealing with an issue such as rape that the struggle against racism must be “elevated”, for failing in this regard can only play into the hands of the police, which to us seems to be a rather strange and ineffectual approach to the struggle against sexism!
Comrade A’s view of racism and sexism is that they are two unconnected and distinct sources of “divisions in the class”. Politically speaking her approach is to place them on a scale, and if the “scale” should tilt too far toward racism, well then, the organization is liquidating the struggle against sexism. Now, looking at the editorial, its focus, its weight is in the direction of racism therefore we must be liquidating sexism. . .conclusion, don’t distribute the broadside. This is the mentality which shape’s A’s political line on the TBN editorial.
However, for the PWOC the truth is always concrete, and the concrete starting point for analyzing the TBN demonstration is not abstract “divisions in the class”, but rather the women’s movement, the organizers of the march, and the issue, the question of rape and how to wage a struggle against it. Does the question of racism have anything at all to do with the women’s movement, its strengths and weaknesses, its capacity to wage an effective struggle against sexism? Does the question of racism have anything at all to do with how one approaches the question of rape? Will racism play any role in the dynamics of struggle around this issue? Should it have any impact on one’s program, strategy and tactics in fighting sexist violence? These are the types of questions that communists should ask themselves in the context of the TBN demonstration.
The central division in the women’s movement, which the PWOC should be trying to build by its participation in actions such as TBN, the chief obstacle to its development as a powerful mass movement in the struggle for women’s liberation is not sexism, Comrade A, but racism. And particularly when dealing with an issue such as rape the struggle against racism plays a pivotal role, not only in terms of building multi-national unity in this struggle, but in relation to the objective role, that such a demonstration, around such an issue, in the absence of an anti-racist thrust, will play in a society where rape is indissolubly bound up with the ideology of racism.
For where do the police stand on the question of rape and the slogan Take Back the Night? Why, the police stand squarely behind the most stringent, the most draconian measures to return the streets as a safe haven for white women and to free them from the anxiety posed by society’s “number one menace”, the Black rapist. This is where the police stand on the question of rape and the slogan Take Back the Night!
Where do Rizzo, Green and other bourgeois politicians stand on the issue of rape and the slogan Take Back the Night? Why the bourgeois politicians stand squarely behind the most stringent, the most draconian measures, to return the streets as a safe haven for white women and to free them from the anxiety posed by society’s “number one menace”, the Black rapist. This is where every bourgeois politician stands on the issue of rape and the slogan Take Back the Night!
How has the women’s movement differentiated itself from the police and the bourgeoisie in the context of the struggle against rape? Did it plan to discuss the fact that white chauvinism has had the effect of rendering the rape of Black women invisible? Did it plan to discuss the fact that racist ideology in relation to the question of rape means that Black men cannot walk in any white neighborhood after dark free from police harassment or possible arrest? Did it plan to debunk this myth of the Black rapist and thereby deal a blow to the ideology of racism? Did the demonstration, by its program, its banners and yes its slogans differentiate itself from the police and the bourgeoisie? No, it did not! For in the absence of taking up the struggle against racism there is essentially no difference between the two positions!
Frankly, Comrade A’s line which calls for the liquidation of the struggle against racism in the women’s movement “particularly when dealing with an issue such as rape”, is completely compatible with the point of view of the police, Rizzo, and every other racist in our society. Had Rizzo been in the TBN planning committee meetings he would have certainly supported this comrade’s position. This, then, is the politics of the TBN bloc in the community cell and is one example of where counterposing racism and sexism leads some white cadre in the PWOC. And this line, it is argued, is a defense of the women’s movement and the struggle against sexism! With friends like these comrades, the women’s movement really doesn’t need any enemies.
The tendency to counterpose racism and sexism, even after the struggle around TBN, played itself out in the organisation’s effort to build, jointly with forces in the women’s movement, the recent event around International Women’s Day. And here again the absence of real clarity on this question undercut both the struggle against, racism and the struggle against sexism.
In its initial orientation to the IWD Coalition the DC adopted the attitude that since the PWOC has been guilty of ultra-leftism in relation to the women’s movement, we would have to go along, this time around, with just about anything the Coalition came up with for the IWD celebration. And by adopting this attitude the DC essentially liquidated the struggle against racism within the planning committee for the event.
Now the DC sent our representatives into the coalition meetings with clear instructions to struggle for an anti-racist content to the IWD program. But still, in the back of people’s minds, we figured that to fight our “ultra-leftism” we would participate, whatever the outcome of this struggle. Quite naturally, this placed our cadre in a rather weakened position. They could urge the coalition to take up racism, but could not say that the question was of such importance that failing to take it up would seriously question the PWOC’s continued participation in the effort. To be sure, this was our attitude in regard to “left” internationalism, for here we were crystal clear, it would mean our leaving the coalition.
Had we adopted a firm and uncompromising stance in relation to the struggle against racism we would have more than likely received a better response in the planning committee and the result would have been a balanced and politically advanced focus on racism in the IWD program. However, in the face of the flabby, liquidationist approach the program turned out to be extremely weak with respect to this question and as such did little to develop the unity and political perspective of the women’s movement.
The ideological roots of the tendency to counterpose racism and sexism is pure and simple white chauvinism, a failure to recognize in practice the primacy of the struggle against racism. Racism and sexism are viewed, not in their concrete manifestations and analyzed on the basis of the actual role each plays in the retardation of the revolutionary process, nor are they understood in their interrelationship, but instead they are seen as two equally unjust, oppressive and divisive features of bourgeois society. This abstract, racist, point of view, while not necessarily linked to feminism is entirely compatible with it. And in many of the actual struggles that have occurred in the organization, where racism and sexism have been counterposed, like the TBN struggle, feminism has indeed played a significant role.
Another tendency at play in the PWOC is racism serving to liquidate the struggle against sexism. Recently the clothing workers caucus refused to provide Comrade Y. with a ride to their meetings. Without a ride Y. would have to take a bus, subway, and trolley and then walk ten blocks to her house after eleven o’clock at night. Yet Comrade Al. did not take up a forceful struggle against sexism and racism in the caucus. She did not pose the question of Y’s safety as she would have were Y. a white woman. Even worse when Y. became angry with the caucuses refusal to provide a ride Comrade Al. criticized her for her “irrational fears” about walking the streets of Philadelphia in the middle of the night!
The “champions of women’s liberation” in the TBN bloc are kicking up their heels over the resignation of Sh. from the organization. The line here is that due to the racism of the leadership, manifested by its “unprincipled methods of struggle” Sh. was “driven out” of the organization. At one point in the TBN struggle, when L. was playing a conciliatory role there was “concern” expressed about her resignation as well. The “champions of women’s liberation” were trying to use Sh. and L. to establish their anti-racist credentials.
Sh. and L. resigned from the DC. This opened an attack on the DC’s racism. But did it ever occur to the “champions of women’s liberation” in the TBN block, and elsewhere for that matter, that L. is a woman as well? Could it have been the case that L’s resignation from the DC may have had something to do with sexism? L. was the only woman to leave the DC. Yet in the wake of these resignations few if any cadre have posed the question of sexism in addition to racism as the cause. L. is Black. This blinds white PWOC members to the fact that she is also a woman. Black woman are particularly invisible to the members of the PWOC.
And the truth of the matter is that sexism along with racism played an important part in the DC’s paternalism in relationship to Comrade L. In fact the concentrated expression of sexism within the DC developed in relation to L, precisely because she is Black. Had our comrades racism not blinded them to the fact that L. is a woman, then L’s resignation would have precipitated a discussion of the role of sexism and racism in the DC which in turn would have served to clarify the organizations understanding of sexism and its interrelationship to racism. But here again white chauvinism served to liquidate this discussion about the DC and by extension the struggle against sexism in the organization.