Seattle DSA Debates Its Role in the Fight for Reparations

The Main Issues

The supporters of the internal reparations resolution present the debate over the resolution as a clear-cut choice: Do you support reparations and our Black comrades, or not?

There is no question that my fellow comrades supporting the resolution are motivated by these anti-racist principles, which I wholeheartedly support. However, I believe the resolution raises more complicated issues of political analysis and strategy that do not fit so neatly into the simple binary narrative that we are either for or against financially supporting Black comrades.

My position on the internal reparations resolution has two main sides: I support the resolution’s organizational conclusion to set up a fund to support Black comrades in their political activism with DSA (the “Be It Resolved” clauses). Nonetheless, I am encouraging DSA members to vote against the resolution because I disagree with important elements of the political analysis and theory of change motivating the resolution (much of the “Whereas” clauses).

There is no doubt our Black comrades often face additional obstacles to being politically active due to the racism that pervades every aspect of US society. I am proud to have worked closely with AFROSOC comrades over countless days and nights organizing BLM demonstrations, teach-ins, and town hall meetings for the last six months. Now they are asking DSA to support them financially in this essential work. I want our AFROSOC comrades to know we’ve got their back and we’ll support them in their times of need.

I support DSA allocating significant financial resources to AFROSOC to facilitate the maximum possible political participation and leadership of Black comrades in DSA and our campaigns. It’s a priority for DSA to develop a strong base in the Black community (and other communities of color) and a politically strong Black leadership within DSA.

I also strongly support the call for reparations; African Americans absolutely deserve reparations for the horrific legacy of slavery and racism. The DSA caucus I am a member of, Reform & Revolution, wrote an article, The Socialist Case for Reparations, in the first issue of our magazine.

All that said, I believe the resolution’s argument for white working-class people to pay reparations is a mistake that will backfire against our shared struggle for racial justice. Instead, I think we should demand that the ruling class pay the reparations.

I believe socialists need to be at the forefront of fighting racism, and I think the best way to do this is by making the case that racial oppression allows the ruling class to more thoroughly exploit all workers. The US capitalist class has offered privileges to the white working class, materially and psychologically, to divide them from Black and other workers of color. But in the end this only allows the ruling class to maintain its own wealth and power through its divide-and-rule strategy.

The same is true on a global scale. We need to acknowledge that the US working class has benefited materially from imperialism and large sections of our class have politically supported racist and nationalist ideologies justifying imperialist wars overseas. While white workers have been the most influenced by these racist ideologies, it is also true that workers of color in the US benefit from cheap consumer goods made in neo-colonial sweatshops. US workers of all colors have participated in carrying out colonial wars and occupations, and have at times politically supported imperialist wars.

Is it therefore correct to view the whole US population as one reactionary mass that benefits from the exploitation of the neo-colonial world? This would represent a strategic dead end for oppressed peoples globally.

Defeating US imperialism requires, first and foremost, mass resistance by the oppressed peoples of the neo-colonial world. But a central strategy to winning this struggle is driving a wedge between the US ruling class and the US working class by making a class appeal to the working class of the US to support the struggles of the working class of the global south. The historic US defeat in the Vietnam War demonstrates the effectiveness of this intersectional class-based strategy. The resistance against the US was fueled not only by the determination of the Vietnamese people to fight to the death but also by mass rebellions within US society and within the US military.

The most effective way to fight racism, imperialism, and capitalism is to unite against our joint oppressors, the ruling classes, globally, nationally, and locally.

If socialists don’t base our strategy to defeat racism on this understanding — if instead we buy into the common idea that some workers have an objective self-interest in maintaining oppression (whether it be white workers over BIPOC workers, male workers over female workers, etc.) — we would be unintentionally handing weapons to our ruling-class enemies in their drive to divide and defeat us.

Against Class Reductionism

This does not mean I think we should reduce struggles against racism to simply class struggle like Bernie Sanders and some sections of DSA sometimes do. They argue: Let’s fight for universal programs, such as Medicare for All and tuition-free college for all, that benefit the entire working class (though disproportionately benefiting BIPOC people).

DSA should absolutely support these universal programs and continue building public support for them. But given the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and ongoing structural racism, with all their economic, legal, cultural, and psychological impacts, universal programs alone are inadequate. We need to link the fight for universal programs to struggles against racism and make specific demands to end racist policies.

This is why I fully agree with the reparations resolution when it says: “For solidarity to unite the multiracial working class, we need Black reparations.” There can be no true racial justice until the the enormous devastation and trauma that slavery inflicted on African Americans is acknowledged and the trillions of dollars that have been stolen from African Americans are returned.

Democratic socialists must put themselves clearly on the side of the struggle against racism, not just as a by-product of other (economic) struggles. The only way to win demands against oppression (like reparations), as well as universal programs (like Medicare for All), is to build a united multiracial movement. And the way to unite that movement is to support the demands of all the various oppressed groups within the working class. Socialists must support reparations as one of our demands, just as we fight on the issues that disproportionately affect other specific segments of the working class, such as expanding abortion rights and stopping transphobic bathroom bills. By fighting on all of our issues, we build solidarity, we weave together a wider working-class movement, and we increase our collective power and ability to win.

DSA will most effectively attract new BIPOC members and deepen our roots in BIPOC communities by waging campaigns and struggles that win gains for BIPOC communities. Similarly, a key task is actively supporting wider anti-racist struggles while building a clear socialist wing within them. For example, our BLM march on the mayor’s mansion of over 1,200 people, our teach-ins, and town-hall meetings succeeded in adding pressure on City Hall to defund SPD, and thereby attracted new BIPOC members to DSA.

How Can We Win Reparations?

When people hear the argument for reparations to overcome the legacies of slavery, segregation, and ongoing structural racism, they generally understand that we mean a significant redistribution of wealth and power — as they should. To have the best chance of uniting the working class in the struggle for reparations, it is vital to make clear that the capitalist billionaires should pay the reparations.

The AFROSOC comrades’ resolution argues for “implementing a symbolic and materially meaningful internal reparations program for Seattle DSA” by redistributing Seattle DSA dues and donations toward a Black Reparations Fund where “[a]ny Black DSA and/or Black AFROSOC member can apply for funds.”

While the resolution argues that the responsibility for paying reparations lies ultimately with the ruling class, it also suggests that white workers should pay as well: “Reparations is a principle that targets global capitalism and the capitalist State as ultimately responsible for this harm but also seeks to repair the harm done by members of the white working class, which has actively participated in and benefited disproportionately from racist and anti-Black institutions set up under racialized capitalism.”

Because I believe DSA should work on building popular support for reparations, I think it is a fundamental mistake to suggest that the white working class should pay for them. This approach simply will not succeed and will lead our movement into a dead end.

Any policy of reparations paid by the state — whether it’s the city, state, or national government — would require raising significantly more tax dollars. But a central question is: who do we say should have to pay those taxes? Socialists argue that vital social programs like schools and public transit should be paid for by taxes on the rich and big corporations, not through sales taxes or other taxes that fall disproportionately on working people.

This is not simply because, from a moral standpoint, we think the rich should pay their fair share. Crucially, we argue against regressive taxation from a strategic standpoint: the more our movements call for raising taxes on already squeezed working-class families to pay for progressive social programs, the more right-wing forces are able to split the less politically conscious sections of our class away from our social movements, and erode support for those progressive social programs.

With a determined campaign, I think it’s possible to win a majority of working people, starting in cities like Seattle, to support reparations, but only if we make absolutely clear that we want big business and the rich, not working people (which includes a majority of people of color), to foot the bill.

Racism and Capitalism

What political strategy people think is effective is often rooted in our world view about the source of the social problem and what we think the solution is.

I believe that, as long as we live in a society dominated by a tiny capitalist ruling class, they will inevitably need to rely on and reproduce racist attitudes and behavior to divide the working class and to continue their super-exploitation of the global South, women workers, and the most oppressed sections of the workforce. Right-wing capitalist leaders like Trump will continuously rely on promoting racism to try to convince white workers that, despite living without guaranteed health care or good housing, they can at least feel superior to Black people. And they will try to convince white and Black workers that Latino immigrants are taking their jobs, Muslims are spreading terrorism, etc.

But it’s not only Republicans. The corporate Democrats use racism to carry out their agenda, too, albeit to a differing degree. For example, the Obama-Biden administration deported more undocumented immigrants than any other administration, and carried out numerous racist, imperialist wars in the Middle East to increase US access to oil, profits, and power.

The capitalist mass media constantly reproduces racist, nationalist images and narratives that divide the working class. And as long as the capitalist system remains in place, profit-driven corporations will continue to have a vested interest in super-exploiting immigrant labor, prison workers, and other workers of color.

We can and must fight specific racist policies like massive police budgets, but we have also seen that the police murders will just continue unless we uproot the capitalist foundation upon which racism feeds. Overthrowing capitalism would remove the main social group — the ruling class — that has a vested interest in constantly promoting and reproducing racism. Only a mass working-class revolution will open the door to building a new society of, by, and for the exploited and oppressed majority based on solidarity and democratic control of resources.

I believe we must base our efforts to eradicate oppression on some key Marxist ideas:

• Abolishing the economic foundation for the material, cultural, and ideological production and reproduction of racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression requires overthrowing the social system of capitalist rule and the social relations it generates.
  
• The united multiracial working class is the only social force that has the power and the interest to overthrow the ruling class and its system of capitalism.
  
• The working class can only achieve enough unity to play its role as an agent of revolutionary change through an all-out struggle against racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression. The idea that we could somehow unite the working class without openly addressing issues like racism and sexism that divide the working class will simply not work. Trying to reduce all struggles to simply “class struggles,” failing to confront racism and other forms of oppression, will not succeed in building a revolutionary working-class movement that is capable of carrying out a root-and-branch abolition of exploitation and oppression and creating an egalitarian, liberated society.

Enemies and Friends in the Fight for Racial Justice

When I have argued against the resolution because it calls for the white working class to pay reparations, comrades have responded that white workers should pay because they have “benefited from racism.”

This brings to mind an insightful quote by Dr. Martin Luther King from his speech at the famous march from Selma to Montgomery (March 25, 1965):

If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the Black man. And he ate Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.

I think it is necessary to distinguish between the oppression carried out by the capitalist ruling elite — who continuously and consciously inject racist, sexist, ableist, etc., ideas and policies into society, because it is in their interest — and the racist actions carried out by working-class people that reinforce the ruling class’s system of racial oppression, despite these actions undermining their real interests.

There are of course working-class people who do the ruling class’s dirty work. Revolutionary socialists think of the working class as usually politically divided between (1) conservative sections that actively support the ruling class, (2) politically advanced sections that are class-concious, anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc., and (3) a middle section that vacillates between following the lead of the conservative or advanced sections depending on events and the course of political struggle.

The more conservative sections of the working class include strike-breakers and workers who join the police. The most extreme minority join groups like the Proud Boys or the KKK and engage in violent terrorism against people of color. But even progressive sections of the working class who consciously reject racism are not immune from less overt forms of racism.

Marxists believe white workers face a choice: Do they prefer to be less exploited than Black workers at the cost of empowering a system that exploits us all? Will white workers defend the current social hierarchy that places them above communities of color so they can cling to their privileges (privileges which are meager for poor whites)?

Or can we win them over — at least a majority of them — to join the social movement that will objectively benefit them, where they have so much to gain and so little to lose? Will they stand up for, and alongside, workers of color to build the multiracial solidarity needed to win any serious reforms from the ruling class?

The US working class (including workers of color) faces a similar choice: will they support imperialism or the struggles of oppressed peoples in the global south? Male workers face a similar choice in relation to female and gender minority workers. Straight workers face a similar choice in relation to LGBTQ+ workers, and so on.

There is no doubt that the ruling class has succeeded in convincing key sections of the white working class to buy into racist ideas and the racial hierarchy. (And we shouldn’t forget that there are also complex oppressive dynamics among Latino, Black, and Asian workers as well.) One reason that racism is an effective tool for the ruling class is because it creates a social base of support for their rule by placing white workers in a better position compared with workers of color, creating the illusion that the former would stand to lose out if the status quo of racial capitalism were disrupted.

But whether white working-class people realize it or not, racism is not objectively in their interest. Shining a light on this reality is one of the keys to our collective liberation.

The best traditions of Marxism have argued for using this contradiction between many white workers’ “false consciousness” and the objective reality of injustice in their lives to try to break a majority of them from racism, and convince them to join the struggle for our collective liberation.

Socialists and the forces fighting for Black liberation will not be able to win substantial change if the ruling class succeeds in maintaining its ideological grip over the majority of white workers. To win we need a majoritarian strategy as opposed to an approach which accepts our marginalization. Given the racial makeup of US society, there is no avoiding the task of winning over substantial sections of white workers in addition to many workers of color to a common struggle.

Marxists do not turn a blind eye to the widespread political confusion within the working class, including ideas which perpetuate ongoing oppression. We fully recognize that under the normal conditions of class society (i.e. outside of revolutionary situations), the dominant ideas in society will be the ideas of the ruling class. This ideological domination by the ruling class means the majority of the working class often buys into and reproduces the ideas that reinforce their own exploitation.

This is a central reason why Marxists base our revolutionary strategy on the central role of mass collective struggle. History has shown again and again that, in the course of mass struggle, the multiracial working class can revolutionize their own consciousness on a mass scale. For example, the recent mass uprising for Black Lives, which involved huge numbers of white youth and workers, was enormously impactful in beginning to shift mass consciousness around the deep structural character of racism in America.

This transformation of consciousness is often the most important outcome of mass movements. And it is only on the basis of a revolutionary transformation of the working class that they can become “fit to rule” society (to use Marx’s phrase) in an emancipatory socialist fashion. The 1960s was the last wave of radical mass struggles that tremendously shifted consciousness. Now it seems the working class and the left are beginning to move back into struggle.

Intersectionality of Race and Class

How does the intersection between race and class function? Different understandings of how and for what purpose they function lead to very different conclusions for what politics and strategy are necessary to win Black liberation.

It would be false to reduce all struggles against racial oppression to the class struggle. Likewise, it would also be mistaken to lose sight of the way that a class-based society impacts the struggle against racism.

The struggle against racism and the struggle against economic inequality are not the same struggle, although they do interact. It is often a challenge for organizations fighting racism and economic inequality to bring these struggles together. But in the end, these struggles are inextricably intertwined; the only lasting solution is for the multiracial working class to overthrow the ruling class because their capitalist system requires and constantly reproduces racism.

The working class will not succeed in putting an end to capitalism if it does not fight prejudice, discrimination, and oppression within its own ranks. The whole working class should defend any section of the working class that is under attack.

Likewise, the movement against racism will not be effective if it does not address the class conflict either. Within the BLM movement, there are contradictory class forces. There are groups and leaders who center the interests of the Black working class. At the same time, there are others who fight for demands that empower Black capitalism, redistribute wealth first and foremost to Black small business owners, prioritize Black politicians, and so on.

We should collaborate with Black pro-capitalist forces wherever possible to fight racism and oppression together. However, we will not always agree with their program or strategy. Socialists should advocate a program that centers the interests of the Black working class within the movement for Black liberation and link this with a strategy to unite the wider multiracial working class in struggle.

I do not agree with the resolution’s use of the phrase “white political will” when describing the end of the Reconstruction era. There is/was not one classless “white political will.” What people sometimes call the “white community” is in reality divided along class, gender, and other lines. A classless approach conceals the reality of class conflicts that intersect with the struggle for Black liberation.

The resolution also argues:

As organized labor and socialists rose in prominence in the late 19th century, they failed to go beyond platitudes about working class unity and didn’t prioritize the needs of Black workers, which manifested as anti-Black racism within the working class. This failure to build trust and solidarity with Black workers has persisted in organized labor and socialist organizations, resulting in relentless harm to Black members of the working class in both the 20th and the 21st centuries.

This statement presents a simplistic, exaggerated picture. While it is true that many labor organizations acted in a racist fashion to protect white workers at the expense of workers of color, it is also true that many Black workers proudly built unions which have improved their conditions significantly.

It is true that some socialists “failed to go beyond platitudes about working class unity and didn’t prioritize the needs of Black workers.” This is particularly true of reformist socialists in contrast with most (though not all) revolutionary socialists.

However, the comrades ignore that the Communist Party built a powerful base among African American workers by championing the unique needs of the Black working class, for example, through successful campaigns against lynchings. The comrades’ resolution also ignores the history of the Black Panther Party, which espoused revolutionary socialist ideas and had strong roots in the Black community. Nor is the major role of socialists in the civil rights movement acknowledged.

As the Black Marxist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes, “it is an odd charge that Marxism is incapable of comprehending the racialized nature of capitalism, while simultaneously becoming the politics that led the vast majority of non-white national liberation movements in the 20th century. The critique of Marxism also minimizes the extent to which Black revolutionaries and the Black struggle itself shaped and impacted the trajectory of Marxist thought.”

Taylor argues “despite the anti-Marxist slurs from academics and even some who consider themselves part of the left, the idea that Marxism has been on the outside of the struggle against racism in the U.S. and around the world defies history and the legacy of Black revolutionaries who understood Marxism as a strategy for emancipation and liberation.”

The resolution argues that “many Seattle DSA events and Seattle DSA members perpetuate and replicate structural white supremacy and actively do harm” [Emphasis added by Ramy]. While there is truth in this statement, I believe DSA is first and foremost an anti-racist organization that is contributing to and supporting the BLM movement, immigrant rights, etc. DSA is an important part of the solution in the fight against racism, and it has a critical role to play in building a successful struggle for Black liberation, abolishing ICE, etc.

DSA is imperfect with shortcomings that need to be addressed — absolutely, no doubt. All organizations, including anti-racist organizations, in a racist society unconsciously reproduce racism. We should take very seriously the important work of raising DSA comrades’ anti-racist consciousness, and we can do so within the framework of understanding DSA as an organization committed to and actively participating in anti-racist struggles.

Prioritizing Mass Campaigns to Change Society

As I mentioned earlier, I fully support using a significant section of DSA resources and finances to support AFROSOC and help Black comrades overcome barriers to maximize their political participation in DSA. In addition, I think DSA should actively campaign to win Black reparations from the ruling class through outward-facing campaigns.

This could start with a ballot initiative in Seattle next year to tax large corporations to fund programs for racial equity in Seattle schools or other social services for Black communities. We should also call on other left and working-class organizations, like unions, to mobilize their resources to wage a struggle for reparations and other structural reforms, all to be paid for by big business.

When other comrades and I have raised the idea of DSA launching a campaign to make big corporations pay reparations to Black Seattleites, some DSA comrades have expressed skepticism about whether it’s politically viable to convince a majority to vote for such a ballot initiative.

This is related, in my view, to the current challenges facing the wider BLM movement. This summer saw the biggest protests since the civil rights movement of the 1950s-1970s, providing great hope, and achieving some impressive victories. Polls indicated that the BLM movement had generally won the sympathy of a majority of the public. However, since autumn the movement has ebbed significantly.

In Seattle, BLM activists have been trying to sustain daily demonstrations, but they keep getting smaller because it is nearly impossible to maintain daily demonstrations for so long. BLM activists have been expressing frustration — understandably, but, in my view, mistakenly — directing their anger at white progressives who they shame for not attending daily demonstrations.

The anger among BLM activists is absolutely justified, because cops keep murdering Black people and the pandemic and economic crisis have disproportionately devastated BIPOC communities. But I think attacking supportive working-class supporters is the wrong target for that justified anger. Instead, I think we need to unite BLM supporters and all working-class people and direct our anger at the ruling class and their politicians who are ultimately responsible for police brutality.

When social movements encounter obstacles, they often turn inwards and seek explanations within the movement for why the path forward seems blocked. I am concerned that understandable frustrations with the temporary ebb in the BLM movement have contributed to the rise of the proposal for DSA to pay reparations. I worry that a certain skepticism about the viability of mass struggle has contributed to comrades turning inwards to try to find a seemingly easier way to make social change. And I hate to say it, but as your comrade trying my best to be an honest friend, I feel obligated to say that calling for white working-class people and DSA to pay reparations will actually make it harder, not easier, to change society.

One way we could overcome the lull in the Seattle BLM movement would be to explore a mass ballot-initiative campaign to tax Amazon and other large corporations to pay reparations to BIPOC communities. With Black leadership and Seattle DSA pledging its full support, I think we should try to form a BIPOC-led coalition, and I think we could raise a ton of money, activate thousands of people, hire Black organizers, and help rebuild the Seattle BLM movement. If we fight with an effective strategy of targeting big business to pay reparations, a Seattle ballot initiative would have a fighting chance of winning, or at least we would help raise consciousness and strengthen the BLM and reparations movements.

By prioritizing these kinds of mass campaigns to change the racist power structures of society, DSA will be far more successful in combating white supremacy.