writes Phil Collins. "'Has it always existed or is it a more recent development?" Phil's questions are useful because - even among socialists — corruson can orren be found on what racism is.
Racism rests on the carefully-built assumption that Black people are "naturally' inferior and that this inferiority has always existed. Such a view, however, is relatively modern and only came into being with the birth of capitalist society.
The indignity and humiliation which Blacks are subjected to today - in the ghettoes of London or New York - did not exist in pre-capitalist times.
George Brietman, leading American socialist, strsses this in his pamphlet "Anti-Negro Prejudice". While showing that pre-capitalist societies were based on many forms of oppression - cultural never based on the idea of a people being considered inferior because of the colour of their skin.
Hr gives numerous examples of race relations in early slave-owning societies to prove his case. He quotes Oliver Cox on the eariy Egyptians who "looked down on the Negroes to the south of mem nev eustavea unem and souxe scornfully of them, but", Cox adds, "they were just as scornful of the Asiatic sand-dwellers of Trogdalytes who were lighter than the Egyptians".
That it was a cultural discrimination in Egypt can be seen, Cox says, by the fact that many of the Negroes who were captured in battle were allowed to enter Egyptian society and become Pharoahs themselves.
The same picture is true of all societles - irom the vieek to the koman - to the feudal era. There were divisions and antagonisms of class, culture and religion but none along race or colour lines. late as the 15th Century, when the West excuse for the enslavement of Blacks was not that they were "black" but that they were not Christian.
ROOTS Racism - the idea that Blacks were innatelv infenor - onlv began to develop at a later stage. Its roots can be traced to tne plage ana rape ol Allica ana inala in the 17th Century by the newly emerging trading nations of Britain and Holland.
These new trading nations found in the under-developed world huge profits not only in raw materials but the human beings they shipped as slaves - in their millions - to work on the cotton plantations of the West Indies. It was out of the vast profits gathered in the slave trade that the new capitalist class was able to finance the industrialisation of the 19th Century.
The process was simple. Manufactured slaves to be shipped to the United States. The ships returned to Britain loaded with the sugar and cotton produced there for the manufacturing industry. ular trade reaped millions in profits for sunobers alike.
RIGHTS Ihis barbanc trade createa, nowevel, a problem for the new trading class. Their rise to power had taken place under the banner of the "rights of man" in wnich no numan being was une property of another. It was difficult to reconcile this idea with the pillage of Africa in which Blacks were shipped like cattle to work as slaves.
The growth of racism has its roots in the attempt by capitalists to defend this barbaric system.
Africa were justified on the grounds that Blacks were "subhuman" and "naturally inferior, It was on the basis of such an ideology - backed up with pseudo-scientific trappings and Biblical quotes - that countries like Britain were able to justify the pillage of the Third World and build the "British Empire".
PRIVILEGE The anti-Black virus spread by the manufacturers and the shippers did not permeate into the labour movement easiv. During the American Civil War. for example, Lancashire cotton workers organised massive protests against slavery in the Southern States. mass actions against slavery.
Over time, however, the myth of Black inferiority - created to justify profiteering areas of society. Even though workers had no interests in colonial oppression, many began to identify with the "British Empire" and oppose the independance suruggies or colonal workcis ana peas ants.
This backward attitude on the part of the more privileged layers in the labour movement was noted by Engels in a letter of 1882 when he wrote that "'the workers merrily devour alongside them This triang- (the capitalists - Ed.) the fruits of the British colonial monopoly".
POST-WAR
the influx of Blacks into Britain since ice industries like health, catering and transport).
Slavery and the rape of LeRS basic rights: i.e. thev can be arrested unity (as seen recently in the fishing schools.
DANGER
introduce a new nationality bill. aim of this is to encourage the beliet - high unemployment, falling living standards• but by Black people.
identified by colour.
tions of the labour movement can be drawn behind a reactionary ideology.
Ior uer ownl
UNITY The Chattists led - began to seep into all the Tory government and their anti-working class policies stopped.
This ideology, however, has become particularly dangerous today because of the war. Blacks were encouraged to emigrate to Britain to fill the labour shortage that developed (particularly in servThe racism of British capitalism -created over 300 years ago - is no longоных эe нne coco e of Blacks who have settled over here. In recent years, successive immigration acts have not only tried to exclude Blacks on the basis of colour but have turned those already over here into second-class citiUnder these laws, they can be denied without a warrant and deported without right of appeal. This gives the police the "green light" to harass the Black commLeyland. such acts permeates all aspects of society Blacks are pushed into the most menial jobs, are forced to live in the worst slum MISCONDUCT housing and to be educated in the worst The present Tory government, of course, is deliberately playing on anti-Black prejudice in its tightening up of the immigration laws and attempts to The that the cause of the problems we face - is not caused by capitalism shop.
The Tories are whipping up the prejudice of centuries to try and divert atten-, RECORD tion from themselves onto a scapegoat The danger is that - because the labour leaders nave done nothing to oppose such attitudes - secFar from challenging the clamp-down on immigration, for example, past Labour governments have openly implemented racist laws. Merlyn Rees actually tightened the 1971 Immigration Act and proposed a White Paper on Nationality which the Tories have used as a mode.
Such weak-kneed attitudes have to be challenged. If they are not, the Tories gave in. will be able to split the labour movement - which wil make it easier for them to ram home their anti-labour policies. An example of what can happen was seen at Imperial Typewriters in 1973 when white workers scabbed on their striking Black brothers and - by so doing - allowed management to ram through working (Pathfinder Press) conditions which set back all workers.
A central task in stopping the Tories is to build mass opposition to their present racist immigration proposals. It 1s only if the labour movement can be won to aerenang ne ngais ol au the oppress ed that a united front can be posed to In 1976, following some of these ex-