Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line

Buffalo Workers’ Movement

Working Papers


Oppression of National Minority People

It is primarily the ruling class and its agents who benefit from the oppression of national minority people, an oppression which permeates American society. Historically, non-white minority peoples in the U.S. have faced brutal exploitation, wanton destruction and subjugation. Racism, not as just a concept or idea, but racist oppression as a fact of life. “Last hired, first fired” discriminatory employment practices, denial of membership in trade unions, the dirtiest, lowest paying, most dangerous jobs, suppression of democratic rights, intense police repression in non-white communities, unequal education, housing medical treatment, and social services, and outright racist physical attacks are all part of the reality of this racist oppression. In fact, minorities have faced a dual oppression; that of being members of the working class and an oppressed minority; yet historically they have fought back against both forms. The ideology that the ruling class promotes is that white people have it better than non-white. What this means in reality is that whites are less oppressed than non-whites. Yet their basis of oppression still comes from the same source the monopoly capitalist class. We realize that this dual oppression is a tool that only serves the ruling class by keeping us divided. Therefore we take up the fight against racism no because we want to see non-whites equally oppressed as whites, but we realize the rights of non-white people are synonomous with the struggle for the emancipation of the entire working class from capitalist exploitation and oppression. Divided and at each others’ throats, we will not take up the fight. We take up the struggle against all forms of discrimination, fight racist oppression and build class unity. We fight for the complete social, economic and political equality for minority peoples. In so doing, we strengthen the class movement against capitalist exploitation.

“Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded.” Karl Marx 1846