Amis, a leading Black Communist in the 1930s, here as Secretary of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and editor of The Liberator, on the need to combat white chauvinism within the Communist movement.
‘Fight Against White Chauvinism’ by B.D. Amis from The Daily Worker. Vol. 7 No. 295. December 10, 1920.
The majority of Negro toilers after hearing our program for full equality and the right of self-determination of the Negro majorities in the Black Belt, readily agree that our line is correct. The establishing of a correct political line on the Negro question and our efforts to put this line into application has brought under our influence thousands of Negro toilers. But there is sharp disparity between our influence and our organizational advances. It is well to make a thorough examination and discover some of our weaknesses.
We are agreed that our political line is correct. But have we positively convinced the Negro toilers of this fact? Do they believe that we are sincere? Have we energetically attempted to eradicate their distrust? Have our enlightenment campaigns among the white and Negro workers been sustained and persistent? To these questions we must give the negative answer, No!
The existence of such burning questions give concrete evidence for the cause of such alarming disparity and suspicion. One of the most fundamental reasons for this condition is white chauvinism. This vitriolic, capitalist, venom as yet pervades the minds of vast sections of the white American working class and can be found in a semi-dormant stage among few Party members, union members, and sympathizers.
Bourgeois Prejudice in Action
Recently, several Negro workers attended a dance at the Finnish Workers Club in New York. The presence of these dark skinned workers was objectionable to certain non-class conscious elements. An attempt, on the part of these hooligans, was made to eject the Negroes. In a mild manner their plans were thwarted and the Negroes remained.
In the Lithuanian Cooperative restaurant in Chicago this “white superiority” cropped out in a bold manner, at the unemployed workers convention. The “comrades” of the restaurant refused to feed the Negro delegates, giving as the pretext that it would hurt their business. They suggested and did give to the Negroes money in order that they could eat somewhere else.
At the Russian Cooperative restaurant in Gary a stubborn policy was carried thru in refusing to employ Negro workers. One was hired, but at a meeting of the board a vote was taken and the majority vote of the white chauvinists discharged the worker.
Also in this same city it is reported that the Party section organizer slandered and ridiculed the Negro leadership in the Y.C.L. This organizer made statements that Negro work is no more important than any other kind of work and that Negro comrades should only do Negro work. He gave the vicious lie that Negro comrades in Gary joined the Party for special privileges and accused them falsely of importing white girl comrades from Chicago for a dance.
In the Needle Trades Union, the officialdom fails to recognize the necessity of doing special work among the 15,000 Negro needle trades workers in New York. In some of our union shops, Negro workers receive lower wages than the whites for the same kind of work, but the shop committee does not think it important to pull a strike and fight for equal pay for equal work for the Negro union members. Our comrades stated that the Negro workers are not discriminated against in the industry, they only receive lower wages.
Methods of Work
Such crass manifestations of white chauvinism create Herculean obstacles that rightfully cause the Negro toilers to be suspicious of the white Communists, our program and unions and remain on the fringe of the movement. We have not conducted a broad and intensified educational campaign in our press and organizations. Our best efforts have been all too feeble. It has been stated that we have not jumped at the throats of these one hundred per cent Americans. There is no place in the movement, Party and unions, etc. for such elements, who by their action contribute to the support of American capitalist oppression of the Negro masses.
It is not enough to pass resolutions of protest a week later, after the deed is done and the culprits have gone someplace else to continue their dirt. It is insufficient to have a Negro speaker come later to speak on the Negro question and thunderously applaud him. Mild criticisms and slow action to condemn white chauvinism do not demonstrate to the Negro toilers that we are sincere in assuming the hegemony of the Negro liberation movement.
But at the time the act is committed, the Communists and members of the revolutionary trade unions must openly brand and expose those one hundred per centers. We must conduct a tenacious, systematic, and consistent fight against this Yankee arrogance, which combined with social antagonisms creates special forms of national and social oppression under which the Negro masses endure great hardships.
The Communists attending the Finnish dance, should have instantly stopped the dance and exposed the racial chauvinism which is capitalist ideology deeply rooted in the American working class. A thirty minute educational talk should have been given, denouncing the rowdies and calling upon the workers to pass a protest resolution to be published in the Finnish press and other press. Wide circulation could have been given the resolution. Many protest meetings should have been held condemning bourgeois prejudices and hooliganism. These same tactics should have been applied in the Lithuanian and Russian Co-operatives.
Our leadership cannot retain polluted functionaries. Unless they make a sincere repudiation and energetically set about to purge themselves of bureaucratism and white superiority, they must be expelled. Words of confession mean little, but daily deeds and actions will convince and win the Negro toilers to struggle with the white class conscious proletariat for full equality. In the Party and press these functionaries must be exposed. A persistent barrage must be directed against them. They should be placed on trial before a workers’ court and ruthlessly prosecuted by white and Negro workers. At mass meetings of the workers these elements must be stigmatized for what they are. Special series of meetings discussing the subject must be held.
Role of Negro Masses
Only such methods of work will win the Neg toilers for our revolutionary unions and Party, thereby closing the gap between our tremendous influence and organizational gains.
The Negro masses are a huge reservoir of dynamic revolutionary material. If we fail to realize this, we fail to understand the class struggle and the important role that these potential allies of the white revolutionary proletariat will play.
We fail to see the growing resistance of the black toilers throughout the world. Our task is to assist them in their efforts to gain freedom. We must help mould this revolutionary upsurge into a fighting confederacy of white and Negro workers for the great struggles that lurk in the near future. We must destroy white chauvinism, branch and root, to achieve this aim.
The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.
PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n295-NY-dec-10-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
