Sep 19, 2010
The thousands who united on Sept. 11 to say no to the Tea Party and its
racist allies have given a new impetus to the anti-racist and workers’
struggle. They faced a right-wing opponent with a month’s head start, big
funding and enormous media publicity. But they stood strong to defend their
Muslim sisters and brothers and confront the hate-mongers, resisting pressure
from the government and corporate media. In the end, they outnumbered and
out-shouted the elements who follow Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich and their ilk.
Even the rightist New York Post had to admit that the anti-racists
out-organized the right-wing gang.
What next?
We raise this because this is no time to sit back and relax. It was one
battle in a long class struggle. The Tea Party has been organizing for more
than a year. These racist reactionaries hope to capture the anger and anxiety
over the capitalist economic meltdown to mobilize first against the Obama
administration and then against any progressive social programs still in place,
from Social Security to the right to an abortion.
Those who came out in solidarity on Sept. 11 — in New York, in
Gainesville, Fla., and elsewhere — have two big opportunities in the
coming weeks to keep up the momentum. These are opportunities to inject the
same enthusiasm, the same determination to combat racism, the same desire to
maintain political independence from the capitalist political parties that we
all showed in force on Sept. 11.
The first action is the “One Nation Working Together” gathering
in Washington, D.C., set for Oct. 2, called by the NAACP and Service Employees
Local 1199 in early July. It has received support from many community and union
organizations. Like similar actions that took place at the end of August in
Washington and in Detroit, it will raise broad demands for a massive jobs
program with equal justice and quality public education for all. It will be
important both to support the general anti-racist and pro-jobs thrust of the
action and to also bring to the tens of thousands of participants a program
that is independent of the Democratic Party.
The next action takes place just five days after that Saturday in
Washington. It’s an initiative of youth, students and educational workers
of all types, building on the successful action of last March 4. The action is
set for Oct. 7, again to mobilize across the United States for local actions,
and it has drawn even more support from student, community and union
organizations to defend and improve both the quality of public education and
the access to education for working-class students and students of color.
The forces that came out on Sept. 11 have a role to play at these two
actions: first, to build them in the general struggle for anti-racist
solidarity; next, to inject into them the militant, combative spirit and
opposition to U.S. imperialist wars that has already dealt a blow to the
reactionaries. Doing this will surely elevate the struggle for all
workers’ rights.
