"One thing is evident. None of the president have much to say about the real problems facing Blacks and working people
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ting the Black community twice as hard as the population as a whole. The reason is simple—the institutionalized racism that is woven into the fabric of our society prevents full equality.
National Policy Institute
Not surprisingly, the self-proclaimed Black leaders-elected officials and the heads of traditional civil rights groups—are all talking about how to alleviate the eco nomic crisis in the Black community. These leaders' main base is in the Black community, even if more and more of them are professionals and live a middle-class existence.
On Jan. 22-25, these leaders will meet at the Sixth National Policy Institute (NPI) in Washington, D.C., to discuss the crisis in the Black community. They plan to focus on the issues of education, healthcare, and drug abuse. More than 500 Black elected and appointed officials are expected to attend.
The NPI is sponsored by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (a Black think tank based in Washington), the Congressional Black Caucus, and six national organizations representing Black elected officials.
Eddie Williams, president of the Joint Center, says: "The further advancement of Black America is being stymied by the scourge of drug addiction and inadequate access to quality education and affordable healthcare. Until there is a national commitment to address these problems, many African Americans will be denied full access to the American dream-but the nation will pay dearly in terms of lost opportunities to strengthen the economy and to achieve a better quality of life for all Americans."
Williams's on to achieve the "American dream." The problem, however, is that no working people-let alone Blacks-are able to reach that objective.
Jesse Jackson bows out More and more, the Black leadership seeks to integrate Blacks into the two-party system and the state apparatus. This "solution" leads to more class and social divisions in the Black community, where the middle class (a growing sector) is less in touch with the vast majority of Black working people.
Non-voting Washington, D.C., Statehood Senator Jesse Jackson is aware of this problem. He seeks to bridge the gap between his middle-class supporters and the Black community to get them to believe it is possible to achieve the "American dream."
In 1984 and 1988, Jackson ran for president as a Democrat on a platform appealing to the oppressed and working poor. In 1992, he has decided not to run. Yet his goal remains the same-to organize Blacks and other workers into the Democratic Party.
As head of the National Rainbow Coalition, Jackson says he will run delegates for the Democratic Convention to push his liberal program for "the forgotten Americans." His goal is a "Democratic president" by the year 2000.
Instead of calling on Blacks to march for jobs and full equality—as his mentor, Martin Luther King Jr., did in the 1960s—Jackson sees himself as a mainstream Democrat speaking for all of the party. He is in agreement with the other Black officials that the "American dream" is possible under capitalism.
Ron Daniel's campaign
Ron Daniels is the former deputy campaign manager of Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign and the former executive director of the National Rainbow Coalition. Now Daniels has announced that he is planning to run as a third-party presidential candidate in 1992.
"Unless a third force or new political party emerges on the left to counter the danger that David Duke represents," Daniels explains, "this nation will be consumed by the politics of race for the come about by doing more than talking to the president and Congress. That's why he marched and protested until the laws were changed.
Politics for Blacks, as for the working class as a whole, are not simply a question of which candidate or party to vote for in November. Voting is not the most important aspect of politics. It is the action taken outside of the ballot box that is decisive in determining what the ruling Democrats and Republicans (who represent the owners of big for the How the White House and Congress big business) do.
attack civil rights, women's rights, and the rights of labor is not pre-determined by a scheme. By means of independent political action—mass demonstrations and picketlines, etc.—we can force them to grant us concessions.
Malcolm X lived the same time as King and was assassinated three years before King's 1968 murder. Malcolm's main contribution to the fight for Black liberation was his clear and revolutionary explanation that the source of racism and the oppression of Black people is the system itself.
He explained that the Democrats and Republicans were the flip side of the same coin. He said that it would require mass political action by Blacks (a minority) based on a program of unity, solidarity, and independence to win the support of all working people in the common battle against big government and the rich.
As part of the political vanguard, Blacks need to create a new leadership for themselves and for working people in general. That's what must happen in the 1990s for racism and ultra-rightism to be defeated, for Blacks to make advances toward full equality and self-determination, and for the working class as a whole to chart a course of independent political action.