Racism and racist oppression exist to support and enhance exploitation, or wage slavery, the political-economic foundation of capitalism. Anti-Black racism is the basis for the oppression of Black workers in all spheres of life and, in the U.S., along with the genocide of the indigenous population, it’s also the foundation for the racist oppression and exploitation of Latin and immigrant workers. And it is the source of AT LEAST $500 BILLION in “super-profits”: that is the difference between the household income of white and Black families.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 17 million Black households in the U.S. In 2019, the median income of those families was $41,361. The median household income of white families was $70,642. If the bosses were to pay those Black families the same as white families, they would have to fork over an additional $497 BILLION, reducing the bosses’ profits by that half TRILLION dollars. [$70,642 x 17 million families = $1,200,914,000,000; $41,361 x 17 million families = $703,137,000,000] [$70,642-$41,361=$29,281 income differential per family X 17 million families=$ billion extra profit for the capitalists]
This super-exploitation of Black workers is the combined legacy of 401 years of slavery, followed by Jim Crow/KKK/police violence; enforced racist discrimination in housing, education and healthcare; exclusion of Black veterans from the post-World War II GI Bill — to name only a few examples.
With all the hypocrisy from liberals, conservatives, Democrats and even some Republicans vowing to “do something about systemic racism,” about “reforming” the cops who’ve been enforcing that racism for centuries, and with all the media editorials and politicians’ op-ed pieces decrying this beastly oppression: there is not one solitary word mentioned about that half trillion super-profits reaped from racism.
Nor are there any crocodile tears shed about the use of that racism against Black workers to drive down the wages of the entire working class, including white workers. Major economic studies (documented in Racial Inequality by Michael Reich, 1981) demonstrate the greater the racist wage differentials between Black and white workers, the worse the living conditions, healthcare, education, welfare/ public services, and labor unionization rates are for white workers also. This is another untold source of still extra profit for the capitalist exploiters.
Racism hurts and divides Black, Latin, Asian, white and immigrant workers and prevents working class unity that would fight the bosses’ attacks on our entire class. We draw on history’s countless examples of multiracial working class fightback to smash racism at its source: capitalism.
The rulers will never surrender their capitalist profit system peacefully. It cannot be reformed. It must be overthrown. The working class that is taking to the streets by the tens of thousands to oppose racist police terror must be won to see that only communist revolution — wiping out the bosses and their profits — can destroy this racist system. That is the goal of the Progressive Labor Party!