Hidden Figures is being hailed as an anti-racist, anti-sexist film. While it presents some of this, it is inevitably a capitalist movie that does not truly challenge the systemic racism and sexism faced by the main characters or by workers today. Hidden Figures follows the struggles of a group of Black women mathematicians working for NASA during the U.S.’s race to beat the Soviet Union in space travel.
Hidden Figures is mainly a story of celebrating exceptional individuals. This individualism is typical of the ruling class’ culture—a feel-good movie meant to have the working-class feel like things have gotten better. It’s supposed to show that though there was racism in the U.S.’s history, through struggle by carefully selected icons, it’s a better place now. Celebration of mass fightback against systemic racism and sexism is too dangerous because they are crucial to the survival of capitalism! So instead we are given individuals to celebrate, and are convinced that a few people “making it” means racism and sexism are conquerable under this system.
The women of the film are themselves not concerned with joining the antiracist Civil Rights movement or “bringing others up with them.” Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) criticizes her husband for letting their children watch news coverage and steers her kids away from a street corner demonstration. The husband’s ideology of being active and directly fighting racism wasn’t embraced by the film—it was painted as one of the dangers the protagonists fought against. But in reality it was mass struggle of hundreds of thousands of anti-racist workers of all races fighting together that led to the end of legal segregation.
The women complain about their unequal treatment on the job and in education, but they don’t organize against this, they fight to get something for themselves. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) fights to get into an all-white course so she can apply for a promotion, but it is an exception just for her. Despite this aversion to struggling as a group, she later steals a library book on computer programming that is only available to whites and uses it to teach herself and the other black women how to program so that they can use the new computers NASA is bringing in.
Overall, the film accurately depicts the racism of the white workers and bosses at NASA. One boss, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), does have a “white savior” moment when he tears down a “colored only” bathroom sign but he makes it clear that desegregating the bathrooms is strictly for productivity purposes. Until then, the Black women had to go across campus to get to the bathroom—their boss only acts in the name of extracting as much work out of these women as possible.
This also reflects the nationalism pushed in the drive to “beat” the USSR. The USSR, though at that time returning to capitalism, still inspired mass struggle around the world against racism and imperialism. Anticommunism and nationalism are the only things in this movie that lead to any of the characters acting antiracist. One of the opening scenes has the three main characters stranded on the side of the road. Dorothy is trying to get their car running, when a cop pulls up and they frantically get themselves together in hopes that the cop won’t harass or arrest them. The women convince him that they work for NASA by showing their official IDs. The cop gets patriotic, saying “we have to get a man up there before the Commies do.”
Once the car is repaired, he gives them a high-speed escort to work. Anti-communism and nationalism wins over even racist cops in the Jim Crow South.
Hidden Figures shows these small wins for individuals as though they are victories for all—a sign of the end of racist and sexist oppression, and yet schools are more segregated now than they’ve ever been, police murder working-class Black and Latin youth with impunity, and the U.S. President is an open racist organizing the state apparatus to hunt down our undocumented working class brothers and sisters.
There’s still a lot to like about Hidden Figures and it provides a basis for discussion of racism and sexism, and how workers can fight back. The fact that women, particularly Black working class women, were able to accomplish what they did is a statement of what the working class is capable of, though in the film there is no class analysis. Under communism we would tell the stories of collective struggle against sexism and racism and not hold up exceptional individuals as the answers to our problems.

Los Angeles, CA—Members of Progressive Labor Party, with our coworkers and friends, spent the weekend at a cadre school with the theme, “It’s Not Just Trump, It’s Capitalism!” (see letters, page 6).
The weekend kicked off with a rich discussion of political economy. We analyzed the inner workings of capitalist exploitation by examining our own current and previous jobs. The diversity of our stories as workers helped us to understand that all workers create surplus value (profits) for the ruling class. We also saw how racism and sexism are used to maximize these profits.
In the afternoon we focused on the Russian Revolution and a time where one-sixth of the world was able to eliminate some of the ills of capitalism. We read essays from Langston Hughes’ book Good Morning Revolution. We learned that when a society is not driven by profit, the need for racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination dissipate. For example, the Soviet Union enforced strict policies and rules that outlawed racism. As a result, within 15 years, threre was significant progress in eliminating racial discrimination against Jewish people and other minority groups.
On the second day we focused on the need for a revolutionary communist party to bring about revolutionary change. We watched a part of the movie, The Square, which told the story of the 2011 Arab Spring in Egypt. There were serious weaknesses in te movement, such as having the illusion that the army had sided with the workers, and the absence of a mass communist party that could lead the workers to power.
The discussion about the weaknesses of the Arab Spring led us to look for how we could organize ourselves in a different way. We heard reports about organizing struggles and building PLP in mass organizations and we armed ourselves with dialectical materialism (our working-class philosophy). We concluded that revolutionary change cannot occur without the leadership of a mass PLP.
In one workshop, someone raised the idea of having a society based on barter. Under communism, we ask from each according to commitment, to each according to need. Trading or bartering can be halted on a whim simply because someone doesn’t want to conduct trade anymore. Under communism, no single individual will be able to make such a decision and the masses would be involved with everything including the production and distribution of all necessities.  
While the workshops discussed the theory of communism and how it could be implemented, the rest of the weekend showed small glimmers of communism in practice. Cooking, cleaning and other responsibilities were tackled collectively, as they would be in a communist society. Duties changed night to night. One night, the dinner prep team ran into some trouble, but it was quickly resolved when someone else stepped in and helped out. Hooray for collectivity!
The high point of the weekend came when a comrade that was with us in Sacramento to battle the racist Nazis, stood up and joined the Party! We welcomed him with orange juice toasts, thunderous applause and with everyone singing Bella Ciao. Another nail was added to capitalism’s coffin. The fight for a communist world continues!

BROOKLYN, NY, February 28—A crowd of over 40 multiracial students, high school teachers, and college professors rallied alongside and in solidarity with immigrant students at the entrance of Kingsborough Community College (KCC). High school student groups, led by undocumented and DACA students (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) organized the rally with their teachers and staff. KCC’s sprawling south Brooklyn campus is also home to Leon M. Goldstein High School, known as LMG.
Students and LMG/ KCC faculty stood on either side of the school’s entrance, where parents line up and drop students off in their cars. LMG students produced a newsletter that was distributed to students and their parents for the rally, which contained anonymously written immigrant student stories, and some facts about the struggles of life in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant.
PLP salutes the students and faculty of LMG and KCC! In a dark night of intensifying racist and sexist anti-immigrant terror, we aspire to follow the example of these students.
As high school and college students, faculty, and campus workers unite and fight side by side in the growing nationwide “Sanctuary” movement, we must continue to support and organize rallies like these to raise international working class consciousness. Defending and fighting along our immigrant sisters and brothers means joining our local pro-immigrant mass organizations—like churches and other community groups with national affiliations—and sharpening the fightback against racism. The struggle continues!

WORCESTER, March 1—The intensity of working class opposition to Trump’s fascism and for an egalitarian society has surprised the bosses. They are now scrambling to mislead the anti-fascist movement, which the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and its friends in the Massachusetts Human Rights Committee (MHRC) participate in and sometimes lead.
On January 21, PLP and MHRC held a rally in Worcester in solidarity with the Women’s March in other cities around the country. The fascist bosses stayed away and the liberal bosses made their way to the huge Boston rally.
Smash Segregationist Politics
On January 31, there was a rally in partial response to Trump’s Muslim ban. Several liberal politicians reached out to a pretend anti-racism group called Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ). This pretend anti-racism group has a rule that there should be no Black people in the leadership or planning committee, as it is an antiracist group for white people only. It is mirroring the racist rules found in the reactionary group calling itself “Black Lives Matter.” The latter espouses Black nationalist politics, holding “people of color” only meetings.
PLP has refused to work with either group. The racism of racial exclusion will only mislead and weaken the working class. Many people agreed with us when they found out that SURJ was intentionally all white.
The liberal politicians, through SURJ, called for a rally against Trump’s fascism.  We helped organize the rally as there were over 1,200 people, most of whom were antiracist people. PLP pointed out the bosses’ line on sanctuary cities was to give the perception of the “criminal” immigrant, similar to what the bosses do with young Black and Latin men and women.
There has been an increase in hate crimes in Worcester since Trump’s election. Mosques, Jewish centers, and individuals have been targeted. The misleaders brought their “no” hate committee, which only seems to meet when there is a need to preempt workers’ anger or there is some electoral advantage.  Mainly religious leaders and politicians posed for the camera.
On February 7, PLP and others went to the City Council and demanded that the City make public their supposed efforts to defeat fascism and provide a report on the number of hate crimes. The Council did nothing.
We organized a forum on the issue of Stop Racist Deportations. One speaker said the revised Trump fascist travel bans would target immigrants who have been in the country less than two years, or have been only charged with an offense such as driving without a license.
The speaker for PLP said that fascism and racism come from the profit system and a communist system was needed to defeat fascism. The battle against fascism can only be won in the streets and that people with a foot in both camps will only mislead us. Join PLP!