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The issue of race in this presidential campaign is one we talk around, or whisper about, or don’t discuss publicly at all. Or, as with some McCain supporters, the issue of race is used as an ugly bludgeon in the spirit of Jim Crow.
But AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka is taking the issue head on. Beginning with a recent speech to the United Steelworkers and continuing in other union venues, Trumka directly addresses how working people can, and must, combat the racism of those who say they will not vote for a black man as president. In addressing union leaders, Trumka also speaks to all of America’s workers:
There’s not a single good reason for any worker—especially any union member—to vote against Barack Obama. There’s only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he’s not white.
A lot of good union people just can’t get past the idea that there’s something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can’t afford to look the other way.
[There’s] no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism—and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.
Trumka urges union leaders, and all of us with a stake in the economic policies of the next president, to confront, head on, our inchoate and irrational fear of black Americans.
When you hear someone say America isn’t ready for a black president, you have to get in their face and say: “You may not be ready for Barack Obama, but I sure as hell am!”
His initial speech was greeted by surprise—surprise that someone of his rank took on the issue—and praised as the opening of a long-needed dialogue. And, yes, his words were not universally welcomed, a reaction he addresses in an open letter to union members here.
Yet, in experiencing firsthand how divisions of race and ethnicity have been used by employers to undermine worker solidarity on the job, many union members have a visceral understanding of how and why Obama opponents are subtly and not so subtly seeking to attack him. And having already fought these battles, union members are well prepared to do so again. As Trumka puts it:
We’ve seen how companies set worker against worker—how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table and how it’s black and Latino workers who get the dirtiest, most-dangerous jobs. But we’ve seen something else, too. We’ve seen that when we cross that color line and stand together, no one—and I mean no one—can keep us down. That’s why, imperfect as we are, the labor movement today is the most integrated institution in American life.
When he headed up the Mine Workers union, Trumka led two major strikes against the Pittston Coal Co. and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. The actions resulted in significant advances in employee-employer cooperation and the enhancement of mine workers’ job security, pensions and benefits. Such victories of workers over hard-bitten and often brutal employers will be far fewer going forward unless we dramatically change the anti-worker culture that has been created in this country over the past eight years.
The bottom line, says Trumka, is nothing less than the future of our nation.
I don’t think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples’ faces and calling them racist. Instead we need to educate them that if they care about holding onto their jobs, their health care, their pensions, and their homes.
If they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers, there’s only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who’s on our side, only one candidate who’s going to stand up for our families, only one candidate who’s earned our votes…and his name is Barack Obama!
Do you think John McCain will do these things for America?
I don’t.
(Trumka’s full speech to the United Steelworkers is here.)
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EXCELLENT. More of this please.
Tula!
According to Facebook, today is your birthday. Here’s hoping you have a wonderful day!
HBTC
Thank you! I’m holding off on the celebrations for several reasons, one of which is I’m under the weather…
Hope that dems all over the country get this. Thank you Tula.
You’re under the weather and you still wrote such an excellent post. Thanks. Have a nice celebration when you are feeling better.
Obama is mixed race, not just black. Why is this always framed as voting for/against a black man?
I always wonder just who the corporations and such think is going to buy their products/goods/services if no one has any money to pay for even the basics.
yes, it’s always better feeling over the weather, over the rainbow
(((Tula)))
Digg this post
And by political leaders to divide and conquer the electorate. The notion that people of different races might figure out that their shared interests far outnumber their differences and that united, they can demand accountability from their government must make politicians quake in their boots.
damn I love this guy
Obama/Trumka 08!
It’s not what’s inside, it’s the color of his skin that matters to those that look to make an issue of race.
Because that’s all the bigots see, and public speakers will have to start pointing that out. As someone who’s mixed race, i go through that every day myself. They only see the black features and not the fact that i’m not THAT dark skinned, much less that there’s more than just black in my background. Call it a holdout from the old One Drop Rule of the segregation days. If you’re even 1% black you’re ALL black, even if you don’t have any connection with the culture.
I’m mixed race, and identify more with my family’s british roots than i ever will with african american heritage.
Beat me to it! Thank goodness for straight-talking coalminers…
Obama’s decided on running mate.
A this late date I sure am glad he has figured it out. He probably known for some time.
From the Johns Sayle’s film “Matewan”
“One of the black miners, named Few Clothes, bravely comes to meet the union men and declares that while he can’t help it if white people call him a “ni&^er,” he takes vigorous exception to being called a “scab.” Kenehan then explains to the local miners that accepting the blacks and the Italian miners is what the union is all about. If all the men are united and refuse to work, the company will not be able to operate.”
Trumka is a good speaker. It’s too bad the Obama campaign can’t adopt his style.
Or maybe the Obama campaign can adopt his style?
My kids are mixed race. The asian people see mostly the white side. The non-asian people see mostly the asian side.
The money quote. Exactly. Politicians…and corporate executives. This is the ultimate dirty secret of the war on the working class.
Happy Birthday, Tula! And speedy recovery…you are apparently in good company…CNN’s been making much of Obama’s summer cold. Of course now they’re back to the veepstakes-obsessing. For which Obama says his veep won’t be one of these imaginary fourth branches…he won’t think he’s above the law.
Imaginary fourth branch…wasn’t that reserved for the Vapid Vapors BBQ-stained-fingers crowd?
True, if you’re mixed race, you’re a little bit of an orphan in a place where identity is always this or that, black or white, gay or straight. I have a mixed background, and I tend to see myself sometimes as a hanging question mark in terms of identity. But I don’t mind the question mark. I think it makes me human. I don’t mind ambiguity. It’s other people who do. So Obama as a hanging question mark kinda makes me feel akin, a lot of policy stances (FISA) aside.
My ex was mixed race. White folks called her Native American or Indian while many of her fellow tribe members called her a half breed.
Thank you, Prairie Sunshine! (great name)
Anyway, we’re a “country of mongrels” (quote James Baldwin?), so the whole enforced ethnic identity thing is a little thin somethimes.
finally, someone willing to challenge the issue that racism will raise in this election process. i’m pleased and not surprised to see it come from the labor arena.
o/t: i’m encouraged to see the way my home state of TN maps out on the new cspan.org/politics map. it looks a lot more blue than many would argue … i look forward to, and am working toward, that becoming more visible in our election results.
itunkala
Also I believe “blackness” was forced on those with African American grandparents by those old laws.
@28 Kinda like those with Jewish grandparents in Hitlers Germany suddenly found themselves labled “Jewish,” whether the personal identification was there or not.
mui1 (Reply worketh not)
Wasn’t it forced on everyone
What Teddy said @ 1.
Wasn’t what forced?
Yo.
Wasn’t “blackness” forced on everyone (per your 28)
Sure, I guess we’re all supposed to be categorized. I remember watching a PBS(?) documentary that followed the life a couple (black/white) and their kid. Now the daughter, then at college, talked of how she was immediately considered black, yet not black enough for some and talked of some of the critiques she got. She felt she didn’t feel like identifying herself has one or the other, and felt most at home with parents and friends who understood she was just x (her name.) It’s often rebellion not to choose.
I thought there were some nasty Jim Crowish type laws that made it a “legal” thing.
They do keep the smelling salts makers in business, don’t they?
I see on Raw Story that McCain’s going back to suggesting that Obama is the anti-Christ. How can Christians allow this to happen without protest?
In my case i’m adopted, and the couple that adopted me is caucasian. So my adoptive parents(and my parents as far as i’m concerned) got the strangest looks with me for the longest time. I still get odd looks from some people when i’m out in public with them.
For me it’s the fact that my family is THEM and no one else. I don’t fit the box that social norms want to stuff me into. That family has british roots and is also canadian as well on my mom’s side. (She never gave up her citizenship after she married dad and i grew up with hordes of cousins in ontario). So even more, i’m just not what the social norms ‘demand’. Drives some people nuts and i just shrug and go on with my life. I know places where i’m just another face in the crowd, not an object of curiousity or scorn because i refuse to be pigeonholed.
Define “Christians.” Seem to be various flavours calling themselves that, not all of whom are familiar with their prophet.
Sure there were but that perpetuated the crap for both white and black – it was much “easier” for whites because they were favored. There were some “enlightened” white though that were more restrained by those laws.
I don’t think the definition matters. McCain’s being generic in using Christianity against Obama. There must be some prominent Christian voices who could step up and denounce McCain for doing this. No one says anything, so McCain gets away with it. It is most vile.
Interracial marriage was illegal in most southern states until the 1960’s. One couple, from Virginia iirc, became the court case that overturned all such laws. Having grown up in the south in the 40’s through the 60’s I remember how it was. Biggest argument my dad and I ever had was over his use of the “n” word. He never said it in my presence after that.
This was bound to happen – the sleeze oozeth.
These Christianiacs should be exposed and ridiculed. Maybe we should start a sleeze registry and start naming names.
The so-called mainstream Christian leadership voices are the ones I’m most disappointed in. There are exceptions but a lot of the big voices have been silent throughout the Shrub years. Those on the reich, however, have been very vocal, supporting Shrub and his policies. The Southern Baptist Conference, for instance, is pretty vanilla lookin’.
But if he is using language like “anti-christ” he is definitely trying to appeal to a particular part of the spectrum of christianity – the evangelical christians who make a big deal out of eschatology.
Gotta go feed the squirrels. brb
Yep. In fact the female partner in the aptly named “Loving” family recently passed away. I think it was about the time that the California Supreme court made their ruling on LGBT rights to marriage.
Great post, Tula! Used to be a steelworker, so I can relate.
He cannot be allowed to say these things unchallenged. Are all evangelicals mindless Republic-bots?
Very true, but they can’t all be owned by the Republics. Somewhere, there has to be someone to step up and say “this is b.s.”.
Right on! I just tell people my father is from Cincinnati or something (which is true). Because the minute you get into the nitty gritty of ethnic background, people have this tendency to ascribe characteristics they you may or most likely don’t have.
Blue Texan upstairs on McCain’s Housing crisis
Re@53. Meaning? McInsane can’t remember how many houses he has?
And all the stories his campaign tells trying to tap dance away from it.
“Pittston Coal Co.”
awful awful people, and Massey today is every bit as bad in terms of their abuse of their employees and the communities in which they do business. Shutting down King Coal should be a priority for an Democratic president and would send a powerful message to the disadvantaged communities that work for them or get routinely tormented by them.
This may not make me popular here, but I still think that the (winning) answer to a divided America in which Dead White Men continue to preach their cult of inequality, is an Obama-Clinton ticket. Nothing would send a more powerful message to the ‘thugs.
Hippo birdy two ewe, Tula!