cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/52153654
While Black August is coming to a close, the fight for Black liberation rages on. Seeing the representation of Black faces in high places does not diminish the plight of Black Americans. That’s because the entire system is rigged against Black working class people – and no matter who is in the White House, the symptoms do not get any better. For Black liberation to become a reality, the entire system must fall!
The cycle of poverty is a never-ending, self-fulfilling prophecy under the capitalist system. When communities don’t have an adequate tax base or political influence, then critical programs are not properly funded. When critical programs aren’t properly funded, educational, environmental and health outcomes are all predictably worsened. Impoverished communities, then, become even easier for governmental bodies to neglect as “a lost cause”.
Black communities entered 2026 facing the same economic inequalities that have plagued Black communities for generations — higher unemployment, lower wages, and a persistent racial wealth gap.
In July 2026, Black unemployment stood at 6.3%, compared with 3.6% for white workers. Black full-time workers earned a median of $1,029 per week in the second quarter of 2026, roughly 19% less than the $1,268 median for white workers.
The latest data shows that the median Black family holds just $44,900 in wealth, compared with $285,000 for the median white family.
That we see more Black people represented in higher positions of power today does not diminish the grave reality of widespread poverty and disinvestment that Black working class people are experiencing.
In fact, this disparity can be used as a means of further criminalizing Black communities. Black communities experience higher levels of policing, but all the research shows that police don’t actually solve crime. They end up perpetrating the crime of mass incarceration instead. While Black people make up only 13% of the U.S. population, they represent nearly 40% of the prison population, further contributing to the deterioration of Black communities.
The entire system is rigged against Black working class people – and no matter who is in the White House, the symptoms do not get any better.
Throughout the history of this country, the struggle of the Black community for equality and democracy has been the main engine of progress.
The overarching goal of the Trump administration is to undo that progress and plunge the country into a new era where there are no limits on the power of the rich and corporations to exploit the people and destroy the planet. Even if he focuses his racist rhetoric against other targets, like immigrants from Latin America, at the core of Trump’s agenda is an all-out assault on Black people.
Trump’s second term has brought a direct assault on Black communities and the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. His administration has dismantled federal DEI and affirmative-action programs, gutted offices responsible for enforcing workplace civil rights, and pushed the Justice Department to abandon or dismiss investigations into police departments accused of unconstitutional treatment of Black communities while rolling back federal oversight. At the same time, the administration has taken positions against expanding Black voting power under the Voting Rights Act and is pushing new restrictions on mail-in voting that threaten to make voting harder for millions.
Trump’s 2025 budget law cuts Medicaid and SNAP, programs millions of working-class Black families depend on, while shifting resources toward tax cuts, policing, immigration enforcement, and the military. The administration is also shrinking the federal workforce and dismantling programs designed to address racial discrimination, threatening jobs and protections for Black workers. These policies make clear that Trump’s agenda is not simply about rolling back “DEI” — it is about dismantling the public institutions and protections that working people have fought for, while leaving Black communities to bear the greatest costs.
But just because Trump wants to push through racist policies, doesn’t mean he’ll be able to get away with it.
Racist injustice against Black people is so persistent in the U.S. not solely because of personal attitudes and prejudices. Racism is an essential tool used by the billionaires who rule this country and the powerful institutions they control to cement their domination over society.
White supremacy allows the ruling class to grow even richer by exploiting Black workers especially intensely — with slavery as the most extreme example upon which the country was built. And further, racism divides working people, helping the elite maintain their political power. If Black people are demonized and presented as the source of social problems, then the millionaires and billionaires who are actually to blame get let off the hook.
Through courageous struggle, there have been periods of historic progress towards Black freedom. But whenever that struggle slows down, the natural tendency of the system is to roll back that progress. Take affirmative action for instance — the Black liberation movement of the 1960s won affirmative action programs nationwide, but starting in 1978 the courts gradually restricted these policies before ending them altogether.
For decades, the vast majority of Black voters have supported Democratic Party politicians, only to have those politicians abandon the interests of the Black community as soon as they take office.
No matter how many Black politicians are elected, or how many Black people are in positions of prominence in economic and cultural institutions, conditions for the working class majority of the Black community never change — or even get worse.
The problem is at the roots: this country is ruled by a tiny handful of billionaires, and decisions are made to maximize profits for those billionaires. White supremacy persists because it is in their interests for it to persist. But the grinding oppression and inequality Black communities are subjected to would be totally at odds with the goals of a society ruled by the working class, where decisions are made to meet the needs of the people and the planet.
Featured Image: Demonstrators in Philadelphia park during 2020 mass uprisings against racism and police brutality. Credit: Amistad Law Project.
But just because Trump wants to push through racist policies, doesn’t mean he’ll be able to get away with it.
The cognitive dissonance of Liberation Staff, in full display.
Where is the cognitive dissonance? Just because capitalists can desire something doesn’t mean workers cannot organize against it. It’s how all social struggles have been fought.
Then where is the antifascist organization fighting against Trump’s executive branches?
Literally the next post after this one is ICE and TPD doing mass raids on nightclubs, and everyone complying.
Everyone.Continuing with the theme presented by the article, the PSL has been actively organizing strikes and protests. There are also other groups attempting to do similar forms of resistance. What does “fighting against Trump’s executive branches” look like to you, where strikes do not fit in? What should people be doing instead?
Strikes and protests are performances, you know this. The 2003 Strikes and protests didn’t end ICE raids.
Resistance is met with equal force, not bump stops.What does “fighting against Trump’s executive branches” look like to you
An actual force, a militia. As in physically opposing an illegal regime.
The days of performances was a generation ago.
You’re in the final gestalt of full project2025.What should people be doing instead?
Demolishing deathcamps, destroying datacenters, uprooting fascist resources. You know, actual anti fascist actions. Not these nonfunctional appeals to public sentiments.
Strikes and protests are important forms of class struggle that develop millitancy and organization within the working class. You cannot jump from nowhere to a protracted guerilla war. It’s the people that make revolution, not a tiny terrorist cell. Organizing builds a disciplined cadre that can help steer revolutionary movements in a positive direction, but they cannot create said conditions.
If it’s immediate. An entire generation went and died before millitancy and organization took place. The Obama Admin was the last warning showing Democrats will still continue the deathcamps. Or do still believe Americans have what it takes organize themselves?
I’m not advocating for the democrats, I am advocating for organizing. A protracted guerilla war is not going to break the empire within the core at the moment, all of our efforts should be on organizing at the moment. Cynicism ties our hands.
Statists typically don’t understand how the state works to reinforce the oppression of the capitalist system. They naively think the system will save them from itself.
Do you think a socialist state is the same as a capitalist state? How do socialist states reinforce capitalism?
All states, by the nature of hierarchical authority structures, will always seek to oppress those they have authority over in order to maintain that social power.
Socialist states are not immune to this function of systemic structure.
I’m familiar with the slogan, but that just doesn’t track with the results for the working classes once they have achieved a worker state. Why is it that in countries like Cuba, where the working classes take power, we see mass land redistribution, huge literacy campaigns, an end to the old slave-based system, and a more equitable society? Why is this immense upliftment of working people consistent across all socialist states?
Ultimately, the reason socialist states deliver such starkly different results is that states do not exist outside of the class struggle. States exist to entrench and uplift the ruling class of society. When workers own and control the state, they can and do use it for mass upliftment with an expansion of democratization for the whole of society.
Hierarchy is not the problem. Class is the problem. Our social relations to ownership of the means of production play a massive role on what our interests actually are. When the state is owned and run by workers, who share the same level of ownership as the rest of the working classes, they share the same class interest in continuing to collectivize society. This isn’t merely trusting ideology, but a genuine recognition of material interests aligning.
Under capitalism, the ruling class is the capitalist class. Even in the Nordic countries, where welfare is higher, welfare is both shrinking and still ultimately depends on benefiting from the system of imperialism. Socialism doesn’t need imperialism, nor is it compelled to become imperialist. Capitalism must eventually turn to imperialism to continue to function, as capital needs to expand, or else it dies.
All of these critical differences hammer home that it’s not enough to say “states are bad.” We have to investigate why socialist states and capitalist states benefit dramatically different sections of society, and this answer returns to Marx: it’s because of the differences in the ruling class.
Knowledgable statists are one thing, ignorant ones are the zeitgeist. The campist below you comprehends both are ultimately going to resist at poll booths. Not as the deathcamped, die. For both our sakes, I didn’t engage in the history of PSL snitches and cop-pologies. I could read the cop above.
