“We say ‘white capitalism’ because it’s important that we understand that the economic system and the racial structures are connected,” Melina Abdullah said this week in explaining the call of Black Lives Matter (BLM) for a boycott of white businesses and a push for a “black Christmas.” Abdullah is a leader of BLM and a professor at California State University (CSU-LA).
The group’s Los Angeles chapter used a tweet to encourage supporters to “withhold dollars from White capitalism and use resources to #BuildBlackCommunity.”
Fellow BLM leader and CSU-LA professor Anthony Ratcliff explained the idea behind black Christmas. “Black Lives Matter and other organizations build a strong critique and understanding of racism and white supremacy and sexism and homophobia, transphobia, but we have to have as much hatred or vitriol against capitalism.” (Emphasis added.)
Ratcliff added, “Until we start to see capitalism [as] just as nefarious as white supremacy, we will always be struggling.” In fact, “vitriol against capitalism,” the Marxist’s favorite word in describing free enterprise, appears to be the main driver for the leadership of BLM. This should not be surprising, as it has been a central tenet of Marxism to use real or imagined grievances in society to divide people into antagonistic groups as a way of advancing communism.
Abolishing individual identity in favor of group identity has always been a favorite tactic of communists. Karl Marx, who in 1848 wrote The Communist Manifesto for the shadowy group known as the League of Just Men, argued that individuality was an impediment to the establishment of the communist system, saying that the “individual” must “be swept out of the way, and made impossible.”
Another stated goal of BLM in the creation of the black Christmas effort last year was to encourage black consumers to shop at black-owned businesses as a way to protest President Donald Trump. Writing at the time in the Los Angeles Sentinel, Abdullah said, “Rather than lining the pockets of Trump and other White-supremacist capitalists, donate to Black-led organizations that are building new, liberatory structures in our communities.” This appears to be a call for segregation, the end of which was considered the hallmark of the black civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. BLM’s website even refers to Trump as someone who “embodies White capitalism.”
If a socialist organization such as BLM truly favored helping black Americans, then they would support the free market. As The Blaze host Lawrence Jones put it, the destruction of businesses in Ferguson, Missouri, mainly involved black-owned businesses. It appears that the target there was business, not ending any oppression of black Americans.
But, of course, the goal is the institution of communism, not the economic prosperity of any Americans, including American blacks. In his 1965 book, It’s Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights, veteran journalist Alan Stang quoted Alexander Bittleman, who had been a member of the national committee of the American Communist Party: “The point I wish to make is that the development of the American Negroes in the Black Belt into a full-fledged nation in the classical sense is a basic requirement for the progressive development of the United States…. It means as a result of this struggle the unfolding of the most fundamental and the most profound struggles for democracy in the United States, anti-imperialist struggles leading to socialism.”
It is not surprising that BLM supporter Colin Kaepernick, who has made it very clear that his protests against the National Anthem were directed at the country itself, and not just alleged maltreatment of blacks by the police, is a supporter of dead communist leaders such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevera.
It should also be noted that communists routinely use terms such as “democracy” to describe the condition they envision once they implement their totalitarian dictatorship, and that they use the term “socialism” about as much as “communism.” While many in academia and in popular culture differentiate between the two, it should be noted that Communist Russia was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
While there are no doubt some “useful idiots,” as Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin called them, who are involved with BLM and who actually think that the organization is primarily about helping black people, the leadership of the BLM is clearly Marxist in its orientation. We should not be surprised if the “boycott” of white businesses is accompanied by violence, if the past is any indication. In 2015, black Christmas protesters blocked roads to airports in San Francisco and Minneapolis, and nine were arrested when they blocked traffic on a major highway in Los Angeles.
As Lawrence Jones summed up the situation on The Blaze, “This is more of a political agenda, not really trying to benefit the community.” And that political agenda is the advancement of socialism and communism.
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