The FBI didn’t orchestrate the assassinations of MLK Jr and Malcom X until they started speaking and acting strongly in Marxist terms.
There’s video footage (I’ll try to edit it in later) of MLK near the end of his life where’s he’s openly and obviously espousing Marxist principles of class solidarity. Weirdly, he was assassinated soon after.
Malcolm X, one of the favorite boogie men of racists for decades, was, I’m sure everyone knows, unapologetic in his views towards white society and how it treated black people. But he spent much of his organizing only bringing black members of society together. Near the end of his life he had a small change of mindset and was focusing more on uniting people for change and invited white people to join him. Weirdly, he was assassinated soon after.
Not an original thought or observation here, btw. It just bubbled back up though.
The capitalists and their enforcement arms (law enforcement of all types: regular cops, FBI, CIA, all of it) don’t fear black people forming their own little unions. As long as the white and black people are still at odds the capitalist knows he’s safe. But as soon as a leading member of the minority group breaks from the mold and places their class on the same pedestal as the white people and says “we are not equals in society, and the reason for the inequality is so we don’t realize we share something fundamental to everything- class.”
I’m not trying to get into the forever-debate around race, sex, etc. and class and which is more important because I don’t think that’s a fruitful conversation and honestly it just serves capitalists for us to go in those circles forever. Centristism (new word?) is usually really bad, but I’m ok with taking that stance on this issue and I think it’s probably the stance most white Americans and Europeans (the dominant hegemony of USA/CA and west EU) need to take. There are fundamental inescapable inequalities that take the bare minimum of observation to see and feel. That can’t be dismissed and say “oh, yeah, but class is more important.” Maybe. But that isn’t going to bring people to your side. It’s also possibly not true for them in their everyday lives. The white dude and the black guy can make the same salary and everything and yet they both intrinsically know they aren’t equal in society. Any simple police interaction would confirm it for either of them. So for the white guy to dismiss the realities of life and hand waive it… it’s not going to work. It’s a complicated multi pronged solution. Class should be the ultimate basis for uniting, because it does unite us all as oppressed proletarians, but you can’t be a dismissive asshole at the same time.
And, look, I’m a white dude if it wasn’t clear. I can’t speak for anyone. All I can say is look around at the Marxist movements today and see how many black people are suspicious of those groups. I’ve kinda seen the argument that from their viewpoint it’s basically “you got these right wing Nazi dumbasses telling me the only thing that matters is I’m black and that makes me inferior. And then you got these leftist Marxist weirdos who say no no no being black doesn’t matter at all just listen to me!” and if you can’t see how that’s extremely problematic, I dunno what to say. Then they’re met with concern trolling over “oh it’s just black people are more reactionary inherently.” And it devolves from there. I don’t even know what to call this type of mentality. It’s often called “class reductionism,” which is a fine term, but I dunno. It’s so disappointing to see so-called leftists/marxists whatever you wanna call yourselves unironically being racist and excluding non-whites because fragile white people always struggle to cope with their position in society and how it was obtained and maintained. You can’t avoid realities by slapping a label on yourself and saying “no, I’m a leftist. I can’t be racist.” You have to grapple with the realities of the world and, I dunno, listen to people like Malcom X. Maybe he’ll make you uncomfortable… and that’s good. No one ever said fixing things would be a nice comfy adventure.
Kinda went on a roasting rant there towards my fellow whites, but it does frustrate me to see this shit all the time. (Obligatory obvious online statement: none of this implies I know everything or that I’m perfect. I can hear the liberals in my head screaming already.)