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NEWS & LETTERS, October-November 2006Power of Black bloodby John Alan Recently a hacker broke into California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s computer. The public found out that the governor attributed the passionate temperament of Cubans and Puerto Ricans to the fact that they have a combination of Black blood and Latino blood. The governor’s concept of this blood mixture is an indication of the racism that lies just below the surface in the political world. His comment was made because of a conflict with a Latina legislator, state Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia. "I mean Cuban, Puerto-Rican, they are all very hot," were his words. "They have the, you know, part of the Black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it." DEEPER THAN POLITICS In no way does it describe the differences and conflicts the governor has with Latinos and African Americans. It is not their blood mixing that is his problem. Most Latinos and African Americans aren’t giving Schwarzenegger political support in his effort to get reelected. The concept of race used against Latinos and African Americans is not biological but is socially determined and has deep historical roots. Capitalism has always wanted Latinos and African Americans for their labor, and in the process diminished their status as full human beings. The same is true today when capitalism greatly desires immigrant labor, especially from Latin America, but without affording it rights. The governor’s comments reflect a view that someone can put down Latinos by referring to their Black blood. This is an insult to African Americans. It wouldn’t necessarily play the same way in Latin America. Africans and Latinos have been mixing for centuries there. It has arisen in the context of capital accumulation. The trend arose as early as when Africans staffed the ships that brought Columbus to America. RACISM INGRAINED IN CAPITALISM As Marx said of the birth of capitalism: "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines, of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of blackskins, are all things which characterize the dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are chief moments of primitive accumulation" (CAPITAL, p. 915). Even today’s events show that it is not just a period of "primitive accumulation" that hangs on a racist ideology, but that racist ideology continues to be personified by capitalist political leaders in the ongoing accumulation of capital. |
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