IMGpapers 1968–75

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1968–75

4 Approaches to racialism

Red Weekly No. 6, 7 June 1973 · pp. 5-6 of the scan · 290 words

The scan: rw-no6-jun-7-missprint-date-1973.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-1 of 4; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 5 of the scan

Before discussing the steps which must be taken to combat racialism effectively, it b worth looking at a number of frequently proposed "solutions". (i) Legislation. The belief that racialism can somehow be made illegal and its open maniTestation suppressed by law is still widespread.

But the experience gained since the passing of the Race Relations Act quickly destroys this myth. Not only does the Act fail to cover adequately all areas in which racialism is manifested, but it is almost unworkable because of the lack of power given to its agency, the Race Relations Board. It comes as no surprise to learn that the Women workers at Mansfield Hosiery played an imporiant part in the strike. Photo: Chris Davis (Report). (il) Economic Militansy, A number of examnies over the ast veer have shown how black and white can fight together against the employers. Particularly outstanding in this respect was the bullding workers strike; in Birmingham this unity in action was extended when building workers helped to break up a meeting organised by racists, In London, dockers refused this time to join anti-immigrant marches, after their struggles during the summer had shown quite conchisively who the real enemies were, But while militancy often cuts across racial divisions, it does not automatically destroy the hold of racist ideas. These ideas must be deliberately rooled out and exposed, and forms of organisation developed to ensure that they do not reappear in the future.

Moreover, racialism exists at all levels of society. not just in the factory, and solidarity there

page 6 of the scan

whole". In this way every concrete event, The pamphlet documents the implications of revealing the laws of motion of the process or whether they must be replaced with a different

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