Today is Juneteenth, the day we celebrate the end of the Civil War and the smashing of slavery, one of the most brutally oppressive systems the world has ever known. American capitalism was built on the exploitation of enslaved Black people and the genocide of indigenous peoples. The horrors of slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and the ongoing exploitation of Black working people have provided unimaginable wealth for a tiny elite, while impoverishing generations of Black Americans and their communities.
The end of slavery was not won by the voices of “moderation,” who at the time argued for a kinder, gentler form of slavery and for a process of gradual change, and who derided abolitionists as divisive and uncouth people. This victory did not belong to those who attached themselves to the two parties of American capitalism, at that time the Whig Party and the Democratic Party, both of which defended the system of slavery. It did not belong to the Uncle Toms of the day. Instead, it belonged to the Black, brown and white troops who courageously fought and defeated the slave-owning class on the battlefields. And yes, it was a multi-racial struggle that succeeded in crushing the white slaveholders.
While slavery was defeated, the horrors of institutional racism were not. That is why our antiwar pro-worker Congressional campaign is fighting against racism and all oppression.
Neither of the Democrats running in this race, Adam Smith and Melissa Chaudhry, even mention the needs of the Black community on their campaign websites. Kshama is the only candidate in this race fighting for Black working-class and poor people and the only candidate with the track record of winning victories for the Black community.
Kshama is fighting for reparations for Black working-class and poor people, funded by taxing the rich. The net worth of the top one percent of the United States is at a shocking $55 trillion. We need to tax the rich to fund massive investment in Black and historically Black communities. We need quality affordable housing in Black communities, and strong national rent control. We need free public college and university, including a major increase in funding for Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and an expansion of community colleges in Black neighborhoods. We need to build free public healthcare clinics in every Black community as part of a free national healthcare system. We need to expand mass transit and make it free, including by ensuring high-quality, frequent, accessible public transit routes in every Black community.
Kshama is fighting for a public-sector living-wage jobs guarantee funded by taxing the rich. As part of this, Kshama is also calling for a national program to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Black workers to help carry out the critical work of rebuilding infrastructure, expanding mass transit, and transforming our energy system.
We need to end mass incarceration, ban for-profit prisons, and stop forced, unpaid, and low-wage prison labor. We need to bring an end to racist policing and put police departments under the control of democratically elected community boards with full power over department policy, hiring, and firing. We need to put an end to the disastrous “war on drugs,” and instead fund healthcare, housing, education, and support for small businesses alongside a major expansion of living-wage union jobs.
Democratic Congressmember Adam Smith, who is Kshama’s main opponent, has had a long record of slashing hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid, social services, and public housing. He was also one of the many Democrats who voted for the bailouts of the billionaires in the wake of the 2008 Great Recession. The bailout policies plundered the millions of working people who faced home foreclosures and handed over tens of billions of dollars worth of real estate to private equity. This bipartisan robbery against working people is a big reason why rents have been skyrocketing. All of these policies voted for by Adam Smith have disproportionately and severely undermined the living standards of Black working-class and poor people.
As the only socialist on Seattle’s City Council, Kshama Sawant led the fight to win the Amazon Tax, which funds hundreds of millions of dollars of affordable housing every year by taxing big corporations like Amazon. Kshama also campaigned for housing justice for Black working and poor people alongside “an expansive coalition of nonprofit organizations, faith-based institutions, and affordable housing providers,” including hosting a major rally for “reparations, unity, and affordable housing” in the summer of 2021. Kshama’s office used that public momentum to dedicate millions of dollars of the Amazon Tax she won in 2020 specifically towards building housing for the Black community in Seattle’s historically Black Central District, a form of reparations. She also helped win $500,000 to fund the Garfield Super Block and community center in the Central District. She helped organize Black and other marginalized-community tenants at Chateau Apartments and Rainier Court to successfully fight and win against the mass evictions and rent increases attempted by their exploitative landlords. We need to organize millions of people around the country and build a movement to win these kinds of victories on a much larger scale. Through her annual People’s Budget campaign, Kshama won full public funding for legal defense for any working-class renters facing eviction. Statistical evidence indicates that Black community members, particularly women, disproportionately face evictions and that trained legal counsel dramatically increases the likelihood of preventing evictions.
The greatest material improvement in the lives of Black American workers came through the mass labor movements of the 1930s and 1940s and the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which built fighting multiracial unions and helped to power the Civil Rights movement. We need to rebuild a fighting, anti-racist labor movement.
In solidarity,
Kshama for Congress