The AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka on racism and Obama. He puts it out there bluntly and powerfully. As hateful as we’ve seen people be thanks to the mob mentality McCain-Palin have been whipping up this past week, what a godsend to hear these words and know there are folks combating intolerance and fear by speaking passionately about the issues at stake in this election. h/t platypus over at Daily Kos, which includes the full transcript.
‘Well, I just don’t trust him.’
Why is that?
Her voice dropped just a bit: ‘Because he’s black.’
I said, ‘Look around. Nemacolin’s a dying town. There’re no jobs here. Kids are moving away because there’s no future here. And here’s a man, Barack Obama, who’s going to fight for people like us and you won’t vote for him because of the color of his skin.’
Brothers and sisters, we can’t tap dance around the fact that there are a lot of folks out there just like that woman.
A lot of them are good union people; they just can’t get past this idea that there’s something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can’t afford to look the other way.
I’m not one for quoting dead philosophers, but back in the 1700s, Edmund Burke said: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.’ Well, there’s no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism — and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.
It’s our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.
We’ve seen how companies set worker against worker — how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table and how we all end up losing.
But we’ve seen something else, too. We’ve seen that when we cross that color line and stand together no one can keep us down.
That’s why the CIO was created. That’s why industrial unions were the first to stand up against lynching and segregation. People need to know that it was the Steel Workers Organizing Committee — this union — that was founded on the principal of organizing all workers without regard to race. That’s why the labor movement — imperfect as we are — is the most integrated institution in American life.
I don’t think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples’ faces and calling them racist; instead we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions, and their homes — if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers — there’s only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who’s on their side… only one candidate who’s going to stand up for their families… only one candidate who’s earned their votes… and his name is Barack Obama!
