Picking up the Sword

The blogosphere is abuzz about this speech by AFL-CIO chief Rich Trumka, talking to the United Steelworkers about racism in the labor movement and how they need to fight against it to get the right candidate, Barack Obama, into office.



It's a powerful speech. It's significantly more powerful because it comes from a union man, a White man, who grew up in small town Pennsylvania, and who does not have the look of an effete urban intellectual. And he's looking his peers in the eye, his fellow union members, and telling them: you know, and I know, that we have this problem in our community. And if we don't confront it, it is going to eat our movement alive, because unions are all about solidarity, and they don't work when we allow racism to divide worker from worker.

If one does not believe in the mission of unions, or generally votes on other things, that's fine. But if one is a union member, and believes in the cause and believes that what they're pursuing is just, not voting for Obama because he's Black, when he's the only one fighting for all the issues that are important to the union, is precisely the type of self-destruction that will make the union vote irrelevant in national politics.

So obviously, there's self-interest at work here. But it's the type of self-interest borne out of the observation that we're all in this together, and we're stronger when we are united than we are divided. Recognition of that basic premise has eluded too many people for too long. That Mr. Trumka is willing to take up the sword and fight this battle is a great day for the state of race relations in America.

Other reactions:

Ta-Nehisi Coates: "This is John Brown 2008."

Cogitamus

Andrew Sullivan

Kathy G of the G-Spot has great analysis.

Steve Benen

Edge of the American West fills out some of the historical context with regards to the labor movement.

And finally, Bitch, Ph.D: "This speech might make you tear up; it did me."