How does the economic justice movement need to change, to gain the trust and support of POC? [View all]

The primaries are over.

The candidate who most strongly supported economic justice lost, largely on the votes of POC, who felt they could not trust that candidate to defend their interests and fight for the things that are most viscerally crucial to them, and who felt the same sense of distrust towards the economic justice movement in general.

As I said, the primaries are over.

That candidate will never seek the presidency again.

The shortcomings OF that candidate are no longer the point and I'd ask that they not be the subject of this thread.

Nor should the worst behavior of some of that candidate's supporters...behavior I fully condemn.

But the economic justice movement, whose intent has always been to create a multiracial, multiethnic, multigender, multicreed coalition for fundamental democratic change, will go on.

It will, as it always has(and not always managed to achieve or communicate effectively, obviously), seek to address institutional AND grassroots bigotry in all forms as a major part of its project.

Those involved in the economic justice movement do not believe, and have never believed, that the achievement of economic justice will eradicate institutional and grassroots bigotry. We believe, instead, that it is a crucial component of defeating those forms of oppression, however.

But we clearly need to find ways of showing those of you in the AA community(as we also need to show Latinos, Native Americans/First Nations people, Asian-Americans and recent immigrants, as well as LGBTQ people and Muslims) that we understand the histories of oppression that shape you, that the struggles against those oppressions will be acknowledged and placed at the forefront of the work we do, that none of us support "colorblind" approaches to what we work for, and that we will make sure the needs of historically oppressed communities are never, in any way whatsoever, subordinated to those of white males, as they were too many times in the past.

I'm not going to post any more in this thread after posting the OP, and this is meant to be a place for suggestions and a positive exchange of ideas so that we might all go forward in unity.

I'll respond by pm if anyone wants a response, but the point of the thread is not to read things I post; instead, it is to learn from what you have to say and to use that knowledge to avoid repeating past mistakes. There is a lot to learn, and the intent is to learn enough to unite the "social justice" and "economic justice" causes, eventually, into a struggle for justice, period. The fight against institutional social oppression, while it should properly be led by POC, deserves the support of all. And the fight against economic oppression affects all of us and requires a coalition including the entire non-wealthy majority, because we are all part of the economic structure. At the same time, it is clear that wealth doesn't automatically immunize historically oppressed people from institutional bigotry, so victims of that form of oppression must get everyone's full support even if they are personally wealthy.

If you are willing to do so, please give examples of what, as you see it, POC need to see and hear from the economic justice movement, in the days and years to come, in order to believe that this movement fights for and has a place in its ranks for you-that you will not be left out in the cold by it.