Racism Today
After the historic election of the first black US president, both liberal and conservative politicians and media figures claimed that the election is proof that America is now post-racial. But despite these claims, most people recognize that racism is still a fact of life in the United States.

The murder of Oscar Grant III by BART police in Oakland as well as the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates in his own house is clear evidence that racial profiling and racially motivated police brutality are still all too common. Additionally, the economic recession has exposed the systemic racial inequality in the US as blacks and Latinos have been hit harder by lay-offs than the total US population. As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor wrote in an article for SocialistWorker.org:

"THE AMERICAN economy has gone through what has been called the Great Recession. But the crisis in Black communities across the U.S. constitutes an outright depression--spurring desperate conditions that have gone largely unreported because of the racist indifference of the government and mass media. ...

For young African Americans, male and female, aged 16 to 29, joblessness is as high as 30 percent, according to the Washington Post. According to one report, between 2006 and 2009, more than 6 percent of Black men have lost their jobs--in real numbers, that adds up to the disappearance of more than 489,000 jobs."

Socialists believe that race and class are connected in the US and that racism is used against specific groups but also to prevent all working people from winning more rights, better working conditions, and better lives for themselves

Please join the Laney Socialist club, members of the International Socialist Organization and our special guest speaker, Oscar Grant III’s godfather, Jack Bryson for a discussion of race and class in the United States and the necessity and challenges of building movements to fight racism in the Obama era.