The Best of Enemies: More alike than unalike
Originally written in 2021 for GUAP Magazine and titled “Why People of Colour and the White Working Class Must Unite in the Struggle for Justice” this article has been re-edited, retitled, and republished for Consortium Eleven. However, it remains grounded in the context of 2021.
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The selective repudiation of oppressive systems exposes the profound miseducation that persists within marginalized communities across the world.
The Best of Enemies, starring Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell, tells the true story of the unlikely partnership between C. P. Ellis and Ann Atwater in Durham, United States, during the 1970s. C.P. Ellis, once a devoted Ku Klux Klan leader and outspoken defender of segregation, begins to confront the contradictions within his own beliefs. He comes to recognise how identity politics had long served as a pacifier—an illusion that redirected his anger toward racial division while obscuring the deeper economic struggles imposed by the state facing his family, issues that were not so different from those endured by Atwater’s community. Their shared economic pain cut through generations of prejudice, exposing the fragile foundations of racial system of exclusion and hatred.
Over the past year (2021), citizens have taken to both the physical and virtual streets—flooding social media timelines with demands for justice. This social media takeovers began following the murder of George Floyd, then was sustained during the rise of attacks on Asian communities ”Stop Asian Hate” exacerbated by the racialized framing of COVID-19 as the “Asian virus” by President Trump. Then across the globe, Indians from the diaspora in the UK protest on behalf of Indian farmers' calling for the reform of agricultural exploitation favoring private buyers, all while Free Palestine protesters intensify their voices for freedom following the ongoing ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Israeli state and sadly the lists of movements continue.
BBC No Farmer, No Food.
As these movements enlist participants, observers and the offended, it is evident that shared identity determines individuals' engagement and this silence only mirrors the oppressors. This selective solidarity is not only flawed but detrimental to freedom. Unable or unwilling to identify the common enemy, disengagement becomes the default. Resistance begins to resemble a variety show: “next up”, as others wait backstage for their moment as if their suffering can be temporarily deferred.
Nelson Mandela articulated this interconnectedness with striking conviction when he declared, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestine”, similarly President Kwame Nkrumah proclaimed on Ghana’s Independence Day, “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.” The forebears of liberation understood what we so often neglect; that freedom is indivisible.
If we listen closely, we can hear these movements singing in harmony, converging on the same refrain of injustice—produced by the same forces of capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Even as systems mutate and rebrand themselves—their ideological footprints of oppression remain unmistakably intact.
Nelson Mandela Freedom; SBS News
Racial ideology, as constructed through the fragility of colonial forefathers , framed Whiteness as synonymous with Power and Supremacy. For the white upper class, this is a lived reality; for the white working class, it is an aspirational illusion bound by the myth of white superiority. When austerity hits, like clockwork, unrest erupts within the white working class communities, accompanied by chants of “go back to your country” directed at their neighbors of color who are inhabiting the same economic deprivation as them. Architected towns of underfunded schools, under-resourced health institutions and poor housing.
The ancestors of the UK’s white working class are familiar with the footprints of resistance and survival, yet it appears to be forgotten generations later; the peoples charter movement protested for equality in 1830 – 1840 as chartists suffered poor living and working conditions, the birth of the working-class party now the Labour Party began as a means to protect workers during the rise of the industrial revolution. Protest remains foreign to the 1% whose political dominance remains safeguarded by patriarchy and capitalism.
According to Statisa 64% of the white working-class voted Brexit due to reasons such as “they are taking our jobs” , these comments from some white working-class people is evidence of propaganda blinding these communities from seeing how leadership priorities privatisation over the health of public institutions and taxes used to extend more years of neo-colonialism in the Global south.
Charter Movement 1830 - 1840
Charter Movement; Britannica
Blackpast.org Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program
The Black Panther party in the UK and the US recognised this shared struggle and despite the enduring misconception that the Party existed solely for Black liberation their ten-point programme certainly says otherwise ; “The Freedom and power to determine the destiny of the black and oppressed communities, full employment, decent housing and shelter, decolonised education, free health care for black and oppressed people, immediate end to police brutality on black and all oppressed people, end to all wars of aggression, freedom for all black and oppressed people held in the state and we want land, bread, housing, education, clothing justice, peace and modern technology”.
In no way does the history of white survival compare to the physical and systemic years of violence on black and brown people but this next decade calls for societal restructuring equal to the philosophy and spirit of Fred Hampton, UK Black Panther party, Atawater and CP Ellis and maybe even John and Robert F Kennedy.
Fred Hampton; Rainbow Coalition
Capitalist the Father of Racism and the Mother inequality breeds with no limits other systems of exclusion; and the so-called “social science” around race fortifies the reigns of identity politics. A culture of indifference and hierarchy within marginalised communities causes identity politics to become the order of the day instead of the rightful distribution of wealth and human centred governance. Now, those who were once cousins in the struggle cast themselves as rivals, as competitors, as enemies.
Journalist Ash Sarkar wakes us up to the notion that shared identity does not mean shared interest. Margret Thatcher born to a white working-class family snatched free milk from children in state schools and was the leader of the age of neo-liberialism , Sadiq Khan migrant born to a working-class family and the son of a former TFL driver increased transport fare by 2.6% since his appointment. The individuals behind the 2021 Race report were all people of color , one of them being Tony Sewell, an education consultant of Caribbean descent.
Source : Reimagining Migration. A 1886 Anti-Chinese political cartoon from The George Dee Magic Washing Machine Company depicting the Chinese Exclusion Act. The purpose of this racist cartoon was to promote the company’s new washing machine.
It is time to repaint an already imagined reality realised during the The Bacon Rebellion and by Fred Hampton with his Rainbow Coalition in Chicago. A world where people of color and white working-class people work together towards ownership. Ownership of their own banks with fair access to loans to start their own businesses or buy homes, curating their own jobs with better living wages, their own police departments based on community not militarisation, funding their own institutions from schools to health centres.
Every person of color and oppressed person must understand that our liberation from systematic oppression is tied to each other. The oppressive regime has been designed for the health of capitalism and is characterised differently for all races and oppressed people. It’s in the formation of patriarchal and indoctrinating education in state schools , in police brutality on black and brown individuals across the Global North, in the attacks on Yemen, Afghanistan and other countries in the “Middle east” . It’s in the neo-colonialism plundering the global south, it’s in labelling of Muslims as security threats, it was in the US Chinese exclusion in 1882 and in the recent attacks on East Asians in the UK and US. It’s in fraudulent £5 meals posing as £20 meals sent to the homes of kids in low-income households with no concern for their race or gender.
When these communities turn to serve each other,and not the ideologies of the powers that be - a world of peace, equity and justice can be our reality.