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In Honor of Black History Month: The Struggle Continues to Remove All Undemocratic Monuments & Symbols of Oppression

By Leon Waters

“Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor.”

– V. I. LENIN, THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION AND THE RENEGADE KAUTSKY

Following the counter-revolutionary overthrow of the Louisiana Black Reconstruction government and its white radical allies (1870-1890’s), the former oppressor class was brought back to power; to political power, which is state power. The restoration of the oppressor class, which could no longer maintain chattel slavery, could now, in alliance with the former Northern adversary, jointly move forward in rebuilding Louisiana with ‘free labor’ or ‘wage labor’. The former Northern ally, the Republican Party, with its growing millionaire industrial class, would now betray the newly freed African people and conciliate to the new form of political rule, or state rule: Jim Crow. With its vicious ideology of white supremacy, the erection and proliferation of white chauvinist, white supremacist monuments, statues, markers, tombstones, fleur de lis, and other racist symbols would rise. These symbols represent the restoration of white supremacy rule, or the white supremacist dictatorship of the rich over the laboring masses, especially the Black masses who suffer from a double burden of oppression.

Like the whole United States, New Orleans society is divided into classes: the class of the rich millionaires and billionaires and the class of the poor workers, unemployed and incarcerated. The rich live a fine luxury life by paying low wages, piecemeal wages, poverty wages or, in some cases, no wages to the thousands of laboring masses. In order to maintain their system of thievery, the rich exercise their rule through control of the state and control of the state machinery-an organ of force, an organ of coercive rule, unrestricted by any law. The Tom Bensons, Marriotts, Entergy, etc. call this form of rule ‘democracy’.

The media flunkeys of the rich, i.e., the Times Picayune, WDSU television, Essence magazine, and all the intellectual flunkeys of the rich, Harvard, Tulane, LSU, etc. insist that our ‘democracy’ is the greatest expression of liberty, equality and freedom in the world.
The struggle to establish the democracy of the people, for the people and by the people, socialism, is really a struggle to establish a democracy of the majority, a struggle that must be waged to defeat the sham democracy of the rich, the democracy of the numerical few. What would Genuine Democracy look like? Once the class of millionaires and billionaires has been overthrown, once their resistance has been crushed, and once the bureaucratic machine of bourgeois state power has been smashed, the laboring masses can then erect a new state machinery to govern society. This new state, this new form of rule that represents the rule of the laboring people, will begin to reorganize a new economy by seizing the means of production, (factories, docks, hotels,) and capital (banks, financial institutions) and transforming them into the public property of the state, and hence, the laboring masses. These steps will end the exploitation of the laboring masses because the rich will no longer have control and a new economy can be organized and planned based on the needs of the laboring masses. The masses can then be drawn into the administration of the whole new state, trained and educated in the management of their new state power.

The New Orleans City Council would cease to be a ‘talking body’ and actually become a ‘working body’ for the genuine benefit of the laboring masses.

Institutions, including the schools, legislative bodies, courts, jails, and all other governing bodies would be converted into institutions of the laboring masses that suppress the rule of the rich millionaires and billionaires and their lackeys. The laboring masses would, obviously, establish a new legal framework, a new constitution that outlaws exploitation, all forms of oppression, including all forms and symbols of white supremacy.

New monuments, statues, markers, etc. that reflect the victory of the formerly oppressed over the oppressors would be erected widely to replace the current shameful reactionary monuments and street names today. The fight for democracy, true democracy, real democracy for the majority is part of the fight to defeat the rule of the rich today. Let us learn the lessons from the past. When George Washington and company got rid of English domination in 1783, they rightly made a clean sweep of all symbols of British oppression. They knew that if such symbols remained, the hand of reaction would be strengthened and oppression would not be eliminated. They tore down all statues of King George. The same should be done today!

FOR GENUINE DEMOCRACY!

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE AFRICAN AMERICAN NATION!

DOWN WITH WHITE SUPREMACY!

Leon A. Waters is a well known Black history expert. Born and raised in New Orleans, he has been a shipyard worker, a steel worker, a chemical worker, a custodian, a postal worker, a textile worker, a delivery man and a salesman during his life.

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Solidarity With BARE NOLA

In the New Orleans Workers Group, we believe in the political power of workers united together in struggle. We proudly support all the workers of New Orleans, recently deemed the #1 tourist destination in the world by the NY times. We salute BARE NOLA and all the workers organized against the recent raids on Bourbon St. clubs.

We recognize these raids as an attempt by the ruling class to separate women into legitimate and illegitimate classes. They think that they can get away with it because these clubs aren’t grocery stores, factories, or warehouses. These claims are flimsy excuses that rely solely on stigma and disorganization to work. They expect to be able to walk in and delegitimize these workers in the eyes of the city.

They expect to be able to attack without meeting organized resistance. The only ones they have delegitimized are themselves. Yesterday they were bold enough to parade their so-called “victory” on Bourbon and hold ceremony in front of the city.

Because of the resistance of the workers, Landrieu hid like a coward and the tourism board was made to look foolish.

The ruling class relies on a narrative that this city is full of vulnerable people broken by a storm, uneducated and needing to be watched for their own good; that the most vulnerable of these people are the marginalized women on Bourbon, forced into work against their will. Those organizing against these raids are not vulnerable women, but a group of women united, understanding their collective power.

For the New Orleans Workers Group, the recent ATC raids on the workers of Bourbon St. amount to nothing more than a cruel and illegitimate act of repression. Under the guise of a moral campaign against sex trafficking, these raids are a cynical effort by the ruling class to remake Bourbon St. according to their interests, without the slightest consideration for the workers who have earned them billions in profits.

We reject the so-called “moral authority” of Covenant House, an institution that advocates for laws that criminalize the youth they pretend to serve. We reject the conclusions reached in the APLV study of 2016, which was fabricated in order to bolster the case of real estate developers and their unceasing drive to make New Orleans a playground for the rich. Most importantly we recognize this campaign as an attack on the rights of women workers, LGBTQ workers, and non-white workers.

The city and the tiny class of owners whose interests it represents invoke a sexist “morality” in one breath as they pretend to defend the interests of women in the other. The Workers Group rejects any attempt to divide the city’s workers, and we denounce as criminal the firing of hundreds of our fellow workers. As fellow members of the working class, we stand in solidarity with the dancers and other workers fighting back against these raids. #letusdancenola