Michel Hector

A few years ago, my interest in the history and development of Haitian labor movements and radicalism led me to a renewed interest in the works of Michel Hector. From his various works written under the pseudonym Jean-Jacques Doubout to his later writings on the Haitian Revolution and the genesis of the state, Hector illustrates the utility of Marxist and materialist theory for understanding Haitian historical development. Furthermore, as a militant involved in the labor and socialist movements, Hector's objective analysis offers key insights into different moments and conflicts over strategy, ideology, tactics, and goals of the various left-wing political parties and labor federations. Furthermore, without Hector and his legacy rooted in the long history of Haitian Marxist critique, contemporary scholarship on the Haitian Left would be impoverished and sorely lacking the testimony and analysis of a participant of its struggles.

His work, in both Spanish and French essays and monographs, also provides key sources and an interpretative framework for understanding Haiti's position in the larger political economy of the last two centuries. The earlier work written under the name of Doubout explores the Marxist framework for analyzing the development of social classes and the "semi-feudal" nature of the economy for most of the 19th century. Doubout explains this in Feodalisme ou capitalisme by arguing that the Haitian Revoluton was neither anti-capitalist, nor anti-feudal. One can debate the utility of using terms like feudal, but if understood as "feudal-like," the dichotomy is warranted. Then, the rupture beginning in 1915 with the US Occupation and a rapid increase in the size and number of large-scale agro-industrial firms and proletarianization proceeds. Hector's work follows this development to the early labor movement of the 1920s and 1930s (through figures such as Joseph Jolibois, Jacques Roumain, and Christian Beaulieu), paving the way for the "explosion" of 1946 and independent labor's influence on politics.

Hector, however, also outlines the importance of changes in political economy during the second half of the 19th century with a limited opening of Haiti to foreign capital and enterprise, particularly after 1860. Hector is one of the few historians I have come across whose work encompasses that period in class formation and the extent to which the US Occupation merely accelerated a process that had begun in the later decades of the 19th century. His works include useful chronologies and timelines on the development of capitalist industries in the country, pivotal dates for strikes, and the formations of unions and political parties. Hector's also one of the few sources who wrote about artisans and wage-workers in that period, 1860-1915, including the incipient proto-proletariat into what may be early formations of class consciousness. 

While some may take issue with his Marxist-inspired critiques of the MOP's Fignolé or the UIH's lack of a clear political program or almost anarchist-inspired politics (essentially, playing with fire just as the Duvalier dictatorship was increasingly tyrannical), Hector's oeuvre is foundational for any kind of clear comprehension of the history of modern Haiti. His later work, which, unfortunately, I have not completely read, encompasses social movements and political crisis, such as the piquets of the 1840s and the 1946 revolution. A return to studying early Haiti also manifests, requiring close reading for analysis of the colonial period. In short, Hector's long list of published writings assist in elucidating the entirety of our past, as well as the applicability of Marxist framework for the Caribbean. Rest in peace, Michel Hector Auguste.

Notes sur le développement du mouvement syndical en Haïti

One of my current long-term interests is the historical and ideological foundations of radicalism, labor movements and socialism in Haiti. Although I still have a long way to go in terms of access to specific reading materials and primary sources, Notes sur le développement du mouvement syndical en Haïti, coauthored by Marxist historian Michel Hector (Jean-Jacques Doubout) and labor organizer Ulrick Joly, provides a succinct overview of the Haitian labor movement from its origins to the fall of l'Union Intersyndical d'Haiti (UIH) in 1963. While the authors have their biases as Marxist-Leninists and Joly's past in the UIH adds a personal dimension, this is an important overview of the Haitian labor movement and Duvalierism from a Haitian left perspective. 

Unfortunately, the study skips over most of the period prior to the US Occupation, and focuses for the most part on 1946-1963, covering the role of the 1946 revolution against Lescot, the brief period of democratic reforms and progressive labor laws, and then the repression of labor under Estime, Magloire, and Duvalier. While partial to the PSP, PEP, and PPLN parties, this study is more sympathetic to fignolisme and the MOP than Hector's major study of labor and socialism. Fignolisme combined charisma, social reformism, noirism, and demagogy with labor but was too limited to Port-au-Prince and its environs. The Federation of Haitian Workers (FTH in French) was more influenced by the PCH (Parti Communiste Haitien of the 1940s) and the PSP (Parti Socialiste Populaire). The other labor union federations were either phantom unions tied to the state or led by opportunists. The PSP sounds like the most coherent socialist political party with the most determined support for labor militancy and union democracy during this period (1946-1950). 

However, the main utility of this important work for me is detailed breakdown of affiliated unions with the UIH in the 1958-1963 period, when Duvalier finally cracked down on democratic labor unions. I once asked a Haitian academic about labor unions among the trieuses of the coffee sector in Haiti after reading that Jean-Jacques Dessalines Ambroise had helped organize workers in the industry, and this book gives the names of two specific unions of trieuses for Maison Madsen and Maison Vital plus their delegates to the UIH. Furthermore, the transformations in the Haitian economy during the 1950s and 1960s under US imperial capitalism helped explain why socialists and syndicalists were able to made impressive gains for labor as the number of companies employing vast numbers of workers increased, including rural areas with agro-industrial US companies and mining. Indeed, some of the strikes launched by regional peasant unions and rural proletarian unions, such as in the Nord-Est, involved thousands of people and were able to win concessions from the labor department of Duvalier into the early 1960s. 

Perhaps most useful, however, is the reflection of Joly and Hector on the weaknesses of the labor movement and internal flaws of UIH. Like economist Mats Lundahl, they point to the lack of a united front of the labor movement as the reason for its inability to defeat Duvalier, but they offer a more nuanced interpretation of the various historical actors and their role in the social totality. Like Lundahl, they acknowledge how the labor movement between 1946 and 1963 was too centered on Port-au-Prince and its environs, did not encompass the poor peasants, and was divided ideologically by fignolisme and socialist currents, but the UIH itself fell victim to economism and winning direct victories for affiliated unions instead of democratic political reforms. The pro-democratic forces were already divided, but by not actively encouraging support for it, UIH may have lost sight of the larger vision for democratic reforms to ensure protections for the growing number of unions affiliating with them. Moreover, the rise of regional federations or confederations of peasants and agricultural workers, partly tied to the political conflicts of 1956 and 1957, proved they were useful for labor organizing in the rural areas but UIH was probably not as proactive in connecting the urban working-class and countryside, despite the involvement of figures like Rodolphe Moise. 

In their defense, state repression placed limits on how much could be done, and despite their shortcomings, UIH supported literacy campaigns, a cultural center, a clinic, fought for the rights of Haitian migrant workers in the DR and Bahamas, and produced a party organ for political education. In short, the UIH, which was supported by PEP and PPLN, was perhaps lacking in a a concerted effort to promote democratic reforms to safeguard the gains of the labor movement while having to deal with an increasingly fascist regime which continued to pretend it was the natural supporter of workers. Moreover, while praising the unification of the PEP and PPLN for the formation of the PUCH by the end of the 1960s, perhaps Hector and Joly's defense of vanguardism may be a blindspot. Indeed, if fignolisme was characterized by the MOP's refusal to trust the Haitian masses with the decision making processes itself, and the UIH did indeed attempt to ensure affiliated unions and their rank and file were involved with democratic decisions of the organization, perhaps the vanguardism of the PSP and PUCH were closer to fignolisme and what Nicholls referred to as the technocratic character of Haitian socialists?

And what does one make of the paternalist mentality and belief in charismatic figures which supposedly characterizes pre-capitalist societies and helps explain, perhaps, the fatalism of the Haitian poor and working-class? Presumably, this fatalistic belief of the Haitian lower classes that a state or individual will save them is part of the same trope among other Haitian leftists that the Haitian people need to develop class consciousness as a class for itself, in itself, and take ownership of its own destiny (masters of the dew, perhaps?). Claude Souffrant once made a similar argument about the religious fatalism of the Haitian peasant. However, is it a just a strawman? Did the Haitian Left have its own CLR James or Joseph Edwards, Caribbean leftists who championed the self-activity of the workers and opposed state bureaucracy and vanguards? UIH came somewhat close to this by trying to stay accountable and include rank and file workers in the decision-making apparatus, but Joly and Hector never denounce vanguards. 

Elma Constance Francois

Remember Elma Francois? I have heard of her here and there, but am ashamed to admit I did not understand the depth and work of this leftist Trinidadian woman for labor history. For a quick video special, this will suffice. Unfortunately, it does not emphasize her leftist bona fides, but at least it provides a useful introduction. The 1937 labor unrest is covered by Eric Williams and Naipaul, but, curiously, I don't recall them mentioning Francois. For more reading, Gerard A. Besson's blog contains oodles of information on her.  

The Trouble With Diversity

"...when the problem is inequality, the solution is identity."

As someone familiar with like-minded viewpoints of Walter Benn Michaels on diversity, neoliberalism, economic inequality, and race, reading The Trouble with Diversity was not only informative, but complementary to Adolph Reed's work. Indeed, Michaels shares a similar penchant for excellent one-liners, sarcasm, and surprisingly fitting sense of humor with Reed. All of the issues raised by Michaels are legitimate on race, class, economic inequality, fighting neoliberalism, and the ways in which our love of diversity and antiracism can be easily coopted by or manipulated by the forces of neoliberalism. Indeed, the author's provocative argument that the left has helped the right in allowing the diversity discourse to shift the center of attention to race or gender or indigeneity over the fundamental problem of growing inequality is a heavy charge, especially in light of the ongoing #Oscarssowhite controversy, as if more black and brown faces receiving meaningless statues is going to shape or change the material conditions of the poor, like those poisoned by the state of Michigan. 

More interesting and relevant to the relatively recent student protests regarding racism on college campuses, the ease in which whites can use the language of multiculturalism, diversity, or identitarianism to support ideas like "white student unions" is another challenge that should seriously make one question some of the central ideas of culture, race, identity, privilege that are so prevalent or even acceptable to the neoliberal turn. Michaels examines this tendency among Christian fundamentalists, for instance, to argue that they are victims of discrimination. The infamous Kim Davis exemplifies this trend, too, and should suggest we need to move away from identity or culture (which is used interchangeably with race, despite all the talk of race as lacking any scientific meaning or the obvious observation that the very idea of black, white or Jewish "culture" is not written in stone or unchanging) and the discourse which can be appropriated by those with regressive social and political views. The focus on "identity" and "culture" is flexible enough to encompass the Kim Davis's and Deray McKessons of the world. 

Furthermore, the author's bold assertions on attempts to make class the equivalent of race or gender as misguided and anti-left is worth hearing out. Michaels does not reject the possibility of working-class or poor people producing great literature or art, but is, I think, right to say attempts to highlight the deprivation and exploitation of the poor is not an attack on their "agency," but a realist perspective that wants to remove the obstacles to economic equality, an equality of outcomes that will ensure the poor and working-class will not experience the deprivation that leaves most unable to access the higher living standards, representation, and benefits of middle-class and elite Americans. Hence, the talk of classism as disrespect or sneering at the poor and disadvantaged, does not address the fundamental issue of growing class disparities. Yes, we should not look down upon those who are less fortunate, but ending the conversation there does nothing to change their conditions. The culture of the poor, maligned by the myth of the underclass, as elucidated by Adolph Reed, will not save them, and neither will attempts to valorize or romanticize the poor. As mentioned in the text, this is particularly relevant to some of the fixation on "indigenous" cultures and languages, as if languages or cultures are eternal and an indigenous or Latin American peasant identity is always anti-capitalist, anti-globalization, or socialist, or all cultures are equal. In short, Michaels has written a book that is bound to stir debate, especially today. 

Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics

"To the extent that I focus on the sources of radical decline, this study is written against the grain of the prevailing vindicationist trend in the literature on Black Power radicalism."

Reading Cedric Johnson's Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics reminds one of Adolph Reed. Both Johnson and Reed share a leftist perspective, both scholars are critical of racial identity politics, and last, but certainly not least, both lament the decline of practical, everyday relevance of the sectarian leftists to the "masses." In fact, Johnson's Revolutionaries to Race Leaders is quite similar to Adolph Reed's Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era, and the two texts complement the other. Johnson and Reed persuasively connect the Jim Crow past, civil rights advances, and the post-segregation era of black politics in a direction that reveals the limitations of Black Power discourse and "unity without uniformity" thinking. For that reason, in an age when popular black memory of Black Power often obscures the shortcomings of black nationalism, and a current wave of identity politics has resurfaced, Revolutionaries to Race Leaders is an important, but challenging read for those in my generation who have lionized the activists and intellectuals of the zenith of Black Power in the late 1960s and 1970s, from Baraka and Carmichael to Malcolm or Newton.

If "Black America" is not a real corporate entity, and the divergent interests of African Americans could not be silenced or cast aside in the name of "black unity" or black nationalism, due to class, regional, gender, and political differences, then why continue to pursue a race-first agenda that falls apart? Johnson's critical overview of Harold Cruse's work on black nationalism, Amiri Baraka's significant work as a proponent of Black Power, and the various Black Power conventions and organizations, such as the African Liberation Support Committee or the 1972 Gary convention, analyzes how each failed, in part, for reasons described by Adolph Reed as Black Power embraced ethnic politics and elite brokerage instead of retaining a democratic base and practical relevance. The sectarianism of the "scientific socialists" described by both scholars, for example, Marxist-Leninists wings of the ALD, and the cultural nationalists, too, were vanguardist, elitist despite democratic rhetoric, and unable to challenge the New Right, the transition to the Corporate City, or the inherent restrictions of organizing based on race alone. 

Particularly relevant to today is the peril of sectarianism and racial essentialism among cultural nationalists, rooted in prewar notions of race as culture and a poor understanding of culture, often leading to a fictitious "blackness" to organize around. Some of this disturbing essentialism is common among certain identitarian circles and organizations, leading to poor understanding of race, culture, identity, and building practical coalitions. Some, despite the not-so-recent past, for instance, still prefer to organize based on explicitly racial lines because multiracial coalitions or alliances or ideas and theories from "whites" are considered unacceptable, or they seek to ignore class differences in the name of a presumably homogeneous "blackness." As a casual observer of the Left, the vanguardist strain remains ever-present, too, often culminating in minor organizations vying for influence and recruitment but mired in arguments over the Russian Revolution, Castroist Cuba, petty ideological differences as a premise for engagement, as well as a failure to collaborate or form alliances. 

As for black politics today, we are still plagued by these lingering ideologies from the Black Power era, and the current movements and campaigns based on race leave me uncertain yet optimistic at heart. I see disturbing trends among overt identitarians that leave one wondering if it is 1968 instead of 2015. That said, surveys and other evidence on political behavior of 'Black America' does suggest some general, progressive hope which means black 'nationalism' can remain useful. Glen Ford from the Black Agenda Report has talked about Black America as the most left-leaning group in the US, the most "Scandinavia-like." Johnson's commentary on the 1972 Black Agenda from Gary and subsequent convention agendas or programs belie this point, which suggests, to some extent, race-based politics and bringing together the mostly progressive, left social democratic orientation of most African-Americans may be politically useful, particularly in the labor movement or anti-imperialism. One can also see, maybe light at the end of the tunnel in aspects of  'Black Lives Matter,' the Fight for Fifteen, and other struggles connected to the daily, lived experience and practical needs of people.

Adolph Reed Twofer: Class Notes and Stirrings in the Jug

This week has consisted mostly of Adolph Reed readings. Class Notes Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene is more accessible and broad while Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era consists of more formal, academic writing specifically related to the issues plaguing black politics in the post-segregation era. Stirrings in the Jug, with an insightful foreword by the late Julian Bond, posits a plausible explanation for the variety of reasons post-segregation black politics has failed to usher a new age of racial and economic equality, looking at the economy, social policy, shifts in the urban city pertinent to development and white flight, and last, but certainly not least, the sectarian black radical groups' failure to build accountable bases extended beyond the "communitarian" ethos. Class Notes, with its deliberate title, continues his observation on black politics with nuanced criticism of identity politics, the Farrakhan specter, and the perils of turning away from political movements that are not, well, structured in a democratically accountable fashion as in traditional liberalism. Even if one disagrees with Reed's conclusions, the limitations of identitarian politics ring clear, a message that is not heeded these days on the blogosphere. Furthermore, I find his conclusions on the illusory definition of the "underclass" merits his harsh denunciation of it as a myth, exploited by poverty research pimps who make far more money from it than any "welfare queen."

The two texts, both consisting of interrelated essays, actually engage each other quite well. Reed explains how the American city, increasingly black in the early decades of white flight, shifted from the "Industrial City" to the "Corporate City" in which developers are calling the shots, a declining tax base for cities experiencing population loss, and the ways in which demographic shifts allowed for the black petit bourgeoisie to win mayoral races. Focusing on Atlanta, for the most part, Reed's Stirrings in the Jug elucidates how, in the strangest discourse of representing the "black community," Maynard Jackson fired 2000 black sanitation workers. In a similar manner, Jackson could sell the airport project as benefiting the "black community" because of its affirmative action contracts implemented through negotiations with predominantly white developers, something that only benefits the black middle-class. Because of the constraints of white flight, white-dominated capital, the pro-growth ideology, and the divergent class interests of the "black misleadership class" (Black Agenda Report!) from that of the working-class African-American constituency, black officialdom faced severe limitations, yet also pursued policy antithetical to the interests of the lower classes in the name of the "black community." 

Similarly, black cultural nationalists and Marxist-Leninist groups also participated in this problem of black post-segregration politics. Invoking the poorly defined "black community" by the radicals and mainstream black political class entails "mystification," to Reed. Because any black man with a suit couuld claim to be a "race leader" (confirmed or granted by white recognition, as was the case with Jesse Jackson in the 1980s, according to Reed), and there was no large or sizable black presence in many of these sectarian or "radical" groups, this poorly defined or essentialized "black community" became a rhetorical tool for access to federal funding, political appointments, or cooptation without building any movement or mass of members to effectively challenge the pro-growth, center-right ideology. The "black misleadership class" was allowed to continue supporting the underclass myth of the black poor while wedding their own material interests to that of white capital as neoliberalism developed. Of course, these black radical groups were also neutralized by COINTELPRO and other forces, which are mentioned by Reed but not emphasized in the ways that other activists or scholars might gauge them. That said, Reed's larger argument appears valid, given the lack of any real constituency in these myriad organizations claiming to represent or fight for the "black community" without any attention to democratic organizational structures, accountability, fighting economic injustice beyond racial language, or combating inequality in practical, relatable terms to the "masses "of people. 

While I have some minor quibbles with the notion that invoking the "black community" to justify one's political legitimacy is automatically racial essentialism or mystification, as Reed defines it for the state of 1970s black politics (and beyond), these problems remain relevant today. The new wave of identity politics or identitarian discourse follows the same flaws as previous eras of black politics. We see it now with the Black Lives Matter network and Campaign Zero, which purportedly represent "blacks," as if we are some amorphous mass with the same interests, policy proposals, outlook, or needs. The ways in which cultural studies and African-American Studies sometimes perpetuates this shift away from structural causes of economic inequality or ignoring class differentiation among blacks leads to the issues we see today, where "black leaders" with connections to the rightist Democrats or foundations which support school privatization, disproportionately hurting poor minorities, are somehow said to represent the "black community" or "masses." This kind of identitarian thinking is impressively traced by Reed back to the early post-segregation politics, where racial kinship politics and ignoring class nuances and the internal diversity of "blackness" has, really, since Jim Crow days, benefitted the black petit bourgeoisie brokers with white power. 

Of course, invoking this "black community" does not automatically entail mystification if one keeps in consideration how pervasive racial segregation remains to this day. Political movements or campaigns that are accountable, relevant to the needs of working-class and poor people, or not grounded in a fictitious racial authenticity can exist, something I am sure Reed would not dispute. However, one cannot hope to find political movements in the black youth who are promoted by some academics as practicing "resistance" through hip-hip or twerking in a quotidian sense without a much larger, critical attention to building movements around issues that affect broad swathes of people, black and non-black. Thus, the harsh words Reed uses for the "raptivists" or academics in cultural studies who place hip-hop on the same level as slave revolts in the past as 'resistance" are rightfully ridiculed, although Reed may be too dismissive of the potential for youth or young people in movements. Nevertheless, he's on to something when he observes on page 167 of Class Notes, "That's the beauty of cultural politics; it can coexist comfortably with any kind of policy orientation." The same could be said about consumerism and Black Power, such as the hero worship of Malcolm X in the 1990s. 

Class Notes and Stirrings in the Jug touch on many other issues, of course, but these aforementioned points are particularly relevant and poignant observations. Reed's analysis of black politics and the political economy underneath it aids in understanding the conditions we are in now, especially an era where identity politics, something that has been around for ages, by the way, can perpetuate racial essentialism or be easily coopted by neoliberalism, such as the commodification of "white privilege" or diversity. Some may accuse Reed and other like-minded black intellectuals of class reductionism, but as Reed explains on page 206 of Class Notes, "Nevertheless, for all the limitations of the labor movement and of the individuals who comprise it, there's no place else where the left's political concerns gain a hearing and have a constituency outside the coffeeshops, cultural studies programs, and sectarian hutches." Calling attention to the need for a politics grounded in the material conditions of "workers" that is inclusive and aware of coexisting forms of discrimination or oppression is not some vulgar Marxism or class reductionist reasoning, but rather a keen attention to the importance of structural forces that relegate us to specific locales within a fundamentally unequal society. Perhaps Reed is right, maybe we need to ground reorganization of black politics on liberal formalism for democratic or popular politics. I know I am no longer a firm adherent in black linked fate notions yet remain sympathetic to Shelby's "pragmatic black nationalism." A loose coalition of "black" collective uplift is not, in my opinion, necessarily in opposition with the vision Reed, in my opinion, promotes. 

Reed Quotes

Adolph Reed has a penchant for awesome one-liners and precise observations on politics, class, race, and cultural studies. Here are some of my favorites.

From Class Notes

1. "Thus the old quip that any black person with a clean suit and five dollars in his pocket imagined himself a Negro leader" (5).

2. "Community presumes homogeneity of interest and perception at least in principle" (12).

3. "Being victimized by the state should not in itself confer political stature" (69).

4. "If a woman's decision expresses pathology because she makes it in poverty, then we have fallen into a tautology; she is poor because she is pathological because she is poor" (95).

5. "Again, a decade of underclass ideology has denied poor people any human agency in social-policy discourse. They exist only as a problem to be handled, more or less dangerous and alien objects of administration" (104).

6. "There's no such thing as authenticity; it's only a marketing ploy" (137).

7. "Cultural production can reflect and perhaps support a political movement; it can never generate or substitute for one. There is no politics worthy of the name that does not work to shape the official institutions of public authority that govern and channel people's lives. Anything else is playacting" (170).

8. "The demand to see oneself in the text easily reduces to narcissistically anti-intellectual twaddle as anyone who has encountered it as a professor is aware" (176).

From Stirrings in the Jug

1. "The historical arc of black radicalism in the post-segregation era is thus drenched in a bitter irony. The effort to maintain a transcendent, alternative vision that could not be corrupted or restricted by mundane politics actually helped to sustain a climate that increasingly limited the compass of credible black and left options. And this environment, of course, fuels demobilization." 

2. "Participating in youth fads (from zoot suits in the 1940s to hip-hop today), maintaining fraternal organizations, vesting hopes in prayer or root doctors, and even quilt making thus become indistinguishable from slave revolts, activism in Reconstruction governments, the Montgomery bus boycott, grassroots campaigns for voter registration, and labor union or welfare rights agitation as politically meaningful forms of "resistance"" (151).

3. "The point here is that the behavioral tendencies supposedly characterizing the underclass exist generally throughout the society. Drug use, divorce, educational underattainment, laziness, and empty consumerism exist no less in upper-status suburbs than in inner-city Bantustans" (190).

4. "What they have been given is a Malcolm X fabricated within an abstracted discourse of black "greatness," a discourse that lines up public figures like trading cards" (201).

5. "Confused and depressingly ignorant performers such as KRS-One, Public Enemy, X-Clan, and Sister Souljah spew garbled compounds of half-truth, distortion, Afrocentric drivel, and cracker-barrel wisdom, as often as not shot through with reactionary prejudices, and claim pontifical authority on the basis of identity with the props of their stage and video performances" (220).

6. "He was no prince, there are no princes, only people like ourselves who strive to influence their own history. To the extent that we believe otherwise, we turn Malcolm into a postage stamp and reproduce the evasive reflex that has deformed critical black political action for a generation" (224).