On the April 5 Anti-Fascist Demonstrations

As a Black worker I felt a need to attend the April 5th National Day of Action “Hands Off Protest” in downtown Los Angeles where there were an estimated 10,000 plus participants, all there to protest the reactionary right-wing agenda of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

I felt a need to attend this particular protest because of all the hype telling the Black masses that we should sit this action out because it doesn’t concern us, how this protest is just a fight between white people, between the Democratic and Republican parties, and also that the white Left has forgotten us as well.

There has been a strong campaign on YouTube from certain individuals who consider themselves speaking for the Black community. I found the language of these podcasts offensive to the point of anger. In one of the videos I saw, the language was very patronizing to Black people, telling us to stay home and “sit your Black asses down” and not go out in protest as if the attacks upon DEI, federal job layoffs, possible social security and Medicaid cuts, etc. do not affect us.

This is what MAGA would do to confuse and disarm the Black movement. The language I heard in these videos would never have been used by Black people who knew and understood the Black experience. “Sit your Black ass down” is disrespectful to what historically we have fought for, for new human relationships. To say that it’s not our fight but a fight among whites is to erase the recent history of the Black Lives Matters protests where many whites were on the front lines nationwide fighting alongside us against the police  and some of those whites were jailed and even killed.

Why should Black folks follow the lead of the MAGA Right? The Black movement has historically pushed American society forward, including pushing the Left movement.  The white working class that voted for Trump en masse needs to realize their class interest as being against the billionaires like Musk and Trump who feed off the racism found within the American working class.  This problem with a long history in America needs to be solved if we as a country are to move forward.

Having separate movements inflames racism. This is not the time for the Black movement to take a back seat when many of  the whites on the Republican and Democratic side are questioning the direction of this country. The time is now to strike for a new direction.

The fearmongering of these YouTube videos claiming imminent attack upon Black protesters was a false narrative. I was at Pershing Square in Los Angeles for the speeches and the rally where a Black veteran spoke about the need to fight Trump and DOGE over benefits that helped to save his life from drug addition, imprisonment, and PTSD after he got home from Afghanistan. An African woman immigrant spoke, sang, and danced for the protesters with her demand to reinforce immigrant rights by showing how important diversity has been to making America strong economically and to reinforcing our freedom. Another speaker spoke for Latinx immigrant workers who are at the top of the Trump hit list for deportation, some of whom have been abducted or disappeared.  Immigrant students’ visas have been  revoked for protesting against Israel’s continuing genocidal war against the people of Gaza.

We as African Americans came to America as slaves. We as Black slaves survived the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas, and we survived a fistful of atrocities against us as a people, and we will survive Trump’s authoritarian agenda.  But that doesn’t mean we want to live off the scraps from the “master’s” table. Never again. We as a people know that the Trump administration’s agenda has made us invisible.

I read a statement on Facebook from a Black youth whose mother said that this was a fight between “white folks,” not our fight. But this is our fight.  Historically, the American Civil War could be seen as a fight between white folks with Black slaves being the spoils. But that was our fight too. We are in the middle or at the bottom as Black folks in America today. And the middle or the bottom is where you’re most likely to get hit.

I don’t think the Democratic or Republican Parties want to represent the Black masses as we continue to present ourselves as a historic and often revolutionary problem for the system. The Trump campaign began as an attack upon the electoral success of the Obama presidency and his expansion of health care for the poor. Trump’s success was built on racist attacks against Obama and Trump fed off the racist backlash. What direction will the Black masses go in? I don’t know. It has yet to be determined, but the Black masses need to be front and center in the fight against fascism if we are to win.