J. Sakai: Difference between revisions

A notorious example of misquoting that's been pointed out for years<ref>https://lefty.pictures/post/view/16285</ref><ref>https://erich-arbor.medium.com/the-anti-marxist-elitism-of-j-sakais-settlers-409ff2d496ee</ref> is his attempt to portray William Z. Foster as some sort of white supremacist would-be lynch mob leader. <blockquote>In his 1920 history of the strike, Foster (the supposed "communist") repeated the lie that Afrikan workers had "lined up with the bosses."<ref>Also not an actual Foster quote. </ref> In fact, Foster even said that in resolving the differences between Euro-Amerikan and Afrikan labor "The negro has the more difficult part" since the Afrikan worker was becoming "a professional strike-breaker." And militant white workers knew what they were supposed to do to a "professional strike-breaker.</blockquote><blockquote>Foster's '''lynch mob oratory''' was only restrained by the formality expected of a Euro-Amerikan "communist" leader. His white-supremacist message was identical to but more politely clothed than the crude rants of the Ku Klux Klan. He warned that the capitalists were grooming Afrikans as "as race of strike-breakers, with whom to hold the white workers in check; on much the same principle as the Czars used the Cossacks to keep in subjugation the balance of the Russian people." It's easy to see how Foster became such a popular leader among the settler workers.<ref>https://readsettlers.org/ch6.html</ref></blockquote>But let's read this quote in full where Foster says that he's confident that black workers ''won't'' become dedicated strikebreakers: <blockquote>They know little of the race problem in industry who declare that it can be settled merely by the unions opening their doors to the negroes. It is much more complex than that, and will require the best thought that conscientious whites '''and''' blacks can give it. '''The negro has the more difficult part to solve, in resisting the insidious efforts of unscrupulous white employers and misguided intellectuals of his own race to make a professional strike-breaker of him. But I am confident that he will win out and will take his place where he belongs in the industrial fight, side by side with the white worker.'''<ref>https://www.marxists.org/archive/foster/1920/great-steel-strike-its-lessons/ch11.htm</ref></blockquote>Now more Sakai:<blockquote>No longer was it just a question of some Afrikans not following the orders of the white labor. Now Foster was openly saying that the entire Afrikan "race" was the enemy. Could the imperialists have asked for more, than to have the leading "communist" trade-union leader help them whip up the oppressor nation masses to repress the Afrikan nation?