By Jamala Rogers

The current weakened state of the Left may be great fodder for jokes as in, "What's left of the Left?" However, the conditions of poor and working class people in this country are no laughing matter. We have become very skilled in describing their harsh reality but less skillful in our responses to changing them. Yet, it has been the intellect, vitality and imagination of the US Left that have inspired and influenced not only the domestic struggles but the left movements in other countries.

That's why it is imperative that the Left resuscitate itself. Reports of its death are not exaggerated. The buzzards have been hovering for a while. Pessimism and demoralization are setting in like rigor mortis in a dead body.

I hope this issue of Independent Politics stirs the pot of political inertia around the need for what Bill Fletcher calls a "neo rainbow coalition." I believe such a coalition could energize and focus our efforts and have an impact far beyond the electoral arena.

The starting place must be a collective summation of the Left in the past Rainbow Coalition. This an important prerequisite to building anything effective and influential. How did our respective organizations contribute to its growth and its downfall? There must be a parallel summation of the organizational models and their political tendencies in the last 20-25 years, along with the social movements that produced them.

As a member of the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS-ML), I know that we contributed mightily to the 1984 and 1988 campaigns of Jesse Jackson and to the Rainbow Coalition in the form of money, energy, people and time. We held leading roles in both campaigns and in the national coalition. There was criticism both inside and outside the organization regarding the League's uncritical support for Jesse. Our electoral strategy should have been better prepared for Jesse's decision to take the Rainbow with him.

80's Upsurge

After a decade of the 1970's blue funk, the 80's brought a renewed sense of hope and spirit. The Rainbow Coalition didn't create the 80's upsurge of social forces; it was the outgrowth of them. The electoral arena was jumping with excitement around candidates such as Harold Washington in Chicago. It was the height of the US anti-apartheid movement. We saw the emergence of many Marxist-Leninist groups that became the New Communist movement. Being grounded in these vibrant motions kept our analyses and strategies fresh and on point. It was the difference between a running stream and a stagnant pond. Those organizing experiences helped us to continually re-assess our strategy and adjust our tactics.

A discussion about building an alternative to the existing political parties must be about more than recreating the nostalgia of the 1960s and 1980s. It must be about looking at the conditions that we currently face and where we want to go. This means articulating a clear vision of 2-3 things we are for rather than 471 things we are against.

Like every other social, political and cultural phenomenon in this country that shifted to the right, the Left must acknowledge that our lives and politics have also been infected. The one true inoculation for rightism is unity-(self) criticism-unity with a basic assumption that we must care enough about one another and our struggles to transcend the petty personal issues to get to the real work. The path of least resistance is leading us to political irrelevance.

Another fact that we must agree on is that it does make a difference what kind of car we drive and who is in the driver's seat. It is a determining factor as to whether we reach ever our destination and what shape we're in when we arrive. This time around, we must bridge the chasm between theory and practice, between the talk and the walk.

Intersectionality as the Framework

I believe a 21st century version of the Rainbow Coalition must embrace a radical and feminist politic. People of color should represent the majority leadership and working class people should be intentionally included, not merely token additions. Also, this repressive period requires a disciplined and responsible work style by committed people and organizations accountable to The People.

The feminist theory of intersectionality is a critical framework that has to be used not only to transform our organizations into genuine democratic spaces but as a useful tool in our political analysis of conditions and strategy. Intersectionality is not just an instrument for looking at the ways that race, sex, class, gender and other forms of identity impact women. It also provides a framework as to how patriarchy has shaped our political views and the structures of resistance that we have built to fight against oppression and exploitation.

One lesson that we must learn from the last two decades of building and maintaining organizations is that we have used the same hierarchal, sexist, racist, classist, homophobic models that our oppressors have used. They guarantee predictable outcomes: that our efforts will deteriorate into fighting over which issues are priority over another, to rallying behind a messianic leader and to becoming alienated from the masses. Instead of connecting issues, developing people and building from the bottom as organizers like Ella Baker taught, we moved to what I call "organization cannibalism."

We attack, destroy and criticize every group around us. The Labor Party doesn't have enough workers. The Black Radical Congress isn't radical enough. The Green Party doesn't have enough blacks. United for Peace and Justice isn't united enough. These charges may hold some degree of validity but whose interests does it serve when we criticize ourselves out of existence? A similar search and destroy mission is carried on in the inside of our groups. At the end of the day and after all the dispiriting critiques, our little fiefdoms may be intact but nothing of substance was built and very little gains were made to advance the people's agenda.

Progressive and left groups must (re) learn how to engage in principled criticism and debate. There are many anti-social as well as unhealthy political behaviors that abound unchecked and unchallenged in our organizations and movements. Radical and left organizations have gone from one extreme to another. We moved from the merciless death blows of criticism to the silent accommodation of liberalism where anything goes. If our analyses were as sharp as our tongues during the New Communist Movement of the 80's, we would be light years ahead of where we are now.

My Grandma Nellie was no radical but she had the common sense to understand that if you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you get. After the 1960s and 70s, the empire did strike back. Our enemies had the political savvy to change their strategy, their message and their image; it's been full steam ahead ever since.

A new and improved Rainbow Coalition, based upon the summed up experiences of the past, is still a promising prototype. Ours is a legacy worth fighting for, especially if we expect to successfully define genuine democracy and re-route the course of human rights.

Jamala Rogers is Executive Director of the Black Radical Congress, www.blackradicalcongress.org.