Marxist IQ: Black History Month

 
BY:Communist Party USA| February 10, 2020
Marxist IQ: Black History Month

 

1. In his classic study, Black Reconstruction, W. E. B. Du Bois saw Reconstruction as

a. an attempt by white “carpetbaggers” to exploit the South.
b. a struggle to unite former slaves and poor whites to establish an advanced democracy.
c. the triumph of poor whites over the former slaveholders.
d. the triumph of former slaves over former slaveholders.

 

2. In articulating the concept of “positive peace,” Martin Luther King meant that

a. peace must be obtained at any cost.
b. peace is the absence of conflict.
c. peace could be obtained only by military defense.
d. peace had to be rooted in social justice.

 

3. The Communist Party USA has developed many strategies to advance “Negro Liberation” over the decades.  Among these strategies at various times was

a. integration of unions and mass organizations around the slogan, “Black and White, Unite and Fight,” in the 1930s.
b. advocacy of the “right of self-determination” for Blacks in the form of a Black state within a U.S. Socialist Union of states, in the so-called Black belt, the historic areas of large slave plantations in the deep South from the 1920s to the 1950s.
c. concentration on actively promoting the integration of Blacks into leadership positions in unions and mass organizations from the 1930s on, a policy later called “affirmative action.”
d. All of the above

 

4. The Civil Rights Movement’s great victory at Birmingham, many Marxists believe, was the result of

a. the moral power of non-violence to reach out to an American audience.
b. the scenes of racist violence shown on television.
c. the ability of the movement to challenge the political-police power structure in a major industrial center.
d. the capitalists’ desire to end segregation so that they could more fully exploit Southern labor.

 

5. A central theoretical point made by the CPUSA concerning African American liberation is that

a. African Americans are an oppressed ethnic group, and ethnic discrimination must be fought.
b. African Americans are an oppressed race, and racist policies must be fought.
c. only African American workers are oppressed, and Communists must fight for only African American workers.
d. African Americans are triply oppressed as workers, as members of a perceived national minority, and as members of a “race,” and all three forms of oppression must be interrelated and fought.

 

6.  Even with the gains made in the Civil Rights struggle over the last 50 years, it is stark evidence of the influence of institutional racism and unequal justice in America today that, of the more than 2 million prisoners in U.S. prisons and jails (the highest per capita by far in the developed world),

a. 24% are African American, and 10% Hispanic.
b. 33% are African American, and 23% Hispanic.
c. 44% are African American, and 28% Hispanic.
d. 11% are African American and 12% Hispanic.

Answers here.

 

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    The Communist Party USA is a  revolutionary working-class  political party founded in 1919 in Chicago, IL. The Communist Party stands for the interests of the American working class and the American people. It stands for our interests in both the present and the future. Solidarity with workers of other countries is also part of our work. We work in coalition with the labor movement, the peace movement, the student movement, organizations fighting for equality and social justice, the environmental movement, immigrants rights groups and the health care for all campaign. But to win a better life for working families, we believe that we must go further. We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit — socialism. We are rooted in our country's revolutionary history and its struggles for democracy. We call for "Bill of Rights" socialism, guaranteeing full individual freedoms.

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