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racist oppression.

These practices have had negative effects and consequences not only for Blacks, but above all, on Black-white unity, basic to the fabric of our society. For the struggle against racism and for Black liberation is a distinct but not separate feature of the general class struggle for eventual freeing of the entire working class from capitalist exploitation; it is an integral, inseparable component of the continued struggle for full economic, political and social equality of Black people, including the entire range of issues, tactics and programs that affect the struggle for justice, equality and liberation of all nationally oppressed people.

It is our U.S. racist policies and our ruling class's support of racism abroad that serve to estrange national groups and disrupt previously developed friendly relations. Black communities that struggled shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish-American people against discrimination, jimcrow, lynching and anti-Semitism are embittered by the actions of some Zionist organizations and their leaders in support of our government's racist policies in conducting foreign policy in the Middle East.

U.S. racist policies drove out of office US Ambassador Andrew Young, a Black. And U.S. racist opposition to Palestinian independence has received unqualified support from our country's pro-Israel lobby and pro-Zionist congressmen and senators and their allies in public office.

Black people, in the main, see the Palestinian struggle for independenced and nationhood, for the return of their occupied lands and the withdrawal of Israeli military occupation forces, as a struggle against racism.

However, a distinction must be made: the U.S. Jewish community includes not only the Zionist leaders and groups that support expansionist policies of the government of Israel, acting as the U.S. imperialist ally, but also a great mass of non-Zionist Jewish-Americans who must not be diverted from a united struggle for Black liberation and against anti-Semitism in the U.S.A.

Racism must not be allowed to weaken or destroy the long-term cooperation and joint struggle for social progress of the U.S. Black and Jewish peoples, among whom there had emerged and matured a strong bond of friendship, cooperation and support for each other's struggles, a joint movement of resistance against white chauvinism.

The struggle against racism in the U.S. and for Black liberation is replete with examples, including the campaigns against lynchings, the fight for the freedom of framed Black people, especially in the South--the Scottsboro case, the Herndon and McGee cases, and many others. The great struggles for civil rights bring to mind not only the as-

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sassinaton of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but also the murders of numerous civil rights activists-- Black and white. There are the historic battles-- to free Angela Davis, to expose the slaughter of the Attica prisoners by Rockefeller, against the Wilmington Ten frame-up and other frame-ups, and there is now the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR), the chief organized resistance movement in the battle against racism and the struggle for Black liberation.

Racism cannot be totally obliterated while capitalism rules-- the entire superstructure must be done away with-- but racism can and must be fought whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Such anti-racist struggles can become the beachhead of Black-white unity in the struggle for the elimination of the racist system, and--more than that-- these struggles inspire the oppressed peoples fighting for independence and against racism and apartheid in South Africa, Zimbabwe and other enslaved, neo-colonialist lands, raising international solidarity to greater heights.

We are Americans in a U.S.A. organization. The struggle for peace and security raging here affects all of us, and as anti-fascists, anti-imperialists, the struggle to help wipe out racism is especially our concern.

All of us at the 42nd Anniversary in New York stood united behind our Black fellow fighters, and we stand united behind our Black fellow workers here in the U.S.A. at home AGAINST RACISM-- FOR BLACK LIBERATION.

The strength we possess we have because we proved that men and women in difficult times could, whatever their differences, unite to oppose fascism. That unity is necessary today, against racism.

We VALB vets and non-vets who continue to oppose fascist imperialist reaction, colonialism, the "fat cat" multinationals and their chief weapon RACISM-- we will once again find UNITY indispensable to fight our common enemies:

U.S. IMPERIALISM!

RACISM!

ATOMIC-HOLOCAUST MADNESS!

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