Buses heading to Tallahassee March 7 are sponsored by the AFL-CIO, local unions, schools, and churches for what promises to be a massive rally to defend this social gain. Like strikes and struggles for dignity on the job, actions against police brutality, and those standing up to anti-immigrant attacks, the protests in Florida over the past weeks are part of working people taking the moral high ground against the effects of the employer and government offensive. Statements in defense of affirmative action by those who have turned out for meetings around the state have helped answer the ideological rationalizations for attacking this gain by the Democratic and Republican party politicians. Workers and students have presented facts and convincing testimony as to why, given persistent and endemic discrimination in the United States, affirmative action should be extended rather than eliminated.
Affirmative action is a key question for the working class.
It is not only about correcting past wrongs, but aimed at building unity among working people. It is a social conquest that was won as a result of the massive civil rights battles in the 1950s and '60s. Discrimination is a weapon used by the capitalist bosses to maintain divisions among workers and tear apart class solidarity in order to deepen the exploitation of the working class as a whole. Life for workers under capitalism is not worth much, as evidenced by the recent cuts in Kentucky for workers compensation and black lung benefits. Some 1,500 workers rallied in that state recently to protest these cutbacks.