LA Progressive
Why Fighting Racism Is Not the Same as Building a Multiracial Movement
When I sat down recently with longtime organizer Eric Mann, I expected us to talk about movement strategy. We did. But before we got very far, Mann raised something more basic: friendship.“What’s the point of trying to change the whole country if we don’t like each other?” he asked.It was vintage Eric—part political theory, part personal reflection, and a reminder that movements are ultimately made of human beings.Mann has been organizing for more than six decades. His political history stretches from the Congress of Racial Equality and Students for a Democratic Society to years as an autoworker and organizer in the United Auto Workers. Today he is co-director of Los Angeles’ Labor/Community Strategy Center , an organization that has spent decades joining grassroots organizing with political education and movement strategy.But what has always interested me most about Eric is something else: he is a white man who has spent much of his political life trying to understand what it means to struggle for Black liberation.That became the starting point for our conversation. To read this article in its entirety go to: LA Progressive Get full access to LA Progressive at laprogressive.substack.com/subscribe
