Racism; The Nations Most Dangerous Pollutant

Racism is more devastating than any other disease; a powerful consciousness-altering ideological drug which “makes a friend appear as an enemy, an enemy as a friend.” It is a cause of division within the working class and is the basis of the system of discrimination which oppresses thirty million Afro-Americans and, at the same time is a source of corporate super profits, “the nation’s most dangerous pollutant.” In this collection of more than 30 essays, pamphlets and articles, Gus Hall, then general secretary of the Communist Party, USA, subjected the theory and practice of racism to a Marxist-Leninist analysis. He consistently draws on the insights which Marxism provides concerning the class roots of racism and its relationship to the class struggle. Written in the course of the struggle for equality and justice, in “the heat of battle,” this book provides working class and progressive forces – Black and white – with both a practical guide and the ideological weapons to combat racism.