Racist Foreclosures Turn Workers into Economic Refugees

DETROIT, MI, February 7 — Thousands of workers here, employed and unemployed, retirees, the indigent and the disabled, were forced to appear at Wayne County show-cause hearings to try to keep their homes out of foreclosure. They were almost all Black. There were so many foreclosure notices that the hearings had to be held in Cobo Center, where just two weeks earlier the racist auto bosses spent millions unveiling their new cars at the annual Auto Show.  
More than 62,000 Detroit properties are threatened with foreclosure because the owners are three years behind on property taxes. An estimated 20,000 families own and live in their homes while another 29,000 families rent homes they do not own. The other 13,000 properties are empty lots. The total population of Detroit is just under 700,000.
“My heart got to beating so fast — it’s just very scary,” said Rebecca Miles, who said her home was put in her name after her mother’s death but had fallen about $3,000 behind on taxes. All around their East Side neighborhood, the [foreclosure notices] had gone up, said her husband, Michael Miles. “They did the whole block,” he said. “They’re kicking people out…” NY Times, (1/30)
When the U.S. auto industry ruled the world, and the United Automobile Workers (UAW) had over a million members and led national strikes to win important reforms for their members, Detroit claimed the highest percentage of private home ownership in the U.S. But those reforms were built on betting on the bosses’ success. Like all reforms under capitalism, they are fleeting at best, and the bosses start working on taking them back the day you win them. The only long-term guarantee for workers everywhere is to smash the racist profit system with communist revolution, and to replace the bosses and bankers with a communist society run by the working class.
Detroit has been in decline for decades due to the decline of the U.S. auto industry and the UAW accepting decades of concessions to try to save the bosses. With the economic crisis of 2008, Obama, Wall St., the auto bosses and the UAW “restructured” the industry, costing thousands of jobs, dozens of factory closings and starting wages being cut in half.  These factors contribute to 70,000 foreclosures between 2009 — 2014.
During this time, the City declared bankruptcy, targeting workers’ pensions in order to bail out the billionaire bankers. Now, with the auto bosses making billions in profits, and the City out of bankruptcy, we still see a record number of foreclosures.
Just last summer, thousands of residents were having their water shut off for being three months behind in their bill. A mass fightback helped to temporarily stop shut-offs, though they later resumed. Detroit stands as a ruin of the short-lived American Century that was to follow World War Two.  Black workers have been beaten down by the bosses, who can no longer offer the basics of schools, hospitals and fire houses. They have been betrayed by the union leaders, clergy and Democratic Party, and now they have become economic refugees, forced out by the tens of thousands. If you’re not sure about the need for communist revolution, look at Detroit.