The teach-in on diversity and political action earlier this week was outstanding. The ISU Lectures program, teach-ins, forums, debates and the like are especially good because of one big reason: They often address topics and perspectives that are often given little attention in textbooks, university courses and the media.

The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci wrote about politics and culture in his prison notebooks while he was incarcerated in Benito Mussolini’s dungeons from 1928 to 1937.

Gramsci had to be careful to eliminate words like “capitalism,” “class,” “Marx,” or “Marxist” because these words would get the attention of the fascist censor who would then stop him from writing anymore. The fascists knew their job was to suppress class consciousness wherever it appeared.

Today most academics, journalists and social commentators avoid the use of the word “class” just as carefully as Gramsci. But unlike Gramsci, they are not in prison and there’s no need for rulers to put them there.

They don’t need a fascist censor breathing down their necks because they have a mainstream censor implanted in their heads from their schooling and professional training.

Gramsci realized he was being censored. Intellectuals and pundits today think they are free as a bird — and they are, as long as they fly around in the right circles.

They will occasionally use “Marxism,” or “Marxist,” but usually in a knee-jerk, dismissive way. They are free to say what they like because their corporate bosses like what they say.

On Tuesday of this week, Brian Lemberger gave a presentation on “Racism, Sexism, and the Class Struggle.” Lemberger defined class as “the grouping of people in a society based upon their common relationships to the means of production.” To think critically about class is a subversive but democratic activity, bringing the dirty little secret of class out in the open.

Class is talked about in social science classes and the media — but usually in a limited way. We hear about “blue-collar,” “white-collar,” “suburbia,” “inner city,” “service workers,” “professionals,” “upper-middle,” “lower-middle” and “under” (class).

This definition of class is correlated with voting behavior, education levels, birth rates, divorce rates and the like. But this definition de-emphasizes the major class division.

All of humanity may be divided into two columns, column A (capitalist class) and column B (working class). The column A people live primarily off other people’s labor (“primarily” because they may work and draw a salary but that’s not the major source of their incomes).

Thousands of adults in the United States don’t work because they don’t have to. They have “private” or “independent” incomes; they get money from the labor of others through stock dividends, interest payments, rents on income property, and the like.

Income tax returns used to distinguish between “earned income” and “unearned income,” the latter being the profits of capitalists. It was a revealing designation in a government document (maybe that’s why these designations were removed from federal tax forms).

Column A people can become quite annoyed when you point out that they don’t work. Some of them work a little bit. But their labor doesn’t explain their great wealth.

“Hard work” doesn’t explain why a Haitian worker for Disney makes about 35 cents an hour and Disney CEO Michael Eisner makes over $97,000 an hour, for example. Column A accounts for about 10 percent of humanity.

Column B accounts for the other 90 percent of humanity, those who live primarily off wages, salaries, bonuses, fees, commissions and pensions (“principally” because some of them have some savings and assets that give them some income from column A, but it’s not enough to live on. What column A and column B have in common is that they both live off the labor of the people in column B.

At this point a critic might say: “Why should we hate rich people?” If we shouldn’t look down on the poor, we shouldn’t hate the rich either. I agree, we should not hate rich INDIVIDUALS as such. Many of them are decent people who even devote themselves to worthwhile causes like peace and the environment. The criticism here is not so much about particular individuals of a class but at a CLASS SYSTEM that allows huge concentrations of politico-economic power.

In Lemberger’s presentation he explained how racism and sexism function for column A as a way to divide and conquer column B. This “divide and conquer” strategy goes way back in history.

Slave holders in America once endured a “lively fear” that indentured servants would band together with blacks and Indians in uprisings against the propertied class — which happened more than once. Because of this, laws were passed prohibiting racial mixing.

It’s unfortunate that “divide and conquer” has been so successful. However, there are always signs of hope.

Decatur, Ill. used to be a very bigoted place according to a priest named Martin Mangan. Mangan says the labor movement in Decatur has brought people together. “The day we were arrested in front of the Main Gate, I see Dave Watts, who an outsider would describe as a redneck. There he is holding a sign reading ‘King’s Dream Lives!'” (The Nation, 4-8-96)

And live on it does. They may kill messengers but we should be determined that they don’t kill the message.

(A good portion of this column was paraphrased from “Land of Idols: Political Mythology in America” by Michael Parenti.)

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Drew Chebuhar is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Muscatine.