Who are the Black Cat group?

The Black Cat Group are a collection of people at Sussex Uni who don’t think we can change this world with well-written manifestos, but have decided to write one anyway. We also think red and black compliment each other well and that union-made beer tastes like justice.

For us, the world we live in has not changed as much as some would argue. Sure, we don’t all wear flat caps or work with big hammers but what underpins society is ultimately the same: there is the vast majority, the working class, who have nothing but their ability to work to survive and there are those who live off the profit from the work which the majority do. As well as plain old capitalist misery, most people also suffer problems like sexism, racism or homophobia. ‘Anti-capitalism’ is clearly not enough to combat these problems, though ignoring class won’t do either. In fact, it’s as a class that we must face these problems.

Lifestyle changes and ‘dropping-out’, though admittedly a good laugh sometimes, ultimately amounts to re-arranging furniture on the Titanic. They’re individual solutions to wider, social problems. It’s by organising ourselves as a class, where we live and work, to improve our day-to-day lives that we can build a confrontational movement able to directly attack capitalism.

It’s because of this that we don’t organise students as students. Being ‘a student’ is an odd position to be in, at once we’re consumers and producers (whether now or in the near future) and can have different class interests. Not to mention we’re really lazy. We attempt to organise students as workers, as part of the working class, not for our own sectional interests. This means drawing links between students and staff at university and elsewhere, educating students about our rights at work and how to stand up for them and lots of other stuff that you can’t fit on an A5 bit of paper. We often fail miserably but we keep plugging away anyway. Especially when we see the French at it again.

We reject all political parties, even ‘revolutionary’ ones, because as a class, we are powerful because of our role as the people who drive buses, answer phones, wash dishes, teach in schools and all the other things which keep the world turning. We are not powerful because of any faith placed in political leaderships who upon becoming leaders will concern themselves with little else apart from remaining leaders.

We believe that the only way to effect change for our own ends is through bottom-up directly democratic organisation and direct action. Like this we can improve our everyday lives and, hopefully anyway, do away with capitalism altogether.

If you’re interested in the Black Cat Group, our meetings are at 6pm on Mondays in Russell Building Room 1. We don’t agree on everything and don’t expect total agreement to arise anytime soon so if you’re vaguely interested, feel free to come along..