"it should not be forgotten that, above all else, the slave was a worker whose labor was exploited in production for profit in a capitalist market. It is this fundamental fact which identifies the Negro problem in the United States with the problem of all workers regardless of color."
Oliver Cromwell Cox was a Trinidadian-American sociologist. He was born into a middle-class family in Port of Spain, Trinidad and emigrated to the United States in 1919.
"Racial antagonism is part and parcel of this class struggle, because it developed within the capitalist system as one of its fundamental traits. It may be demonstrated that racial antagonism, as we know it today, never existed in the world before about 1492; moreover, racial feeling developed concomitantly with the development of our modern social system." ibid. pg. xxx"
"Christianity and Brahmanism go back to different basic premises. The one holds that in the beginning man was created in the likeness of God, while, the other maintains that from an original being came men into the world originally unequal, with special emphasis upon the gods conscious purpose that men should forever remain socially unequal."
"It is remarkable that some of the most precious rights of human welfare are attributed to the advocacy and practice of communists; and yet, in the same breath, we are asked to hate communists."
"Quite frequently during World War II, President Roosevelt declared there should be no "master race" in the world as the Germans claimed to be, and the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, stated explicitly that one principal purpose of the war was to eliminate fascism wherever found in the world. ... It would seem quite obvious that countries like Great Britain and the United States, whose ruling classes are in fact master races, may not be ready to eliminate this reality in the world. The master race idea and fascism can be purged from the social system only by a change in the system itself; and, for great powers, this is ordinarily a domestic undertaking."
"The capitalists cannot conceivably eliminate the proletariat as a class; it could at most only temporarily destroy or drive its leadership underground. On the other hand, the proletariat can eliminate the capitalists completely; it must do this if socialism is to be achieved."
"At best, Marxian hypotheses are "servants, not masters." Indeed, it has been said that Karl Marx himself was not Marxian because in his studies he strived to understand modern society, while the religious Marxists, in their exegetical discussions, center their attention not upon the ongoing social system but rather upon an explanation and criticism of Marx — a sort of rumination of his conclusions, incidental errors and all. If, therefore, parts of this study seem Marxian, it is not because we have taken the ideas of this justly famous writer as gospel, but because we have not discovered any other that could explain the facts so consistently."