OK P6, you were right and I was wrong.

When you go to a community where "militant" means Malcolm X - and you say based on the "mili" root that "militant" does not mean Malcolm X, we are now outside of the realm of defining terms and into the realm of bullshit.

I'm not coming up with a new word because of Cobb.

African Americans have it better than Palestinians or South Africans under Apartheid so militant to African Americans does not mean militant to Palestinians or South Africans.

I'm perfectly happy calling an African American who believes that progress for Black people in America has to come from outside of the US Political system, and requires Black people developing a capacity to credibly threaten to damage the United States a militant.

Now that Cobb's definition and my definition are up front, we can decide which definition to use for the rest of this discussion.  If we use Cobb's then any conclusion we come to will not hold when I switch back to mine when I'm talking with normal black people in America. 

One of the things that strikes me about folks who take such a vehemently strong stance against certain aspects of black political activity that was predominant during the 1960s is their inability to do any sifting and weighing as a means of extracting and salvaging those practices and beliefs that were of lasting consequence from those practices and tenets that represented a dead end.

I recall the behavior of my paternal grandfather during the summer that Huey Newton was on trial for allegedly killing an Oakland cop. There were daily demonstrations being held by the Panthers and others at the Alameda County Courthouse. My grandfather, who was a retired tire builder and a Baptist who believed in that old time religion, would pedal his bike everyday from his home and join the marchers for a few hours before heading back home.

I am certain that he did not march because he believed in the Panthers or because he truly believed that Huey Newton did not have blood on his hands. He marched because he believed that it was the right thing to do given the level of murderous police brutality that he knew had been visited on black people all of his life and he respected the Panthers' and Newton's willingness to stand up to the cops.

In other words, he exercised that ability that used to be found in great abundance among our people, which was to take from their experiences and observations those things that could be useful and to leave the rest. Cobb, Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, Walter Williams, the folks at Booker Rising et al. seem to have lost this quality or ability along the way.

I suspect this is why so many black people regard them with suspicion or contempt. They want to revise history and erase the texture, feel, color and smell of other people's experiences.

They want to revise history and erase the texture, feel, color and smell of other people's experiences.

That's because they're not even talking to you. The recent McWhorter piece, for example, is the first thrust in an effort to remove moral support for protest politics.

No, not the first thrust but another phase in a process that has continually sought to undermine the moral basis of black people's resistence to the racism they encountered in America. I would not be surprised in the near future to read a piece by McWhorter or someone like him that the Civil Rights Movement actually suffered as a result of making a moral emphasis a central part of its work.

No, I think this is a broader strike. I think he's after protest techniques in general...it isn't really a technique used well by Conservatives. I think the ultimate idea is to get folks thinking a protest is invalid because it's a protest.

So what should we call it? Black Assertion? Black Refusal To Be Repressed? Black Life Force Surging Until It Shatters The Container Like A Flower Through A Crack In The Sidewalk? We should call it something.

Because it's still here.

I've been seriously partial to jes grew for a while now...,

I'm perfectly happy calling an African American who believes that progress for Black people in America has to come from outside of the US Political system, and requires Black people developing a capacity to credibly threaten to damage the United States a militant.

Some folks see what has been accomplished so far as damage. But I don't think I'm a militant. Seeing the whole thing as a game to be played means thingsrarely occur tome in those terms.

I've been seriously partial to jes grew for a while now...

That's some of that trademarked terminology.

McWhorter and group that he aspires to belong to or, perhaps, is already a card carrying member of need to have folks in a quiescent mode and tamped down like cigars in a box if they intend to continue pursuing their agenda.

aggregation is trademarked too.  earl lewis uses the concept heavily in his work on black virginia.  (fwiw)

He bitin' my shit, yo...

I was hoping to stir it up.

You, P6, cut to the chase. I wanted to play around a bit and it went from there.

I'm happy about this one. :-)

naw kid.  iirc lewis' shiznit came out...like 15 years ago.

Makes it about a tie. Both of us gotta give it up to Claude McKay, though.

Old white man, writing from Hawai`i

 Prometheus6 was found accidentally an hour or so ago and quick examination revealed some agile minds struggling with very old questions. Opening page didn't mention it but after signing on it's clear most folks here are of the black persuasion and I hope I'm welcome.

Growing up in Texas, graduating from high school in 1953, the choice of life's variety was becoming urgent. One element was whether I was going to be true to my beliefs at the time -- raised a Christian. It had been apparent for a long time that my family lived a broadly cast lie, they didn't love their fellow man and I thought Jesus was clear about that. The bottom line is I sort of lost my family over the issue and now, at 70, I know that was good for my soul.

 The nation's press hired me and gave me significant assignments in Albany and Savannah and Atlanta and other tender spots. The best part of that was the opportunity to know Martin Luther King and his SCLC folks. Also SNCC. Some remain in touch to this day because they know my friendship is not based on anything less than love and respect and best wishes.

There were a lot of white folks in the 'movement' at that time. It saddens me that there has been lessening of the white understanding that bigotry and terrorism kills every soul -- truly without regard to race, color or creed. Trust me on that, please.

We are all damaged by every exclusion of anyone of honor.

The thought referenced in this string above, that change must come from without the U. S. political system is incomplete. That "system" is so corrupt at this time in our history that it needs to be changed before its full usefullness can be revived but while the "system" may be rotten, "politics" is still our friend. The politics of exclusion began in 1948 when Strom Thurmond and others stalked out of the Democratic National Convention over the civil rights platform. That terrified your average incumbent politician. They set out to kill the system of party politics in America and, sad to say, they pretty much succeeded.

To make it short, the parties formerly had a say in how government ran. You must find a very old party person to verify that but it was true. Now the parties are the source of incumbent power rather than popular direction of tasks to be performed if elected in the name of the parties. That's a big switch.

Because of this, parties at the local level are virtually abandoned but they exist and, for some strange reason, most of the old party rules remain in effect.

My advice as a very old friend, is that you maintain 'the struggle' in all the ways that anyone wants to participate. Further advice would be that everyone who can be persuaded fill out a party membership card now and then show up at meetings that will begin in every precinct early next year for the mid-term elections. Just show up and listen and learn. Get copies of the rules and then get friends to join you a few at a time. There is a lot of power laying there unused, just about free for the taking. Try it, you might like it.

And, if it's okay for a nearly decrepit honky to hang out, I'll be around. 

"Those who prefer security to freedom will soon have neither."

And, if it's okay for a nearly decrepit honky to hang out, I'll be around.

Anyone who honest is welcome. Okay, easily exposed liars are useful too . 

Further advice would be that everyone who can be persuaded fill out a party membership card now and then show up at meetings that will begin in every precinct early next year for the mid-term elections.

I may have to do that. Right now, the mission is to clear away the fog as much as possible, get people willing to think in terms of what actually is  as much as possible.

Problem, to me, is that political politics looks nastier than corporate politics. You've got to have an ugly streak to do it well nowadays which I do...and I don't really want to feed it.

I understand what you are saying and can only suggest you might not be the person to do this chore. In my cosmology there is a role for every individual that is best suited to their abilities and interests. I can't stand the current crowd in those political rooms, either, so I've dropped out. Mostly.

 Last year the Kucinich supporters nationwide reminded a lot of old fogeys how valuable it is to have youthful, urgent passion at work in an election. It frightened many, as I am sure you can readily appreciate, but not me. It was wonderful and I pitched in as their teacher and coach -- not on what to think or feel but how to use their emotions and abilities within the rules. They were effective and won many of their main points as statewide platform planks and resolutions at the state convention. One young woman from our district became a national delegate.

There are those who will want to do this. Look in your bin of young lawyers who are probably having second thoughts about their chosen profession. They can do well by doing good within the political struggle that, for many, might appear useless.

Aloha from the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

"Those who prefer security to freedom will soon have neither."

I understand what you are saying and can only suggest you might not be the person to do this chore.

More than possible. It's not something I have to think about right now though. Right now my political mission is to make black folks a constituency that must be responded to in truth...more tersely, I don't want politicians and polemicists to feel they can freely lie on, to or about Black folks. I want to change the ground they operate on.

It was wonderful and I pitched in as their teacher and coach -- not on what to think or feel but how to use their emotions and abilities within the rules.

Sounds familiar, although it's the metarules rather than the rules folks need to master. Working on the political ground as it stands is very like planting crops genetically modified to withstand toxic waste. You can eat...but clearing the poison is a better long term solution.

Right now my political mission is to make black folks a constituency that must be responded to in truth...more tersely, I don't want politicians and polemicists to feel they can freely lie on, to or about Black folks. I want to change the ground they operate on.

It appears to me that engagement with the apparatus that Bill is speaking to introduces a combinatorial explosion on the intrapolitical thread P6 - and one which might be worthwhile to unpack from the focal point you note above.

If we take the Kansas City democrat party example alone.., at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels - the black machine is controlled by something called Freedom Inc. Freedom Inc. is by no means an open and public apparatus. Rather, it is a closed society whose exclusive purview is the acquisition and allocation of patronage to its constituents. This constituency by no means equals black folks in Kansas City, rather, it is the folks in Freedom Inc.

1. Freedom Inc agenda not equal to the KC Black Agenda

Assuming that one were willing to engage that Gordian knot - a small minority of skinfolk lying to and perpetrating on the larger mass of kinfolk - he would find exactly the type of generational lockdown that Bill spoke to within the Kucinich ranks.

2. Freedom old heads won't pass the torch to young heads - some of whom might like increased operational transparency and a redefinition and enlargement of who the constituents are..,

Which to me looks for all the world like yet another Gordian knot unto itself desperately in need of disentanglement.

Before going beyond this to the question of how Freedom interacts with the encompassing democratic apparatus - of which it is a subset -it seems to me that job one consists in decontaminating the Freedom node. Black folks lying to black folks because control of the local party football has been long-established as a primary business and economic opportunity teat is some ugly ish.

Getting the oxygen thieves and useless eaters infesting the system out of the way looks like a lifetime undertaking, and I just can't see as how its worth it. I suspect my brief rundown on Freedom Inc. well describes the status quo in most major municipalities. There are a bunch of old crooked motherfuckers with a deathgrip on the political apparatus who're not about to get up out of the way.

Nulan's description of the role that Freedom, Incorporated plays in Kansas City politics succinctly and aptly describes what is the real bone of contention regarding the so-called "Civil Rights generation of black leadership" and the so-called "Young Turks" many of whom because of their frustration have mistakenly aligned themselves with the Republican Party and other interests that have little or no regard for the lives or communities of African Americans. (The Black Commentator, for example, rightly excoriates Newark City Councilman Cory Booker for some of his political and financial ties but its implicit defense of Newark's Mayor Sharpe James is absurdly indefensible and does more harm than good for the black polity.)

In reality, there is no generational gap within the black community over the issues of leadership, philosophies and direction. There is within the so-called Civil Rights generation a large and substantial number of black men and women who are adamantly opposed to the practices of organizations like Freedom, Incorporated. And their oppositon and dissent is not of recent origin but can be traced to the internal struggles and debates that took place within every major and minor black organization operating at the local, regional, state and national level both during and before the Civil Rights Movement.

To the extent that younger blacks who are seeking to make substantive changes in public policy and other matters that have a direct and indirect bearing on black people's lives buy into the media's and the political elite's ridiculous depiction of the real as opposed to the imagined differences of black folks then this generation will find it difficult to recruit and retain allies. It is important that they understand that we are not living in a post-Civil Rights era. We are living in an era when state sanctioned and supported policies that forcibly segregated black people from their fellow Americans is illegal and will not be countenanced. To argue that America's peculiar form of racism is now greatly diminished does not mean that blacks are no longer in need of ameliorative programs such as affirmative action, education and economic development.

Freedom, Incorporated and its counterparts all over the country by and large never had an expansive and all encompassing vision for this country. Its leaders simply wanted, whether they recognized their tendencies or not, to use the formidable political capital that black people had amassed over time in this country to benefit themselves not the masses of black folks.

Before going beyond this to the question of how Freedom interacts with the encompassing democratic apparatus - of which it is a subset -it seems to me that job one consists in decontaminating the Freedom node. Black folks lying to black folks because control of the local party football has been long-established as a primary business and economic opportunity teat is some ugly ish.

Change the ground. Map and make public where the benefits of their activities start and stop, that individuals rather than the community get all the benefits. Make it a topic of discussion.

Treat them like Cheney and Halliburton, only not so much because whatever you start you still have to deal with them in the transition time.

LATER: I should mention the tough part is not looking like you're just trying to move in on they turf...that is how they will see you no matter your actual intent, and how you will be framed.

"LATER: I should mention the tough part is not looking like you're just trying to move in on they turf...that is how they will see you no matter your actual intent, and how you will be framed."

I don't think there is any way to hide the fact that folks want to move in on presumably settled turf. I think it is more important to present a civil, mannerly and respectful front. Not for the sake of those who need to be supplanted but more for the benefit of those who are not committed to one side or the other, i.e., the majority of black folks. The kind of folks running Freedom, Incorporated et al. can sniff out potential rivals from a mile away and their guard is always up.