Prometheus 6

I navigated to the site and read Bradley's post and all of the comments. It was heavy going in some ways but I was not surprised by much of what I read especially the comments. The comments reaffirmed my view that black folks, particularly black men, are in desperate need of new myths and ideals. The ones that they have inherited or took up because momma or grandma said they were okay have long since lost their potency.

My heart goes out to those young brothers.

I read the post. I agree with PTC that we need new ideas...but i'm not sure that new myths will get it. and even if it did we'd be talking generations down the road because of how long it takes for myths to take hold in the minds of people.

what would be helpful for ME--because i've been dealing with this personally for the past few years--is a space where i can get together with other people like me to solely for the purpose of communing around these issues. i am fairly certain that most of the brothers i know are dealing with this huge weight on their chests that they just can't seem to shake. i used to think this was temporary--perhaps after i got tenure it would go away.

i'm now of the mind that this is permanent.

I was not clear, although Spence may still be right about the length of time it may take. I think we need to explore and utilize myths that our people held prior to our collective arrival here as strangers in a strange land. (BTW, I am not referring here to ancient Egypt.)

Black men, old school and hip-hoppers alike, are, by and large, tied to a cosmological and theological world view that does not reflect the world they find themselves living in as men and as spiritual human beings. The gap between how they feel inside and how folks tell them they should feel grows larger every passing day. 

I can still see Spence's dedicated place having utility. The realization that you're neither alone nor crazy is damn near transformative.

Yes, finding out that your blues sometimes is exactly like mine is a transformative event.

I need to get back to this topic, I think.

Spence wrote: 

what would be helpful for ME--because i've been dealing with this personally for the past few years--is a space where i can get together with other people like me to solely for the purpose of communing around these issues. i am fairly certain that most of the brothers i know are dealing with this huge weight on their chests that they just can't seem to shake. i used to think this was temporary--perhaps after i got tenure it would go away.

i'm now of the mind that this is permanent.

i used to think that there was a break point where things would get better (finishing the diss?  getting a tenure-track position?  getting tenure?) and allow me some spiritual and emotional space to continue my development as a (Black) man.  I am slowly coming to the realization that there IS no break...and things just keep piling up.

 I wished MANY times that i could find a crew of like-minded brothers to open up with and open up to; but i'm beginning to realize that in many ways, as men, we don't always possess the necessary emotional/spiritual linguistic capacity to express what's going on in our lives.  even if we do, employing such language to describe our pain and our efforts to deal with that pain leaves us open to accusations of being weak (and even un-manly) from people who are themselves unwilling to deal with their own shit. 

*sigh*  sorry for the rant...this post caught me out there.  FWIW, this website in some ways operates, for me, as the space that Spence describes.   i am grateful for the work you do here, P6...and to the participation from luminaries like PTC, Spence, T3, Cnulan (when i can understand him) and others.

"I wished MANY times that i could find a crew of like-minded brothers to open up with and open up to; but i'm beginning to realize that in many ways, as men, we don't always possess the necessary emotional/spiritual linguistic capacity to express what's going on in our lives.  even if we do, employing such language to describe our pain and our efforts to deal with that pain leaves us open to accusations of being weak (and even un-manly) from people who are themselves unwilling to deal with their own shit...  *sigh*  sorry for the rant...this post caught me out there."

ConPermiso -

Please take note. What you wrote is NOT a rant. It is, as my late father used to say, the God honest truth. I don't think black men realize how imprisoned we are by the kind of denial and fear that you make reference to above. Our entire social structure as African Americans and as Americans encourages and, yes, enforces, if necessary, this turning away from an examination of our inner lives as men and as black men.

We have adopted, as a result, a persona or mask that encourages us to hide ourselves, for example, behind the accoutrements of an acquisitive culture. Brothers are told over and over again in indirect and direct ways that they have no objective basis to complain because they have a job, a late model car, a 52 inch plasma television or a new house in the suburbs. This is crazy making. 

So what I used to say was something to the effect of "the word hard doesn't really describe my reality, because when i think about it what my dad did was hard." (my dad worked at the automotive plant.)

i realized though that even that statement caused me a form of anguish, because the reality is that what i'm dealing with now is hard. incredibly so. and to say that it isn't because i'm not engaging in physical labor, because i got the job i wanted rather than had to have, is off. 

i've actually been blogging about this issue for the past few weeks...but they've been private posts, only visible to me. i had to put words to paper because it was eating me up. 

ConPermiso:

I totally co-sign what PT said. And I'm personally flattered you said that.

A big part of my original intent here was to provide a sympathetic sounding board. I regret being driven off that course by dick battles but I've tried to get back to it from time to time. 

conpermiso i'd like to cosign as well, and i'm glad that i'm able to help in some way. i tell this to my students ALL of the time...you are not alone. it's more than deep that one of my own students had to tell me the same thing.

my blog was supposed to be about something a bit different....but i'm thinking about making a turn. 

Spence, you have no idea how many times I've considered writing a private blog or some such. Before blogs I kept notebooks...I still have a dozen or so in storage.

Without the full details I can say yeah...your life is hard. You've set yourself on a road that's uphill for its full length. Everyone with ambition or a sense of responsibility has.

There's a sense in which I feel I've been lucky in having my self-image crash and burn before I hit 21 years old. Since then I've seen a lot of people beat the hell out of themselves, trying to advance from where they think they should be instead of from where they are.

my blog was supposed to be about something a bit different....but i'm thinking about making a turn.

This discussion, and Anthony's, gives me much to consider.

Let me know if I can help.

Our entire social structure as African Americans and as Americans encourages and, yes, enforces, if necessary, this turning away from an examination of our inner lives as men and as black men.

PT, thank you for making a little space in there for all of us. Some of the baggage you describe is the province of black men--other parts are universally male. You're speaking my mind on this.

This is exactly the thread I've been looking for, and it's exactly the kind of thing I want to deal with in my next online project. But it also has to be an offline project too. My idea is called "The Brothers' Cup". It's basically a men's club. Not about charity, and not necessarily self-help, but just a place where brothers get a little bit of time off and some existential support. It's like taking bowling night to the next level, where you can really talk about deeper stuff and know you're among friends.

I'm just about ready to start it.

If you want to know where I'm coming from, this is about the best place to start.

The basic question is something like this. How many men do you know that you would not hesitate to give the keys to your house? If your answer is less than 3, you're in trouble. The trouble is that your success ends with you - you don't have a path to pass it down. Nobody is invested in your success but you.

The basic question is something like this. How many men do you know that you would not hesitate to give the keys to your house? If your answer is less than 3, you're in trouble. The trouble is that your success ends with you - you don't have a path to pass it down. Nobody is invested in your success but you.

This is the case with me. And it's something I've had to adjust to.

But it's not because no one is invested in my success etc. You need security to be into someone else's success or it truly is an investment on which you're expecting a return. Unless I've signed a contract folks don't find me all that predictable for some reason.

The basic question is something like this. How many men do you know that you would not hesitate to give the keys to your house? If your answer is less than 3, you're in trouble. The trouble is that your success ends with you - you don't have a path to pass it down. Nobody is invested in your success but you.

Cobb, please clarify something for me? Do these questions and their implications represent things that you believe are important? Or, do you think your questions represent what I am, for example, referring to in my own posts on this thread?

It's a tangent I think, but at least I can see the jumping-off point this time.

I can where see the divergence occurs but I'm going to stubbornly insist that the problem or problems are not the result of a lack of trust or a failure to seize the initiative and capitalize on one's talents. (There is a possibility that Cobb means that our sense of ennui stems from a feeling that we are all alone and that no one cares about our success but I'm not sure.)

In any case, I will agree that the problem is not of an either/or category.

The basic question is something like this. How many men do you know that you would not hesitate to give the keys to your house? If your answer is less than 3, you're in trouble. The trouble is that your success ends with you - you don't have a path to pass it down. Nobody is invested in your success but you.

Damn.

What a f****d up thought to put into my mind over Christmas! NOW you are going to really make me think for a long time on this point.

Damn.... And right as I thought my biggest thought at the moment is sneaking out to get the Mrs last gift and cleaning up the basement enough for 8 people over the next 5 days.... 

Cobb bends D.S.'s noodle.... I shoulda took the blue pill... 

PT, I think you are right when you talk about what is commonly accepted as an 'inner life' for black men. One of the things that brought it to mind actually was Field Negro's post about going to get a manicure and how he and another brother fronted each other. I think the security thing is part of the implication, I just brought it up as an example off the top of my head.

What I'm saying is that I think all well-rounded black men know how to get past the noise of stereotypes and most of us can find love and deal. The problem is that a lot of times there is not an adequate amount of validation on that score. I mean, I have conversations with black men (in memory) where they say that they *are* taking care of business and that their parents did, and it's stupid that the media acts as if we don't. And I know the man is comfortable with himself, but I'm aware that he said it rather loud and rather defensively as if I was the first person he could say it too, and he recognized that as well. And so there's this gap between the time we deal with an issue successfully and the time we can talk about it in confidence with somebody we beleive we can relate do, that gap builds frustration. 

For me personally, I have beef with the fact that because I'm dependable it seems to be the only thing people want out of me. I'm always the one doing the sacrificing. Now at work it's the same thing. So some days I feel like I've got to hang out with businessmen and complain about trifling employees. Not because I can't handle the problem, but that it's good to know I'm not the only one handling the problem.

We always assume that women are going to do that kitchen table coffee talk and get it off their chests, but I come home with problems I know nobody in the family is going to relate to. It's just "daddy's tired", and I plop in front of the XBox and shoot some bad guys until my mind is clear. 

The trust thing is about getting other people to understand what's important to you and the level that you're working at. Let me give you one more example and then I'll let it go.

I read all kinds of stuff about what 'black males' have to deal with, and the last time it got on my nerves was with Jason Whitlock and his 'Black KKK' thing. The presumption was that all 'black males' could put themselves in Sean Taylor's shoes, and we all need to be on guard for THE thing that statistically is going to kill us, black thugs. And I think to myself, if I went into a room with 500 black men how many of them actually believe that? But most specifically and personally, what if something did happen to me? I can only think of two or maybe three black men who could keep my son on the path that I have set for him. it's like some crazy small percentage can even accept the premise that not only are we about excellence, but we're doing it and have high expectations not out of hope but out of experience. I'm bragging and I'm not when I say that my son is already an A student, he's already popular in school and can hang out with any clique, he's already playing sports and musical instruments, he's already respectful, considerate, and possessed of a wicked sense of humor. This is what I expect of myself and of him as a young man in my family and in the world.

So when I look at him, I know for a fact that there's some harsh reality I experienced (which was not harsh compared to what my father experienced) that he doesn't have to deal with, and shouldn't.

It's not a sense of ennui, it is the very sense of Biggie Smalls realizing how few people have got your back when you do have some personal cheddar. It's the sense that nobody can believe that you still need continuity once you've reached a certain plateau.... I can't think of an easy way to describe this without it sounding like bragging because I believe that most people find it difficult to swallow the idea of nobility. But when Ossie Davis called Malcolm 'our bright shining prince' maybe everybody thought there would never be another like him - that nobody could reach his level of clarity and purpose. So did Malcolm have friends, or was he always peeking out of the curtains?

This is the story of the Unbelievable Black Man.  

Withdrew my own comment--timing was off.

Green pill, DS. The blue one is that four-hour job.

For me personally, I have beef with the fact that because I'm dependable it seems to be the only thing people want out of me.

This hits home. My "big cousin" called me recently to chat, which is strange because we don't chat except at gatherings and a little on-line. We chatted a bit and then came the real reason for the call. He said that I'm the executor on his will and he hoped that I didn't mind, "Because you are the only one in the family who I can trust to carry out my wishes and not get it screwed up."

I laughed and said "No problem. I've got your back" and then he told me his brother did the same thing. I'm the only child and they have helped me out alot. Now, they are coming to me asking the same. I already have the call to keep the family together and because of space and a neighbor who won't clean the dog s**t out of their yard, I didn't do one of the family cook out's this year. I fell down on my job.

You did it again.

DAMN....

OK, I shoulda taken that GREEN pill.... 

The presumption was that all 'black males' could put themselves in Sean Taylor's shoes, and we all need to be on guard for THE thing that statistically is going to kill us, black thugs.

How many people do you know? How many people do you know that were killed by "black thugs?" You've essentially made the same assertion as Whitlock...did you realize that? That's not rhetorical, it's an actual question.

I have conversations with black men (in memory) where they say that they *are* taking care of business and that their parents did, and it's stupid that the media acts as if we don't. And I know the man is comfortable with himself, but I'm aware that he said it rather loud and rather defensively as if I was the first person he could say it too, and he recognized that as well.

How about now, rather than in memory?

This is definitely a diversion, though connected.

What I'm saying is that I think all well-rounded black men know how to get past the noise of stereotypes and most of us can find love and deal. The problem is that a lot of times there is not an adequate amount of validation on that score. I mean, I have conversations with black men (in memory) where they say that they *are* taking care of business and that their parents did, and it's stupid that the media acts as if we don't. And I know the man is comfortable with himself, but I'm aware that he said it rather loud and rather defensively as if I was the first person he could say it too, and he recognized that as well. And so there's this gap between the time we deal with an issue successfully and the time we can talk about it in confidence with somebody we beleive we can relate do, that gap builds frustration.

I am not looking for validation, unless it comes in the form of tenure.

The stereotypes don't matter much to how I live my life in this moment. An example might help here.

After picking my daughter up from dance class I was driving home with all of the kids in the car. I passed a couple of police cars, and not just one but BOTH of them whipped around like I had done something more than run a red light. I didn't have my driver's license because I'd misplaced it.

"We were told someone driving a gray minivan was waving a gun around..." (Looks in car, sees my five children all in the backseat,) "...but that doesn't look to be you sir. Do you have a license on you by any chance?"

"No...I just hopped in the car to pick up my kids...wait. I remember you. You helped out my kids when they got in that car accident, right?"

"Yeah...over on Coldspring?"

"Yes, that's right. Well I don't have my license but I have a photo ID. Take your time and do whatever you need to do Officer..."

Fifth time in about a year I've been pulled over, with an actionable ticket in front of me. And the officer didn't pull the trigger ONCE.

I don't have to worry about that type of existence any longer. I'm passed that demographic. The only place I deal with disproving stereotypes is when I'm in the classroom or putting pen to paper.

I'm suggesting a different type of problem and a different type of conversation. I know a number of people who are unmitigated success stories. But that part is par for the course for me. What I'm interested in doing is talking about that other side...or talking about hitting that plateau and getting to that next level...or talking about how to take a marriage that WILL last another 20 years and keep it from being agonizing. 

I don't have to worry about that type of existence any longer. I'm passed that demographic.

Most aren't. Maybe more accurately, most are in the shadow of that demographic.

What I'm interested in doing is talking about that other side...or talking about hitting that plateau and getting to that next level...or talking about how to take a marriage that WILL last another 20 years and keep it from being agonizing.

One thing I think I'm learning from this topic: I may not be as unique as I think I am. The other day in a conversation I was like, "Well, this is how I see it, which will brobably be useless to you, but..." I got back, "No, that helped because..." followed by some unanticipated result. Yesterday I realized thst happens a lot with me. So...

I'm looking for a common thread between, say, Cobb representing for Black Royalty, you in academe, myself as a successful wage slave, folks who live on the hustle...there's some transition points which are their own distinct challenges as well as being markers where the available responses to 'eternal' challenges change.

Let's not forget the brothers who submitted comments at Anthony Bradley's site. I could be wrong but the reasons they gave or hinted at as the cause of their blues struck me as being more closely akin to a pervasive and deepening spirtiual crisis. The old "fear and trembling and sickness unto death."

Most aren't. Maybe more accurately, most are in the shadow of that demographic.

Here is what I hear Cobb saying. What I need is a space where I can get together with successful black men and be able to interact as successful black men without all of the baggage brought upon us by "the element."

When you note that most are in the shadow of that demographic, I hear you saying something similar to Cobb in that both of you have to acknowledge these other brothers who are in effect hunted.

I use the example of the police NOT solely to say "I'm different than those brothers", but moreso to say that the issues that I am dealing with right now comes partially from me being black and male....but NOT from me being black, male, and hunted. I was telling one of my colleagues (an older brother dealing with some of the same stuff but in a different arena) the police story, and his response was.."damn. I know the last thing you need given everything you're dealing with is THAT type of anxiety."

But I wasn't anxious at all. Not in the slightest. It was just funny to me. So while the burden I feel myself carrying may be in part because of my desire to help brothers like me PERIOD (and here I include the hunted as well as the non-hunted), it is unique to people of my age and older. The common thread between the hunted, Cobb, me, you, and Craig is that we're all more or less conscious of our position as black men, as men, and as Americans (passport wise), in a moment where the American empire is in severe decline. All that opportunity shit gets thrown out the window.

And then on top of that you add our age...our ability to make the type of impact we want to make dwindles as we get older and we don't have a lot of time left.  

i appreciate that.

Here is what I hear Cobb saying. What I need is a space where I can get together with successful black men and be able to interact as successful black men without all of the baggage brought upon us by "the element."

When you note that most are in the shadow of that demographic, I hear you saying something similar to Cobb in that both of you have to acknowledge these other brothers who are in effect hunted.

I've been them. I don't think of them as baggage. Plus, that "baggage," objectively, is the requirement by upper economic class mainstream folks that Black folk of that class constantly prove they have no sympathy for the hunted. That is not the responsibility of the hunted, so I have very, very limited sympathy. 

So while the burden I feel myself carrying may be in part because of my desire to help brothers like me PERIOD (and here I include the hunted as well as the non-hunted), it is unique to people of my age and older.

I don't know...I think it's only possible to the degree that you're free from survival concerns.

Last year my oldest child, who was then 8, and I were driving through Baltimore. I was taking him to spend the week with his uncle, who is my wife's brother. The Baltimore cops had setup a road block on one of the major streets and were "randomly" pulling cars out of the line. I used quotation marks because I did not see even one car with a white driver pulled out of line.

I told my son that we were going to be pulled over, too. When he asked why I said that it was because we were black. Sure enough, we were directed to the side of the road. I asked one of the cops why we had been stopped. He said that my car did not have a front license plate. This was true but the state that we live in only requires cars registered in its jurisdiction to have one rear plate. Since this state shares a border with Maryland and we only live 81 miles from Baltimore it is not likely that Baltimore's gendarmes were unaware of this fact.

My feeling is that hunted black men and successful black men still occupy a great deal of the same territory in America. Cobb is mistaken. The spiritual crisis and feelings of anxiety are broad and deep even if they appear to spring from different sources.

Actually, I think both the Cosbyites and the Fiddys are overrepresented in the public eye...neither actually represents the lives of most Black folk...those who would not be hunted if only the hunters could tell them from those who would be.

from what could be said, to who should be addressed.  I don't think there's any need to exclude any Black man simply because he doesn't meet certain criteria of success or acculturation or whatever.

Like P6 wrote above, i BEEN them.  sh!t...they need words from folk like y'all/us the MOST.

i taught a class this semester where students from different disciplines presented dissertation chapters for workshopping.  the course evaluations i got back said something that i was surprised to hear (and shouldn't have been): that the chance to put their work up for inspection and review by people from other disciplines employing a constructive criticism perspective was immensely valuable.  

I think of the proposed 3rd Space as a like environment...where the shared experience of being Black men in America's sociocultural matrix is the shared ground, but differing perspectives are offered by those who have "come thru" in a discursive mode of civility, openness, and constructive feedback.  that leaves space for Black Royalty, academics, successful wage slaves, and hustlers (is there any REAL difference between those categories?) to offer feedback incorporating their own trials, successes, and progress in this world we live in.  

Another necessary element is that ALL participants need to feel comfortable talking about (and listening to) what they're going thru; what my mentees call "safe space".  safe space isn't just about listening positively, it's about taking advantage of a space where one can speak about pain or happiness and opening up.  

now...the question of whether this can be done in the virtual arena is another question altogther.  but that's something for the next time while i get my thoughts together.   

I don't know...I think it's only possible to the degree that you're free from survival concerns.

But this is REAL. It's real that when I get stopped I no longer feel nervous and put both hands on the steering wheel for fear of getting killed.

I think of the proposed 3rd Space as a like environment...where the shared experience of being Black men in America's sociocultural matrix is the shared ground, but differing perspectives are offered by those who have "come thru" in a discursive mode of civility, openness, and constructive feedback.  that leaves space for Black Royalty, academics, successful wage slaves, and hustlers (is there any REAL difference between those categories?) to offer feedback incorporating their own trials, successes, and progress in this world we live in. 

Yes. And to this degree our shared uniqueness becomes a strength. We AREN'T coming from this stuff from the same place...to say otherwise ignores what's going on above. But by sharing what we ARE going through we then build the capacity to understand and grow together. 

Success vs The Element is not really a part of it. It's certainly not the impetus. For me, it's all a question of Old School Values which exist independent of class. It's more of Spence's question - how do I keep my marriage going? How do I extend family beyond family? What's next if I'm successful? Who has got my back if I'm not? I actually do want to see that Black Royalty thing going on, and I'm reasonably serious about it. Fzample, I would like to see a network of brothers who have a spare bedroom so that when somebody is traveling on business to Omaha, they know where the hookup is.  I want it to be a married man's club, I guess.

But I'm very very serious about crossing class gaps. In some ways I'm taken back to that Ayn Rand allegory about the hidden valley with the shield where the man behind the counter serves the perfect hamburger and everybody smokes the same brand of cigaretts. I'm talking about Delroy Lindo's character in Crooklyn, an honest man with family who could use some good company. 

 Now there's a certain part of me that wants also to do the Prosper.com thing, because that's where I was in 2003 and just four months ago - needing 3000 bucks for a month, hey I'm good for it - a little domestic lending. And I want to get a friend of mine involved who is running a local black bank, but that's really secondary. For me the real deal is rather much what Craig says about communion. 

Again what's personal for those folks who didn't follow the link is that my best friends from college are living all around the country. I simply can't do much more than talk to them on the phone for half an hour maybe twice a year and catch up that way. Plus my career, up until this point, has had me mostly working away from home. So I can tell you where a good steak restaurant is in the business district of most any American city, but I can't tell you much more than a walking tour of the 'hood will reveal. 

I'll see if the domain is free.

Okay, but what about the brothers who are feeling such a sense of despair and isolation that they don't care whether they live or die? I feel as if we are skimming over the surface of this issue or ignoring it altogether.

from what could be said, to who should be addressed.  I don't think there's any need to exclude any Black man simply because he doesn't meet certain criteria of success or acculturation or whatever.

Concern noted. That's not the intent, beyond making that very point.

I don't know...I think it's only possible to the degree that you're free from survival concerns.

But this is REAL. It's real that when I get stopped I no longer feel nervous and put both hands on the steering wheel for fear of getting killed.

Of course it's real.

Just saying our concerns are over advancement to your proper station, not so much physical survival. Not downplaying those concerns. To me it looks like resistance of the medium to acceleration...the same sort of acceleration needed to move from an 'at risk' to physically secure status, you're just carrying it forward. 

But the police don't behave like an occupying force in your neighborhood, do they?

The difference between Black Royalty, academics, successful wage slaves, and hustlers is largely in the domains in which they operate, the experiences the imprint on.

Okay, but what about the brothers who are feeling such a sense of despair and isolation that they don't care whether they live or die? I feel as if we are skimming over the surface of this issue or ignoring it altogether.

I agree.

Those discussions mean nothing to people who aren't even in a position where the questions arise.

But the police don't behave like an occupying force in your neighborhood, do they?

No. Even there though, there is variance. They don't have enough man power to literally harass every man, woman, and child in those neighborhoods. So they pick the ones that fit the profile. At 38, a non-menacing 150 lb, and brown skinned? I no longer fit that profile.

Okay, but what about the brothers who are feeling such a sense of despair and isolation that they don't care whether they live or die? I feel as if we are skimming over the surface of this issue or ignoring it altogether.

I've been here briefly. The question here is what types of work projects will bring people out of this condition? 

I believe there is a profound and deepening sense of spiritual malaise in the African American community and that our current efforts to put, shall we say, Humpty-Dumpty together again are failing and will fail if we don't look more closely at what is going on in our world both as African Americans and as Americans. I think this crisis began during the Civil Rights Era, although the Civil Rights Movement is not the cause of this development. The Civil Rights Movement transformed America in some critically important ways but we, as African Americans, have neglected to look more closely at how we, too, were transformed. In short, we have neglected to create new structures, beliefs, gods, myths, fables etc. for ourselves and the changed world we helped to create.

There is a school of thought in the African American community that argues, sometimes persuasively and, at other times, incoherently, that it was integration or the desire for it that has played a large role in this process but this explanation is faulty and shortsighted. The average black man or woman, for example, was never interested in pursuing racial integration in either their personal or public lives.

Our search for answers, I believe, needs to move beyond race. I don't mean in that silly ideologically driven stuff argued in the popular press by Juan Williams, Shelby Steele or John McWhorter. I mean in the sense that our answers are, in part, informed, but not wholy determined, by our race and what white folks think pro or con about us.

The answers to the mysteries and tribulations of life that worked so well for our ancestors are not working for many of us today especially our young men and women.   

It sounds like we have the wrong idea about how the society works.

I'm not sure that we have the wrong idea but I do remember a time in my life when we had some of the best ideas and, more importantly, we acted as if we did across all of the class lines that existed in our collective community. We carried ourselves, poor and affluent alike, as if we had some secret knowledge of how civil society was to be constructed and lived.

Cosby and his acolytes locate the decline of this quality in the "failure" of the black "underclass" to take advantage of the advances created by the black elite and professional classes but I think they are wrong. I think the decline actually began when the black elite and professional classes began acting in ways that clearly signaled to less affluent and educated blacks that everything we had come to value was fungible and reducible to transactions.

Look, for example, at the way that educated blacks used community-based programs to advantage themselves and their class allies and friends while paying lip service at best to the needs of poor inner-city blacks. Or, worse, how black leadership pursued integration of public schools instead of organizing black people to demand improvement of the existing schools in their communities.

Folks at the ground level watched this behavior for more than two decades and finally decided they needed to get paid, too.

I would not defend Cosby if he were to suggest that there were some economic freedom created by the fastest emerging blackfolks that the Forty Percent have abandoned. Rather, I think he is considering the perspective of one who has dedicated millions to college students, and what I think he would say is that the behavior of black college students for generations has not been one that was considered a matter of economic class. So he decries thug behavior and unwed mothers not because these are attributes abandoned by the economically uplifted, but that they are values abandoned by black people, and we've all left them to it. We've cosigned that degeneracy and shifted the blame to the white man. 

In any case, it is a basic civilizing trait to call degeneracy out and shun it. The righteous person's attitude remains strict no matter what. The question is whether or not we are willing to call failure what it is. A failure to find a loving marriage is a failure, period. The failure for a sizeable percentage of people to find such is a tragedy. The failure to acknowledge that tragedy is a catastrophe and that is where people who fight Cosby stand, defending the state of catastrophe. 

There is nothing to the economic component here which is central to my take on Cosby's critique. It is a failure of values, a failure of nerve and an abandonment of principle to defend the thug, excuse the unwed parents and coddle the ignorant. If there is an endemic and intrinsic 'black' problem, it is the extent to which something is making the inversion possible. To call such people 'beautiful black people' and to act as if they were not agents of their own degeneracy is a mental health problem. To deny the fact that black culture has morphed into a support structure for this 'alternative lifestyle' is just perverse. To act as if nobody in American society is going to notice is doubly strange.

Black Americans never lived far from white. There was never some mystical village where it was all blacktown and that was the way it was. We have always interacted with all levels of society in some form or fashion. American life has never been a mystery to the aggregate of blackfolks. So the idea that integration itself was an end seems to me just as dysfunctional an idea as Dr Clark might have said. It was not for nothing Thurgood's gang was out to change the law. To make our contracts binding, to make our legal standing stick.

Integration was the death of white supremacy's trump card and deepest held conviction, racial purity. But the rush wasn't on to get Becky pregnant. And who really cares today? The rush was to rise in society according to society's rules and to kill the racial double standard. The rush was to stop the wholesale theivery of black achievement by arbitrary white power. It was to end Jim Crow - the law of oppression. It wasn't about white people at all or else we would have never accepted their assistance. That was the confusion that Black Power set in motion.

Educated blacks do what educated people do, which is to take advantage of their education. Lip service is hypocrisy. Then again, when has any bourgeios group, in the history of mankind, ever lifted the boats of the poor? And who convinced anybody that the black middle class could do it?  Perhaps it was King. Too bad he's not around to see where Ghandi's hand has played out. 

Another diversion.

Cosby's advice doesn't touch that which those he is yelling at are most concerned about. Let me give you a metaphorical filter to explain why you should never mention Cosby's crusade to me again.

A rich man, a middle class man and a poor man are offered a free Christmas meal for their entire family. Each accepts, and here are their thoughts on the matter.

Poor man: Will there be enough? (because a free meal is a significant lightening of the load for his family)

Middle class man: Will we like it? (because, his basic access to food is secure)

Rich man: Is it well presented? (because he can't even remember being worried)

The Cosby Crusade is demanding that people who are worried about basic survival must present themselves well. The Cosby Crusade is not out to address a single issue of concern to those he's flexing on. It's not so much hostile or cruel as ignorant and useless.

I didn't forget this thread, I intended to branch it after the holiday. I still will...and I don't want any diversions of that thread. Keep that in mind when it appears.

Educated blacks do what educated people do, which is to take advantage of their education. Lip service is hypocrisy. Then again, when has any bourgeios group, in the history of mankind, ever lifted the boats of the poor?

The nasty, festering rub here, Cobb, is that the credentialed (I have decided to cease referring to them as educated) and professional black middle-class and elite used the political capital of poor and working class black folks to demand social, political and economic opportunities and advantages that only accrued to them. Now they are actively engaged in rewriting history. They have used the poor's boats and ran them aground.

This comment has been moved here.