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Sometimes...Submitted by Prometheus 6 on November 3, 2005 - 6:52pm.
on Race and Identity | Seen online Sometimes I wonder if I should respond to folks' stuff on their site or on mine. I behave better on their site...
Anti-social? I guess it's possible to see that way, Depends on how strongly you identify with the society. The more collective you are, the more you'd see the rejection of aspects of society as anti-social. Black people never rejected American society. Black people have never been the problem, never been the obstacle to reconciliation. Black people have always been the ones reaching for integration, education, trying to prove their civilized nature. It's sad we still have to make that point. Oh "my word"... (It seems as if Cobb's opening line is some contorted reference to me referencing the Radical Republicans on AA.org. Needless to say, I didn't include Lincoln in the bunch and actually only made reference to them as a strain of "Liberalism" (radical?), as was the theme, that demonstrated a point someone else made that advancement in the US for Black people have come via "Liberalism" as opposed to Conservativism.) With that probable background out of the way, first, OBM... Excellent point on the Accomodation To WHITE SUPREMACY. I don't know quite how to respond to this now that I've tracked the link to Cobb (because I can't stop shaking my head). I knew that was a Cobb post before I clicked on the link. It's all about your primary frame of reference or lens of interpretation. His first look comes through the prism of white collective interest...the second prism is through that of a personal black experience. I think the overwhelming majority of his posts reflect this sort of "appendage analysis." OBM - that's a brilliant post. T3, my sentiments (observations) exactly. I appreciate you putting it in those precise terms. Back to what Cobb said though:
This reflects, too, on one of Cobb's pre-set trippin' angles he tried with me on AA.org. http://africanamerica.org/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/79160213/m/8821046043/p/1 The problem with his assertion is that it self-destructs under the weight of his own convolution:
I won't quarrel with the very debatable intent/motivation/impetus of such "White GIFTS." I'll grant Cobb's ridiculous anti-Common Sense allowance to those "Well Meaning" Whites, even though it seems Conservatives generally do have some very well published issues with more than a few Great Society type of "Well Meaning" Whites. What I won't allow to fly, for the sake of argument, is the idea that such unsolicited "gifts" cannot or should not be rejected on the very terms Cobb inserts. As a matter of principle or in terms of being misaligned or incompatible with the Liberation Goals/Imperative Black folk set for themselves (which, by definition, is the essence of Liberation via self-definition & self-determination), any "gift(s)" presented that are Inconsistent (dissonant) with what Black folks determine to be their/our goals or approaches (again, either as a matter of principle or in terms of being consistent with Black folks goals or methods) should be rejected.
I hope someone can tell me exactly when/how White (gifts, thoughts, acts) became synonomous with "objective." Somehow, Cobb would have us believe that we shouldn't objectively scrutinize whether such White "gifts" are/can constructively contribute to our Liberation. Oh but that may mean I'm contesting whether such White "gifts" are actually "well-meaning" and, more importantly, whether they actually do objectively contribute to the Objectives Black folks determine. MLK, for one, had something to say about such White Paternalism and its discordance with Black Liberation in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail as he noted how them "Good White folks" wanted to "set the timetable for another man's freedom." So, no. No Thank You to those White "gifts" that don't strike harmony with Black Liberation - its goals, modes, methods and principled, Black authored and determined objectives. Cobb invoked Tim Wise as the type of [White] Anti-Racist Black people should support in that other discussion. While I must note how Cobb's statement unprovoked (i.e. stated for no apparent reason; aka not relevant to or in response to anything else that was said), the most important thing to note is how Cobb failed, himself, to note the "gift" and position of one said Anti-Racist (Tim Wise). And to think I gave Cobb the link to an interview where Wise said, much like Malcolm X before him that Whites should, first, organize amongst themselves and Wise, being the White Privilege and White Supremacy conscious Anti-Racist he is, also insisted that Whites must be "willing to accept BLACK leadership and direction" - i.e. not the other way around. I'll end with that and reserve my comments (for now) on the Flagisms and Cobb's other silly, non-descript comments about being Anti-Social and "Anti-American." Non-descript because he didn't and won't dare present definitions of those terms. Well, hell... For one, he can't define "Anti-American", IMO, without making White the default value for "American." And the Flag pin thing, objectively IMO, makes about as much sense as Black people draping themselves in the Confederate Flag as a "Black Power" ploy. That's if he wants to be real about this...
T3... Can you do me a favor and explain what's problematic with this, particularly the Second Prism. On the first, for the sake of clarity, what type of things signify that type of Frame Of Reference and how so. I 'know' it and think it. I just would like to see how you would illustrate it. I think you explained what's problematic about it pretty clearly right there. On his message board, I equated it (using the First Prism) with treason. In the second instance, our individual or personal experience is insufficient to understand our world. Invariably, advocates of integrationist paradigms refer to individual experience - devoid of empirical analysis or operation paradigms for replication...hence, the genius of OBM's framework...500,000 sellout jobs for 25 million people. And it's more 10,000 gigs for 40 million. We can't all have one. We don't all want one. There is nothing objective or "liberal" or "conservative" about choosing one of those 500,000 positions - it's straight Patty Hearst syndrome...I can hear P6 now, why does everything have to have a syndrome? I don't know why. They jes do! When someone advocates a position for millions of people based on, "It worked for me, it can work for you," (without some sound logic - that's not a tautology) I watch my wallet and my ass - 'cause there is a criminal element in the room. that's the same pitch used by Floridian real estate salespeople, missionaries (assume the position), and diet fad pimps. I recognize it's a bit of a straw man, but my critique is of the flawed logic in the pitch - since it lacks demonstrable proof and causality is attributed to false sources (ie, this prayer = salvation, this diet = permanent weight loss, this deal = financial security). Nmaginate: I just checked the forum thread you linked to.
At least you didn't shoehorn it into a pronounceable acronym...I think "Patty Hearst Syndrome" would wind up being pronounced as "PIST syndrome."
First of all, that dude is, at best, a contrarian. He lives to incite a Race War or something. So you should really pay his White tail no mind. The bulk of his comments in the forum amount to assorted mockings and blatantly racist insults. Second, what's the code for hyperlinks -- e.g. [ ] [ /] ??? -- because my Insert Link button doesn't work. I think you might get tired of me posting five line links with %#$##*& in them. :) T3, thank you. OBM put it down when it came to demonstrating how "our individual or personal experience is insufficient to understand our world." Sadly, too many people can't relate passed that frame, Black Conservative or otherwise. And what's so striking (and ironic) about that for the B-CON's is, at the same time they're communicating how they want everybody to be like them, they Black people to allow them to be "individuals" and to respect some "diversity" of [Black] thought, etc. On the TREASON point, though... I was hoping you would detail what makes such acts treasonous. What are they "betraying"? I think sometimes we are not quite as explicit and articulate as we could be when it comes to that. Shifting gears, could expand and expound on that.
I need to know what browser you're using (Opera?). There's no code...underneath the editor there's straight HTML (I have techno-philosophical objections to BBCode and the like). You could click the disable rich-text link under the editor and enter straight HTML links. And I'm not really troubled by the long links. I get around to fixing them if they break the layout. I'm using IE... And I'm not that techno-philosophically inclined. Maybe I'll try something else. Think "Our ancestors fought, bled and died for the right to vote." I've heard that a million times. Or, think, "Dr. King had a dream." I've heard that a million times. Our ancestors fought, bled and died for many things that folks no longer fight for - though they still seek to peddle influence to the Dismalcrats by invoking memories of struggles long forgotten. King was not the only one to have a dream - nor was his dream his last conscious activity before death. To that end, there are a vast universe of imperatives for black folk that germinate with the formation of our collective identity in a new land. We have never been purely african (as if that actually means something) nor purely american (as if that actually means something) - and as such, have a distinct set of imperatives that must be pursued. These imperatives have a social, political, economic, cultural, and military dimension. Collective memory and research and experience all define the terms of the imperatives - as well as the dynamics of our changing world. The modern world may suggest different tactics, but the principles should remain intact. I don't posit this framework to be "limiting" or essentialist. I don't believe it has to be either. I think it should empirical, practical and that it should resonate with the collective. There are tons of things I could write in fleshing that out - but you'll have to buy the book. Treason, then, is a fundamental betrayal of the principles of the imperatives...the tactics, must always be subject to debate and review. The definition of treason flows, then, from another set of questions. What were the priorities of our ancestors and immediate descendants in this new (now familiar) land? What are the imperatives required to sustain our progeny? What dreams did our ancestors dream for us? I would venture to say that precious few of our ancestors dreams aligned to Dr. King's 1963 speech. In fact, his own words four years later did not closely align to the 1963 speech. As such, it must be contextualized as a tactical expression of leadership engaged in a struggle based on moral suasion. It cannot be elevated to a principle for organization or fulfilling our collective imperatives. So, what were the dreams of Martin Delany and Henry McNeal Turner and Raymond Parks and Fannie Williams and so many others? So, wearing a flag is treasonous is the sense that it represents a blatant disavowal of the collective imperatives of black folk - past and present...unless, it serves a tactical purpose that is likely to derive some benefit. I think it is a hilarious suggestion because these folks can be easily duped...it is the first vulnerability of arrogance. Rocking the red, white, and blue is a shoe horn for misacculturation which seems to be the primary goal of white/western information systems - ie., the reacculturation of all to a single, commercially-accessible, consumer-susceptible paradigm.
...What dreams did our ancestors dream for us? Perhaps we're on the same wavelength after-all. Once I asked you that, I immediately thought back to this response from me posing this theory as to "Why We Are Integrated":
Needless to say I took issue with that statement because of that sometimes warring Double Consciousness because that "Dream" thing is one particularly, well... peculiarly "American" frame which discounts the "African." So, yes, I'm with you T3 when you say there shouldn't be an Either~Or situation - choosing one over the other. My question though is: What are those core principles which you say (and I agree) should remain intact and unchanged?
Cobb has backed himself into an evolutionary blind alley by getting caught up in the triune evils of public obstinacy, middle-class satiety, and apologetic indignity. He's hemmed himself in on multiple fronts. It's now down to the point that he's clutching at a shred of political and rhetorical dignity by re-presenting his view as modernist and humanist in the Greek tradition, which is some pure-de-pure bullshit cause he just won't cop to the manifold cluster fuck that the GOP and its minions have wrought. My ace boon Noam Avrom wrote most pointedly about what's wrong with Cobb's little picture in Hegemony or Survival as far as I'm concerned, the interpersonal communion of blackness is the instantiated collective unconscious attempt to protect America from itself.
Chomsky made it into my honorary black heavy hitter hall of fame decades ago..., Cobb titled the post that has elicited the comments in this thread: “Liberation isn’t Black Liberation”. I want to briefly examine his conclusions, starting here: “If it is the case that young people today are expecting all manner of liberation from blackness, they're in for a rude awakening." It is ignorant, naïve or disingenuous to assert that “black” folks expect to be liberated merely by embracing some abstract notion of “blackness.” The expectation is that liberation will come from the collective actions of folks who have been oppressed and exploited because a Eurocentric instrumentality used the notion of “whiteness” to socially construct and socially enforce a caste system founded and grounded in antiblack racism. Antiblack racism is the predicate for the struggle and, ironically, the predicate for “blackness.” As I have argued elsewhere in this forum, the self-identification of African peoples as “black” folks is a product of the slave trade. It is oppression that fostered the collectivization of Yoruba, Ga, Fon, Mande, etc., under the rubric “black” or “Negro.” Our ancestors responded to this commodification and racialization by taking the “blackness” that was foisted upon them by their “white” captors and turning it into a tool for survival and a weapon of liberation. “They'll take it out on blackfolks too. If they are not capable or willing to accept gifts from the John Browns of the world, aid in their own struggles which are well-meant if dissonant (or foolish), then they will keep returning to the empty home of blackness and fall deeper into the domestic violence of self-hatred.” I don’t think black folks object to white folks in the John Brown mold attacking white supremacy from within. So-called “whites” created the apartheid system and the ideology that sustains it. They are in the best position to dismantle it. "To accept with grace the benefits and limitations of blackness is to be prepared for all manner of growth. America has all that for its citizens. People offer a hand all the time, there's no good reason to leave them hanging.” Cobb’s America is located somewhere over the rainbow in the Land of Oz. The United States of America, where the rest of us reside, is the product of a bourgeois revolution premised on the belief that privileged white male colonists should not have to pay taxes to their imperial masters in England without representation (the current administration still embraces this belief that privileged white folks shouldn’t be taxed). This rebellion of the bourgeois was nurtured in Virginia, the heartland of colonial America’s slaveocracy. Edmund Morgan in his incomparable book “American Slavery, American Freedom” argues Virginia—which held 40% of all enslaved Africans in the colonies at the time of the revolution—is key to understanding the contradictions of a founding national ethos that tacitly ignored the enslavement of Africans while proclaiming all men are created equal. Morgan’s text also provides a key to understanding the crucial difference between Cobb’s America (the Land of Oz with its “freedom, justice and liberty for all white men) and the United States of America with its indelible legacy of slavery, apartheid, and antiblack racism. Morgan points out that Virginians drafted the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the first ten amendments to the Constitution. And for thirty-two of the first thirty-six years of the nation’s history, Virginians were elected to the presidency. Gary Wills in his recent book on Jefferson, “Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power” (2003), delineates the role of “slave power” in the governance of the nation. The term “slave power” describes the power slaveholding states had over non-slave states due to the three-fifths clause of the Constitution. The negotiated agreement that decreed that each slave in the US would count as three-fifths of a person for establishing the representation of a state in the House and Senate, and consequently in the Electoral College, institutionalized the power of the slaveocracy over the rest of the country. Accordingly, until the Civil War, the slave states always had one-third more seats in Congress than their free population of white males warranted. This meant forty-seven seats instead of thirty-three in 1793, and ninety-eight instead of seventy-three in 1833. It also meant that a plantation owner in the South with a hundred slaves possessed the equivalent of 60 votes, while a wealthier white man in the North who didn’t own slaves was confined to a single vote. Leonard Richards, in a book titled “Slave Power” (2000), provides additional insights on the long-term effects of the three-fifth clause that are worth quoting at length: “In the sixty-two years between Washington’s election and the Compromise of 1850, for example, slaveholders controlled the presidency for fifty years, the speaker’s chair for forty-one years, and the Chairmanship of House Ways and Means [the most important committee] for forty-two years. The only men to be reelected president—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson—were all slaveholders. The men who sat in the Speaker’s chair the longest—Henry Clay, Andrew Stevenson, and Nathaniel Macon—were slaveholders. Eighteen out of thirty-one Supreme Court justices were slaveholders.” Until America has exorcised the ghosts of the middle passage, and placated the spirits of the enslaved Africans who built the this nation and the souls of the many thousands lynched in what Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson calls “rituals of human sacrifice,” Cobb’s dream of a utopian future will always be supplanted by a dystopian reality. Nor can his fetishized flag lapel pin magically confer equality or dignity on those Negroes it adorns like the mark of a branding iron. The stars and stripes of the United States, not the stars and bars of the Confederacy, constitute the emblematic sign of the “slave power” of the founding regime and apartheid system that followed in its wake. It is the flag of the bourgeois revolution, and the slaveocracy it enfranchised. The ethos and structure institutionalized by Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe—Civil War, constitutional amendments, and congressional legislation notwithstanding—now serves the interests of a neo-slaveocracy (Bush, DeLay, Frist, Lott, Rove, etc.). Lacking “slave power” in its original form, Republican Dixiecrats today use race-baiting, faith-based bribes, and the suppression of black votes to maintain hegemony over the electorate and the status quo. The past is alive and well. The past is present. That is the central problem Cobb and his black conservative allies cannot overcome. In their vain search for the Land of Oz they keep winding up in the slave quarters of the same old plantation. Cobb writes with an eraser. But he cannot obliterate that which we can retrieve from collective memory and reveal to collective conscience with the simplest of Sankofian gestures. Yeah, I’m back. I decided it was time to end a self-imposed exile that began when P6 removed a comment I made. I won’t rehash the details except to say I hate censorship, and, feeling justifiably aggrieved by P6’s surgical removal of my elegantly crafted prose (a diatribe-ectomy performed without the anesthetic of a warning), I decided to grab my porkpie hat, fold my Bedouin tent, and seek the next oasis over the dunes to quench my thirst for eclectic discourse. Immediately after my hasty departure, however, I realized I had made a mistake: in absenting myself from this forum I was censoring myself. P6’s parting shot to me was: “You’re always welcome.” I checked and sure enough the porch light was on. I also decided to return because of something DW said. He mentioned that he too had thought of quitting on occasion but realized there ain’t no parley like a P6 parley cause a P6 parley don’t stop (my words not his). DW was right (yeah I said it. That cracking sound is hell freezing over). DW was right I knew you'd see the light sometime.. Good to see you back, O.
My only objection: that wasn't a parting shot; it was something I wanted to make sure you knew.
Thank you sir for putting flesh on my earlier point.
Cobb also complicates his very point (which to his credit he says he "doesn't really believe"... okay!?) by referencing/esteeming Glenn Loury as frequently as he does. If he was a true student or admirer of Loury then even a cursory examination of Loury's "Anatomy of Racial Inequality" would promptly have Cobb disavow any such ploys or considerations. My quick note about Cobb's "I don't believe it" stance is: Playing Devil's Advocate is one thing but Defending and Deferring To The "Devil" is wholly another. (See all comments above about Accomodating White Supremacy and Acculturation.)
And that's why Cobb's reference to [White] Anti-Racist, Tim Wise in particular, comes back to bite him in he Defenders assets. It is precisely that idea -- that RACISM IS WHITE PEOPLE'S PROBLEM [TO FIX] -- that Cobb can't respect. In fact, Cobb wants to blame Black folk, at least in part, for the failure of John Brown's Raid and for modern-day "good" White folk not having enough Black allies in this battle against White Racism he seems to suggest so many Whites are primed to combat:
Now that's about all I can take in one sitting... The very least he can do is inform himself of the very positions the people he invokes actually take on the very thing he says and, by extension, associate them with. That was really eloquent O. By and large, in order to embrace a political/economic conservatism of this Republican flavor or to embrace integrationism, one must simply ignore history and logic. That works in places where folks don't know history and can be moved by the organization of words...but this forum is not a good place to hang out if you want to ignore history. O, you really broke that down - to it's very last compound, see how it sounds, a little unrational!! BDP called it out two decades ago...Fresh for '05, suckas!! What I find most interesting about Cobb's increasingly hysterical apologia - is his insistance on denigrating cells of black culture and interpersonal communion. Maybe it's just me, but when I read his political screeds, I now almost always hear a shrill and deeply self-abasing condemnation of blackness shrieking, never been shit!, ain't shit now! cain't never be shit! It would be one thing if he came with a "trust but verify" stance, but that's evidently incompatible with the world-view to which he has become rhetorically wedded. One wonders if this is genuinely him, or if it's a mask he's wearing for the audience he's cultivated.
I see them as poking at sore spots. I see them as efforts to position others. They are not efforts to build, but to undermine the opposing team (this is not a black mark, per se, just a division of labor). Very ahistorical. But very little shrieking...and frankly, zero self-abasement. On the other hand, I judge public personas for the most part. Think of me as a psychological textualist. In my view the blackness we seek to conserve possesses an inherent ethical competency that uniquely exemplifies democratic and American ideals. Staunch representation and tireless apologetics for neoconservative policies and practices are so jarringly orthogonal to this core competency that I consider the behaviours *self-abasing*. Please direct my attention toward a single serious black public persona expounding that neocon bullshit without betraying his/her good homelearning? I can't think of a single exemplar, which is why I suspect we keep the grill hot for each of the deformed muhfukkas who've played themselves trying. You know I'm not defending any of that. I am saying I don't see what I consider self-abasement in Cobb's statements. I see Cobb-ish type reasoning/arguments as essentially Circular. He is trying to justify his reasoning based on his personal experience and, in so doing, justify the dissonance between what he perhaps has been socialized to believe against the world of "Black" facts, truth, history and reality that stand against his what he learned in his (one man's or middle-class) Black experience. This returns to what T3 explained earlier about one's personal experience being a poor template to interpret one's world, etc. This Dissonance is further highlighted by Cobb's own Hypocritical Cowardice. Hypocritical because he proclaimed, at once, that he "acknowledges that everybody in the race has their own roles and responsibilities" but when it comes to requiring those in his class, the Black Middle/Upper Class to "hold up their end of the Cosby Bargain" and fulfill their hold roles or responsibilities "in the race" he rejects any such acknowledgement. But, like Cosby he's willing to preach to, at and about those "Lower Economic people." Cowardice because he was quick to disavow the "everybody in the race has their own roles and responsibilities" rhetoric when it came time to speak about what those roles/responsibilities were - for him. So, once that thin veneer of "I'm for Black people" rhetoric is stripped away what's left exposed is the nakedness of his "I'm for certain Middle Class, No Obligation having Black people." Well, no obligation save the self-obliged "role" of being the self-appointed 'rightful' critics of Black people who are otherwise not to be held accountable to or for Black people. The latter is understandable (if that only translated into how the Cobb-ers articulate/respond); the former inherently problematic. If they are not capable or willing to accept gifts from the John Browns of the world, If Cobb's assertion is meant as a rhetorical metaphor, then I'm willing to grant him the poetic license needed to make such a claim poetically credible. If he means it as a statement of fact, then he is enormously confused about the very real difficulties entailed by John Brown's plan to liberate the slaves. Brown, despite his great-hearted intentions, mistakenly believed that news of his seizure of Harper's Ferry would be sufficient to generate an uprising among the slaves. The success of this action, however, was dependent on a communication system that Brown did not possess and could not have created under the conditions of rebellion and guerilla warfare. Brown's plan was not insane but it was extremely dependent on so many variables and events occurring exactly as he had planned and hoped that they would occur that it's complexity caused it to implode. Cobb's statement also reassures me that beneath the surface of many black neocons lies the heart of a frustrated and angry black nationalist.
IMO, the Black Nationalist rhetoric is nothing but political manuevering and opportunism. Associating the contorted and confused ideology of Cobb-like Black Conservatives with Black Nationalism gives Black Nationalism a bad name that I don't believe it has earned. I fashion myself to be a Black Nationalist of sorts so I take both a philosophical and personal cyber offense to that association. While they do borrow heavily from that well-established, organic Black tradition... these Black Conservatives now-a-days are the anti-thesis to that tradition on some very fundamental philosophical terms. The Flag Pin idea then needs to be seen as an abomination to Black Nationalism. As stated, Cobb's ideas are Accomodationist/Integrationist in scope and focus. Hardly Black Nationalistic attributes. Quite to the contrary... But, then again, maybe there is a bit of truth to your theory. If White [Southern or Southern sympathizing] Democrats can change parties and become Republicans and rail against "Liberals" when so many profess that they once were "Liberals" then maybe the Cobb's of the world did get frustrated and changed sides... LOL Maybe that's where the betrayal exist. If you can't beat them. Join them... I guess... :) IMO, the Black Nationalist rhetoric is nothing but political manuevering and opportunism. I don't want to be pedantic here but I did not write that black neocons were employing "black nationalist rhetoric" in their writings or statements. I wrote that I detected beneath the surface of their words the frustration and anger of black nationalism. This theory, to the degree that it is one, came to me 20 years ago when I was given a stack of unpublished papers written by Glenn Loury. After reading these papers I told the person who had shared them with me that Loury was an angry nationalist who felt that the black community had been betrayed by many of its leaders and by those who wanted to use the political capital of poor and working class black people to further their own aims. My friend disagreed with me at the time but over the years he has come around to seeing Loury in the same light. This may seem condescending or too analytical in the Freudian sense but I didn't think that Loury even realized the degree of his anger at that time over what he correctly viewed and called the misuse of black political capital. It was only later, after his fall from the neocon embrace and Harvard's grace, that he began to see what was really stirring him at a personal and political level. I strongly suspect that what moves many black neocons is a sense of betrayal at a personal, community, professional and intellectual level as a result of their interactions and dealings with black leadership and white liberals. Their frustrations will grow even larger when the honorable and truly smart ones realize that the Republicans and their minions have no credible solutions to offer the black community. Since we already know that this is true of Democrats too then we really have no where else to look outside of ourselves.
IMO, the Black Nationalist rhetoric is nothing but political manuevering and opportunism. Black conservatives use it for cover when they commit heinous acts of betrayal against the interests of the black community. Clarence Thomas readily cites his admiration for Malcolm, as if that in and of itself authorizes or justifies his egregious rulings on voting rights, prisoner rights, death penalty, or other issues of grave concern to the black community. The other rhetorical trick is to claim the conservatism in the black community is identical to the white conservative movement and their values. Black people developed their conservative codes of ethics and values to defend and conserve their lives. White conservatives, on the other hand, developed their particular codes to defend and conserve their way of life. That way of life, of course, is inextriably tied to white privilege.
Well, PT, from where I stand, I simply can't approach or feel what you're saying. At least not in the terms it seems you are saying it. I happen to view Black Conservatives of Loury's (former)persausion differently. Perhaps I'm not quite as educated on the topic. I would suggest, however, that while I can acknowledge that there are some shared sentiments of raw Black Nationalism among (the raw ideas that made Garvey admire Booker T.) political conservatives (Loury and his former compadres) and political radicals/leftists (Malcolm X, Black Panthers, etc.) which, no doubt, translate into some shared ideas about betrayal... I just can't get with the careless association of Loury, etc. with Black Nationalism which, seems to me, stands a predominantly Radical/Leftist American phenomenon that has never been at ease with White Conservativism like modern day Black Conservatives like Loury's former compadres are. O~, I fully respect the true tradition of Black Conservativism but it is hardly wrong to say that modern day White Neo-CONservativism has CO-OPTED Black Conservativism and those strains of Black Conservativism that developed and are organic to the Black Community are comparable to the paleo-conservatives among White Conservatives: On The Out. There is little issue over the social or moral conservativism (though it, too, can be and is contentious). It's the political conservativism that's [the most] problematic, IMO. "I fully respect the true tradition of Black Conservativism but it is hardly wrong to say that modern day White Neo-CONservativism has CO-OPTED Black Conservativism..." Agreed. And we all know black conservatives who are complicit in the white conservative movement's effort to co-opt uninformed and ill-informed black folks.
Well, PT, from where I stand, I simply can't approach or feel what you're saying. At least not in the terms it seems you are saying it. I happen to view Black Conservatives of Loury's (former)persausion differently. Perhaps I'm not quite as educated on the topic.
I think that it is important that we don't view everything in absolute terms. I believe that there is a segment of the black Republican/black conservative tendency that is still exploring their options and looking for a place to land. I think we have to grant Glenn Loury and others the same latitude that we grant ourselves and others with whom we feel some political and social affinity. That is, the ability to reexamine their presumptions, premises and conclusions. And, if they feel the evidence or new thinking warrants it, they should be granted the space to change their minds. In my opinion, Glenn Loury and others like him never sought to damage the black community. Maybe they got lost for a minute or two, but, hey, so what. Muhammad Ali says that he did too (although in pursuit of other goals) and he has always been one of my heroes. We have to take the long view in this movement. We will lose some partisans from time to time; some temporarily and others for all time. People like Glenn Loury, in my opinion, are always making an effort to stay on the right side no matter their faults or errors.
PT, I read all of what you just said and I'm even more in the position where I can't relate to what you're trying to say.
Seems to be a theme with you... but I question the relevance here.
What are you talking about? Same post, further down... (my comments more directly to Ourstorian) nothing suggesting "absolutes."
And, in your opinion, you feel those comments of yours are warranted WHY? I mean, there was ABSOLUTELY nothing in what I said that condemned Loury and deemed him unredeemable or whatever. What is really with this stuff? The recurring theme of yours (with me)? You made a comment suggesting that Loury's perspective had some element of "the frustration and anger of black nationalism." I begged to differ with your characterization - with you flatly characterizing whatever that "frustration and anger" is as "Black Nationalism." Your characterization problematic because of the core concepts of Accomodation/Assimilation, etc. that also mark Black Conservativism. Again, those things are Anti-thetical to prevailing conceptualization of what Black Nationalism is. The very definition of the term is at odds with those ideas that Black Conservatives, neo or paleo, seem to all have. So how you can flatly call a reaction from any of those Black Conservative frameworks the result of Black Nationalistic "frustrations and anger", I have no idea. I find it funny how, instead of elaborating on your point (what informs it) you go off on some tangent about lattitude and "long views", etc., etc. Things that are hardly relevant and certainly things you have failed to establish as being comments warranted by virtue of anything I said. Point being, I still not feelin' your point because it seems to me those "frustrations" and "angry", if only reactionary sentiments are located in something other than Black Nationalism, per se. But maybe you can actually speak to how you are defining the term and how Black Conservatives like Loury (in his former life) typify Black Nationalist ideas in ways that are more than superficial if even actually something that can be called Black Nationalism. Seems to me your thoughts are based on some False Consensus. Again, I can acknowledge that there are some shared sentiments of raw Black Nationalism and even some shared ideas about betrayal... But, I believe there is a distinguishable and pronounced difference. PT, I read all of what you just said and I'm even more in the position where I can't relate to what you're trying to say. That's because you are more interested in trying to show how clever and smart you are than in trying to understand that there are different ways of looking at the behavior of black people who are not your enemy and could be your ally in some situations.
Seems to be a theme with you... but I question the relevance here. And so what is your point? If you want to view everything in absolute terms you are more than welcome to proceed, however, you don't have a corner on the reality market here. I think we have to grant Glenn Loury and others the same latitude that we grant ourselves and others with whom we feel some political and social affinity. What are you talking about? Same post, further down... (my comments more directly to Ourstorian) nothing suggesting "absolutes." I'm writing about you denying black people like Glenn Loury the possibility of change and then denying that that is exactly what you are doing. And, in your opinion, you feel those comments of yours are warranted WHY? I mean, there was ABSOLUTELY nothing in what I said that condemned Loury and deemed him unredeemable or whatever. What is really with this stuff? The recurring theme of yours (with me)? Why do you believe that what I wrote is in direct response to you? I don't have any recurring theme with you. You made a comment suggesting that Loury's perspective had some element of "the frustration and anger of black nationalism." I begged to differ with your characterization - with you flatly characterizing whatever that "frustration and anger" is as "Black Nationalism." I did not write that "anger and frustration" is "black nationalism." I tried to express my belief that Loury's anger about the status of black people in this country arose from a sense of frustrated nationalism. Your characterization problematic because of the core concepts of Accomodation/Assimilation, etc. that also mark Black Conservativism. Again, those things are Anti-thetical to prevailing conceptualization of what Black Nationalism is. The very definition of the term is at odds with those ideas that Black Conservatives, neo or paleo, seem to all have. So how you can flatly call a reaction from any of those Black Conservative frameworks the result of Black Nationalistic "frustrations and anger", I have no idea. These are just words strung together in the form of sentences that have little or no real meaning. I find it funny how, instead of elaborating on your point (what informs it) you go off on some tangent about lattitude and "long views", etc., etc. Things that are hardly relevant and certainly things you have failed to establish as being comments warranted by virtue of anything I said. I was thinking about what we have to do to create a sense of community among black people who have the skill sets that are needed to address the problems facing our communities. We have to take the long view and not assume that someone can't be an ally at, say, point D simply because we differed at point B. I realize now that community organizing may not mean anything to at all to you. Seems to me your thoughts are based on some False Consensus. What is False Consensus? Is this some vulgarized inversion of Marx's term "false consciousness"?
What are you talking about? What is your point? You got some BS presumptions of yours (enemies??) to check. That what your interests are in saying irrelevant and non-germane BS all because you make some conclusions based on some BS in your mind that you can't sustain when called on it. Take for instance, this piece of irrelevance:
Hmmm.... Nothing in what I said ever said or suggested Glenn Loury "sought to damage the black community." So what was you point? What made you think you had a point? And I could swear that I have not been the only one here registering comments here. And about Glenn Loury... This is what I said or rather how I referenced him:
So you and I both know there is absolutely NO BASIS for this BS of yours about me "denying black people like Glenn Loury the possibility of change..." I've never said a word crosswise about Glenn Loury or about whatever evolutionary process he or others like him might be on. If I did, then besides making weak claims that I did you would be able to show where I did. Instead, you have some issues you need to resolve because it's clear you can't even be truthful about whatever it is you want to take issue with me over. Note: You know it ain't got a damn thing to do with me "denying the possibility of change"... So let's deal with your real issues and let's have you stop beating around the bush or making silly assumptions that you can't substantiate. But if you want to persist, show where I "denied the possibility to change" and beyond that how that whole line of rhetoric has anything to do with this topic. For certainly if, as you claim, I shouldn't deny the "possibility to change" (exactly how even you don't know and can't show)... then you shouldn't predicate whatever issue you have with what I write on some idea that somebody MIGHT be or could or possibly will change. But, I guess right along with your keen assumption powers you can predict the future and even more than that how lenient I am with people who have some affinity to me philosophically or otherwise. Note: All of that stuff is based on some assumptions you think you can make about me and my views when it's obvious (by your wild and unsustained assumptions) you not only don't have a clue but you can't even make your BS relevant to whatever the given topic is. But go ahead... demonstrate this idea that I have "denied the possibility of/to change."
You actually wrote:
Now, as for what you "tried" to say, I don't know. But as it relates to what you did say... funny how you said BLACK nationalism each time. Funny how I contended that whatever that frustration/anger is/was, it can hardly be characterized as something that comes out of [Black] Nationalism when so much of the Black Conservatives thoughts, like Cobb's seem to have strong assimilationist/accomodationist, flag draping ideas which would seem to be The End Of [Black] Nationalism. Maybe you can benefit from the understanding that there are different ways to look at "black behavior" and B-Con's in particular. LOL
More IRRELEVANCE... More unfounded and unsubstantiated assumptions that, on this topic, considering all the views expressed here is very odd, indeed. Somehow the comments registered by others are not met with your pleas and ploys feigning some concern over Community Organizing:
All of that rather strong language (at least IMO... and it seems objectively so, as well) and here it is you're talking to me about, more or less, alienating potential allies and such and such??? Dude, try as desperately as you might but all those types of appeals can't mask the fact that there really is some other issue(s) you need to resolve. Take your time and get it right before the next time comes when you feel the urge to respond to something I say as half-cocked and as presumptutous as you do. Oh the Totality Of The Situation... LOL But I guess you feel justified in ASSUMING that I have somehow declared someone or something an enemy when you and I both know you can't substantiate that BS. When you and I both know there is something else that you must have an issue with. I mean, again, there were some very strong words tossed out here, very few if any by me, yet you direct your curious "community organizing" appeal towards me in the absence of anything that actually contends with what I've actually said. AMAZING... Amazing if you think that little child psychology stuff is suppose to resonate or act as a substitute for substance. Dear Nmaginate, You just may, after all, be correct. In any case, I don't see anything positive emanating from any further exchanges with you.
Sincerely,
PTCruiser Great!!! Now I won't have to be bothered with the unproductive negative drag you like to have on these few conversations where you found reason (though still unfounded) to comment on something I've said. Comments, again, of which you have yet to ever establish a basis why you thought there was a Community Organizing or otherwise constructive point for you to make.) Thanks for being the bigger man about this... Yours Truly, Nmag~ "What a beautiful fix we are in now; peace has been declared." Napolean Bonaparte after the Treaty of Amiens
"Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow" Oscar Wilde
Hmmm.... Interesting... I presume that positively speak towards the pose I highlighted.
"Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person." Unknown "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain
Silly.... and I quote:
Please find better argumentation and modes of relief... Please find better argumentation... What is an "argumentation"? Are you using the George "Kingfish" Stevens Flip Dictionary? This thread is SO over... amen... |
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I find this an interesting idea. I've given thought to getting an American flag pin for interviews and things like that. I'm less patriotic than easily 90% of black people and 99.5 percent of Americans but I'll gladly mislead you if that will get you to give me money.
One point though is what is the difference between a flag pin and a do-rag?
If 30% of African American people were wearing flag pins, flag pins would have to be and they would necessarily become a sarcastic/ironic statement about the hoops through which Black people must hop to be treated equally in the United States.
Of course, white people would start to resent black people wearing flag-pins. Do-rags, a way to make nappy hair more wavy, started as an accomodation to white supremacy. It doesn't matter how it started, once it reaches a critical mass of acceptance in the black community, it becomes grounds for exclusion from the white community.
An economist who I've forgotten made an analogy, if there are 100 seats on a plane, only 100 people are going to fly. It is true that anyone who gets to the airport early enough can get a ticket, but it is not true everyone could fly if they wanted to.
If there are uncle tom slots in the economy for 500,000 people then any of the 25 million African Americans who plays uncle tom hard enough can get a slot. But it is not true that all 25 million African Americans can get uncle tom slots.