Yup. White folks see it as a mental construct...to them, that's all it is. To Black folks, it's our lives.

The fact that he has to wonder out loud what Black folks think is telling. 

I should make one more clarifying note, which is that I find there to be a future only for those inheritors of the Black Nationalist mantle who aren't playing the liberal-left game of using lower class blacks as human shields.

Br. Cobb does not have to worry too much these days about the liberal-left brigade trying to exploit the political capital of black folks. Black folks peeped that hole card a long time ago. These days the liberal-left has been joined by the conservative-right stormtroopers who are making the same hollow promises.

I particularly love the way that Cobb, Steele, Sowell, Walter Williams, the folks at Booker Rising, Ms. Barber and an almost endless list of others keep trying to perpetuate the myth that black nationalists have a great deal of direct influence on the thinking and decisions of the black masses. The late Huey Newton didn't believe he had that much influence on regular, everyday black folks even during the brief period when he was on top of his game.

But to hear Cobb and other folks of like mind tell it you would think that millions of black folk go to bed every night pledging fealty to the ghosts of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois. Their line of argument tends to reinforce my view that most of them have no clue, no clue at all as to what black folks really think.

I consider myself an inheritor of black nationalist poltics, and I would move it forward in such a way as to reform its mistakes. As such I'm doing so as a writer and critic, hopefully in the mold of Baldwin or Ellison.

If there is nothing to the intellectual construct of blackness that resonates with ordinary African Americans, then there is nothing left to it. If the intellectual contstruct, specifically as some kind of steadfast and principled set of ideas or aesthetic, is nothing more or less than 'you know how we do', then there really is no heritage to speak of. 

I stand against this 'black is as blackfolks do' idea. It's mushy and practically worthless for any purpose other than marketing and poltical polling. But the work of keeping sight of principles and amending them as the times demand with a thoughtful reconciliation of an intellectual tradition is something else entirely. That is a worthwhile pursuit.

 It is not clear to me that there is anything so influential over the 'you know how we do' school as black radio. It is pervasive, popular and basically intellectually impoverished. It's theme may as well be Tupac's. No matter what blackfolks do "I ain't mad at ya."

In the tradition of Booker T. Washington, I get mad. Then again, standing for principles does that. 

I stand against this 'black is as blackfolks do' idea. It's mushy and practically worthless for any purpose other than marketing and poltical polling.

Give me a working definition of "blackness" that's not equally so and I'll take you seriously.

In the tradition of Booker T. Washington, I get mad. 

'Mad' means insane, not angry. 

Insane crazy
drivin' miss daisy
out her fuckin mind
now I got mine, I'm swazey.

Let me quote from the archives.

http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2005/10/black_vs_negro__1.html

"...in the mold of Baldwin or Ellison..."

If you were genuinely interested in paying homage to these two men then you would adopt a  less strident and divisive, although not less principled, tone in registering your disagreements with those of us in the black community who do not share all of your viewpoints. You would also adopt a more inclusive posture and try to display a more nuanced understanding and appreciation of the views of others.

I don't think that Ellison and Baldwin, as a general rule, held those in the black community who they had disagreements with in such contempt. (I think that LeRoi Jones might have won Ellison's undying enmity but he had to work hard at it.) The kind of scorched earth nearly theatrical ravings that you and other so-called black conservatives engage in is immensely counter-productive.  

http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2005/10/a_conservative__1.html 

The Black Nationalist movement sought to, and very successfully wedded black identity to political struggle. In moving from Negro to Black, African America enjoined a broad redefinition of itself in the immediate post-Civil Rights America to push harder for those rights and privileges long denied. It was a brilliant idea and it worked. But what it has failed to do since then is adapt to new economic realities, new crossover influence and new multicultural perspectives, not to mention a Republican majority. But its greatest failure has been to evade the trap of identity politics that it laid for itself. If I were more scholarly, I would adequately qualify the separate and distinct influences of Black Consciousness, Pan Africanism, Black Power, Black Arts and Black Nationalism in this mix but I'm shortcutting that. Suffice it to say, that's a lot of blackness in a lot of different directions and it left very little room for any African American to assert any other kind of identity.

The very invention of the term 'African American' was largely due to the problems created by this monolithic identity. In the 1980s we needed within 'the black community' to realize that we weren't all one community. Further, we needed the rest of America to recognize that too. We had to transcend the boundaries of Black and yet be true to history as well. So while the term 'African American' connoted a little afrocentricity, it also allowed us to compare and contrast ourselves to Irish Americans. It put us here in America and there in our land of origination equally, like other ethnics. That was an excellent change. And yet blackness persisted in ways both good and bad.

Just as with 'Negro' in 1968, you'll find people today who can't stand the idea of giving up 'Black' for a new term. People are invested in blackness for an entire spectrum of reasons. The most important is one of identity and positive self regard. Unfortunately very close behind that is the reason of political struggle. 'Black' is potent political stuff. And as many have written, matters of authentic identity are very often entangled with political positions. Both are important, but they are also independent, and I worry that only a few (especially those of us who were born Negro) recognize the difference. People tend to forget that black political/cultural nationalism was an invention, and it's orientation to America was an invention as well. It can't be uninvented, but the pieces must be separated.

For the purposes of my discussions, I have used the example of Nikki Giovanni's Poem to illustrate the difference between mental liberation and political liberation.

I maintain that black mental liberation in the classic Carter Woodson sense is still a necessary component of African American life. African Americans still suffer the deprivations of self-doubt and identity crisis among the hobbling portrayals and racial stereotypes. 'Knowledge of self' is still crucial. It's not hard to get, but it's still crucial.

I further maintain that having achieved this one is free as anyone. And yet the presumption persists that any African American who is truly liberated must only select from a narrow selection of political ideologies. Conservatism is not one of them. Why? It's not because those people we idolize as leaders of the Movement weren't conservative, but because they didn't initiate anything that could be called 'black conservatism'. In the pantheon of black creations of the 60s and 70s there was no 'Black Conservatism'. And so black conservatism is percieved largely as a new invention rather than simple conservation of African American traditions that predate Blackness. Well, that's partially black conservatism's fault for calling itself black - a practically no-win situation.

"White folks see it as a mental construct."

"White" people forged the "blackness" template.

They "racialized us, branded us with "blackness" to buy and sell us, trade us, degrade us, and make themselves rich. We have been struggling with the issue of identity ever since, and disrespected for our struggle even from voices within the community.

We took the "blackness" that was foisted on us and turned it into a weapon to confront and contest white supremacy. It became a means whereby peoples of diverse ethnicities could organize, resist, and rebel. And although the concept is fraught with "essentalism," one need not historicize (romanticize) blackness to politicize blackness, and that's what the argument and discussion is really about. How to organize and use "blackness" as a tool of liberation from white supremacy in all its permutations of white privilege and all its ramifications of black inferiority.

Michael, my problem is with what you're writing now, not what you wrote in the past.

How can you go on about blackness when you're one of the biggest complainers about the "blacker than thou" thing?  

"As such I'm doing so as a writer and critic, hopefully in the mold of Baldwin or Ellison."

Is this a Baldwinian moment?

"If I were more scholarly, I would adequately qualify the separate and distinct influences of Black Consciousness, Pan Africanism, Black Power, Black Arts and Black Nationalism in this mix but I'm shortcutting that. Suffice it to say, that's a lot of blackness in a lot of different directions and it left very little room for any African American to assert any other kind of identity."

WTF? Lot of words, very little room left for any meaning.

Oh, and is this an Ellisonian idea?

"'Knowledge of self' is still crucial. It's not hard to get, but it's still crucial."

But, hey, I digress, and I'm almost tempted to debate. But this ain't rocket science. It ain't even lit. crit. The "excerpt" boils down to just another rambling misinformation campaign against black partisanship on behalf of the white nationalist party. 

"And yet the presumption persists that any African American who is truly liberated must only select from a narrow selection of political ideologies. Conservatism is not one of them. Why?"

Here's the short answer.

The issues with "Blacker Than Thou" have little to do with those, real or imagined, who subscribe to the 'Black Is As Blackfolks Do' or the 'You Know How We Do' mentality which is not to be confused with a School Of Thought which seeks to address or propose Liberation - theory or practice. Cobb's apparent problem has to do with his wanting to be the Grand Definer/Determiner of "Blackness" as a means of not being defined/determined to be outside of "Blackness"; hence, his curious and contradictory objection to supposed "Blacker Than Thou" ideas while actively applying his own "Black Is, Black Ain't" template. Ironically, his thoughts amount to little more than a "Black Is As Blackfolks Do" idea:   EXHIBIT ~ A 

"And yet the presumption persists that any African American who is truly liberated must only select from a narrow selection of political ideologies. Conservatism is not one of them. Why?"  

From my knowledge, he doesn't want there to be any "Blackness" or "Black Unity" constraints put on Black people, particularly Middle-Class Black people  -- and, obviously, Black POLITICAL CONservatives (which aren't to be confused with principled social conservatives) -- especially when it comes to those "outdated notions of BLACK cultural NATIONALIST unity."

I guess if you roll out the 2007 Models then Cobb would be fine with the Black Middle-Class et al being "overburdened" by such "unity"... under Cobb-ian notions, of course. The Grand Definer/Determiner that he is.

What is black about Afrocentricity? How does Asante hew or not hew to Garvey? Are African Americans who take one perspective vs another more or less properly black? What if they decide to be divisive and strident about it? Who is right? Who is wrong?

 So what about pledging a black fraternity? What about membership in a church whose minister is black? If one defends one black fraternity or black church stridently or divisively how is that constructive or destructive of blackness?

Go ask someone who has made such claims.

I'm addressing the statements YOU made. And you should know by now I don't get distracted by specious questions.

How can you go on about blackness when you're one of the biggest complainers about the "blacker than thou" thing?

Temple 3 -

Wonderful post and great advice to your cousin! It is extremely important that all of us believe that the "world is possibility" no matter what obstacles we encounter or impediments that are placed intentionally or by omission in our way. This is especially important for our young people to understand. They should pursue their heart's desire and not worry about questions of racial authenticity.

"I'm optimistic about the future, but not about the future of this civilization. I'm optimistic about the civilization which will replace this one."

                                                          James Baldwin

All questions about the authenticity of a Black perspective are specious without some reference. That's a point I'm making.

 My problem with 'blacker-than-thou' is that it takes place within a vacuum, not that there is something inherently wrong with fidelity to Black principles. More specifically that such references are not made with any discipline within debates about the state of black politics today.

If I'm wandering off point by saying that the black aesthetic needs an update without being comprehensive about what that ought to be, understand that I am saying it in the context of what I have said before.

The problem with black identity politics is that its greatest punishment is alienation. This would be acceptable if it weren't so pervasive, if all black politics weren't so identity based. The result is that this whole identity and role-modeling paradigm consistantly reproduces the problem temple3 writes about above. "Is this a black thing" is almost always reduced to the question of the numerical presense of blacks doing it now. Not whether in principle it makes sense.

Reference also this graph by Ray Bowen, emphasis mine:

Born in the mid 1930s, I grew up in the “projects” in New Haven, Connecticut in the 1940s, a New Deal kid conditioned by the rigors of the depression era. Most African Americans with whom I attended public schools in New Haven from about 1940 through the early 1950s did so without ever being taught by a black teacher. Many African American teachers throughout the United States in those days were educated in predominantly black colleges in the south. The Board of Education in my hometown did not deem those teachers “qualified” to teach in our public school system…a discriminatory practice that I wasn’t aware of until many years later. Ironically, black teachers from northern colleges also had similar difficulties within that system. In spite of that overt and covert discrimination, a large percentage of the black graduates from my high school eventually attended college. This happened without having black teachers as role models. Although we would have preferred educational role models that looked like us, our quest for an education was not impaired by their absence. Unlike many urban areas today, students in the public schools in Connecticut were fully integrated. The public housing project where I spent my early years was a diverse neighborhood with many racial and ethnic groups. However, the  project itself was segregated. African Americans, Latinos, and Asians lived in one section and whites in another. Because no public school teachers in my schools were African American, the people I looked up to came from outside the educational system.

 So is it fair to judge the value of things to African Americans based on the numerical representation of blacks doing that thing? No. And black identity politics is anchored on precisely that area of role modelling and representation. That's because it doesn't go to principles, it only goes to questions of 'authenticity'.

Many years ago when I was an undergrad I recall reading a book by the critic Lionel Trilling entitled "Sincerity and Authenticity." I didn't read it as part of a class assignment and I think that I picked it up simply because Trilling was mentioned in an article or book I was reading and I became intrigued about who he was. I still have my copy of the book.

What reminded me of Trilling's book was Cobb's reference to "authenticity." I can't recall much of Trilling's book right now (a good reason to reread it) but I do remember his observation that "authenticity" was a problem of relative recent development in the history of ideas. In terms of the Western canon, for example, it was not an issue that Shakespeare, who seemed to be taken with the entire range of human problems, was much concerned about.

The following quote is lifted from the critic's blurb about Trilling's book that appears at Amazon.com:

'"Now and then," writes Lionel Triling "it is possible to observe the moral life in process of revising itself." In this new book he is concerned with such a mutation: the process by which the arduous enterprise of sincerity, of being true to one's self, came to occupy a place of supreme importance in the moral life--and the further shift which finds that place now usurped by the darker and still more strenuous modern ideal of authenticity. (Emphasis added) Instances range over the whole of Western literature and thought, from Shakespeare to Hegel to Sartre, from Robespierre to R.D. Laing, suggesting the contradictions and ironies to which the ideals of sincerity and authenticity give rise, most especially in contemporary life. Lucid, and brilliantly framed, its view of cultural history will give Sincerity and Authenticity an important place among the works of this distinguished critic."' 

All questions about the authenticity of a Black perspective are specious without some reference.

I am grateful for the food for thought everyone's brought to the corn on the cobb picnic.

What reminded me of Trilling's book was Cobb's reference to "authenticity." I can't recall much of Trilling's book right now (a good reason to reread it) but I do remember his observation that "authenticity" was a problem of relative recent development in the history of ideas.

"Authenticity" is important for People of the Word.

What can possibly be more "authentic" than that-which-exists? How can you find what people actually are and do to be more "mushy" than a description composed of words, the meaning of which change over time like the meaning of ALL words do?

Unable To Engage... Just ramble on with your bad self. "Principles"? Whose principles? Your unidentified ones?

SHADOW BOXING is not an olympic sport or even a professional one. Amateur Night has been cancelled. You can stop rehearsing your Showtime At The Apollo act any time now.

So is it fair to judge the value of things to African Americans based on the numerical representation of blacks doing that thing?  

See?  The essence of NON-engagement.  But you can identify who, when and where anyone here have made an argument or note that it is fair to "to judge the value of things to African Americans based on the numerical representation of blacks doing it."

Seeing none...

It's refreshing to consider that I may have no more daunting critics worth minding that the coterie at P6. While I have difficulty getting through an argument through the repartee here, it is more or less clear that I can express my direction in my head.

I seem to recall encountering some resistance for my elitism, but I think I have good company in my insistence that there is, and must be a discoverable black ideal towards which African Americans must comport themselves to attain the freedom which is their stated imperative. I argue that within that thing I call the Old School are practical ways and means of maintaining the discipline required of that accomplishment. Furthermore I contend that within the scope of 'black' there are competing and divergent, if not mutually exclusive, trends within African America. The underlying assumption is that a task of black mental liberation and political agitation are fundamental components of this liberation. We have inherited various schools of thought on mental liberation and political agitation, and are engaged in a somewhat wooly corner of debate about which set of ideas is superior in effecting the desired change in blackfolk. 

Where I think I depart from the now fracturing mainstream of black political thought is that I don't see that the prospects of this project are attainable at a national scope. Two axioms of that belief are: 1. Black Unity is dead. 2. Don't second-guess blackfolks.

The result is that definitions of black will be fought over, as will the prospects for black politics.

While I have difficulty getting through an argument through the repartee here, it is more or less clear that I can express my direction in my head.

Strikes me folks' arguments get engaged or dissed around here with little middle gorund...and repetitive assertions of crap we been over before gets dissed. Keep that in mind and getting through the repartee is easy. 

I think I have good company in my insistence that there is, and must be a discoverable black ideal towards which African Americans must comport themselves to attain the freedom which is their stated imperative.

You are in good company. They're wrong too.

You are free, regardless of your comportment. Your comportment only determines whether or not people appreciate the fact of your freedom. 

Or maybe I'm wrong...there's an implication in your argument that Black people are not currently free. Or maybe you're confusing 'freedom' with 'profitability.'

2. Don't second-guess blackfolks.

Then there's no point in constructing a model of 'blackness' specifically to do so, is there?

1. Black Unity is dead.

Then there's no point in constructing a model of 'blackness' for ANY reason, is there?

Oh, yeah...don't say shit to me about fishing arguments out of the repartee when you write the way you do.

Yeah, you can just say what's in your head here...that's the whole point of the way I run things here. You should try it (saying directly what's in your head) at Cobb.

The rest is here:

http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2006/06/prospects_for_b.html 

I'm in agreement with Trilling. I think that the preoccupation with authenticity is generally the result of the transactional nature of human exchange in the 20thC. There being so many new ways that people interact with each other in cities, there being so many interactions with so many more people which are defining and there being so many more weighty decisions made upon ever briefer encounters. With a rising expectation about the amount of respect one ought to be accorded no matter what, authenticity becomes the currency instead of merely a gateway to character. This is only accellerated with computer mediated communications and rising standards of living. The entire value of identity theft is predicated on the fungibility of authentication. 

 The problem of course is that people's ability to truly judge character is diminished as is people's desire and need to develop character. So what then should we be judged upon, bringing King's axiom to mind?

---

The import of black unity being dead is that there is no national program necessary for black leadership and it is an error to assert racial solidarity. It's like herding cats.

The import of not second-guessing blackfolks is that the fundaments of values born in black nationalism remain in operation whether or not any leadership is expressed or attempted. African America is indeed a nation, and thus behaves like every other nation. Consequently what works for any nation works for African America, most importantly what doesn't work for any nation won't work for African America.

The consequences of these two axioms is that Socialist projects of any sort arranged for the benefit of African Americans are doomed to failure, firstly because any political effort to unify them on behalf of getting them will fail, and secondly because socialism itself will fail. Therefore African Americans, like any other free people are best dealt with in the context of free actors in free markets. 

Blackness, therefore is a bourgie cultural construct of free will, and conflicts between visions of blackness, just like any other fungible commodity, will be subject to market forces.

From the Old School perspective the realization that blackness itself is a commodity comes as a shock. The impulse is to regulate it. The question then becomes who will retain the energy to employ this commodity to their benefit and thereby own it. And so I see a clash between classes of African Americans over its prospects which may yet be outdone by a third set of actor: everybody who has no dog in the blackness fight. 

I believe that the only way to recover any lasting meaning is to side with black elites in their struggles for social power in America, as exemplified by the coaltion that purchased the King Papers. This will simultaneously give encouragement to ordinary and dysfunctional blackfolks should they sign on to any idea of blackness. If this doesn't happen, the meaning of blackness will suffer and be degraded back to the level of Negro. A) because of racism of the non-African Americans or B) because of the degeneracy of those African Americans not signed onto American middle class values.

Ugency is attached to this because it is the fault of black liberation that black anti-sociability and anti-Americanism gained currency in the first place.

The problem of course is that people's ability to truly judge character is diminished as is people's desire and need to develop character. So what then should we be judged upon, bringing King's axiom to mind?

Your reference to Dr. King's statement about judging people on the basis of their character as opposed to the color of their skin actually raises a problem or issue that King himself grew increasingly vexed about over time. Here is the dilemma: in order for King and others to attract the sympathetic hearing of white Americans they had to transform black people's struggle for civil rights into a moral issue and make their appeal to the presumed moral conscience of white Americans.

The sad reality is that black Americans were fully entitled to their rights as citizens under existing laws that had been enshrined in the Constitution before 1880. These rights had been continually violated and ignored for generation after generation by, for example, the United States Supreme Court, the U.S. Congress, U.S. Presidents (where, for example, did the current neo-con darling, the racist Woodrow Wilson, derive the authority to effect executive orders segregating federal employees by race?), state legislatures and local governments.

This willful, persistent and consistent refusal to allow black people to exercise their rights as citizens of the United States (while simultaneously expropriating the value of their tax dollars and using these dollars to the almost exclusive benefit of whites) led many civil rights strategists to the conclusion that their best chance of success lay in casting their struggle as a moral crusade in order to win over white Americans and their elected representatives.

One of the many downsides to this approach is that once white Americans harnessed this moral capital and used it to pass another set of laws they could claim, as many of them are now doing, that they have sufficiently discharged their moral duty with regard to black people. In fact, they could take the very words that Dr. King and others employed to advance the Civil Rights Movement and turn them against the continued efforts of blacks to seek justice and redress for the wrongs they have suffered as a people.

In other words, whites, and now black political conservatives, could atomize the legitimate aspirations of black people as a whole and turn the societal problems they face into an issue of personal character or responsibility. it is not the long nightmare of slavery and the insidious racial discrimination against which we should judge the successes and failures of blacks but the content of their character as individuals.

The import of black unity being dead is that there is no national program necessary for black leadership and it is an error to assert racial solidarity.

It is an error to fail to recognize it when it's in front of your face. If you didn't see it yourself you wouldn't be having all these discussions at all.

That you can't extrapolate it rationally from your starting premises means there's a flaw or lack in your starting premises. 

And it is an error not to pursue solidarity...a wholly different enterprise than asserting it. 

This is life, not logic. 

This willful, persistent and consistent refusal to allow black people to exercise their rights as citizens of the United States (while simultaneously expropriating the value of their tax dollars and using these dollars to the almost exclusive benefit of whites) led many civil rights strategists to the conclusion that their best chance of success lay in casting their struggle as a moral crusade in order to win over white Americans and their elected representatives.

The success of this moral crusade however was the ending of the legal basis upon which such appropriations had been made. The effect of a huge body of statutory laws and court findings for non-discrimation cases was not upon the moral behavior of whites, but upon the infrastructure of justice itself.  

In the same way blacks had to struggle to gain the skills to make the legal cases themselves rather than wait for liberal whites to do their lawyering from them out of a sense of guilt and pity, successive generations of blacks will have to do advanced heavy lifting themselves. 

In other words, whites, and now black political conservatives, could atomize the legitimate aspirations of black people as a whole and turn the societal problems they face into an issue of personal character or responsibility. In other words, it is not the long nightmare of slavery and racial discrimination upon which we should now the judge the successes and failures of blacks but the content of their character solely as individuals.

False.

As I suggest above, it is the set of necessary skills required for self-determination that drive the prospects for blackness, and I am saying that this is a different and set of skills than those required for human rights and civil rights. If there is to be a future blackness, then it will be those skills rooted in the achievement of social power building on a rigorous interpretation of prior achievments.

The successes and failures of blacks to attain middle class stability cannot be attributed to the failure of civil rights reforms to America. That's done. Nor can those failures be attributed to the 'legacy of slavery'. Human rights is done. Failures of social power can be attributed to lack of collective experience in the exercise of those prerogatives. And so blackness, to progress must ba about that.

The lessons for those stuck at the mezzanine are already written. Carter Woodson has already written that book. It's up to blacks to read it.

it's amazing that american society has so many that can count so well - until it comes to the question of how blacks have been barred from economic competition, while being subject to economic appropriation.

And so it is with no hesitation that I reiterate that those who have political issues with the 'masters tools' of capitalism don't have a leg to stand on when dealing with the future of African Americans.

If you agree that a great injusice has been done then what remedy do you think is appropriate for black people to be made whole again? Under our legal and political system, admitting that you have injured someone is not in and of itself sufficient to make the harm done to them go away.

As I suggest above, it is the set of necessary skills required for self-determination that drive the prospects for blackness,

Do I smell rabbit?

If you agree that a great injusice has been done then what remedy do you think is appropriate for black people to be made whole again? Under our legal and political system, admitting that you have injured someone is not in and of itself sufficient to make the harm done to them go away.

The damage can't be undone. You can't put Mt. St Helens back to what it used to be. You cannot un-spend jail time. You can't reverse certain injustices.  

There is a point, however, at which it is no longer fruitful to make comparisons between black progress and white establishment. As far as America is concerned and with respect to the aims of the historical struggles of blackfolks here in the context of the other struggles around the world, I think the American mainstream middle class status is all you get. We can say, well black universities aren't as rich as white universities, and black congressmen aren't as handsomely bribed as white congressmen. You can complain about the lack of a black owned and operated superconducting supercollider, but the world will ignore your complaints.  

I think the world is ignoring black complaint. When it was Serious, when it addressed the Negro Problem, the world had our back. But we don't get to go to the UN and fuss any longer. Maybe MALDEF or the ACLU will have some time, but I believe 1970 was square one, ground zero.

Are American whites more racist today than they were 30 years ago, or is 30 years of Affirmative Action all anybody gets in this crazy, unfair world? 

I think the world is ignoring black complaint.

Of course it is...that's one of the black complaints. My problem with your rhetoric is you validate that until pushed into a corner.

Okay but I have to give everyone a reminder:

Recently it was said in the comments here that we can have the rather intense race discussions we've had because we don't have a bond we're unwilling to break so we can be honest.

I have no such bonds. Frankly, if you know your opinions will piss off your friend you better be really sure about it.

This shit is hard, and you have to be willing to deal in the kind of truth that pisses off both friends and enemies. Not like you should try to piss them off...if you constantly search for the angry truth, you got issues. But if you be avoiding things, it's not your friend you're hiding from.

Now I know that don't directly relate, but that's my comment.

I'm not disputing Michael for shits and giggles. The whole ideal of creating an identity for the community to assume is non-functional, no matter who puts it forth. Not saying it's stupid, just that it won't work. Michael's right, it is like herding cats...which is why I don't understand his attempts to do so.

Cobb, we live in a country where white men with criminal records have a better chance of getting jobs than black men with no criminal records .

And folks like you wonder why folks like us sing the blues. A suggestion: avoid substituting ideology for reality.

when it comes to this particular conversation, i could just as easily to be talking to a man from the red planet or a red man from this planet or a man in a red tie who thinks he owns the planet. ain't no difference.

Actually, he's about nine months overdue to stop being a Black Republican and become just a plain ol' Republican. 

As you see, he's been trying to give ownership of the race to someone or other... 

I only assume that I should be having this conversation with y'all. Maybe I'm not really among people who value or care about blackness at all.

In my own way, I'm fishing for a reason to be engaged in a set of areas of resonance among a broad set of African Americans. Which is why I go to black theatre and Hansberry and black literature and the Norton Anthology (I will continue to do so). Why I'm wondering out loud is because I'm trying to find a basis for a recovery of the energy and spirit of Black Nationalism, which none of you appears to want to claim or even acknowledge. That's a bit stunning, then again, I was directly involved with the origins of Kwanzaa and the establishment of black organizations in Southern California. I can't necessarily assume that any of you care about blackness the way I do. Sorry, I can't get off the blackness dick. It's my dick. So I guess I should go fuck myself, eh?

I am not a 'black Republican', and prospects for a black Republican are slim. That's because I cannot find, among African Americans who think long and hard about blackness, a black cult-national raison d'etre within Conservatism. I see it clear as day, but  here at P6 I am a consensus of one. Not for lack of trying. I am simply a Republican and I acknowledge that there is no interest in the creation or maintenance of a black agenda for the GOP, neither by blackfolks or for the GOP itself. For blackfolks because.. well who knows why? For Republicans because they make no distinction between black cultural nationalism and black racial solidarity. Again it's the old identity politics problem. I don't think the GOP needs to be responsible for any such black agenda by the way, other than for the obvious reasons of broadening their appeal and actually gaining some reality based marketing experience. To basically overcome the stereotype of GOP racism. If those who would craft a black agenda for the GOP default, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. It happened before, it will probably happen again. Nevertheless the GOP is wide open and attractive to non-whites who leave their racial baggage at the door, but its ability to be enhanced by that which is non-white and non-racial is diminished. That is the loss, for what it's worth. There will be no concerted black agenda within the GOP, it will simply driven by the personalities of blackfolks in the GOP.

I'm satisfied that whatever Democrats say is the black agenda will be the black agenda. America really has no choice. Nor do blackfolks.

For blackfolks because.. well who knows why?

You know why. If not, look up "Southern Strategy" on Wikipedia.

Nevertheless the GOP is wide open and attractive to non-whites who leave their racial baggage at the door,

...and carry white folks baggage for them.

I'm satisfied that whatever Democrats say is the black agenda will be the black agenda.

From the frying pan...

...into another frying pan. You seem to see Black folks as a commodity to be divided by political parties that are collapsing. How sad.

Dream on, Br. Cobb, dream on. What you call baggage conjures up images of angry black folks that appear on the little television screens inside the heads of a lot of white people. These are Hollywood movie or television crime show caricatures. Most black people - even Black liberal Democrats - don't walk around puffed up with rage at white folks.

White Republicans are not a lot different from white Democrats when a black person begins to show any signs of thinking independently. It has nothing to do with racial baggage. Years ago I left the Democratic Party in my hometown because I was tired of the plantation and HNIC syndromes prevalent within the local Democratic Party. I joined the Republican Party, which in my hometown is nothing like joining the Republican Party in Texas or even southern California where you live.

The Republicans' joy at my having switched sides lasted until I disagreed with their decision to support using public money to build a new baseball stadium for the Giants. My position was that if capitalism was good for poor people, then it was even better for wealthy people. And, so, the owners of the Giants, who were also the owners of Safeway Supermarkets, should use their own money to build a new baseball stadium.

The only person who supported my position was a Log Cabin Republican who I had known for years. The rest of them thought I had lost my mind and was too independent.

I'm satisfied that whatever Democrats say is the black agenda will be the black agenda. America really has no choice. Nor do blackfolks.

I know lots of black folks, including myself, who reject this position. We also reject the Republicans' efforts to declare what black folks' agenda should be. 

The Southern Strategy is as old and as dead as Malcolm X. Even the people who hate on Steele's campaign at least have the done enough homework to see what horrendous evil the GOP represents as of 20 years ago. Sorry Mr Peabody, but your Wayback Machine is still stuck too way back.

Besides, black people still live, school, work and have babies in the South. So how bad can it be? Seen any lynchings lately, or is Cynthia McKinney the only two-fisted politician we have left?

I'm satisfied that whatever Democrats say is the black agenda will be the black agenda. America really has no choice. Nor do blackfolks.

---

I know lots of black folks, including myself, who reject this position. We also reject the Republicans' efforts to declare what black folks' agenda should be. 

 Your Republicans may vary, check local listings for the Klavern near you. Chocking hazard for children under 3. 

I'm satisfied that whatever Democrats say is the black agenda will be the black agenda.

From the frying pan...

...into another frying pan. You seem to see Black folks as a commodity to be divided by political parties that are collapsing. How sad.

I see blackfolks as unwilling to politically horsetrade with the majority party through any sort of viable coalition. Worse still, I see them as uncaring and therefore unable. Furthermore I see this as caused by fear, uncertainty, doubt and superstition. But hey, it's only politics.

The Southern Strategy is as old and as dead as Malcolm X.

So is any conversation with you. You don't have these discussions in good faith.

You yourself admitted you have no real platform

"No dissent" isn't real. Nobo

Submitted by Cobb on September 3, 2004 - 11:39am.

"No dissent" isn't real. Nobody hews to the platform. It's just window dressing.

So Republicans stand for&hell

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on September 3, 2004 - 11:53am.

So Republicans stand for…nothing?

Fascinating.

Nothing you care to parse bas

Submitted by Cobb on September 4, 2004 - 6:23pm.

Nothing you care to parse based upon the intent and actions of real republicans. But don't let that hinder your strawman attacks. That's useful rhetoric.

Michael, if the platform is j

Submitted by Prometheus 6 on September 4, 2004 - 6:54pm.

Michael, if the platform is just window dressing how can you tell who's a real republican?

What's the platform for if no one follows it?

The platform, just like the j

Submitted by Cobb on September 5, 2004 - 2:18am.

The platform, just like the jumping up and down at the conventions, is for show. It doesn't guide what all Republicans do and it doesn't necessarily say who is in or out. In other words, it's not holy writ.

What makes the republican party move is delivering votes on the ground. They guess what's attractive and they go with it. But what matters is what money and votes you bring to the table. Can you get a Republican elected? That means way more than whether or not you hew to some ideological test.

Make no mistake, there are plenty of ideologues who believe that the GOP is their stomping ground, but they have to fight for it every day. Who wins is who delivers. Period. That's how you can be the Party of Lincoln and not give a crap about the black vote. You use ideology to attract people who will do party work, but if it doesn't work, as the Isleys say - love the one you're with.

"I see this as caused by fear, uncertainty, doubt and superstition."

Whose "fear", "uncertainty", "doubt" and "supersition"?

Hey... (assuming what's implied)... It's only a function of your (dis)vantage-point.

Sorry Mr Peabody, but your Wayback Machine is still stuck too way back.

Arbitrariness and this tremendously Ahistorical, Decontextualized suggestion of yours is so unbecoming.  No Time WARPING points for you.

Besides, black people still live, school, work and have babies in the South. So how bad can it be?

Thanks for reminding us all why you can't engage...  With logic like that, you simply can't.  Black people lived, schooled, worked and had babies when there were lynchings and other goings-on in the South and North.  Your point?

While you may be into Strange Creations and Immaculate CONceptions (ideas in a Time WARPED vacuum)... The Knee-Bone is still connected to the Thigh-Bone.  Adulthood still follows Childhood and the Past Remains A Current Event.  You are your mother's child.  You can't break that bond or connection no matter how far back it goes even if it's merely biological.

To be clear, that Southern Strategy gave birth and had some children.  It goes on. 

But you can supply your "too way back" cut-offs with the proper documentation to establish the non-connection you suggest.  That would be, how should I say, "engaging."  Merely suggesting a non-connection won't fly.  There is no Born On Dating ticker.  At least not with that Born Ig'nant rhetoric and argumentative begging (which is, FYI, the pleadings of a non-argument) you graced us with in the form of the presumptive question:  "It can't be that bad?"

No, my brother...  Your logic is that God awfully bad if that's the best you can do.  And please stop begging and Looking For Validation Love In All The Wrong Places.

I live in Pennsylvania so KKK units are never very far away. As James Carville once said of this state, "From Paoli to Auburn Hills, it's all the south."

I live less than 10 miles from Paoli.

I think your anger about your inability to persuade or browbeat any significant portion of black folks outside the circle of your family and friends to join the Republicans is what leads you to write sentences like the one above. A lot of my neighbors are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. They are not members of the Klan. I still don't want to join their political party and I don't think black folks need to allow the Republicans or Democrats to craft their agenda.

If you want to be a sellout then go for it but stop accusing the rest of us of being stupid because we don't share your beliefs. BTW, you are a TERRIBLE political organizer as were the black folks who allegedly schooled you when you were younger. We were able to pick up their contempt for black people from as far away as the Bay Area no matter how many dashikis they had hanging in their closets.

.......................

"We were able to pick up their {{and your}} contempt for black people from as far away as the Bay Area no matter how many dashikis they had hanging in their closets."

That's the very thing I've noticed: his not-so-subtle contempt. But maybe he has an alternative explanation for what obviously seems to be his contemptuous statement about *fears, *doubts, *superstitions and such.

Can't help but show how he really feels.

But the illegitimate always long for legitimacy.  So why not just assert it? Just Do-As-COBB and just claim it on the basis of his "Black Is As Black Does" principle?  Earning it (legitimacy) or coming from and going to a legitimate position takes much more work and a different perspective altogether. That would call for something other than coming up with a rationale to justify the estranged position of choice or, maybe, considering those who 'schooled' and raised him... the strange position he inherited.

After all, he is his mother's child.

Your amateur psychoanalysis is worng and uncalled for.  I have no contempt for blackfolks, but it is an axiom of your political belief that I must. I am not trying to convince, but look for common ground. But I only find here a persistant need to discredit me personally and really no constructive argument on the merits and references I make to other people and ideas. Nobody has said a word about Stephen L Carter or Ellis Cose as I have mentioned in these discussions. Nobody has said anything about Lorraine Hansberry or the future of black literature or theater as I have mentioned. So I basically started telling jokes and being flippant, and you're even trying to say that indicates some psychosis. 

 I think I am unique among conservatives in that I have an understanding and respect for the black progressive political tradition out of which I came. It is the reason that I come here. I think a number of y'all are crude and talking out the side of your neck on GP, but that is to be expected when people don't use their real names. And I think your ad hominems are beneath you, but all that just comes with the territory of cyberspace. It sometimes gets on my nerves,,, then again you all are not bloggers and the ethics are different in community oriented sites. One thing is clear, you are not gracious and seem to show no willingness whatsoever to grant me the benefit of any doubt. Not that I need it. But I doubt you even believe I would appreciate it. Again, I believe that follows from your axiomatic superstition that I bear some strange and inexplicable hostility to blackfolks. I presume that to you I represent The Man, and one should never let The Man off the hook.

Be all that as it may my aim is to synthesize and properly inherit the thread of Black Nationalism which was my grounding. If it's a one man thing and a one man book, I'm not concerned. I'm just being consistent within my universe and am not overly concerned about popularity or convincing you folks of anything. I don't need to be any better a political organizer that Harold Cruse, for example.  But I am curious as to the nature of the project.  I have only concluded that there is none here that I've been able to see, although I'm perfectly willing to admit that I can't see straight.

I appreciate Temple3's references to Maafa and Trilling, and I have continued over at his site.  

Again, call it a failing on my part, but I cannot for the most part differentiate the several angles of attack deconstructing what I write here while very fow pick up on the import of my implications. A very real part of that is the fact that I don't see your names. Here at P6, I feel like the elephant being described by the blind men. So while it's cool to kick up a storm I may have to retract my promise of coming back. It's simply not an environment where I feel I can be productive. So I would hope, since you all are the ones that give me crap that ultimately may make me better, that you continue to dispense your useful criticisms at Cobb. 

I've been writing in cyberspace for a dozen years and I've moved from place to place Utne, Salon, Slate, Gate, Well, Electric Minds, and a dozen others vaguely remembered. P6 is well remembered.

C ya. 

The platform, just like the jumping up and down at the conventions, is for show. It doesn't guide what all Republicans do and it doesn't necessarily say who is in or out. In other words, it's not holy writ.

What makes the republican party move is delivering votes on the ground. They guess what's attractive and they go with it. But what matters is what money and votes you bring to the table. Can you get a Republican elected? That means way more than whether or not you hew to some ideological test.

Make no mistake, there are plenty of ideologues who believe that the GOP is their stomping ground, but they have to fight for it every day. Who wins is who delivers. Period. That's how you can be the Party of Lincoln and not give a crap about the black vote. You use ideology to attract people who will do party work, but if it doesn't work, as the Isleys say - love the one you're with.

BTW I was speaking specifically about the Republican Party's national platform and thinking in particular about Phyllis Schalfly's influence. Her ability to put specific wording in the Planks of the national platform has little to do with any legislative agenda that elected officials embark upon.

http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2005/11/this_is_the_ans.html 

I only find here a persistant need to discredit me personally and really no constructive argument on the merits and references I make to other people and ideas.

COBB, when you can't and refuse to engage... the is no common ground being sought and no merits to your argument to consider.  But, go ahead and keep Looking For Validation and Legitimacy In All The Wrong Places, in all the wrong ways.

Also, be sure to list the points where you sought "common ground" especially when you were doing the ALOOF and projection thing you seem so fond of.

 One thing is clear, you are not gracious and seem to show no willingness whatsoever to grant me the benefit of any doubt.

That, too, requires the ability and will to engage which you have not shown on either count.  You prefer to do and be The ALOOF.

my aim is to synthesize and properly inherit the thread of Black Nationalism which was my grounding

Inherit, exhibit or practice... all are entirely different concepts from that of the patented misappropriation and cooptation that's apparent.  Your comments are like a White person overly conscious about being seen as a 'racist.'  With those worries on their minds they volunteer (unprovoked), "Some of my best friends are Black."

"...very few pick up on the import of my implications."

Self-important, self-determined, subjectively asserted "import" and your ALOOF "implications?" ... Looking For Validation and Legitimacy?

It's simply not an environment where I feel I can be productive.

You're right.  The market for BS isn't very good, here.  Oh well, back you go to your own marketplace of ideas.  Still couldn't manage to engage...

I already have engaged you at Cobb. For all the good that's done...you were no more honest there.

BTW I was speaking specifically about the Republican Party's national platform and thinking in particular about Phyllis Schalfly's influence.

You don't have to explain yourself...the link to the discussion is up there. It's a short conversation so folks can see what you said in full context.

Your amateur psychoanalysis is worng and uncalled for. I have no contempt for blackfolks, but it is an axiom of your political belief that I must. I am not trying to convince, but look for common ground. But I only find here a persistant need to discredit me personally and really no constructive argument on the merits and references I make to other people and ideas. Nobody has said a word about Stephen L Carter or Ellis Cose as I have mentioned in these discussions. Nobody has said anything about Lorraine Hansberry or the future of black literature or theater as I have mentioned. So I basically started telling jokes and being flippant, and you're even trying to say that indicates some psychosis.

Okay, I'll retract that statement but I won't back off from my view that you have a tendency to be contemptuous of those who do not share your viewpoints. I am not, for example, a liberal Democrat. I am not a liberal and I am not a member of the Democratic Party. You, however, have a great tendency to consign many of us who disagree with your views to these categories as if those labels explained anything at all about who we are and what we think.

I have no idea what you would like me to say about Stephen Carter. I have read his books - non-fiction and fiction - and I don't believe what he wrote warrants any extensive comment from me. I am certainly able and willing to discuss and, if neccessary, debate any points he makes but I did not find any great revelvations or intellectually challenging and arresting ideas in "Confessions of an Affirmative Action Baby." I have less interest in his religious and moral ideas because I find his theological speculations and ruminations unintelligible. I am not waiting for the end of the world and the fulfillment of Bibical prophecy and he is no matter how much he tries to hide this fact.

I don't think Hansberry's play offers any direction or solace to black people. What black people tend to remember more about is Hansberry and the splash this colored girl from Chicago made on the theatre world but not as much about her play. Don't forget there was and is a world of division among black intellectuals about "Raisin". Yes, there is a very wide gulf between Hansberry's and Tyler Perry's work but that leaves a lot of room for a lot of different kinds of work to be created. August Wilson, by the way, left a body of work that black writers can still can draw from for inspiration for the next century or so.

I won't back off from my view that you have a tendency to be contemptuous of those who do not share your viewpoints.

Yes.

He took three shots at defining 'blackness', his last successful enough to draw three commenters other than myself, all of whom wrote as though they understood him to be talking about how the elite must redefine this 'blackness'. In fact, he SAID

I am arguing that acting black and thinking black have become stereotypical and that the entire black idea needs updating, furthermore that this is an elite activity.

But he followed later with

Since we agree that discussions of authenticity are pointless, then we should also agree that Conservatives, Progressives and Liberals are all equally authentic and black for whatever that is worth.

And when I asked

Wait a minute.

Since we agree that discussions of authenticity are pointless

When did you co-sign that? Hello? "The Blackness Problem"? Elites giving 'blackness' an update? Your whole point here is a discussion of authenticity, isn't it?

He said

Not at all, sorry for that misunderstanding.

My position is that the entire identity aspect of black politics is overplayed.

Apparently the four of us were to be too stupid to know he's not actually talking about the topic he raises, or too stupid to notice the flip-flop.

This is why I say he dosn't discuss things honestly. He's burned through the personal capital his previous writings had earned him with me.

I have mostly refrained from the discussion in this thread (except for the occasional lobbing of a grenade or two at one or another inane Cobbism), because I perceive Cobb to be a bullshitter of the magnitude of the great leader of his party, President Bitch.

I do think it's important, however, to return to an idea that has framed much of the discussion: the notion that "blackness" is a mental construct. As PT pointed out way upthread, this should not be construed to mean that "blackness" is an illusion, that it does not impact our daily lives in real and significant ways. And how is this impact felt? Is it in how we wear our pants? Or how we shake hands? No. Such customs or conventions ultimately do not determine how we live or die. The real measure of the "realness" of "blackness" is not determined by anything so-called "black" people do or have done. The reality of "blackness" is a measure of how it functions as a referent for inferiority in "white" America, how it manifests and operates in society in the form of antiblack racism. It is the existential reality of antiblack racism that ultimately defines "blackness," not Molefi Asante, Maulana Karenga, Huey P. Newton, etc. It is the existential reality of antiblack racism, our lived existence and daily experience with antiblack racism, that inspires, fosters and sustains black partisanship.

Given the above "reality" it is easy to see why Cobb's definitions of blackness are meaningless. They are grounded in a false premise that so-called "black" people are responsible for the social construction of "blackness" and have total control over its social implications and instantiations. Such a notion is ahistorial and thus bereft of context (I think Nmaginate pointed this out earlier). This doesn't matter to Cobb. He's not serious. For him it's just a game. He's taken on DW's role. But I refuse to follow him down the rabbit hole to the land of LaShawn Barber, Larry Elder, Ward Connerly, and the other strange creatures who inhabit Coonservative World--the world where "black" people are always at fault for being "black," and the "white" racists who invented the false consciousness of race escape all responsibility and accountability by suddenly proclaiming the Matrix (the American ethos) to be colorblind.

O - thanks so much for clarifying and illuminating a line that all of us trip over from time to time.

It's more than that. It might be principally that - it might not be. I fundamentally believe that "blackness" emerged as one of several things - and foremost among those was a unifying ethos for disparate afreekans from across the continent to live in the americas. Thusly, I would say it is a point of common identification.

I think more in terms of recognition than identification.

PT, as you and others pointed out so eloquently upthread, Cobb's "blackness" is of the test tube variety, something willfully created from his own subjectivity. It is solely his idea, and unfortunate ideal, despite his efforts to try to anchor it in the intellectual output of figures as diverse as Hansberry, Giovanni, Baldwin, and Ellison. His tip of the hat to these iconic figures is mere sophistry, and a poor attempt at that to give the aura of verisimilitude to his inane rhetoric.

The failure to realize that the predicate for "blackness" is antiblack racism is typical of those who rely on or are driven by ideology rather than cognition. But if the truth be told, this is not a matter of education or even miseducation (Cobb also has an odd fondness for footnoting Carter G. Woodson to support his disinformation). It's really a matter of choosing sides in a war. Those who want to bring about the "End of Blackness" should work to bring about the demise of white supremacy (antiblack racism). The end of racism (whiteness as a social construction grounded in a Mephistophean deal with Manichaeanism) automatically means the end of blackness. But that's not part of the Coonservative agenda because it conflicts with the Conservative agenda to conserve the status quo. Cobb and his ilk, the wannabe "elite," identify entirely with the status quo. This means they also possess a profound allegiance to the prerogatives of "white" privilege. Thus they don't want to destroy antiblack racism, they want to join the ranks of those who benefit the most from it. Their membership requires them to attack "blackness" at every turn, to burn the black strawman at the stake, to denigrate and crucify the black scholars and intellectuals who have challenged and contested white supremacy across the battlegrounds of history, sociology, anthropology, science and philosophy. Such perfidy they believe will make them honorary "whites."

This is the deal they make, as described in an excerpt from the article linked directly above:

"The bargain Japanese Americans accepted when they sat with whites was this: "We will let you be honorary whites under two conditions: First, you will never be able to drive the bus. Secondly, you must pay no attention to the people at the back of the bus; you must claim no relationship to the people at the back of the bus; and you must absolutely never, ever protest what is happening to the people at the back of the bus. If you do all this, we will pretend to ignore your color. And someone else will always be worse off than you."

Cobb is not the first to embark on the quest of the "model minority." He won't be the last to be disappointed either.

It's more than that...  I fundamentally believe that "blackness" emerged as one of several things - and foremost among those was a unifying ethos for disparate afreekans from across the continent to live in the americas. ...Blackness, in a historical sense, means that where BLACK people find one another, they are VERY LIKELY (though not automatically) to have COMMON CAUSE with one another

"It's more than that. It might be principally that - it might not be. I fundamentally believe that "blackness" emerged as one of several things - and foremost among those was a unifying ethos for disparate afreekans from across the continent to live in the americas. Thusly, I would say it is a point of common identification."

My jumping off point for dealing with the social construction of "blackness" comes from a Frantz Fanon quote. I have written about this subject elsewhere, so I decided to post this brief excerpt (with some minor changes to reflect the current discussion) from a longer piece rather than start from scratch:

"In his landmark study A Dying Colonialism (1959), Frantz Fanon offers a trenchant observation that illuminates the precise genealogy of modern “black” identity: “It is the white man who creates the Negro. But it is the Negro who creates Negritude” (47). Fanon casually uttered this profundity in the context of a discussion about the cultural resistance of the colonized to the colonizers’ interference with local traditions: specifically, French attempts to unveil Algerian women during the colonial period of occupation as a means of “destructuring Algerian society." He prefaced his statement about the invention of the “Negro” with this comment: “In an initial phase, it is the action, the plans of the occupier that determine the centers of resistance around which a people’s will to survive becomes organized.” In the context of this discussion, it is analogous to say: the “action” of the enslaver in creating a commodity called “Negro” from the human populations of the African continent determined the nature of “Negritude” (or blackness) as a center of resistance and survival.

Fanon’s generic “white man” created the dehumanizing conditions of racial slavery from which Pan African and diasporan identities evolved. Hence the formation of modern “black” identity involved the confluence and transformation of two highly complex cultural templates: the negative European racial concepts of the ‘negro,’ and the positive ethnic attributes that constitute indigenous “African” selfhood. To understand the nature of the composite racial identity (the hyphenated Afro- Caribbean, Brazilian, Latin or American identity) that emerged out of this confrontation we must first look at how the peoples of Africa became “negroes” in the Western mind, and negroes became slaves in the Western world. As historian William McKee Evans puts it: “For the purpose of understanding the rise of modern Western racial prejudices, it is important to consider the historical process whereby a people acquires or loses a slavish reputation, whereby slavery acquires or loses an ethnic identification.”

The above refers specifically to the "Pan African" phenomenon and the slaveocracies of the Americas. It is possible to trace some elements of the social construction of "blackness" to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the point I want to reiterate here is that Africans played the cards they were dealt (including the race card) in a calculated method designed to survive and eventually overcome their enslavement. I don't think we disagree about this aspect of "blackness." It is my contention, however, that it emerged within the social consciousness of diverse enslaved African ethnicities primarily as a center of suvival and resistence. To seek explanations for the origins of "blackness" beyond that is, in my opinion, to enter the realm of romance and fiction.

To me blackness remains what it was historically - to a certain degree. For some small minded intellectual gangsta's, it has become a call to uniformity. It began as a pluralistic call to bring the best of what you "inherited" to serve a collective good.

Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. Can everyone be black? Possibly. Can everything be black? Not really.

From the white supremacist lens, all black is all bad (except for financial standing). From the internal black lens, it can't be all good because no one can serve two masters. The response is a necessary part of the call. Thanks Nm for hitting on that critical aspect of the dialectic.

"It's more than that... I fundamentally believe that "blackness" emerged as one of several things - and foremost among those was a unifying ethos for disparate afreekans from across the continent to live in the americas. ...Blackness, in a historical sense, means that where BLACK people find one another, they are VERY LIKELY (though not automatically) to have COMMON CAUSE with one another..."    -   Temple 3

I've likened the irony of that circumstance to the notion that's mostly applied to that old Melting Pot idea: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, One African(American) People.

 The quest for clarity of IDENITITY is undeniable and indispensible. It is a "recognition" of Black Humanity. All human populations, I gather, have a culture or "ethnicity" - a sense of a collective identity and even a collective purpose.  A sense of who they are and so forth. So "Blackness" can't just be our mere RE-action or response to our circumstance.

It is indeed a call. I see it as a CALL & RESPONSE. The two can't be separated. The very "call" is a "response" in and of itself. But it goes beyond merely reacting to what's been done to us.

Adding... 

The CALL has been to reassert our collective humanity and to do dignity to our being and to forbid anyone who would desecrate it or our historical mission to assert our identity as a people with an ethnicity/culture of our own, no matter how eclectic it is.

So being "Black" and seeing "Black" as a positive against the American Racialized backdrop becomes an imperative and a Litmus Test.  You can't be "Black" and disparage "Black."

Those who want to bring about the "End of Blackness" should work to bring about the demise of white supremacy (antiblack racism). The end of racism automatically means the end of blackness.

But that would require a commitment from those who never faint which automatically eliminates those who grow weary for very personal reasons.  Tremendous point, BTW.

Thus they don't want to destroy antiblack racism, they want to join the ranks of those who benefit the most from it.

It would certainly seem like those are the motives.  Very personal motives.  That would explain why the rhetoric of COBB & Co. always seem to revolve around rationales that justify their existence and, tragically, their distance and disconnect.

Ain't a damn thing wrong with some diversity of thought... but there is such a thing as a (principled) position that is held for something other than self-aggrandizement.  But it's clear there is a long history of Class Conflict within our borders.  To that we owe this monstrocity of "Who Owns The Race."

I'm like, if there was such ownership and particularly among the "elites", then what's their (Cobb's) excuse for why the fell down on the job (for someone else to have taken the possession of the "image of the race" and ownership away from them)?

Drunk With The Wine of the World...?