In response to:
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.
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'm not a constitutional expert but so far as I can discern black people's rights as citiizens of this Republic are not contingent upon their discovery of or adherence to any ideal state of blackness. This is the point where Booker T. Washington and those in our community who feel his example or goals should have been given more attention begin to lose their argument.
If there was a black ideal and we all strove to align our bodies and souls with its directives then the freedom we are seeking would always slip away each time that we thought it was in our grasp.