(ThyBlackMan.com) There is no sensible argument that can be made to counter W.E.B. Du Bois’ statement that “the problem of the 20th Century will be the color line.” If any criticism can be hurled at this Duboisian prophecy it is that it ends too soon and should have been extended far into the new millennium.
For many of our countrymen, it is Race that remains their rallying point. Even when aware of how variables such as class, gender, and sexual identity impact their lives, it is Race whose reign resembles that of King Cotton during this nation’s period of chattel slavery. Considering the centrality of Race in American lives, a reasonable argument could be made that there is no more frightening combination of words in the English language than “Black Power”. Above all other word combinations, Black Power and the philosophies flowing from it have proven to be reliable rallying points for those who support the concept as well as those that oppose even the mention of such matters. I am sure that you can imagine the polarization that occurred during the highly contentious identity politic driven 1960s when SNCC worker Willie (Mukasa) Ricks changed the ideological trajectory of the fight for racial equality in Greenwood, Mississippi when he taught sharecroppers “Black Power” slogans instead of the standard call for “Freedom Now”.
This moment was so impactful on the movement that not even movement patriarch Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr., was able to ignore its arrival.
The debut of “Black Power” slogans stoked increasingly paranoid Whites’ fears of roving revenge-minded attacks by young Blacks. This moment tells us far more about the psyche of Whites in this nation than it says about angry Blacks who have rarely responded to centuries of exploitation, denigration, and marginalization at the hands of an oppressor with organized counter-attacks. Most agree that when White America’s fears were heightened, it was MLK’s advocacy of non-violent civil disobedience that provided significant psychological comfort to White’s who were bracing for the arrival of vengeful blood-thirsty Black Powerites desirous of revenge for past transgressions.
It would not be a stretch to argue that in the paranoid mind of many Whites, MLK was needed to control “irrational blacks” who refused to accept their second-class citizenship status. King’s utility grew in the mind of White America every time a media outlet juxtaposed King against Malcolm X or some other expression of Black Power politics. Many Whites, and a few Blacks, naively considered MLK as a necessary evil capable of quelling Black Powerites.
Considering this nation’s penchant for displaying episodes of dementia regarding matters of Black liberation, I will take a moment to define what Black Powerites were seeking to convey during their calls for “Black Power.” The most accepted definition of “Black Power” during the volatile 1960s is provided by Charles V. Hamilton and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leader Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). According to Hamilton and Carmichael,
Black power is concerned with organizing the rage of black people.…Black power (1) deals with the obviously growing alienation of black people and their distrust of the institutions of this society; (2) works to create new values and to build a new sense of community and of belonging; and (3) works to establish legitimate new institutions that make participants, not recipients, out of a people traditionally excluded from the fundamentally racist processes of this country.[i]
The concept of Black Power rests on a fundamental premise. Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks. By this, we mean group solidarity is necessary before a group can operate effectively from a bargaining position of strength in a pluralistic society. Traditionally, each new ethnic group in this society has found the route to social and political viability through the organization of its own institutions with which to represent its needs within the larger society . . . the American melting pot has not melted. Italians vote for Rubino over O’Brien; Irish for Murphy over Goldberg, etc.[ii]
Over a half-century after its creation, this definition remains relevant as it still reflects the political realities facing a politically powerless and economically marginalized Black America.
The arrival of “Black Power” politics into the volatile 60s political economy was so significant that MLK realized that ignoring the matter was an incorrect action. Many would-be shocked to learn that the integrationist-minded “Prince of Peace” offered limited support for “Black Power” politics. According to Dr. King,
[t]here is nothing essentially wrong with power. The problem is that inAmerica power is unequally distributed. This has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power and white Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience…. [I]t is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.[iii]
{Black Power activists} must use every constructive means to amass economic and political power. This is the kind of legitimated power we need. We must work to build racial pride and refute the notion black is evil and ugly. But this must come through a program, not merely through a slogan…The words ‘black’ and ‘power’ together give the impression that we are talking about black domination rather than black equality.[iv]
Black Power is a call for the pooling of black financial resources to achieve economic security.… Through the pooling of such resources and the development of habits of thrift and techniques of wise investment, the Negro will be doing his share to grapple with his problem of economic deprivation. If Black Power means the development of this kind of strength within the Negro community, then it is a quest for basic, necessary, legitimate power.[v]
Attempts to ignore MLK’s ideological maturation after the “March on Washington” doomed them to a limited understanding of both the Civil Rights patriarch and the larger struggle for “the liberation and salvation of the Black nation.”
Dr. King’s always evolving political priorities have created “blind spots” for supporters and critics of one of the most important figures of Black America’s twentieth-century struggle for first-class citizenship. If nothing else, this moment serves as definitive proof of our collective need to study, study, and study some more. Failure to do so guarantees our inability to understand a past that serves as the foundation for a present that has yet to correct the misunderstood past.
Staff Writer; Dr. James Thomas Jones III
Official website; http://www.ManhoodRaceCulture.com
One may also connect with this brother via Twitter; DrJamestJones.
Bravo Dr. Jones!!! This is such a masterful piece that tracks the evolution of African American existentialism ( i.e. African American concepts of freedom )our quests for political, economic, and social freedoms must continue with a collective mind towards ” Study, Study, Study.” The promised land was defined by the 13th,14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Life as free citizens in America is the promised land. Martin Luther King, Jr. the King James Version of the Holy Bible metaphoric Moses, did not cross over into this new land with us. We have many metaphoric Joshua’s who continue to scout out this new land and have perceived that this new land is seemingly filled with people who make Joshua look like an ant compared to them, but unlike Moses ‘Joshua, our African American metaphoric Joshuas aren’t willing to apply their numerous acquired assets like being humanized and enlightened through ongoing racial and cultural integration, education, science, cell phones, cinematography, the usage of all sophisticated technology, and the right to vote to help bring about a more perfect union.
African American metaphoric Joshuas are increasingly learning that their protective Ark of the Covenant contains education, science, drones, cell phones, television, sophisticated security technologies, cinematography, informed thought, respect for, and an understanding of the law. We must all realize that the promised land is a concept of freedom, yet to be fully achieved, that requires maintenance via the law (i.e., lex populi) by all of the American citizenry.
These are the words of the Last Theorem of the American, Czechoslovakian Philosopher Dr. Rudolph Krejci (deceased) formerly of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska Campus, one of my philosophy mentors who firmly believed in the concept of an “open society “: “We humans and the rest of known organic nature seem to possess a primary stimulator within the inner core of our mind whose agency manifests itself variously as memory, fantasy, dreams, visions, and eurekas. They seem to be the suppliers of our creative mental life which makes itself known through the totality of our expressions: in other words, these primary imaginations produce our word proxies and our other symbolizations. The question remains. Shall we ever decipher this human mystery? And if we do succeed, are we not in danger of destroying it? Why are we creative? The question is out there.” With the help of empirical science and nano-technology we are “deciphering this human mystery.”
White supremacist and white privilege creative thought comes before action and rich men like Donald John Trump shake their fist at God and ask” why don’t you speak clearly to mankind”? To a confused world Trump presents himself as a newly created model of a white supremacist, white privileged, existential, nihilist, a-moral authoritarian American leader that is opposed to the citizen equal enjoyment of the legal freedoms codified in the U.S. Constitution, and approximately seventy-four million Americans voted for him in the last presidential election. Let’s get clear on the psychology of the rich, and famous. Trump lavishly dines upon the riches of the earth. He has his heaven on earth, and from this comfortable pillow he launches his rebellion against God by expressing anti-Christian messages using roman metaphors. We should consider the supposed origins of that ancient Rome which Trump hopes to resurrect.
Rome was the most decadent government known to mankind in this that their armies, and their society were both homosexual, and bisexual, their dining rooms had adjacent vomitorium where they regurgitated what they had just eaten to make room to eat more, and they ate their meals lying down. The classical Latin language itself is a command language lacking in words like” please” and” thank you.” They devalued their women not thinking them worthy of separate, individual names thereby naming numerous women in the same family names like Cynthia I, Cynthia II, and Cynthia III.
Rome was founded by two young men who were supposedly raised by a wolf. Again, if we pay particular attention to the human ethics inferred by alluding to the ethics of a pagan nation founded by wolf-raised feral children (i.e., Romulus and Remus), we gain insights into the desired ethical foundation of a man like Donald Trump. Trump wants to recreate masculinity in the American white male this time devoid of Christian ethics so that they may purify America. Trump howls for America to return to ethics that determine non-whites as less deserving of their care, and consideration. He wants us to take off our regalia of puny Christian ethics codified in the U.S. Constitution (i.e., the bill of rights) so that we may be more untamed. Both Trump’s and Putin’s Virtu’ or” behavior showing high moral standards allude to the virtues or moral standards of an ancient roman citizen, not an American citizen, the virtues or high moral standards of a wolf, not a contemporary human being. Trump wants to put afoot an uneducated white male and female, high technologically trained, a-moral savage which is Trump’s version of Friedrich Nietzsche’s “Das Ubermensch (i.e., The Superman).
During Black History Month we are encouraged to reflect upon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s thoughts in the midst of the spread of a pneumonia virus named COVID-19 Pandemic, and after the shameful, and thoroughly dangerous January 6th, 2021 insurrection by Donald John Trump supporting white supremacy, and white nationalist terrorists who executed a successful attack upon our sacred Capitol Building in Washington D.C. taking the lives of several, damaging the Capitol Building itself, endangering the lives of many of our congressmen, congresswomen and federal workers. We should remember, and note the logical progression of the work of our fallen martyr, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King wholeheartedly believed in the legality of the Constitution of the United States of America, especially the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. King clearly reminded us that we can help make America a better place for all of our citizens through the substantive political mechanics of a pluralistic democracy with a capitalist economic base that believes in an unequal distribution of available goods and services based on merit.
America’s political system elected an African American citizen, the Democrat, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, and presented an African American woman, Mrs. Michelle Obama, as First Lady of the United States of America. Constitutional law helped produce an African American President and First lady from among our multiracial citizenry via the votes of our citizens to the collective displeasure of millions of Republican and Democratic American citizens who rebelled against an Obama political regime by selecting the amoral, existential, nihilist, white supremacist, and white nationalist authoritarian, clenched white power fist waving, Donald John Trump. This Republican presidential candidate, Donald John Trump, came to power after receiving millions of votes from lower class, middle class, upper middle, upper class, the rich, and the super-rich.
Despite the fact that the Republican Party is the party of the rich, Trump drew votes from all classes of American citizens because of his dislike for big, intrusive government. An attractive Part of Trump’s political platform was his willingness to reduce governmental regulation and taxation of businesses thereby increasing business’s personal income, and business’s ability to grow, and to provide higher employee wages. The promise of more money in the hands of citizens endeared Trump to his political base which includes the educated, and the uneducated of all races, creeds, and colors.
Trump could not control the illegal and politically embarrassing activities of his racist and controversial right winged supporters who harbor questionable motives resulting in his twice impeachment by congress. The overall influences of the Constitution of the United States of America remain intact to continue to be used to improve the lives of African Americans even though there are those who still would like to do away with the Constitution of the United States of America. Dr. King did not speculate upon an America headed by an existential, nihilist, authoritarian leader, but like King, who navigated the cognitive unknown, the African American is still very “creative”, and should use this creativity to defend, and build upon the favorable possibilities of the Constitution of the United States of America.
“Black” power when we are brown, not black Dr. You should read my article entitled I Don’t Know Any Black People. Further, you cannot free yourself from the chains by using links in the same chains that bind you. I know all about the excuses, the soil in Egypt argument, the night sky argument etc. Still compare your skin color to your black shoes or belt and you will see you are not black. Black has nothing but a slave identity in America, a false identity given by oppressors. African American connects a people. I welcome the debate with you on zoom any time. And btw, MLK was not a democrat. I know that for a fact.