Americans seem to have lost the belly for creating the new man. Anytime we try to determine the value of Emmitt Till's remains or the integrity of a story leaked a generation ago, it means we are more conservative than progressive. It's not a bad idea this conservatism, but it's also not exciting.
What was exciting was the creation of the Black Man and the Black Woman, beyond the age of the Negro and out of the Negro Problem. It shouldn't be surprising that at the base of the radicalism that help create that consciousness is the root of a new vision for African America. What is surprising is the direction it is coming from.
Elijah Muhammed, founder and high priest of the Nation of Islam asked in his 'Message to the Blackman' one fundamental, disturbing and radical question. It boils down to this. What has Christianity done for Africans in America? He provoked every Negro to ask himself whether or not Christianity was truly liberating or did it stand in the way of the Negro's freedom. It upset the status quo by begging a question. If you want to get from here to there, you need to analyze the value of your current position with the Christian Church.
Elijah wasn't the only one pulling back the covers of Negro identity in search of a new existential model. Atheist, communist and socialist intellectuals were all about that too. Somewhere in that bucket fell the founder of United Slaves, Ron Karenga. As far as his group was concerned religion itself was in the way, not just the Christian Church, but all churches, mosques and synagogues. Culture had to rule with a capital C. African culture goosed along with celebrations gleaned, improvised, recast and refined for the Negro was to be the vehicle. Was American bougie culture liberating? Evaluate your current position, said Karenga.
If these can be seen as two legs of a stool, clearly what's left is politics. I say today's black conservatives are the only ones who are boldly and fundamentally challenging the status quo of the majority of today's African Americans.
It might seem odd to suggest that conservatives are radical. After all, conservatism means perservering against chaos, instability and wishful thinking. But Islam and West African culture weren't invented by Elijah Muhammed or Ron Karenga. They were merely appropriated and tweaked to be oriented to the lives of African Americans in order to move them out of their positions of comfort into a vision of a new order.
Whether or not anyone wants it to be, Bill Cosby is the lightning rod of this new provocation. What he has started, like John the Baptist, is now a permanent part of our history. All the debate for the future of African American politics and identity starts with Cosby. This is something I perceived even before his fateful comments, and it is why early on in my quest to sharpen the focus of black conservative politics, I reached out to Joseph C. Phillips. It is why I very seriously considered calling what I refer to as the 'Old School Republicans' the 'Cosby Show Republicans'.
The die is cast. It is not a simple matter of 'black' any longer. You must decidedly speak to culture, class and politics. Cosby is henceforth embedded as a talking point, someone on whose attitude and opinion credible thinkers must give the thumbs up or down. His opinion is not new, nor groundbreaking, but it is seminal and it is exposed. The exposure is new and it must be reckoned with in all public discussions from here foreward. We owe something of that to Michael Eric Dyson, but from here on out he has sealed the fate that black liberals and progressives cannot and will not have the last word.
Cosby is Old School. He is conservative and traditional. He exemplifies our own paleoconservatism with regard to his dubious escapades with women. The dirty laundry on Cos is that there is something irresistable about knockout women. That is why he is alleged to have used a lot of knockout drops on them in the past. Be all that as it may, he drops the hammer on his political foes with regard to this one undeniable set of values. He updates our sense of the integrity of the politics and ideology of racial integration. Cosby is taking the high bourgie road. More power to him.
When Cosby excoriates on the matter of self-respect and what it is that the unwashed Forty Percent do to bring themselves down, he is not being irresponsible. He is personifying the very thing that blacks with middle class values all claim, which is the value of higher education and the character of the collegian.
Today, what most (middle class) Americans respect about blackfolks is the degree to which we share (middle class) values. These issues and values are undeniably central because whether you are a black liberal, black progressive or black conservative, you still talk about the same issues. Education, Work, Family, Crime, Health Care. Cosby put his money where his mouth is, and sent many millions to the traditional black colleges in Atlanta. Nobody on any side of the debate expects those 'who weren't holding up their end of the bargain' to waltz into college. Cosby represents the sentinel at the gateway to the American college educated middle class. No foul mouths. No teenage parents. No drug addicts. No thugs. No thieves. No dropouts. No slackers. No exceptions. Everyone, black, white, foreign and domestic knows those rules and very few question them. It's no more assimilationist than any foreign exchange student's visa. It's Old School and it's right.
At some point in the future, there may be a Michele Wallace to put the undeniable mojo on the fatal flaws of Karenga, Muhammend and Cosby. Somebody has to have the last academic word on the effects these clear shortcomings have on the acceptability of their respective messages. But that will not the center of gravity of their legacies, but what they provoked us all to consider.
As one on the progressive end of the Old School, I have my differences with Cosby, but I consider him fundamentally right. His ideological attitude will be found in greater and louder numbers in the future as conservative blacks come out of the closet. All the laundry is out folks. Have at it.
Note to Dyson: The black middle class hasn't lost its mind. The black liberal elite has simply lost its monopoly.
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