Getting tired of political battles, I've begun to look at culture and was looking for some old hiphop music reviews I may have written in the good old SCAA days. Instead I found one half of a socratic dialog.
(from the archives May 1994)
mellow mike ([email protected]) ever so cleverly scribbled: : somewhat less tho' than a manifesto...: the deal begins here.
: after world war two, america got rich. we transformed our
: simple minded society to the modern thang. consider the
: autobiography of an ex-colored man as i speak of pre-war
: self sufficiency. a black man, pre-war self sufficient was
: much like the woman who calls herself miss abagail, 106 years
: old if you are watching the stand. i also think of characters
: from sula and the color purple as well as those who lived past
: those times to become ernest j. gaines characters. this is all
: a rural thang. bottom line was that blacks in the south had all
: of the skills necessary as farmers and workers to be completely
: self sufficient. all that was needed was the basic civil rights
: enforcement that we generally got, and boo ya. equality.: most everywhere else the industrialization of america created
: new classes of people. when we speak of the middle class today
: we speak of people with access to skill sets as employees which
: will get them what they need to survive in the city. segregation
: in the cities is much more easily and rigidly enforced (like
: redlining, etc) than where people settle and live on land for
: generations. to make things short, to be middle class you need
: access to kaplans so that you can score on the sat so that
: you can get to the right college so that you can get the
: right job so that you can get the right mortgage... definitely
: modern, not organic. so self-suffiency (even as mr. grossman
: knows) has everything to do with one's abilities to shop for
: the right politics, books etc. (well that's more post-modern)
: my drift is that what america has become for the most part
: as an industrial nation post ww2 has created a floating set
: of middle class values.: those particular middle class values *follow* the economic
: plan. only particular cultural groups of 'minorities' can or
: will ignore mainstream middle class values as their 'moral'
: center, largely because in one way or another adapting these
: 'values' will have no real effect on their economic position.
: as a cultural person i am either too rich or too poor to care
: about middle-class values. it is not generally a moral choice
: although i think it should be.
i am particularly hip to all this because of my particular history but that is another long story. in short, i did the gifted child thang, the urban youth thang, the prep school thang, the teamster thang, the wannabe thang... i traveled a mix of classes and cultures and recognized the thresholds of middle-class identity from political economic, social and regligious perspectives. most importantly i recognize how much america *wants to be* middle class. the very idea of a mainstream is that. 'what makes this country great is it's large middle class'.now take black folk.
despised and all that, the historical quest for equality, achievement
and excellence takes on the twist of things racial. considering
the educational perspective of 'raising up' the race, or individual
members of the race, you see extra efforts being made. but these
energies could be spent on anything. the question is, what is the goal?
that depends entirely on the social context. the difficulty is that
in order for white supremacy to work, whatever that achieved goal is
for black folks, it must remain subsidiary to that of white.the history of this country amply demonstrates that there is no
consistant standard of social standing for blacks. *apart* from the
fact of the changing mainstream, blacks who achieve middle class goals
in whatever economic environment are still not socially equal. one
need only consider the 'white advantages' thread. these persist
over time.there from a black perspective, is reason to question the validity
of middle-class goals, and a black reason to read thorstien veblen and
other critics of the american middle class. richard wright took his
cue from h.l. mencken. xxx inherently took that role early in
life, then tossed even that context in a search for africa.what then, if one accepts being black, is an appropriate measure of
success? why should it automatically be inclusion in the middle class?
certainly the white person who asks from the perspective of someone
whose family has always encouraged them to be those very middle class
things must be puzzled when asking 'what do black people want'?
certainly it must be disconcerting to xenophobic patriots to see
african americans attracted to brazilian blacks in their religious
traditions. voodoo is not mainstream.if blacks truly consider themselves capable of anything, then there is
no reason that they should choose, given their abilities, american
middle class values over any other except for the social forces which
would invalidate their alternative choices. the african american who
remains in an existential battle *proving* herself (as we all
are subject to from time to time) to be worthy is damaged by those
social forces.so, what is an appropriate goal? and what is the context of your
evaluations of value choices that you have? i see the contrast (as
a dialectic thinker for this particular flavor of intellect) between
the modern and the organic. the modern is given values and validated
externally by powers beyond his individual control. his identity is a
gift of the system and his values are those of the system in which he
participates. his moral concern is for the fairness of the system: its
ability to deliver the most benefits to the greatest number of people.the organic on the other hand identifies with a system of his own
creation into which he fits by his own design. his moral concern is with
his integrity which then redefines the system around him. that's the
nits and grits of it.the american middle class, primarily economically defined, is maintained
by its institutions. it is large and powerful and individuals within it
at present have a wide variety of choices. so wide, that in fact it can
seem to be organic. we even have 'youth culture'! but its constraints
are the national interest of the united states which then must engage
in certain activities which preserve that system. the incredible irony
is that these activities which serve and preserve the middle class are
hidden from the middle class under the pretext of national interest. this
dilutes democracy substantially.organics which find their values not supported by these mainstream
institutions must deal with the consequences of thier choices. and since
they are organics more concerned with their own personal integrity than
that of any system of institutions, they feel the weight of these choices
moreso than moderns who by and large go with the mainstream flow.it has been clear that in american history, the particulars of citizens
of african descent has bee relegated to the margins and institutions which
support and define the mainstream have only very recently been supportive
and defining of blacks. blacks, by their own need to survive have often
been organics although perhaps not so explicitly aware of this dialectic in
non-racial terms.to recoup black history implies organic purposes, although there is value
in teaching black history to any and all. most americans swallow the
post-ww2 modernity and thus expect all institutions to be inclusive for
the sake of mainstream middle class institutions with integrity. it is
a very middle class thing not so much to integrate institutions with
'minority' presence but to expect that these institutions will thus change &
accomodate. but now we see, as i bring it down to cases such as these
the difficulty in accomplishing such tasks. (this is why i refrain from
using the 'd-word') i am not so much concerned with the state of the
integrated intstitution (except as it promotes democratic stability)
-- or perhaps i am conflicted. nevertheless, blacks must represent
themselves as 'credibly black' when they expect that their presence
modifies the institution for the better, yet the very act of this expectation
sits them squarly as a modern and as middle-class. which are both
positions which are in america, historically anti-black!'so what are you african or american?' that's where that question comes
from. when i previously asked the question of 'influence vs control'
this is more of what i was trying to get at. modern vs organic. i suspect
that my generation is largely both though most of us who were around in
the 60s started fully organic by default. in black collective memory
there are those forced to be organic against the massiveness of modern
america, and some of those organics we truly treasure.to be middle class, requires a principled rejection of the organic
perspective. those who have black history ingrained in them sense the
conflict in racial terms vis a vis integration, crossover etc etc.
the question of 'buying in' has replaced that of 'selling out' because
as time goes by, we forget or ignore the organics among us. the modern
surroundings help one to forget the power of the organic integrity. to
be bourgeios and expect bourgeois brotherhood from americans is to
use the modern power and privilege. but it also forces one to follow
and support the mainstream system.i draw these out to make one aware of the *moral* distinction. without
the moral context it doesn't really matter which road you choose. but
i challenge any african american who seeks to self-identify as black
to consider their options wisely. what does your blackness *mean* as
a modern, middle-class american and is that everything blackness can
be? what is your moral authority as a modern, middle class american of
african descent? what is your moral standing? on what principles do you
separate yourself from the mainstream? how does the recovery of
black history affect you? what does black cultural expression mean to
you as a modern, middle-class american? how do your political alliances
square with that of the american political majority and how are you
reconciled to this? how does your spiritual and religious life put you
in harmony and conflict with the mainstream? are you forgetting something?are you forgetting something?
did you ever know?
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