If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
-- Rudyard Kipling
Such are some tenets of manhood. I subscribe. Yet there are others.
This is the crux of the black conservatives position and simply stated, it goes like this: We can and should do nothing in Darfur, because they are Africans and we are Americans; and other than similar pigmentations we have nothing in common.
Thus begins a diatribe against that old cartoon character 'the house negro' by someone who is running that metaphor into the ground. I think it was Noam Chomsky who said something like, the only thing I care about is if people tell the truth about my work. I understand. I understand.
There is really no excuse, this being cyberspace and all, not to quote exactly what other people say if you intend to rebut their arguments logically. On the other hand if you are content to just misrepresent other people just to satisfy your inflated sense of self, why bother? On the other hand you might just be too lazy. Who knows? Perhaps he who calls himself the House Negro will stand in the light and work a bit harder, perhaps not. I've been online 13 years; I'm easy to find.
More precisely what I said was that despite the fact that I personally take the tragedy... oh snap, this is cyberspace, I can tell you exactly what I said.
So we have a fundamental problem here. The people who watch BET and UPN are not a fundamental engine of geopolitical change, and as well meaning as the Field Negro is, speaking as one whose heart has bled on occasion, I would boldly suggest that he pick a better audience for his fulminations. Furthermore I would suggest that anyone so inclined to motivate the stricken masses of African Americans to acts of great charity and moment disabuse themselves of such fantasy. It ain't gonna happen.
...
Any attempt to create an alternate channel of geopolitical power in the United States is absolutely doomed to ignominious failure and shame. Those who would disagree would do well to recall the fate of the Free Azania Movement's subservience to Ronald Reagan's Constructive Engagement (that I just wrote a little about). No American cares as much about the poor blighters in Sudan as we did for the brothers and sisters of Sarafina in South Africa. And no amount of weeping and wailing is going to do an end-around the US Department of State, not even by seditious armchair generals. So if you think (yet another) march of the peasantry is going to materially change what's going on in Africa... get over yourself. Please.
I'm not going to repeat myself or dumb down what I already said. If you don't get it, maybe you shouldn't be reading this blog.
Now what's interesting about the Field Negro's perspective, and I presume that he is a Talented Tenther from way back, is that I am actually more predisposed to pay attention to someone as educated as he appears to be. I only qualify that with the fact that I am even more likely to listen to someone degreed in, or working in the field of political science in particular when it comes to geopolical issues like the genocide in Darfur. So it's safe to say that someone like me is his natural audience. BUT.
The problem I have with his exhortation, aside from the fact that no respectable political science wonk of African descent has used that 'house negro vs field negro' metaphor at the college level in two generations, is that it's directed at the hoi polloi. It's like KRS-1 getting on stage at a rap concert with an audience of 18 year olds and complaining that they aren't good enough parents. Huh? What? What do you expect if you're going to pick an audience who by definition ain't qualified? And just in case you didn't hear his original complaint, let me quote it for you:
Unfortunately, we are too busy being entertained by UPN and BET, and too busy washing and waxing our cars to care.
Now he might be talking about a 'we' of 50,000. But it sounded to me like he was talking about a 20 million person we, in otherwords a fat cross-section of working class African Americans. But I can't argue with the substance of his point - them African Americans don't care, and ain't gonna, but it is not, as he implies, because black conservatives are telling them not to care.
Now the real problem with silly metaphors is that while they may be somewhat instructive under certain circumstances, they are mostly silly. And people who use silly metaphors can't teach me jack. And I think that if they had a little bit more respect for their audience, they'd stop being so damned cute. I mean how seriously can one take the policy recommendations of an individual who consistantly refers to the President of the US as 'the frat boy'? As it is I think I'm gonna puke if I hear another junior high school level lecture about 'house negroes' and 'field negroes'. But then again, perhaps it is the ambition of the Field Negro to be the intellectual leader of those who find that kind of talk 'deep'. As for me, I think I'll stand with Condi Rice:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that the African Union (AU)peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region was not strong enough and that NATO should take on a larger role there.
"I think everyone recognises that the AU mission, while it has been successful thus far, is not robust enough to deal with the continued violence in Darfur, and particularly the problems that are emerging in western Darfur," Rice told a news conference at a NATO ministers meeting in Bulgaria.
The AU's 7,000 poorly equipped troops in Sudan's western province of Darfur have been unable to stop violence in which tens of thousands of people have died and 2 million have fled in the last three years.
That was Friday the 28th. And the source is Reuters.
Me? Well this black conservative says we should, as a general principle, pre-emptively strike those militant forces that threaten our interests. Darfur is not a threat, but it certainly destabilizes the region. I've more specifically called for American boots on the ground in Liberia, and also in Cote D'Ivoire when they were calling for Americans and the French weasels were pulling their troops back. Sudan would be on my Least Favored Nation list. So I think Rice is turning the screws at the right level, considering half of this country would piss its pants at the mere mention of the word 'invasion'. Again, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who understands geopolitical neoconservatism, but it probably would to people who only understand what the Field Negro is talking about.
As for Pan African brotherhood. Hey, I'm all for it, but that's personal. The situation in Darfur however is geopolitical, and I don't confuse the two.
So I hope that clears things up a bit. Let's see what the Field Negro says. I'll wait and not be tired by waiting.
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