Eugene Volokh writes an old parable:
In Hell, there are three giant cauldrons in which the sinners are being boiled. On the rim of one stands a regiment of demons, shoulder to shoulder, constantly using their pitchforks to smack down the sinners who are trying to escape. On the rim of the second walk a few demons, who occasionally whack someone down. The rim of the third is empty, but no-one is getting out.
What's going on here?, the visitor asks. "There are three kinds of people," the Devil says. "The first kind is in the first cauldron. When one looks like he's trying to escape, all the rest follow him. We need a lot of demons to manage them.
"The second kind is in the second cauldron. Occasionally someone is trying to escape, but the others don't pay any attention. It takes just a few demons to deal with this kind.
"The third kind is in the third cauldron: When one is starting to escape, all the others drag him back down by the ankles."
Which cauldron has the most blackfolks? According to the theories I've heard most of my life, it would be the third cauldron. That may or may not be true of black people themselves, but it is certainly true of black politics. I've explained this in other terms - I've called it the 'human shield' practice. It is the excuse always used by those who would be opinion leaders to gain additional concern for blacks with steady lives to be extraordinarily involved with those in unsteady situations.
Every once in a while an example of this rationale surfaces in cyberspace. None speaks so well of that as does the example of writing and comments at Jimi Izrael's joint over the issue of Cosby. Now that we are talking about Cos, over a year from his original rant, I consider it a seminal part of the discussion about black politics.
It must be incredibly frustrating to be caught up in a discussion of dysfunctions and shortcomings of 'the race' which seem both inescapable and intractable. Consider "How to Get Young Black Youth Reading and Writing on Their Correct Level" Any worldview that makes general presumptions of such problems and generates prescriptions of this sort, are doomed. And yet that is the worldview that so many Americans are locked into.
From my perspective, I think progressives see blackfolks to be creatures of the first cauldron and they envision the demons of white supremacy pushing us all back in. They see no reason why we shouldn't all succeed together. Conservatives like myself see folks like ourselves to be creatures of the second cauldron. Sure there are demons, but people are individuals and pick different paths up the walls of their personal hells. What works for you doesn't necessarily work for me. Leftists see America as hell and prefer to suffer together in the third cauldron. They imagine there to be demons everywhere inside and outside the cauldrons.
As for Cosby, he's Old School and retains a surfeit of concern for the involuntary brotherhood of all Africans in America, the descendents of slaves. But what I think that he and every one of us will all have to eventually concede is that the cumulative experience of being African in America has left us with nothing but ourselves. We inherit little that will take us, single-handedly to the next level of society. And so while a generation of blackfolks struggle with the lack of a direct black path to the promised land, life goes on. We suffer from the racial myths expounded upon by Booker T. Washington and WEB duBois that there might very well be a special strategy for the Negro. I think perhaps only Woodson was enlightened in this regard. The sole exceptional duty for the Negro is to discover exactly which cauldron of hell he is boiling in.
Know yourself, and start climbing.
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