Several years ago before blogging existed in any significant form, I was getting my writing fix from Amazon.com. Even there I rose in the critical sphere to an appreciable level, and doing so, I indulged in several exercises in intellectual blackness. They were Black Mental Liberation and For the Race Man. Wow. That seems so long ago.
Today it seems we must be reminded that blackness is an intellectual construct. If it becomes anything other than that, it will essentially be racial, and there is no good to come from that degeneration. I wonder (out loud) if the bulk of African Americans, looking at them as an ethnic group, wish blackness to go in that direction. If they don't, then there are great challenges to get that intellectual spark going again.
Just the other day, in reading the mixed bag story about black maleness in the Washington Post, I was reminded that the Civil Rights Movment is not about to be repeated. The US would have to accomplish half a century of racial backsliding, and all of the evidence points in the other direction. (cf Booker Rising) Despite the fact that a significant number of African Americans call themselves 'black' we should all be reminded (in a limited way) by Cosby's critique that every brother aint a brother. And so while there is a great deal of blacker than thou that often gets in the way of a modicum of civility, there is still a place for some rigorous debate on the current and future state of black politics which doesn't get bogged down in the existentials. That is to say there is some black politics that isn't identity politics, and it remains interesting. However, I do make a distinction between rigorous political debate and progress for African Americans. They take place in isolation because there is no reliable mechanism that translates the energy of debate into real, sustainable uplift. That's a subject for discussion that I'm noodling now. In the meantime what is more clear is the past.
As I've said before, the Civil Rights Movement is done. There is not going to be another level of minds involved in fights against racism in this country a the level of Thurgood Marshall in our lifetimes. As time goes foreward and progress is achieved and maintained in this society, the number and quality of people debating the subjects of racism declines. You're not going to get the interest of the best and brightest in the affairs of the everyday tribulations of the average black soul. There's nothing so uniquely black about that soul any longer. The story has been told so many times that it's All American now. Even the line from Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message': "..and everybody knows what you've been through" is over 20 years old.
It isn't quite enough, I think, to assert that 'we' are a richly diverse 'community'. When you really study the diversity of African America, you get little more than divergence itself. There is no single black community and that's what my generation has been shouting for two decades. And yet despite this, we tend to assume that there should be and eventually will be some politics that unites us.
So the question of black intellectual production revolves around whether or not there is something unique and useful about the somewhat post-modern movement of blacks to transcend race and class. See, Black Nationalism wasn't accomplished in a strictly democratic sense, and while it arose out of conditions of oppression and suppression there was some truth and beauty that came out of it too. It is the romance with that truth and beauty that still attracts progressives to 'The Struggle'. It certainly cannot be triumph within 'The Struggle' itself because actual organic black nationalist successes are few and far between. In fact it is the very pedestrian nature of class & social climbing that gives Progressives fits, because there is nothing so embarrassing to the doyennes of black truth and beauty than the fact that they can't command the salary, influence and community support of your average suburban orthodontist.
I should make one more clarifying note, which is that I find there to be a future only for those inheritors of the Black Nationalist mantle who aren't playing the liberal-left game of using lower class blacks as human shields. The entire leader/follower dynamic of enlightened leaders showing the poor black masses the way to the promised land is dead and debunked. Even the poorest African Americans have too much agency for that. All of these qualifications make it sound as if there isn't much left to be done in the name of blackness. It's true, there isn't, but it's enough to keep at least five universities and 5000 artists, writers, composers, philosophers, theologians and pundits busy for another 20 years. Who knows, we might even give Outkast a job.
In other words, I'm saying that the Black Aesthetic needs an overhaul. It needs to be updated from the days of Baldwin and Wright and it needs to be reality based. Parallel to writing this, I'm listening to De La Soul's latest album 'The Grind Date'. In the title cut they are explicitly talking about a strong blue collar ethic. De La holds up one of the only poles that keeps the big tent of hiphop above crotch level.
So if you ask me where all of this is going, I think that it's going back to Lorraine Hansberry's 'Raisin in the Sun', without the flaming spear. I'm going to re-evaluate that play in light of where I think blackfolks are at today, and I believe the answer is going to be solid, not-so-integrated, but certainly not radical black middle class on the blue collar side. America will do well to heed the update.
Here's the WaPo Link I need so that Technoraiti can see me. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300695.html
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