Clare X Brown is throwing down. I anticipate a great deal of blather, bloviation and ahistorical doubletalk in this discussion. And I expect that it will all boil down to this:
Blacks living together in peace and harmony with whites is unnatural and improbable, and whenever it happens it destroys black power and thus black people and increases white power.
That's my quote and I'm putting words in her mouth, which is actually a good thing considering the words that are coming out. But I have this thing for clarity. At any rate her idea is a fundamentally reductionist and racist observation. The identification of 'radical black assimilationism' as a component of 'global' white supremacy is in itself another ploy for removing disciplines like economics (not to mention individualism) from the worldview of colorstruck people captivated by racial conspiracy theories. It reinscribes another race-based imperative and adds another level of obfuscation to something that ought to be crystal clear. Character is more important than racial identity. But there are a few words that are key in her premises.
Why is it so difficult for black people who assimilate to acknowledge that this is what they believe in? Perhaps it is because they know – at least on a subconscious level - that assimilation is extremely destructive to the black community; they realize (as bell hooks has noted) that assimilation is a “strategy deeply rooted in the ideology of white supremacy.” On a deep level they may recognize that assimilation is a form of mentacide, that is (in the words of Bobby Wright) the “deliberate and systematic destruction of a group’s minds with the ultimate objective being the extirpation of the group.”
It doesn't matter much what her definition of assimilation is, so long as we accept that it is a form of 'mentacide' which involves 'group's minds' and other groupthink. If one accepts the priority of the interests of racial groups over the interests of individuals, well that says it all right there. Who knows what is a fair balance for CXB? But if we are all subconsciously infected with a germ that makes us want to be loyal to our racial group, then we must need her instruction to help us heed that natural instinct. You know, in case we start getting too independently friendly with non-blacks and all the people that are aimed at destroying that subconscious natural instinct. Our essence, our fundamental inescapable, melanin-enhanced, genetic blackness.
I don't know how dumb Clare X Brown thinks we are, but we'll soon find out. I'll continue my commentary here because she's not publishing my comments there. Then again, I may have the foreign germ.
So let me offer a few milestones so that my position, in contrast to Brown's, is clear.
First of all, I don't like the way she lumps all sorts of blackfolks and indicts them with her new trumped up charge. She refuses to take people at their word:
Black progressives (liberals, socialists, Marxists, feminists etc) are particularly hypocritical, since they act in ways which indicate that they want to assimilate, and advance causes which in effect MEAN assimilation into the white population, but at the same time, they are not honest about what they are doing. They insist on couching their objectives in other terms.
Duh. You just invented this farcical disease. Why should anybody subject themselves to your ridiculous category? Oh. Wait because they're black, and they can't help but be a part of what you describe. They cannot change their essence.
Secondly some definitions. I don't think I'm going to get a clearer definition of radical assimilation from Brown. So I'll use the following definitions for the sake of clarity.
Integration means joining an institution or society and sharing your ideas openly. Give and take.
Assimilation means joining an institution or society and leaving your ideas behind. Get in where you fit in. Assimilation and conformity are pretty much the same thing.
Radical assimilation means joining an institution or society and pretending that you were never outside of it. It means erasing your history of being outside and rejecting any ideas foreign to that institution or society.
Fair enough?
The first thing that came to my mind when I thought of radical assimilation from a cultural perspective was people who disabuse their family. I mean there's a fairly low price to pay for being a traitor to your race today. But being a traitor to your family name. That's deep. So I think of people who change their name from James Williams to Jabari Mfume. I think of people who change their name from Chaim Goldfarb to Chad Green. I think of people who leave their religion, like lapsed Catholics who become radical atheists.
So it seems to me that if you are a black radical assimilationist who defies black nationalism, then you would have had to be a black nationalist in the first place. That is, unless Clare X Brown believes that all black people are *naturally* black nationalist, which of course does a disservice to black nationalism as an intellectual construct, and to black people as masters of their own individual and family destiny.
Brown, if she is to be taken seriously at all, must be talking about politics. It's the only area of black life where she can legitimately criticize people's choices. But if she just wants to bash her political opponents, bash if you must, but at least be honest about it. Stop using the black race as a human shield. You have no claim on it.
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