The Cobbian Oeuvre, Slammed

Nulan lobs a large and complex bomb: I attempt to deal with it seriously

I believe that I am simply undaunted by the prospect of criticizing blackfolks or the ideas that seem to motivate them. I am convinced that it is useful criticism and I do endeavor to say things that are not said elsewhere.

f'zample?

That goes straight to the question of blackness, and I have had no success whatsoever in enaging that aspect of what makes blackfolks properly black. The 'who owns blackness' question is moot, unanswerable. I'd like to engage it but I cannot. I would engage it from the perspective of the change from Negro to black and suggest that the original prospects were useful but that they cast off too much of the 'old time religion'. Instead and now I am attempting to rectify mistakes of black nationalism, primarily ridding it of marxist economics and racialist thinking. And in that regard I would suggest that my own orientation as an old dude is proper and that Huey and Karenga went wrong. Which is to say nationalism is good, how does a black nationalist become an American nationalist? Economic development is good, how does a Ujamaa mature into black capitalism, moreover how 'black' does economics have to be?

All of that is limited to what I think is the ambit of the Civil Rights and Black Power agenda, which is to establish and maintain a strong and vibrant black middle class. I think we have that. So now my question becomes, what was the primary thing that created that black middle class and sustains it? Was it the values of Black Consciousness? Or was it the rising tide of the American economy combined with black mobility in it? I don't know for sure. So I'm not sure how to prioritize my critiques of the Defense of Marriage vis a vis black OOW birth and economic causality. But I do agree that Moynihan was right, and my own perspective is that a strong black family is absolutely necessary - that it can't be done without it.

and why no corollary criticism of whitefolks inclusive of some of disingenuous posers who perpetrate right here in your salon? As things presently stand, Bill O'Reilly is beating you on fairness and balance levels and everybody and they mama know that Bill O'Reilly is a lying sack'o'shit working a very definite and highly racialized political agenda.(Juan, Dr. Marc Lamont, Rev. Al and all his little crumbsnatching negro correspondents notwithstanding.)

I have no idea what Bill O'Reilly does. None. I haven't watched 30 minutes of the man in my entire life, and probably less than 4 hours of Fox News, ever. I have watched Glenn Beck a couple of times but not enough to remember much. My corollary criticism of whitefolks is implied in everything liberal and left and most things progressive. But I don't think of 'white' politics as anything different from racist politics. At the same time, I come from a perspective of black strength. Sure I'm going to call a white racist idea out, but I am particularly expecting blacks to overcome.

My message on anti-racist politics is purposefully not directed at either race, but I do hold blackfolks to a higher standard. And what I see is a pro-black politics that tends to be more self-interested than it is willing to build a proper multi-racial coalition. I see that this is a problem for me, because in fact I tend to be dismissive of such efforts anyway. That is because I get to a point at which I think blackfolks and whitefolks ought to get along without political urging. So you're likely to hear me push back at blackfolks who have identified extraordinary sensitivity and zero-tolerance anti-racism. Like TCoates implies that Hitchens is doing against 'black women' by ranking on Michelle Obama. So my kneejerk is how many whitefolks in political coalition can you get on that zero-tolerance platform - and then the answer is 'all of Obama's white supporters' and I dismiss that. Why? Because Michael Moore says whitefolks have no right to judge blackfolks. So it all sounds like political correctness to me, none of which has a significant effect on the economic position of the average black American. I'm interested in seeing institutional racism broke down and beat up, and I hear terms about the respect accorded Rutgers basketball players.

I'm not defending Smrgol nor taking any time to appease or correct him either. He's only been here two or three months. I do think he's said some tangential stuff that didn't pass the sniff test, but I'm not trying to make an example out of him. Yet. To be frank, I think Sparkle gives me a little bit too much love. I'm always attempting to be Socratic and instructional, welcoming of conflicting ideas and drawing people out to anthropological value. I've only had to bust on Chance and Fisher but both are welcome back.

The levels to which you strain in order to appease and furnish aid and succor to disengenuous Black haters is neither "old school", original, or constructive. Right here on this thread, you allowed 1400+ words of pure-dee-pure irrelevant horseshit without uttering a peep. Now you know the stink is hella deep when thegrayconservative and A. Charles alike have to call folks out on their nonsense!!!

I appreciate the work they do. I hope neither of them get tired of Cobb. I don't see haters, I see dissonance and a profound difference of priorities. I'm not trying to mediate that I'm trying to facilitate in the midst of being provocative. There have been lots of occasions where folks have gotten into a fight where I have no dog. Fzample you essentially chased off DailyBowelPrep when you two got into it about brain chemistry. I thought it was a breathtaking discussion, but I pretty much stayed out of it. I can't exactly say what the bone of contention between you and Smrgol is, honestly. But I don't see it as zero-sum. You're both welcome. I'm not objectively evaluating a lot of the comments that aren't directed at the thesis of the blogpost. I just don't have time.

On the whole however, the comments at Cobb are dynamite, and I mean that in a very good way. We don't have any trolls, people don't cuss each other out and people with completely different experiences and priorities still engage. That's all good, and I really don't care who has the last word when I don't want to have it. I'm perfectly content with a bit more horseshit than you.

In summary, blackfolks and the ideas they hold are never far from my mind. I battle in the world of ideas as an old school conservative towards the ends of disabusing racial loyalty over superior values, and identify the pitfalls and wishful thinking of progressive, liberal and left politics.

MLK posited a human essentialist Christian ethos and constructive political and economic engagement toward that end, and got shot for his efforts. ~ one month ago, you had the audacity to reject that in favor of precisely what "superior values"? Please tell me what these superior values are, because for the life of me, I'm at a complete and total loss to identify ANY of them. If they exist, that's a major hole in my bucket.

This is the most important criticism you lay at my feet and I want to look at it seriously. I will take it as a separate issue. I feel that there is a very big difference between Black Power and King's Dream. I'm not positive that they can be reconciled. Essentially, I think King's Dream was limited by its populist appeal. I think Black Power was premature, impatient and rude. I would like to believe that King's Christianity would work in ways that American politics does not and cannot, but I am left with B16 for now. I have not engaged as much or as well as I should, the implications of a transformational Christianity and its role in American affairs. I'm not sure why I have been distracted from that task. I'm glad you bring it up. The time is right to consider Liberation Theology, the separation of church and state and the proper ethics for America. I think notions of 'social justice' are very sloppy in contemporary thought. I think King's emphasis on racial integration was absolutely right and the Christian implications of that are clear.

You say that I'm anti-black but I don't ever feel that given all I have had to say in this blog that I would be unwelcome anywhere blackfolks are.

No, I say your "rhetoric" is conspicuously anti-Black and I have encouraged you for the longest time now (as have many others - not a few of which have simply thrown in the towel) to check yourself.

I need to be checked. Believe me. I'm a legend in my own mind.

What's the American Express motto, "everywhere you want to be"? I for one am genuinely curious about precisely where you want to be Cobb? Despite all your hypothetical pinings for elite Black aggregation, do you genuinely lift a finger toward that concrete interpersonal end outside of episodic and externally constructed media interludes? Instead of being the change you claim to want to see, it seems like you're in constant audition mode for Larry Elder's or Juan William's media gig. That steez is closer to "being everywhere somebody else wants you to be", right?

I'd like to be rich enough to have people over to my house and have significant dinner parties. I would essentially expand Cobb to be a real place, and whenever heads are in California, you'd know to drop by. I want to be rich enough to become a community macher, and I think in retirement I'll write books or do radio. I need to continue the conversation so that I don't show up one day aged 60 sounding foolish.

The interpersonal thing is difficult for me. Firstly because I simply don't fuss with people face to face. My nature is to be a host. Secondly because the people whose company I enjoy are sparse. But thirdly and perhaps most importantly I am extraordinarily frustrated with what I call 'social work'. My parents were both social workers, by profession. I simply don't have the patience for it. I am so much better having this conversation we are having, then doing any presumptive community service. I am very critical of community service organizations and the politics that support them precisely because I have been intimately involved with the headache of funding and managing such entities, and I strongly resent the hypocrisy of the Talented Tenth position. This is my burden and my failure, which I would be happy to present at length. But I look at a man like Albert Murray as who I want to be. And I cannot imagine him showing his value through community service.  I think I am perhaps a bit resentful of the dismissal by a people who take Tupac seriously. My interest is in writing essays, polemics and treatises. It's a chatting class game. Moreover I am strongly attracted to the writing of Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis, a couple of drunk Brits who are extraordinarily insightful and acerbic. Charles Wright was like that.

 

Bill Cosby is welcome among Blackfolks he's strongly and publicly criticized, (having witnessed it in person here in KC - and knowing the organic networking and coalition building he's done over the past few years here on the ground largely through the historic Kansas City Call newspaper) Cobb's critique - on the other hand - were it known, would be most unwelcome, and that's not simply an unfair catch-22 criticism positing your celebrity against Cosby's. It's a comparison of your and his respective identification with Black folks, organic and day-to-day networking and interpersonal communion with Black folks, old school and otherwise - and see - it's THERE that I believe you have allowed a major hole to form in your bucket resulting in a degree of ideological and rhetorical alienation that is frankly kind of jarring and entirely at odds with your cultural and personal background.

Because I write about politics, there is an expectation that I'm supposed to move the crowd because that's what 'black leaders' are expected to do. I cannot be that. It's interestingly why I like the example of Stephen Biko. He spoke to the crowd in a South African stadium while moving through them with a microphone. He never got to the podium. The man on the podium always gets shot. I want to write. I hate crowds. That is a hole in the bucket I will never fill. I want to be a writer. I want to have a salon. I am a consultant, a host, a raconteur, hell a barfly. I can handle a swanky reception or sit on a dais, but no more than two hours. I need my privacy.

You give every appearance of having put more effort into aggregating with folks whose politics are far less post-racial than they are anti-Black - and - you're not making evident comparable efforts to evolve or convince those folks of the errors of their ways. Personally, I'm very, very tired of calling you out for this, and I'm still more tired of abiding the emanations of folk who have categorically demonstrated themselves incapable of communicating in good faith across racial lines. That is, folks who believe they own the first mover prerogative on defining and controlling racial discourse. Folks who equate pro-Black rhetoric with the anti-Black structural and institutional context giving rise to Black partisan ideation and struggle.

I see a fundamental necessity for an overt black patriotism which owes to the history of black politics. I see it just as necessary as others see the need for Republicans to disown the Southern Strategy. In my mind, I am transfixed by the image of the white man on the courthouse steps trying to stab the black man with the American flag, and in the next second the black man snatches the flag away and shames the white man by holding it higher without fear and with righteous pride. So I have very little patience for the black oppositional, and I am perhaps overly concerned with it.

I don't believe in the post-racial. I believe in the competition of compelling values. So I seek for Americans to be so invested in a proper American nationalism that their racial interests are subordinated. I expect Americans to wrestle with the temptations of racial thinking and discipline themselves to 'play nice' as A.Charles says. I want people to look at the table in front of them and to realize that they *are* diners, and not strangers to the American table as Malcolm felt he was.

But I think that black cultural production has failed to give African Americans a decent context to express their patriotism and their ability to get along with their neighbors. I think that black oppositional politics has poisoned public discourse enough to make life more dissonant and confusing than it should ever have become. I find these to be enemies of American unity. I think white racism is unchanged, but diminished. But I don't see it in country music or anything in particular.

I began many years ago seeking to establish a zero-disrespect standard in politics. So I used to look for the racist insults. I found them surely enough when Meg Whitman used photo-ops with Sharpton to prove black bonafides in defiance of the local Urban League. I found them in the calculations of political strategists. I've never had a kind word for Karl Rove. But I have also determined that polities are led not by spin doctors but by their own percieved self-interest, and those who desire to call the Democrats 'black' and the Republicans 'white' lack the courage to cross the aisle and work things out. I wrote that practically day one on this blog.

Black partisanship is not the same as Black nationalism. Black partisanship is incontrovertibly human essentialist and enjoys first mover prerogatives as compared and contrasted with any other factor in the American popular culture. That's what's old school. It puzzles me how anybody could ever get that twisted? The Black partisan policy and praxis is embodied in the last 4-5 years of MLK's ministry. How large and eggregious a misrepresentation is it to equate that with the Black nationalism you constantly hold up as the object of your political scorn?

Your view of black communion my be incompatible with my temperament as an analytical and polemical essayist. I may have to give up the claim on the Old School, because it simply may not support me. But I am certainly ready willing and able to make some very specific claims on MLK. That's next.