My friends EC Hopkins and Craig Nulan moderated a three day debate between myself and Michael Fisher back in 2007. Although it was probably my coverage of Candidate Obama that won me the Aaron Hawkins Award for top Black Blog in 2008, this debate is probably one of the best things I've done as a blogger.
Hopkins has since terminated his Maxambit blog where the debate originally took place, but Fisher found me today with this link, which I have made permanent by archiving it in Evernote - which will remain around as long as I do.
It is now published at Black Liberator. Many thanks to their editors for preserving it even though they got my name wrong. Here is the permanent link. And the text follows:
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Self-proclaimed black conservative Michael David Cobb Bowen [fixed by me. mb] and Assault On Black Sanity's Michael Fisherdebate the existence of, scope of, and one approach to fighting white supremacy.
Cobb v. Fisher: The Debate (source) / Debate Resolution: A resolution, in the context of this debate, is the claim that an advocate seeks to prove or disprove; the substance of the controversy; a declarative statement that responds to the question in a controversy.
Resolved: That the primary group objective of the U.S. Black elite, who are the top 25% wealthiest or most powerful or most prestigious Black U.S. citizens, should be to focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy, which is all thoughts and behaviors that work to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color, because the Global System of White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world.
Below, the resolution's premises, subsidiary conclusion, and conclusion are stated explicitly.
Premise 1: The Global System of White Supremacy exists.
Premise 2: Hindrances to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world other than the Global System of White Supremacy, if any exist, do not hinder the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world as much as the Global System of White Supremacy.
Subsidiary Conclusion: The Global System of White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world.
Premise 3: The U.S. Black elite could focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy.
Premise 4: Focusing their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy is morally obligatory for the U.S. Black Elite.
Conclusion: The U.S. Black elite should focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy.
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Michael Fisher wrote: "To accept the primacy of White Supremacy in the world is to submit to it." The acknowledgment of an objectively existing condition is the first step towards progress. Closing one's eyes to the existence of the fact that one is immersed in a body of water is the first step towards drowning. Acceptance of that fact is the first step towards moving one's limbs for swimming and the achievement of survival and progress. It is without historical precedence that power concedes without demand and the systematic application counter- power. It is without historical precedence that power concedes solely based on moral suasion. White supremacy admitted its existence as the sole supreme power in this country for 400 years. Historically, every and all institutions in this country were founded, designed, shaped, maintained, or tolerated by admitted white supremacists. The notion that white supremacy liquidated itself via its own institutions is ridiculous beyond compare. It is sheer lunacy. Insanity. To surmise that white supremacy disappeared just because white supremacists decided to declare that they ceased the practice of white supremacy is to live a fool's dream. Nonetheless, having concurred with the resolution, I am obligated to prove the existence of the Global System of White Supremacy as the sole and overwhelming paradigm in humanity's existence. The Global System of White Supremacy knows no borders, it knows no bounds, it rules directly and indirectly, it can not but do so, otherwise it would not be a system of Supremacy. Of course, I can cite the mountains of empirical evidence: The fact that all of the institutions of power, of decisive and overwhelming armed force and destruction, of economics, science, learning, propaganda (a/k/a "the media") , entertainment, and even the pornographic industry are dominated and controlled by people who classify themselves as "white". I can challenge my opponent to cite a single institution of dominant power that is that is not either controlled by or subject to the control of people who classify themselves as "white". Not even the, oh so mighty, Chinese claim that they have emerged from under the yoke of the system. The presentation of empirical evidence, however, will not be enough in the face of my opponent's denial of empirical evidence. Thus it is necessary to go to the very roots of the system: The logic of the conceptions underlying and maintaining the system. While the white supremacists are supposed to have left stage right and disappeared into the sunset, leaving a few trailer trash rednecks behind to mourn the past and vow to resurrect a supposedly long-gone white supremacist system, we do have a class of people in existence throughout the world who say they are "white". Indeed that they are of the "white race". Though, of course, not being white supremacists. White. What is that? Biologically speaking there is no such thing as a white person. Try to define what a white person is objectively, scientifically, and you run into an insurmountable problem. Let's look at this logically. What are racial features? Who or what decides objectively, non-arbitrarily, what the racial features are which determine a "race"? Any human being possesses a myriad of features which he/she has in common with other human beings. So what makes up a white person? What common objective characteristics have a group of people that allows them to define themselves as "white". Skin color? Where does "white " begin, where does it end? What shades of skin color qualify as "white" . Why? Hair texture? Where does hair texture begin and where does it end? Where are the beginnings and end objectively determined? Why these physical attributes? Why not define "race" by diameter, radius, or better even, the depth of people's anuses? Why not postulate a race of three-inch-radius-anus-having folks? How is such a group construct less valid than that of the "white" group construct? Clearly then, the notions of "white" and "white race" are non-biological constructs. That means that they are social constructs and social constructs are always political. That is the nature of human groupings. They are always and in essence socio-political amalgamations. Politics is always and everywhere about power. And power is always and everywhere about dominance. Where there is dominance there is its opposite: subservience, subordination. Thus if a person says "I am of the group or race called White" that person says "I am part of a group that has a certain power relationship with an individual or a group of individuals. Daily experience shows that an individual can not vote him or herself into "whiteness". Being a member of the "white" group is not a question of democracy. Moreover, the acceptance of any individual into the grouping "white" can not be forced upon the group as a whole. The only way a person can become "white" is by subterfuge or acceptance. Thus the power to define who is white lay with the members of the white group. Since it is the members of the white group who have the sole functional power to classify a person or group of persons as "white", they also, by defining who is white simultaneously define who is non-white. Experience has shown that these definitions will be made to stick. By the "whites". Since it is solely whites who define who is a member of the social construct "white" and thus who is "non-white", they clearly have the power to impose their definitions and constructs upon the rest of humanity. Such sole power spells domination. Domination is supremacy. "White" Domination is White Supremacy. Ergo, as long as the social construct "white" exists and as long as the members of this social construct have the sole functional power to determine the membership of the "white" social construct, white supremacy exists. Again: The existence of a "white grouping or race" logically postulates the existence "white supremacy". Ergo, white supremacy exists. Again: "As long as we can use the term "white race" and realistically describe certain actually existing people, we are accurately describing an existing power relationship, colloquially known as white supremacy. Since the whole thing is based on the concept of "race", we are dealing with racism. Ergo the term Racism/White Supremacy. No one group or person can be Supreme unless that group or person is in control everywhere and over everybody. Otherwise it would not be Supremacy. Supremacy means "being supreme". Not "almost supreme" or "somewhat supreme". It is not a question of degree. It just is or it is not. Thus the supremacy must be global, ergo we've got the existence of global racism/white supremacy. Supreme control, the exercise of supreme power, on a global basis can not be maintained unless it is done systematically. Therefore, the existence of a functional "white race" or "white group" as a sub-division of humanity denotes the existence of a System of Global Racism/White Supremacy. Since the existence of the social construct "white" means the existence of "white supremacy", and White Supremacy means domination by whites, which dominance by definition can only be over "non-whites", and since that domination is not obtained by consent (no one can be voted into "whiteness"), and since domination can only exist simultaneously with its opposite, subservience, the existence of "whiteness" and thus "white supremacy" will always be an insurmountable obstacle in the way of progress of "non-white" people. As African-Americans are defined as black, they are non-white, and thus subject to the dominance of white and thus subject to white supremacy. Which, by definition is global and systematic. (Otherwise it would not be supreme). Ergo the Global System of White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world. Thus, without the abolition of the System of Racism/White Supremacy there can not be any substantial progress made by the people classified as "African-Americans" or "black" and the people classified as "black" in existence throughout human existence. Now what is a "Black elite"? An elite is a "group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status" Thus a "Black elite" is a grouping derives its status in relation to the group it belongs to. The "blacks". Which means that the status and progress of the black elite logically is depended on the condition of the "black" group as a whole. Thus the U.S. Black elite, if it wants to progress, not only could, but must, focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy. That the black elite in addition is morally obligated to do so is a question of one's moral compass. My moral compass tells me to oppose injustice and the mistreatment of human beings. Thus my agreement that the U.S,. Black elite is morally obligated to disempower white supremacy and replace it with a system of justice where the mistreatment of people is anathema and not practiced.
Cobb wrote: In my counter-argument I will set out to show that the racist system of White Supremacy can be defeated and that African Americans have, do and can continue to progress despite its continuing existence. I will show how the operation of white Supremacy has been curtailed and how, despite the lack of a coordinated effort by any identifyable black elite, the fortunes of African Americans continue to rise. And finally I will attempt to show how a certain stream of thought, which I call the New Black Nationalism is counter-productive to the progress of African Americans, precisely because of its misunderstanding of White Supremacy and the errors which arise from that misunderstanding. It is within that context - during periods of incremental destruction of White Supremacist operation that thee successful, even thriving nature of African Americans brings opprobrium from those who claim to be their only and best hope. New Black Nationalists are crabs in the barrel. I will return within the hour.
Cobb wrote: How free is a black man if he must be black? This is probably the single most vexing question facing black political partisans in America. There is, apparently no escape from this existential question. It invokes every inquiry into the nature of humanity. The simple answer is that a black man is not free, unless it is he himself who defines what it means to be black. Otherwise he is always under the restrictive definition of someone who would use the term 'black' to reduce, constrain or otherwise control his humanity. In the wake of the tumultuous changes in America over the past 50 years we find ourselves with new challenges facing the 'black' man. In this debate we address these challenges. African Americans, those living in this country originally brought as slaves or more recently originating in Africa have struggled in various ways against the racial reductions imposed upon them for many generations. They have used the many strengths and virtues humans have always employed. We may never know of all the failures, but we know of the successes and we emulate them and evoke their struggles as lessons in the pursuit of freedom. One of those struggles for freedom was Black Nationalism. It was a set of ideas originating in America during the 1960s whose aim was to establish a positive mindset among African Americans and develop them from an oppressed and dissolute people into a nation. It was Black Nationalism that first conceived a positive connotation for 'black'. The great power of Black Nationalism was its ability to align millions of African Americans who once considered themselves Negroes to transform their very sense of self into a new more globally defined, fuller human being. Along with theorists of Pan-Africanism, the Black Nationalists of the 60s were able to raise the expectations of African Americans beyond the provincial racial reductions of second-class American citizenship. This was a great triumph against the psychological burdens of internalized White Supremacy, but Black Nationalism and Black Power did little to change the operation of the forces that most affected African Americans or Americans in general. I pause in my narrative to point out that White Supremacy operates on two levels, the psychological and the physical. Black Nationalism itself operates on the same two levels. Where White Supremacy assaults black sanity, Black Nationalism attempts to instill positive self-regard. Where White Supremacy would attempt to deprive its victims of material prosperity through direct and hegemonic means, Black Nationalism would build a powerful self-reliant nation. I continue. The Civil Rights Movement was largely about countering the legality of Jim Crow, America's social and legal system of White Supremacy. The activists of the Civil Rights Movement sought to establish and maintain a broad national political coalition, acting through all three branches of American government to accomplish their aims. In fact it was the legal reforms of the Civil Rights Movement which were most directly responsible for the changing the way that America itself operated. Its success set the stage for similar defenses of citizen rights. The Free Speech, Women's Rights and Gay Liberation movements used similar tactics and strategies to extend civil liberty in America. Today the reforms of the Civil Rights Movement require only a minimum of attending, rather like the inoculation of children against polio. The original Black Nationalists, I believe, have largely conceded that their time has passed. Consequently and unlike the Civil Rights Movement there are very few offspring of Black Nationalism either in America or abroad. The most popular one, Afrocentrism also aims at black identity, but has done little to change the fortunes of African Americans. But there are those who have a New Black Nationalism, and a new agenda for African Americans. I defy this New Black Nationalism and its agenda. The New Black Nationalism is now a regressive movement that seeks to recast the entire operation of the world as one of psychic battle against the self esteem of African Americans. It attempts to co-opt the success of Black Nationalism by extending its identity politics to the extreme. Its psychological orientation makes it a mind game, a project of dubious merit aimed at African Americans who are not sufficiently prepared to combat its program of re-education. Yet the New Black Nationalists must be taken into account, for the dragon they seek to slay is indeed an enemy of humanity. I will attempt to show the errors of the New Black Nationalist agenda and program. This is not a battle between two men so much as it is a necessary debate about the future of what we have traditionally called black politics. We are both men of privilege and means who were born in the same post-Civil Rights generation. How can we be ideologically opposed given that we both claim pride of our black heritage? This is a common dilemma. All African Americans claim to be black and yet we know ourselves to be black in many different ways, with different values, different loyalties and different priorities. The time has come for African Americans to decide which of the historical strengths of Black Nationalism have now become liabilities. The New Black Nationalists arrogate unto themselves the definition of blackness and what therefore a black man must do. African Americans must choose if this definition of black will increase or decrease their chances for success. Will it make them more or less free? I say that this new identity politics is a dangerous choice and those that embrace it will find themselves mired in a mirror world of their own creation.
cnulan wrote: In my counter-argument I will set out to show that the racist system of White Supremacy can be defeated and that African Americans have, do and can continue to progress despite its continuing existence. I will show how the operation of white Supremacy has been curtailed and how, despite the lack of a coordinated effort by any identifyable black elite, the fortunes of African Americans continue to rise.
Cobb, 1. Is this aspect of your counter argument still pending? 2. Do you intend to offer a definitive resolution, premise, or conclusion concerning the phenomenon you have termed "New Black Nationalism" - that relates it to the question in controversy?
Cobb wrote: Fisher has awkwardly stumbled into some reasonable concepts with regard to the definition of 'white', although with no sense of temporal constraint, as if whiteness existed from the beginning of time. Perhaps, from his point of view, the creation of whiteness was the beginning of time. After all, he sees even the Chinese suffering white disease. Brother please. You're making me sneeze. White identity works on human beings. It must be taught. Black identity works on human beings. It must be taught. Having adopted these identities, humans can also deconstruct and un-learn them. But also, identities, like talents may lay dormant and unused. In America we all use various aspects of learned behavior in order to accomplish things. We can think of this as a matter of social response, that is to say we adopt certain behaviors to attain certain goals, we put on 'identity gloves' which allow us to grab on to certain things. We role-play. Role playing is natural. It is only unnatural when role play or living in a particular identity constrains the range of our humanity - there is the sin. Anyway, what we need to be able to guage is the extent to which an individual or group invests in an identity, especially a racial identity. So it is a fair area to consider risk-reward scenarios applying to the investment and deployment of racial identities. Or more plainly, when and how is 'acting white' rewarded? When and how is 'acting black' rewarded. By whom and how much? It flattens reality to say that there simply *are* x number of flatly white people and x number of flatly black people. It is more proper to say that human beings have various degrees of willingness to act out certain roles.
Cobb wrote: CN, I will continue to describe White Supremacy and successful acts against American instantiations of it. That aspect of my counter-argument is still pending. I intended to spend a little less time on describing the New Black Nationalism. But I'll now reconsider this.
cnulan wrote: Fisher has awkwardly stumbled into some reasonable concepts with regard to the definition of 'white', although with no sense of temporal constraint, as if whiteness existed from the beginning of time.Adhering to the debate's rules, Fisher has submitted his argument in support of the debate's resolution. Do you intend to adhere to the debate's rules; One debater will argue in order to prove the resolution; the other will argue in order to disprove the resolution. and take up the counter argument to disprove the resolution?
Cobb wrote: New Black Nationalists make critical errors in judgment and they can only be taken so seriously because of these errors. My interpretation of the best of African American efforts at uplift are at odds with the priorities of the New Black Nationalists. 1. New Black Nationalists claim to be the one true leaders of the black race. 2. New Black Nationalists overstate the significance and scope of White Supremacy. 3. New Black Nationalists mischaracterize other systems of thought and belief systems as inconsequential to the freedom of African Americans. 4. New Black Nationalists are invested in assuming, and assuring distrust of other Americans than African Americans, along the same traditional lines of race and ethnicity as White Supremacy.
E.C. wrote: Cobb: Comment #12 is not a descriptive definition for the term 'New Black Nationalist'. It contains one descriptive and three normative conclusions (you needn't supply arguments for these unless your opponent makes a legitimate request for them) about the New Black Nationalism institution. Using some of the elements in your conclusions or that led you to these conclusions, could you supply us with a descriptive definition for the term 'New Black Nationalist' that we could add to the debate's domain of defined terms?
Cobb wrote: Specifically, the New Black Nationalists manifest a psychological counter-attack on the psychological operation of White Supremacy. Their program, roughly taken from Welsing and Fuller, is to establish a positive black self-regard in opposition to White Supremacy. I contend that the immorality of White Supremacy can be psychologically overcome without regard to New Black Nationalist theories. Specifically, I contend that the moral imperative of Christianity, to love one's neighbor as oneself is sufficient to successfully combat the primacy of white or black racial identity. That in fact racial theorists, those who would posit a racial identity as the basis for political power have, and will of necessity battle the influence of Christianity and other religions. I challenge the resolution because it implies, as Fisher defines white people and black people, that whites are incapable of dismantling White Supremacy and that blacks must of necessity dedicate themselves to its destruction. I find this to be the very reflection of racial identity politics, and my intent in characterizing New Black Nationalism is to describe it as a foil that buys into this flat racial clash. I am suggesting that the 'Global System' of White Supremacy is the same size as the ambit of New Black Nationalism. Furthermore I am suggesting that moral systems of law and religion are in greater operation with deeper roots in human behavior than are racial systems, and that human beings act in political ways that are not driven by racial ideology - that in fact the only way to combat that which White Supremacy is, is through the utilization of these greater, deeper systems of human organization, law and religion. New Black Nationalism, however seeks to fight identity with identity, psychology with psychology. It therefore reinforces the premises of racial identity and is thus regressive. It doesn't free African Americans from the racial dilemma. It cannot be transcendent. The conclusion of the Resolution implies that absent a program of group racial identity and some apparatus to collect the resources of the US Black elite, White Supremacy will continue its 'global' hegemony. But I say that the global hegemony is a myth, and the operation of local regimes of White Supremacy, where it exists can and is held in abeyance by systems of law, religion and general goodwill that require no special effort by Black elites whatsoever.
Michael Fisher wrote: Aside from Bowen's highly inaccurate statement that "It was a set of ideas originating in America during the 1960s" As if there had been no Blyden, Gavey, Padmore, Booker T. Washington, and Elijah Muhammad, it would appear that Bowen admits to the existence of the system of Racism/White Supremacy when he claims: "In my counter-argument I will set out to show that the racist system of White Supremacy can be defeated". I have no argument with that statement. However the very admission that the racist system of White Supremacy exists is an admission of the absolute limitations of progress under the system. "White Supremacy" means just that S U P R E M A C Y. "Supremacy \Su*prem"a*cy\, n. [Cf. F. supr['e]matie. See Supreme.] The state of being supreme, or in the highest station of power; highest or supreme authority or power; " Thus, by definition there can be no "curtailment" of White Supremacy. Maybe one can obtain a few concessions here or a compromise there, but, given the nature of the thing, it will, as long as it remains in existence be able to lord it over all other human beings who are subjected to its whims. Those other human beings who, by the virtue of the system's very existence are non-white, that is "black". Human systems do not do run themselves. They are run by humans. Thus the admission of the existence of the System of Racism/White Supremacy also within it contains an admission of the existence of the white supremacists. Bowen has thereby not only not offered any argument to counter the resolution put forward, he has agreed with it. Logically then, the question should not be "how free is a black man if he must be black?", but "how free is a black man as long as the System of Racism/White Supremacy remains in existence". The answer is obvious. As long as the System exists (which Bowen admits) "black" people must operate within the confines which are imposed upon them by the System. Confinement is the opposite of freedom.
Michael Fisher wrote: "But I say that the global hegemony is a myth, and the operation of local regimes of White Supremacy, where it exists can and is held in abeyance by systems of law, religion and general goodwill that require no special effort by Black elites whatsoever." Bowen's argumentation and thinking is so convoluted and contradictory as to make one's head spin. Once again, is there a Global System of White Supremacy? First he says yes, but it can be defeated. Now he says it exists only locally? And where it exists locally it is held "in abeyance by systems of law, religion and general goodwill". Aside the fact that by its very definition "Supremacy" can not be local if it is to be supreme, assuming that it could be, if white supremacy exists in certain localities it is not held in abeyance by systems of law, religion, and general goodwill" because that would mean that rather than white supremacy the "in abeyance by systems of law, religion, and general goodwill" would be supreme. Bowen, as is his practice wants to have his cake and eat it too. Thus I ask again, and I ask the moderators to focus Bowen on the initial premise. "The Global System of White Supremacy exists." I said "Yes" and delivered my arguments in support of my affirmation. What say Bowen?
Cobb wrote: Continuing from #9. Since racial identities are socially constructed and not biologically inherent, human beings can only *be* 'white' or 'black' according to the conscious ways in which they *act* white or black. And human beings *act* white or black according to risk/reward systems. Without such systems in place which have at their principles the tenets of White Supremacy, 'white' and 'black' behavior is only teleological. Such behaviors cannot be considered aspects of a system if the system is not functional. They are then merely human behaviors, not political acts. More often than not such acts are the product of other circumstances not attributable to any White Supremacist ideology. I therefore attack the first premise of the resolution. There is no Global System of White Supremacy, this is merely a projection of racial identity onto human beings who are neither instructed in its principles, disciplined in its execution or even aware of its existence. In the United States, the predominant system of White Supremacy was Jim Crow, and it has been dismantled, and has not been replaced. There is no global order that is operating to re-establish it. In South Africa, the predominant system of White Supremacy was Apartheid, and it has been dismantled and has not been replaced. There is no global order that is operating to re-establish it either. If there ever was a global system of White Supremacy, these systems were two of its greatest accomplishments in the 20th Century and their operations have been dismantled.
Michael Fisher wrote: It should also be noted, by the way, that Bowen has not uttered a single word aimed at deconstructing my argument in #5. Instead he has invented his own notion of a "New Black Nationalist" attributed this notion with various normative values and argued against this construct wholly of his own making. I would ask the moderators, if you are going to let him get away with not dealing with the initial premise "The Global System of White Supremacy exists" and offer logical reasons for or against, that you, the moderators at the very least disallow him from constructing chimeras, attribute the same to me, and then proceed to deconstruct his own creations (as clumsily as he does even that). In other words. Do your job. Keep this guy on track.
E.C. wrote: Fish: "Thus I ask again, and I ask the moderators to focus Bowen on the initial premise."Cobb, in #17, argues from examples. He cites two known White Supremacist institutions and their demise. He also argues there is no global order that exist to re-establish these two White Supremacist institutions. Since it would be less reasonable to require Cobb to prove that no disguised or furtive White Supremacist institutions exist than it would be for you to provide evidence that disguised or furtive, yet identifiable, White Supremacist institutions do exist, you should do just that if you want to defend premise #1 further. If you make such a move, then Cobb will have the burden of showing your evidence for the existence of the White Supremacist institutitons you'll have identified was not convincing.
cnulan wrote: Cobb's comments at 14. and 17. respectively are reifications of psychological and ideological premises onto a set of cultural, political, and economic concretes set forth in the debate resolution. As yet, Cobb has offered no clear counterargument to the existence of the cultural, political, and economic concretes which the resolution asserts. Further, he has not clearly resolved the novel ideological and psychological terms he introduced into the debate - and which he has endeavored to reify - as he was prompted to do at moderator comment 13.
Michael Fisher wrote: "Since racial identities are socially constructed and not biologically inherent, human beings can only *be* 'white' or 'black' according to the conscious ways in which they *act* white or black." Here Bowen, in essence, is saying that "black" people can become "white people" at any time if they so choose, and can become "white" solely by the deliberate act of "acting white". Nonetheless he is a "Titan of the Black Blogosphere". How come he is not a "Titan of the White Blogosphere"? If Bowen has ascended to "whiteness" what is he doing here, in the bowels of the slave ship? The problem lay somewhere else. It is the concept of "whiteness" itself. I have already demonstrated in #5 that "white" and Bowen has yet to deny the existence of "white" (he ain't THAT crazy), logically possesses a functional existence independently from the wishes, acts, or dreams of any "non-white". That makes it supreme. Bowen has not denied the existence of "white" he just said that he has found a way to become white. "White", however IS "White Supremacy" otherwise there would be no need for the socio-political construct "White". Thus, Bowen is telling us that he has become a "White Supremacist". It would be interesting to know what actions (as Bowen has the unique skill of acting himself into whiteness) he took that enabled him to become a white supremacist.
Cobb wrote: I would suggest that in #18 Fisher's unwillingness to identify an organizing group or name for the political orientation of the Black Elite, is symptomatic of a general unwillingness of African Americans to do so. I take that as evidence, especially in the wake of the actual and original Black Nationalist movement that on the whole, African Americans see no immediate need to corral and organize a Black Elite or there collective efforts and resources. When some rogue element of White Supremacy pokes up its ugly head, people just send an email to Sharpton.com. No Black Elite necessary.
Michael Fisher wrote: "Cobb, in #17, argues from examples. He cites two known White Supremacist institutions and their demise. He also argues there is no global order that exist to re-establish these two White Supremacist institutions." Cobb has not shown that either apartheid or Jim Crow have come to a demise. He has only postulated their demise without proof or reason. In order to show their demise he first has to describe what Apartheid and Jim Crow were in the first place and then show how they came to a demise. In other words. Bowen can not assume that I ever heard of either Jim Crow or Apartheid. It is like me saying that the demise of "Unterschieldlichkeit" proves the demise of White Supremacy. Bowen would be justified in asking me what the hell "Unterschiedlichkeit" was and how it related to white supremacy in the first place. As I said, do your job, please.
cnulan wrote: Cobb, in #17, argues from examples. He cites two known White Supremacist institutions and their demise. He also argues there is no global order that exist to re-establish these two White Supremacist institutions. Not quite E.C:, The two nations (not merely institutions) are examples of explicitly codified white supremacist states whose anti-black laws were in effect up through the span of both debaters' lifetimes. The laws in these two nations may have been rewritten, however, the burden of proof concerning the demise or continuation of de facto cultural, political, and economic white supremacy hasn't even been broached, much less met.
cnulan wrote: I would suggest that in #18 Fisher's unwillingness to identify an organizing group or name for the political orientation of the Black Elite, is symptomatic of a general unwillingness of African Americans to do so. You're both equally at liberty to more clearly define the term "Black Elite". Seems that acceptance without reservation of the debate resolution obviates any post hoc requirement to do so in furtherance of your respective positions. After all, E.C. defined it as follows; U.S. Black elite, who are the top 25% wealthiest or most powerful or most prestigious Black U.S. citizens
Michael Fisher wrote: "I would suggest that in #18 Fisher's unwillingness to identify an organizing group or name for the political orientation of the Black Elite, is symptomatic of a general unwillingness of African Americans to do so." Bowen once again avoids the subject. The subject is "The Global System of White Supremacy exists". He has finally (as far as I can tell) said that it does not. he has yet to offer an argument in support of his position. The two examples offered in support of his position are without any intrinsic value. They are not supported by definitions. What was "Apartheid", who was "Jim Crow". What do those terms mean? I do not recall any particular person named Jim Crow who ran any institution. I have no idea who Jim Crow was or is. Who is this person Jim Crow? What is "Apartheid"? Is it a person, place or thing? I certainly have no idea what it could be?
E.C. wrote: cnulan: Re: 24; In #19, I didn't intend to imply that I felt Cobb had proved the institutions have demised in a de facto sense. That would be a tough task for anyone. I just wanted to state that Cobb had presented a counter-argument. Its force was not my concern. And, I think it would be unreasonable to ask Cobb to try to prove that no de facto remnants of those two White Supremacist institutions remain. I believe it would be best for the debaters to prove or disprove premise #1 by arguing from several identifiable examples, so the reader could form inductions/inferences based on their evidence.
Michael Fisher wrote: My daughter just asked me "What is Apartheid?" Case in point, Bowen. Would Bowen please explain it to her? And to me as well? Apparently she is following our exchange. Please do the same with "Jim Crow"
cnulan wrote: Fisher - please focus on debating instead of moderating. You made a specific claim at the outset. It is incumbent upon you to elaborate this claim in the cultural, political and economic spheres that you claim are subject to the GSWS: I am obligated to prove the existence of the Global System of White Supremacy as the sole and overwhelming paradigm in humanity's existence. The Global System of White Supremacy knows no borders, it knows no bounds, it rules directly and indirectly, it can not but do so, otherwise it would not be a system of Supremacy. Of course, I can cite the mountains of empirical evidence: The fact that all of the institutions of power, of decisive and overwhelming armed force and destruction, of economics, science, learning, propaganda (a/k/a "the media") , entertainment, and even the pornographic industry are dominated and controlled by people who classify themselves as "white". I can challenge my opponent to cite a single institution of dominant power that is that is not either controlled by or subject to the control of people who classify themselves as "white".
cnulan wrote: I believe it would be best for the debaters to prove or disprove premise #1 by arguing from several identifiable examples, so the reader could form inductions/inferences based on their evidence.Agreed. In keeping with moderator comment 11. I would simply like to see Cobb comply with the debate process defined at the outset. At this point, his presentation is entirely non-compliant with the rules accepted by both participants.
cnulan wrote: I have to step away for a few minutes. I'd very much like to see a good effort by both gentlemen to focus on the rules of the debate to which both consented.
Michael Fisher wrote: "Cobb, in #17, argues from examples. He cites two known White Supremacist institutions and their demise. He also argues there is no global order that exist to re-establish these two White Supremacist institutions." E.C. is postulating that either I or the audience know what what certain White Supremacist institutions (two of them) are. I do not. It is not the moderators role to postulate things on behalf of the debater. It is his role to keep the debater on track.
Cobb wrote: I will now clarify my understanding of what exactly White Supremacy is. White Supremacy builds upon a premise of racialism. Racialism means that human beings are ordered into mutually exclusive races and that each race has its own destiny and message to the world. The theory of racialism is vague and flexible with regard to whom it designates into a race. But I will accept the definition of 'color' as Fisher has used. So the color part of white supremacy is the racialist 'white'. Supremacy implies what to do with this racialism. K. Anthony Appiah offers the definitions extrinsic racism and intrinsic racism. What transforms a racialism (taxonomy) into racism (judgment) is the understanding of what to do with this taxonomy. The extrinsic racism says that race applies a standard by which a person *ought* to be judged. We are all familiar with double standards. Double standards are generally discriminatory but we generally don't consider them racist. Technically, they are, but it depends upon the system of enforcement. Affirmative Action is the exception I have in mind. The intrinsic racism applies a standing by which a person *must* be judged. Which is to say that a racial standard must be applied in all cases. White Supremacy is an intrinsic racist ideology which says the racially white people must always be held superior to racially inferior people. This ideology can only be as powerful as the system employed to enforce its operation. The ideology of White Supremacy may possibly be known and maybe even understood worldwide, but I still maintain that there is no global system of enforcement. Now it is perfectly rational for a person of color, someone who falls outside of the racial taxonomy of 'white' to internalize and accept the premises of White Supremacy. There are certainly people who believe themselves to be intrinsically inferior because of their race. As for myself, I reject the very premise of racialism. I see race as a social convention reductive of my humanity which is externally imposed upon me by people who are invested in racial politics. I believe that all humans should be free to select their politics. I select anti-racist politics. But I am aware of the limitations of political struggle.
Michael Fisher wrote: "It is incumbent upon you to elaborate this claim in the cultural, political and economic spheres that you claim are subject to the GSWS." Why? I have made my argument. I judge it sufficient. It is incumbent upon my opponent to challenge the argument and to base that challenge upon sound counter-arguments. In other words, please refrain from debating and stick to moderating.
E.C. wrote: Fish: "E.C. is postulating that either I or the audience know what what certain White Supremacist institutions (two of them) are. I do not." That was not my intention. I believe you correctly challenged Cobb to define the terms he used. However, just as I should not postulate that you know the terms Cobb uses, I probably should not postulate that you do not know the terms Cobb uses either. Until debater A expresses that he does not know the meaning of or is unclear about the use of a word or term debater B used, it would be more reasonable than not for the moderator to assume that debater A knows the meaning. To assume otherwise would make the moderator's job unbearably cumbersome.
Cobb wrote: I will argue that the very specific intrinsic racist premises of White Supremacy, where it exists, must be enforceable to effect real oppression. I will speak to psychological operations, and material operations. I will point to laws that have undermined the very racialist premises of Jim Crow as well as the Harare Accords as a precursor to the new South African Constitution as well as UN documents against racial discrimination as foremost examples of the destruction of specific White Supremacist regimes of control. I will argue that laws of nations and rules of religious discipline exist in opposition to the very specific intrinsic racism of White Supremacy and that these vehicles are the most effective weapons in its defeat. I think Premise #1 is on its last legs after just 3 hours.
Michael Fisher wrote: "But I will accept the definition of 'color' as Fisher has used. So the color part of white supremacy is the racialist 'white'." Once again Bowen is making up things and attributing his creations to me. I have nowhere defined "color". I have made no references to spectral phenomena or other things. I solely have shown that the division of humanity into "white" and "non-white" in and of itself logically can only be the result of a supremacy that defines itself as "white". Thus Bowen does not address the central question: "Does the white race or group exist?" Until now he has operated as if it does exist. But I have not seen a specific yea or nay.
Michael Fisher wrote: "I think Premise #1 is on its last legs after just 3 hours." Wishful thought do not reality make. Go ahead and make your arguments as outlined in 36. I am looking forward into your finally entering the world of empiricism.
Cobb wrote: Apartheid; Apartheid (meaning separate-ness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of racial segregation in South Africa from 1948, and was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in democratic elections in 1994. The rules of Apartheid dictated that people be legally classified into racial groups — the main ones were Black, White, Coloured and Indian — and separated from one another on the basis of legal classification and unequal rights. Blacks legally became citizens of one of ten bantustans (homelands) that were nominally sovereign nations. These black homelands were created out of the territory of Black Reserves founded during the British Empire period — Reserves akin to United States Indian Reservations, Canadian First Nations reserves, or Australian aboriginal reserves. Many Black South Africans, however, never resided in these "homelands." The homeland system disenfranchised black people in "white South Africa"[1] (even if they resided there); their voting rights were restricted to the black homelands, which were economically the least productive areas of the country. Education, medical care, and other public services were segregated, and those available to Black people were of an inferior standard. The black education system within "White South Africa" was designed to prepare blacks for lives as a working-class. There was a deliberate policy in "White South Africa" of making services for black people inferior to those of whites, to try to "encourage" black people to move into the black homelands, hence black people ended up with services inferior to those of whites, Indians and 'coloureds'.
Cobb wrote: Jim Crow; The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965. They mandated "separate but equal" status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were almost always inferior to those provided to white Americans. The Jim Crow period or the Jim Crow era refers to the time during which this practice occurred. The most important laws required that public schools, public places and public transportation, like trains and buses, have separate facilities for whites and blacks. (These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800-66 Black Codes, which had restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans.) State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act; none were in effect at the end of the 1960s. During the Reconstruction period of 1865-76, federal law provided civil rights protection in the South for freedmen—the African-Americans who had formerly been slaves. Reconstruction ended at different dates (the latest 1877), and was followed in each Southern state by Redeemer governments that passed the Jim Crow laws to separate the races. In the Progressive Era the restrictions were formalized, and segregation was extended to the federal government by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. After 1945, the Civil Rights movement gained momentum and used federal courts to attack Jim Crow. The Supreme Court declared legal, or de jure, public school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, and it ended in practice in the 1970s. The court ruling did not stop de facto or informal school segregation, which continued in large cities. President Lyndon B. Johnson, building a coalition of northern Democrats and Republicans, pushed Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which immediately annulled Jim Crow laws that segregated restaurants, hotels and theatres; these facilities (with rare exceptions) immediately dropped racial segregation. The Voting Rights Act ended discrimination in voting for all federal, state and local elections.
Michael Fisher wrote: "Apartheid (meaning separate-ness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of racial segregation in South Africa from 1948, and was dismantled in a series of negotiations from 1990 to 1993, culminating in democratic elections in 1994."i. Request for Clarification: Does Bowen maintain that the System of White Supremacy in South Africa came into existence in 1948 and found its demise in 1994? "The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965." Request for Clarification: Does Bowen maintain that the System of White Supremacy in the United States came into existence in 1876 found its demise in 1965, and during the duration of this System (1876 - 1965) the System of White Supremacy was restricted solely to the "Southern and border states of the United States"?
cnulan wrote: Fisher begins from the sphere of "things" - and asserts that the empirical subject matters are given; Of course, I can cite the mountains of empirical evidence: The fact that all of the institutions of power, of decisive and overwhelming armed force and destruction, of economics, science, learning, propaganda (a/k/a "the media") , entertainment, and even the pornographic industry are dominated and controlled by people who classify themselves as "white". To this point, Cobb has not substantively challenged Fisher's empirical assertions. Cobb is arguing from the sphere of "beliefs" and asserts several as givens. Furthermore I am suggesting that moral systems of law and religion are in greater operation with deeper roots in human behavior than are racial systems, and that human beings act in political ways that are not driven by racial ideology - that in fact the only way to combat that which White Supremacy is, is through the utilization of these greater, deeper systems of human organization, law and religion. By introducing the concept of a "system of enforcement" - Cobb begins to flesh out a tangible assertion subject to counterargument. I will argue that the very specific intrinsic racist premises of White Supremacy, where it exists, must be enforceable to effect real oppression. I will speak to psychological operations, and material operations. It appears that each debater is intent on setting forth his respective frame of reference - prior to engaging the agreed upon argument/counter-argument format in earnest.
Cobb wrote: I maintain that these are two best documented and well-known examples of systems of White Supremacy and that the force of their physical operation was established by law and that they were similarly dismantled by law. I further maintain that they were established by different groups of people working solely within the context of national laws, and not directed by any 'global' system.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen has previously postulated that there were two systems that were examples of white supremacy. How is that apartheid system a system of white supremacy? If Bowen seeks to prove that the System of Racism/White Supremacy was dismantled by the dismantling of racist laws then he must show that these laws were indeed racist in the first place. South Africa's Apartheid laws, however, never made any reference to a "black race" or a "group of blacks" and thus, as codified in and of themselves, can not be identified as "racist". "The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws enacted in the Southern and border states of the United States and enforced between 1876 and 1965. They mandated..."If these "Jim Crow" laws mandated "separate but equal" status for black Americans" they mandated separate but equal status for white Americans. On can not have one without the other. In other words the laws appear to put an equal restraint upon members of both "races". It is thus not possible to identify the existence of a system of white supremacy from looking at these laws. That can only be done if these laws would explicitly state that by law a black man has no rights that a white man is obligated to respect. Or at the very least that by law there are rights that a black man must respect but that a white man must not respect. Bowen, however, maintains that the System of Racism/White Supremacy nonetheless existed in these regions. He can not possibly come to this conclusion from the existence of laws that in the case of South Africa make no reference to black people and in the case of the region of the United States make no reference to the inequality of "black" and "white" groupings. Thus, how does he come to this conclusion in either case?
Michael Fisher wrote: "Fisher begins from the sphere of "things" - and asserts that the empirical subject matters are given;" That is incorrect. The statement cited is my statement that I, at that point, did not intend to make any empirical arguments at all. As I asserted that my opponent would either deny, twist, ignore, misstate or misinterpret empirical evidence - as he has shown to do already. My argument explicitly began with examining the concepts, the language operative in human society. Particularly in the globally accepted international language of business, politics and social life called "English". Thus I at no time asserted anything empirical. The first empirical assertion made in this thread has been made by Bowen when he asserted that Black nationalism was a phenomenon that originated in the 1960s. Which assertion was swiftly demolished.
Cobb wrote: The section on Apartheid explicitly states: "The rules of Apartheid dictated that people be legally classified into racial groups — the main ones were Black, White, Coloured and Indian — and separated from one another on the basis of legal classification and unequal rights." Is Fisher suggesting that there is no mutually exclusive social construction of race in this? The section on Apartheid explicitly states: "The homeland system disenfranchised black people in "white South Africa"[1] (even if they resided there); their voting rights were restricted to the black homelands, which were economically the least productive areas of the country." Does Fisher suggest that this does not qualify as the operation of White Supremacy? I maintain that these are systems of White Supremacy, they are not global, and that they indeed hindered, during their time of operation constituted great threats, perhaps even the greatest threats to the cultural, political and economic advancement of their human victims, designated 'black' under a racial taxonomy. I challenge Fisher to document the existence of a superior example of a system of White Supremacy than these two for the purposes of this debate. If Fisher would maintain that Apartheid and Jim Crow are not systems of White Supremacy, I cannot imagine what he might propose would be an example from which anyone could learn.
Michael Fisher wrote: "The section on Apartheid explicitly states: 'The rules of Apartheid dictated that people be legally classified into racial groups — the main ones were Black, White, Coloured and Indian — and separated from one another on the basis of legal classification and unequal rights.'" Bowen has made reference to rules. He has not cited any rules that make reference to "black people". I assert that it is historically inaccurate that there were any such codified rules identifying a group of people as "black" in South Africa. I certainly agree that the System of Racism/White Supremacy existed in South Africa in the form of apartheid. However, as I have not made that assertion, but Bowen has, it is incumbent upon him to prove his assertion. As of yet, he has not.
E.C. wrote: Just a reminder. We are still using the following definition of 'Global System of White Supremacy': "all thoughts and behaviors that work to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color" By this definition, a single thought or behavior that works (present tense) to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color would be a part of the Global System of White Supremacy.
Michael Fisher wrote: "The homeland system disenfranchised black people in "white South Africa"[1] (even if they resided there); their voting rights were restricted to the black homelands, which were economically the least productive areas of the country." Even assuming that there were codified regulations that identified a group of people as "black", Bowen has not shown that these "black homelands" were indeed not the homelands of these "blacks". Thus no poof for the existence of the system of white supremacy in "apartheid" South Africa has been given. Moreover, the question remains and is yet to be answered by Bowen, whether a system of white supremacy existed in South Africa before the institution of the apartheid laws by Dr. Verwoerd and his National Party in 1948.
Michael Fisher wrote: E.C:. "Just a reminder:." That is certainly understood by me. Bowen, however, apparently has rejected that definition in favor of a definition which is limited to the codification of white supremacy. However, he has not been able too prove that such a codification existed. Not in South Africa and not in the post-bellum South and the border states. Nonetheless he asserts that there was a System Of White Supremacy in existence. How is that possible in light of the fact that no explicit codification to that effect is evident?
E.C. wrote: Gentlemen: I urge you both to consider the fruitfulness of examining whether the institutions described in #39 and #40 need to be examined further in order to prove or disprove premise #1. The debate resolution and premise #1 use present tense language. If you believe that you'll only be able to prove or disprove premise #1 by continuing to analyze the words contained in or the social consequences of 20th Century laws and regulations, then please disregard this comment.
Michael Fisher wrote: E.C:. "I urge you both to consider the fruitfulness of examining whether the institutions described in #39 and #40 need to be examined further in order to prove or disprove premise #1." I do not subscribe to the notion that these institutions need to be examined in order to prove the premise. My commentary in #5 has done so and has done so with sufficient force. Bowen, as is his usual modus operandi has not challenged that proof whatsoever with rational and clear argumentation. Instead he has veered off to two institutions which he maintains (it is not exactly clear which) were white supremacy or a form of white supremacy. However, he has failed to even prove the existence of these institutions as either white supremacy or a form of white supremacy. Ergo, Bowen is not engaged in a debate, he is engaged in making a sting of unfounded assertions.
Cobb wrote: I think that it follows from #48 that Apartheid and Jim Crow would be part of a 'Global System' of White Supremacy, and that any dismantling of them would thus constitute dismantling of the 'Global System' of White Supremacy. I would assert that such a dismantling constitutes disempowerment of the institutions, organizations and individuals. I can accept the agument that the 'Global System' of White Supremacy is perhaps a 'grand philosophy' of White Supremacy. Analagously the 'global system' of Christianity is the overarching philosophy of the Gospel. But I dispute that there is an operational organization which constitutes a centrally managed and organized regime which directs aspects of White Supremacy across nations, languages and historical periods. Not even something as large and well-organized at the Catholic Church could claim all of that for Christianity without schism. I challenge Fisher thus to clarify the size and scope of 'institutions, organizations' hindering black progress and how this 'global system' directs their operation. Over what period of time, under what form of leadership, based upon what documents does this global system perform its duties?
Michael Fisher wrote: I was going to correct "sting of unfounded assertions" to "string of:", but on second thought "sting" is quite appropriate.
Michael Fisher wrote: "I think that it follows from #48 that Apartheid and Jim Crow would be part of a 'Global System' of White Supremacy, and that any dismantling of them would thus constitute dismantling of the 'Global System' of White Supremacy. I would assert that such a dismantling constitutes disempowerment of the institutions, organizations and individuals." Once again Bowen is twisting in the wind. First he asserts that there is no such thing as the Global System of White Supremacy and then he derives his proof that Jim Crow and Apartheid were systems of white supremacy from the existence of the Global System of White Supremacy. The man is certifiably mad.
Cobb wrote: I would also assert that without the historical context of Apartheid and Jim Crow, there are no benchmarks by which anyone can judge the effectiveness of combating the 'present tense' system(s) of White Supremacy. Which is to say if White Supremacy today does not resemble the White Supremacy of the 20th Century of any systems prior, then it would not be useful to regard with any respect the efforts of prior generations of leaders in freedom struggle. I find Fisher's unwillingness to stipulate that Apartheid and Jim Crow were indeed White Supremacist a debate trick and an ahistorical evasion of fact. I will satisfy the burden of establishing this, should the moderators deem it unsatisfied, at a future point. Following CN's point in #24, I will continue my narrative.
E.C. wrote: Fish: Re: #55; "First he asserts that there is no such thing as the Global System of White Supremacy and then he derives his proof that Jim Crow and Apartheid were systems of white supremacy from the existence of the Global System of White Supremacy." If that is indeed what you believe he has done, that doesn't entail that his doing so was a fallacious argument. You could interpret your above quoted summary to mean he asserted the Global System of White Supremacy existed (past tense) and that he asserted the Global System of White Supremacy no longer exists (present tense).
cnulan wrote: That is incorrect. The statement cited is my statement that I, at that point, did not intend to make any empirical arguments at all. As I asserted that my opponent would either deny, twist, ignore, misstate or misinterpret empirical evidence - as he has shown to do already. Without the benefit of Cobb's argument(s), your assertion in 5. was unfounded. Of course, I can cite the mountains of empirical evidence: The fact that all of the institutions of power, of decisive and overwhelming armed force and destruction, of economics, science, learning, propaganda (a/k/a "the media") , entertainment, and even the pornographic industry are dominated and controlled by people who classify themselves as "white".Perhaps you can cite mountains of evidence, but not having done so, you have effectively presented your empirical case as a prima facia "given". My argument explicitly began with examining the concepts, the language operative in human society. Particularly in the globally accepted international language of business, politics and social life called "English". Thus I at no time asserted anything empirical. In that case, Cobb's counterargument beginning at comment 6. is a direct challenge to what you have asserted and I withdraw my moderating comments 11 and 20. please carry on:.,
Michael Fisher wrote: "I challenge Fisher thus to clarify the size and scope of 'institutions, organizations' hindering black progress and how this 'global system' directs their operation." That is easily answered: As to the scope and size, this System of White Supremacy dominates all areas of human activity (and thus all institutions and organizations) directly and indirectly: Economics, Education, Entertainment, Labor, Law, Politics, Religion, Science, Sex, and War." "Over what period of time..," Now. "under what form of leadership" White Supremacy. "based upon what documents does this global system perform its duties?" The global system of Racism/White Supremacy is in no need of codified documents as Bowen has demonstrated himself when he asserted that white supremacy indeed existed during "Jim Crow" and "Apartheid". In neither case were there documents in evidence that codified such white supremacy. In fact, Bowen then derived the existence of these particular systems from the existence of the Global System of White Supremacy as defined in the resolution. I have already delivered my proof in #5. It is up to challenge.
Cobb wrote: One cannot discount the deleterious effects of the irrational premises of racism, specifically those of White Supremacy on the human psyche. Its effects are well known and have been documented in the works of pioneering scholars and researchers like Carter G. Woodson and Kenneth Clark. However the fundamental moral error of racism which underlies White Supremacy is easily identifiable without scholarly research. People basically understand that racism is wrong and have for many generations. This is why White Supremacists have gone to great lengths in order to justify their their theories. Every generation has its slew of crackpots who attempt to 'scientifically' prove the genetic superiority of the so-called white race and various aspects of the inferiority of other so-called races. Like any immoral system, White Supremacy must be taught. By removing the legal apparatus of Jim Crow society, the Civil Rights Movement and laws dealt a death blow to the continuing institutionalization and reinforcement of White Supremacy in America. This did not level the playing field, but it did take away the apparatus for digging more holes in it. As economist Glenn Loury identified, the defeat of Jim Crow was a great legal and moral victory, but like craters in the battlefield long after the war has been decided, all is not even. Many African Americans, perhaps as much as 40% living in America today below middle class status, still live in those craters. I call them ghettos. They are the same segregated areas today, and predominantly African American that they were before the end of the Jim Crow Era. These ghettos, designated in the Jim Crow era to separate African Americans from mainstream American institutions of education, health care, legal representation, government services are often more dysfunctional communities than their distance from quality institutions might suggest. There is also a human cost born in the psyches of ghetto residents. It is for lack of a better term, and yet well understood 'the ghetto mentality', and it is a the significant result of an internalization of the premises of White Supremacy. The underclass of African Americans suffer not only because of the legacy of the material deprivations designed into American Jim Crow, but because they have been psychologically damaged by White Supremacy. I quote from Loury: This sharp contrast between America's lofty ideals, on the one hand, and the seemingly permanent second-class status of the Negroes, on the other, put the onus on the nation's political elite to choose the nobility of their civic creed over the comfort of longstanding social arrangements. Ultimately they did so. Viewed in historic and cross-national perspective, the legal and political transformation of American race relations since World War II represents a remarkable achievement, powerfully confirming the virtue of our political institutions. Official segregation, which some southerners as late as 1960 were saying would live forever, is dead. The caste system of social domination enforced with open violence has been eradicated. Whereas two generations ago most Americans were indifferent or hostile to blacks' demands for equal citizenship rights, now the ideal of equal opportunity is upheld by our laws and universally embraced in our politics. A large and stable black middle class has emerged, and black participation in the economic, political, and cultural life of this country, at every level and in every venue, has expanded impressively. This is good news. In the final years of this traumatic, exhilarating century, it deserves to be celebrated. Today's Race Problem: Nevertheless, as anyone even vaguely aware of the social conditions in contemporary America knows, we still face a "problem of the color line." The dream that race might some day become an insignificant category in our civic life now seems naively utopian. In cities across the country, and in rural areas of the Old South, the situation of the black underclass and, increasingly, of the black lower working classes is bad and getting worse. No well-informed person denies this, though there is debate over what can and should be done about it. Nor do serious people deny that the crime, drug addiction, family breakdown, unemployment, poor school performance, welfare dependency, and general decay in these communities constitute a blight on our society virtually unrivaled in scale and severity by anything to be found elsewhere in the industrial West. What is sometimes denied, but what must be recognized is that this is, indeed, a race problem. The plight of the underclass is not rightly seen as another (albeit severe) instance of economic inequality, American style. These black ghetto dwellers are a people apart, susceptible to stereotyping, stigmatized for their cultural styles, isolated socially, experiencing an internalized sense of helplessness and despair, with limited access to communal networks of mutual assistance. Their purported criminality, sexual profligacy, and intellectual inadequacy are the frequent objects of public derision. In a word, they suffer a pariah status. It should not require enormous powers of perception to see how this degradation relates to the shameful history of black-white race relations in this country. You will note Loury's historically accurate use of the term 'Negro' in representing the cultural and political identity of most African Americans of the pre-Civil Rights & Black Nationalist era.
Michael Fisher wrote: cnulan: "In that case, Cobb's counterargument beginning at comment 6. is a direct challenge to what you have asserted:" #6 was not a challenge it was the announcement of a challenge and a description of how the challege would be carried out. None of which he has done. To wit: "In my counter-argument I will set out to show that the racist system of White Supremacy can be defeated and that African Americans have, do and can continue to progress despite its continuing existence." He has not done so yet. "I will show how the operation of white Supremacy has been curtailed" Again he has not done so yet. In fact, the sole systems of white supremacy he cited have yet to objectively be established as systems of white supremacy by Bow. "and how, despite the lack of a coordinated effort by any identifyable black elite, the fortunes of African Americans continue to rise." Did not do that either. "And finally I will attempt to show how a certain stream of thought, which I call the New Black Nationalism is counter-productive to the progress of African Americans, precisely because of its misunderstanding of White Supremacy and the errors which arise from that misunderstanding. It is within that context - during periods of incremental destruction of White Supremacist operation that thee successful, even thriving nature of African Americans brings opprobrium from those who claim to be their only and best hope. New Black Nationalists are crabs in the barrel." Nope not here either. Bow has neither identified these New Black Nationalists, he has misidentified the origin of the "old Black Nationalists" and not even cited who these "Old Black Nationalists" hailing from the 1960s were. "I will return within the hour." Bowen didn't even do that. He came back two hours later. Obfuscations, misdirections, contradictions, illogic.
E.C. wrote: Gentlemen: I'll be stepping away until 6:00 p.m. PST. I'll not be able to edit comments in this thread until then.
Cobb wrote: #59 is the most numbskull argument I've seen in a long time. Again, ahistorical, unspecific and completely useless in directing any actions of any US Black Elite. If one were to agree to the scope of that assertion, it would be tantamount to assuming a transcendental universal character to White Supremacy. Fisher perverts Decartes. I think, therefore White Supremacy. This underscores yet again my assertion that Fisher's thought process itself is a function of White Supremacy. He is himself a victim of the psychological battle and it has reduced his ability to see beyond his walls of rage. He is a caged bird. He essentially claims that his cage is pervasive, transcendent and universal and cannot even deign to recognize it's specific limits and its specific powers and specific examples of its defeat. He would thus consign us over to an endless battle against an implacable foe with no hope of victory. All he wants is to be permanent general for 'our' side.
Michael Fisher wrote: "By removing the legal apparatus of Jim Crow society," As I said earlier, Bowen bases his whole theory of the demise of white supremacy upon the fact that some "legal apparatus" has been dismantled. Fact is however, that a legal apparatus which asserts the equal treatment of people classified as black (or Negro) and those of people classified as white is not in and of itself indicative of a system of supremacy, either white supremacy, or, for argument's sake black supremacy. Thus if we agree that the system of white supremacy existed during "Jim Crow" (and I certainly do) then the existence of that system must have been predicated upon something else then the legal apparatus which, indeed, mandated "equal" though separate. Thus to argue that the dismantling of this legal apparatus which as codified did not establish white supremacy is, was indeed the dismantling of white supremacy, is on the face of it, fallacious. Moreover, it appears that Bowen maintains that white supremacy did not exist in the regions of the United States not subject to the Jim Crow laws of "separate" and "equal". No White Supremacy in Cali? Further, I am wont to point out that Bowen, again in his usual fashion has neglected to clarify his position vis-a-vis South Africa and the empirical questions raised in this context.
Cobb wrote: Observe this BBC video; [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3104532940730315783] Beginning at minute 6:30, see James Robin's report: "..overwhelmingly he used the power of the state to protect White Supremacy while implementing only cosmetic reforms."
Michael Fisher wrote: Bow: "#59 is the most numbskull argument I've seen in a long time. Again, ahistorical, unspecific and completely useless in directing any actions of any US Black Elite. If one were to agree to the scope of that assertion, it would be tantamount to assuming a transcendental universal character to White Supremacy. Fisher perverts Decartes. I think, therefore White Supremacy. This underscores yet again my assertion that Fisher's thought process itself is a function of White Supremacy. He is himself a victim of the psychological battle and it has reduced his ability to see beyond his walls of rage. He is a caged bird. He essentially claims that his cage is pervasive, transcendent and universal and cannot even deign to recognize it's specific limits and its specific powers and specific examples of its defeat. He would thus consign us over to an endless battle against an implacable foe with no hope of victory. All he wants is to be permanent general for 'our' side." Bowen is as is his modus operandi descending into name calling and irrationality when challenged to deliver objective proof and reasoning, both on the level of concepts and on the level of empiricism. Let's examine what he says paragraph by paragraph: "#59 is the most numbskull argument I've seen in a long time. Again, ahistorical, unspecific and completely useless in directing any actions of any US Black Elite." My argument is based on my #5. How "all" is unspecific Bowen does not explain. Once again, Supremacy is not supreme if is does not encompass "all". And it is certainly not supreme if it is not "global". "If one were to agree to the scope of that assertion, it would be tantamount to assuming a transcendental universal character to White Supremacy. Fisher perverts Decartes. I think, therefore White Supremacy." "transcendental". We are not speaking of the spirit world, but of a human condition. White Supremacy is not infinite. It just is the dominating system running humanity. I am certain that I am a victim of the psychological war that white supremacy imposed upon all people classified as "non-white", I am trying to overcome this by applying the only weapon I have. Logic. The assertion that I operate out of a sense of rage is plainly an assertion. Bowen has yet to prove this assertion. "He essentially claims that his cage is pervasive, transcendent and universal and cannot even deign to recognize it's specific limits and its specific powers and specific examples of its defeat." Since white supremacy has not yet been defeated, specific examples of its defeat can not be supplied. "He would thus consign us over to an endless battle against an implacable foe with no hope of victory." Let me help Bow out here. The SR/WS constantly reacts to the efforts of non-whites to get rid off it. Thus it is continuously refined. If non-white people had no potential power whatsoever they the system would need not be in place in the first place and and if that potential power were not realized on multitude of occasions both large and small, then there would be no need to refine the system to the point of trying to hide it in plain sight. "All he wants is to be permanent general for 'our' side." Again, am assertion without proof. I suggest that Bowen finally get with the program and begin the debate.
Cobb wrote: I do not claim that either the ideas of White Supremacy or the legacy of its operation are eradicated when the legal apparatus that supports it is dismantled. I am merely saying that this constitutes the single most important aspect of guaranteeing black advancement. In #5, Fisher asserts of White Supremacy: "No one group or person can be Supreme unless that group or person is in control everywhere and over everybody. Otherwise it would not be Supremacy. Supremacy means "being supreme". Not "almost supreme" or "somewhat supreme". It is not a question of degree. It just is or it is not." This again underscores his view of White Supremacy as pervasive, transcendent and universal. Basically without limit. If we are to take this assertion to its logical conclusion, either this debate is under the control of Fisher's 'global system of White Supremacy' or that system is not at all supreme. "it is not a question of degree". If indeed this very debate is under the control of White Supremacy, then it makes no sense to have it or heed its perscriptions. Therefore there is no black progress to be made because the 'Global System of White Supremacy' has already pre-ordained the outcome. If on the other hand, as I would argue, that White Supremacy is a flawed ideology with many systemic limits and weaknesses, then there is indeed hope for liberation from its wicked dominion. Those who would sustain that hope would be better served by my thinking on the matter. Fisher is a caged bird.
Cobb wrote: The US Census reports that in 1960 there were 18.8 million African Americans living in this country. In 1990 there were 29.9 million and today the estimate is about 38.7 million. It is generally accepted that a solid 60% of African Americans are middle class. That's 23.2 million. Today there are more African Americans in the middle class then there were total African Americans when I was born. Something defeated White Supremacy. In this same table, you will note that even during the dark days of slavery, sizable percentages of African Americans were indeed free. In 1860 more than 10% of Africans living in America were not slaves. US Census [http://www.census.gov/population/documentation/twps0056/tab01.pdf] I reassert my point in comment #8 with these statements of fact.
Michael Fisher wrote: "..overwhelmingly he used the power of the state to protect White Supremacy while implementing only cosmetic reforms." That is an assertion. It happens to be true, but it is an assertion unsupported by the citation of facts. Ok. Lemme help you out here. I'm going to quote one or two article at length written by a certain Michael Fisher who was one of the two initiators of the mass anti-apartheid student movement after the 1976 Soweto rebellion, and who organized this movement according to the advice and direction of a certain David M. Sibeko. First: "A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress." Section 25 (7) of the Constitution of post-apartheid South Africa. The problem in Zimbabwe today is very simple: There never was a Zimbabwe, not in 1980 and not today. There has only been Rhodesia. The essence of Rhodesia, just as the essence of South Africa, was always the retention of the land in the hands of the whites. The color of the flag, the color of the head of state, the color of parliament, was always secondary. What defined the white Southern African settler states above all was and is the fact that the white settlers settled African land and mean to keep it that way. That's all. This is why, according to the constitution of the "new" South Africa, only "A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913″ is entitled to maybe get their land back. 19 June 1913 being the date, of course, when the theft of 80% of the Africans' land had already been accomplished and codified in the Land Act of 19 June 1913. As the African National Congress' first Secretary-General, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, in his book Native Life in South Africa quoted the British press at the time: "Under the Natives' Land Act, which has brought the matter to a crisis, even the poor fragment of rights in the soil that remains seems doomed. For under the Act the Native is denied the right — except with the quite illusory `approval of the Governor-General' to purchase, hire, or acquire any rights in land from a person other than a Native. Under this provision, the Native whose tenancy expires, or who is evicted from a farm, is legally denied any career except that of a labourer. He cannot own, he cannot hire, he cannot live a free man." Frederick Douglass once said that "Power concedes noting without a Demand". The white settlers of Southern Africa did not agree to a nominally black political superstructure out of the goodness of their hearts. They did so because they could see that they would lose. Losing meant not only losing the property they had stolen, but it meant losing their very lives. The settlers' killing of all these black school kids in Soweto and elsewhere in 1976 obviously had not the effect it used to have on Southern African Black folk. Clearly, ordinary black kids were ready to die. When you're ready to die, you're even more ready to kill. Plain and simple. To put it bluntly, the Pan Africanist Congress' Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA) slogan "One Settler – One Bullet", as rag-tag an outfit as APLA was, became an ever approaching reality. It was only a matter of time – five years, ten, maybe twenty: until the settler constructs of Southern Africa would have been thoroughly destroyed. The Lancaster House Agreement in the case of Rhodesia and the Constitutional Agreements in the case of South Africa were designed solely with one thing in mind: Have a new "Black Elite" guarantee the land status quo for the white settlers, with some minor adjustments, maybe. This guarantee meant that the new Black Elite would have to defend the status quo against their black constituents on behalf of the white settlers. It is an age-old trick and I remember David Sibeko explaining the whole thing to me at length in late 1976 or early 1977. He also knew that putting the ANC in power in South Africa was the key to the whole scheme and that it would happen pretty soon. The 1976 Soweto uprisings and the subsequent reaction of the African Diaspora, much of which he had us organize, had left the white settlers no other choice. Consequently, the beatification of Nelson Mandela as a living, martyred, black saint by the international white media, by the way. Somebody black had to be put in the position to bless this sell-out deal.
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So, Who Really DID Liberate South Africa? "Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality." Malcom X, November 10, 1963. In a recent comment an anonymous commentator asked "So was Libya's support of the ANC (during apartheid) and Qaddaffi's camraderie with imprisoned Mandela a ploy?" I promised to try to answer that question by explaining the history of the ANC a bit. One can not understand the modern African National Congress of South Africa without exploring the history of the South African Communist Party. The ANC was formed in 1912 as a black advocacy organization dominated by the black South African elite, particularly the various African royal Chiefs. The organization did not fight for integration as the NAACP would in the United States since Africans in South Africa understood that the country was owned by African people. After all the British and the Boers (Dutch/French settlers) had just six years earlier, in 1906, defeated the last organized African military resistance against the whites' land grab: the rebellion lead by Zulu Chief Bambatta. The struggle of the Africans in South Africa had always been one to regain their land. Therefore integration into white society was not the goal. In the 1943 a group of young ANC members received the permission and the funds to found an ANC youth branch. The ANC Youth League, established by young activists such as Antone Lembede, Nelson Mandela, and Robert Sobukwe, reiterated and reinforced the traditional policy of the South African liberation movement in its 1944 Manifesto: "The White race, possessing superior military strength and at present having superior organizing skill has arrogated to itself the ownership of the land and invested itself with authority and the right to regard South Africa as a White man's country. This has meant that the African, who owned the land before the advent of the Whites, has been deprived of all security which may guarantee him an independent pursuit of destiny or ensure his leading a free and unhampered life. He has been defeated in the field of battle but refuses to accept this as meaning that he must be oppressed, just to enable the White man to further dominate him." :its creed: "We believe in the divine destiny of nations. The goal of all our struggles is Africanism and our motto is 'AFRICA'S CAUSE MUST TRIUMPH'. We believe that the national liberation of Africans will be achieved by Africans themselves. We reject foreign leadership of Africa. We may borrow useful ideologies from foreign ideologies, but we reject the wholesale implementation of foreign ideologies into Africa. We believe that leadership must be the personification and symbol of popular aspirations and ideals. We believe that practical leadership must be given to capable men, whatever their status in society. We believe in the scientific approach to all African problems. We combat moral disintegration among Africans by maintaining and upholding high ethical standards ourselves. We believe in the unity of all Africans from the Mediterranean Sea in the North to the Indian and Atlantic oceans in the South - and that Africans must speak with one voice." In the meantime: In 1921 The Communist Party of South Africa (SACP) was formed by a collective of mostly privileged white intellectuals and relatively recent arrivals of British and Eastern European Jewish stock. The new organization immediately involved itself in a pivotal historic event, the Rand Revolt. In 1922 South African mining companies of the Witwatersrand region moved to increase cheap black labor in the mines. Tens of thousands of white mine workers went on strike. Rallying around the slogan "Workers of the World Unite to Keep South Africa White!" the white strikers, mostly highly skilled machine tool operators or supervisors of black labor expanded the strike into a full-fledged rebellion. The rebellion was designed to maintain the color bar in the mining industry. The SACP decided to support the white worker's revolt to the hilt. The South African communists were part of a world-wide communist organization, the Communist International, which was headquartered in Moscow. The leadership of the Communist International quickly disabused the SACP of this nonsense and the organization was forced to toe a less chauvinist political line. In 1928 the Communist International held an international congress in Moscow. The congress was run in the form of different committees, not unlike the congressional committees of the US Congress. The committee which dealt with South Africa was the committee on the National Question. Among its most influential members were black American communists such as Harry Haywood. This "National Committee" directed the South African communists to consider the pivotal land question and explained to them that South Africa was a white settler entity based on the expulsion of the "Natives" from their land. In sum, the black American communists, backed by Russian communist allies, ordered the SACP to fight for a "Native Republic", that is, an African-run state. The SACP had sent three delegates to that congress lead by British aristocrat Sidney Bunting, his Baltic Jewish wife Rebecca, and the Boer/English Edward Roux. When Rebecca Bunting heard what the Communist International required them to do she cried out "Why, but the Africans will drive us into the sea!" In 1946 Edward Roux recalled the SACP delegation's horror at the notion of a Black republic: "To Bunting and the great majority of fellow Party members the new slogan came like a bolt from the blue. And to me. when I received the news in England, it was equally startling. Was it not similar, we said, to Marcus Garvey's slogan "Africa for the Africans" which the C P. had always opposed as the exact opposite of internationalism? How could we reconcile such a cry with our steadfast aim and slogan: " Workers of the world, unite!" We, as South African communists, had claimed to represent the aspirations of all workers, black and white; and now we were being asked to go before the masses as a purely black, even, as we saw it, as an anti-white Party. Almost all the white communists were indignant and black communists like Thibedi, who had been trained in the old tradition, equally so." Sydney Bunting protested at the 1928 congress: "As the slogan will certainly be interpreted by the exploited whites,- as it has indeed been interpreted by ourselves (so much so that its defenders [in South Africa] have defended just that interpretation of it) it means that the exploited whites are to become in their turn a subject race, that the Native republic in spirit if not in letter will exclude all whites, and that the land without exception will belong to the Natives:" Well, yes, exactly. You steal my car, I'll come and get it back. Anything wrong with that? Apparently. Well, the SACP made the best of the situation when the three got back to South Africa. They figured out an innovative way to interpret the directive: They started to fight for not just one "Native Republic", but for "Native Republics" (plural) all based on the different African ethnicities and based on where the Africans currently lived. In other words, the South African Communist Party invented the concept of the Bantustans. The SACP leadership need not have worried, however, for time heals all wounds and World War II came around. Blacks were forgotten in favor of the alliance with the colonial powers of the West and the Soviets allowed the SACP to revert to its old policies. In 1950 the SACP was banned in South Africa. The white leadership reconstituted itself as the Congress of Democrats and pursued a "Congress Alliance" with the African National Congress, the Coloured People's Congress, and the South African Indian National Congress. The SACP had sent quite a few of its black members, such as Moses Kotane, into the ANC leadership where they pressed for a reorientation of the traditional Africanist ANC policy, the ultimate implementation of which the SACP stalwarts figured would lead to the realization of the Buntings' now ancient and persistent fear that all of the land without exception would revert to the Africans. The key to the prevention of such a "catastrophe", was to reprogram the ANC. In 1955 in Kliptown, South Africa, the various Congresses (ANC, CPC, IPC, CoD) where brought together by the SACP leadership as the "Congress of the Peoples" and adopted a new programmatic policy, the Kliptown Charter, later to become known as the "Freedom Charter". The charter made short shrift of the notion that South Africa was a country which in its totality consisted of land which had been robbed from the Africans and which should be returned to its original owners. Thus the Kliptown charter declared as its very first principle "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white" Well, sounded great. There was a problem, however. Since all of the land had been stolen from the Africans, most of it within living memory of the oldest among them, how, exactly had the European settlers acquired a right to that land? Or even to a portion to it? If the whites had an equal right to the land, it would be a violation of that right to take it out of their hands and return it to the Africans. That's what you call a conundrum. Well, be that as it may, that pesky "Native Republic" - "South Africa is an African country" thing was dead: or was it?
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South Africa - Land or Toilets?: The adoption of the Kliptown Charter in 1955 and its eventual incorporation into the program of the African National Congress took the question of "who owns the land" permanently off the table for the answer was clear: The land "belonged" to both, those who once had owned it and those who took it by force and formalized that robbery with the Natives Land Act No. 27 of 1913. That act had "legalized" the previous de facto allocation of 87% of the land area of South Africa to the whites and prohibited the sale of any such white-held land to Africans. The Africans were forced off their land en masse and restricted to a few "African reserves" or reservations where it was almost impossible to farm. As a result the Africans were impoverished to the most base levels and, in order to survive, were forced to be available as the cheapest labor possible at the beck and call of white farmers and industry. The reserves (later "Bantustans") functioned as gigantic concentration camps holding this readily available pool of impoverished and cheap black labor. In 1923 the Native Urban Areas Act was enacted as a supplement to the Land Act. It restricted the residence of Africans to the reservations and allowed only the temporary residence of domestic workers in the rest of South Africa. Mind you, these laws were passed before the advent of the system of apartheid which was established in 1948. Upon the adoption of the Kliptown Charter, once the land question was off the table, the ANC was transformed from a movement for the return of the Africans' land to a civil rights organization. The fight now had become one for the rights of Africans to vote within the context of the newly established property system. It had ceased to become a fight to abolish and reverse that newly minted property-system. Thus the whites, thanks to the SACP, were finally safe – should the apartheid regime fall, the white folks had a back-up. That back-up meant that in the future, while the white folks might have to share their toilets, the land would remain safely in their hands. Their property rights would not be questioned. 87% of South Africa would remain in their possession with all the mega farms, mining industries and factories placed on top of that land. The new ANC would see to it.
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The sole reason for the existence of the African liberation movement was the retaking of the land stolen from the Africans. Every other demand, for voting rights, democracy, socialism, capitalism, integration, segregation, whatever, was nothing but a means to the ultimate end: The return of the land to the African. Afrikaans is a Dutch dialect spoken by the descendants of the white Dutch settlers in South Africa. In 1976 African students throughout South Africa rose to oppose the imposition of Afrikaans as a required language in African schools. These students operated under the paradigm of "Black Consciousness", that is, the total rejection of white political leadership and the demand for the return of the Africans' land, for an African education, for African culture, and for African social development. Dozens of African school children were brutally murdered by South African white authorities. The response of Africans in South Africa and in the African Diaspora, especially in the United States, was swift and substantial. The massive reaction of black folk world-wide spelled the beginning of the end of the white South African power structure. It is very important to understand that the overthrow of the South African racist regime was not an accomplishment of the Africans in South Africa alone, but the result of a series of interlocking and coordinated efforts by black folks world-wide. The foci of this campaign was in two countries, South Africa and the United States. Without the resistance of the Africans in South Africa, the African Diaspora in the United States would not have been galvanized. However, it is extremely important to understand this: Without the efforts of the African Diaspora in the United States, the apartheid regime would be in power today still. African American activists and students had, since the early 1970s organized an African Liberation Day, initially led by a broad-based coalition of black political forces under the umbrella of the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC). The ALSC united hundreds of thousands of African-Americans behind its efforts. Their stated goal was the liberation of Africa, that is, the return of the land to the Africans. The Soweto uprisings of 1976 spurred Black student community activists into action. The first thing they did is seek advice from black South African activists. The South Africans who made themselves readily available to these young black people were the members of the Pan Africanist Congress of South Africa (PAC). The PAC folks were everywhere in the black American community. They lived in Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant, in Manhattan's Harlem, in Newark, Cleveland, Washington D.C, Detroit, Watts – one could find them anywhere Black American folk lived. They partied with Black folk, dated Black American women, and were married to Black American men. In short, wherever one went in the Black American community one would stumble over a PAC member. The African National Congress, in contrast, plainly did not exist in the Black American communities. Their members could not be found anywhere - in the Black community, that is. It was thus natural that the youthful Black American student activists would consult with these PAC folk. Asked who to go to, they invariably were pointed to the PAC Foreign Affairs Director, David Sibeko. Thus it developed that everyone, from Kwame Toure, to Min. Farrakhan, to Elombe Brath, Haki Madhubuti, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Andrew Young, Amiri Baraka, to Black Student Unions throughout the country, to the Black Students at Ivy League Universities such as Yale, that is, virtually everyone, consulted with the PAC and David Sibeko before any major moves were made. In effect, the South African liberation movement as it manifested itself in the United States became a child of the PAC. As the African-Americans' activities reached a feverish peak, increasing numbers of white liberal students and youth became attracted to the movement. In 1977, under the guidance of a number of black student activists at Yale University, who, in turn were actively guided in their strategy and tactics by the PAC leadership, an organizational vehicle was created into which the energy of these white students could flow: The Northeast Coalition for the Liberation of Southern Africa (NECLSA). Sister organizations were set up in the Mid-West and the West Coast. These organizations became the umbrella for hundreds of anti-apartheid committees set up on multitudes on campuses throughout the nation. Organized by NECLSA and its sister organizations, hundreds of thousands of American students of all ethnicities were mobilized and demonstrations, sit-ins, and campaigns to divest from any corporations doing business in South Africa were launched everywhere. The young black students who found themselves at the core of and leading these multi-ethnic formations were very much aware that the form of these campaigns were akin to those of the civil rights struggle, but clearly understood that the essence of these campaigns was the return of the African's sovereign title to their land. Thus, for example, they had insisted against great opposition from numerous white activists on retaining the word "Liberation" in the name of these organizations rather than the term "Anti-Apartheid", or, in English, "Anti-Separation". As the South African liberation support activities spread, the folks who advised and thereby led the African National Congress in the United States finally woke up. In keeping with the tradition inaugurated with the adoption of the Kilptown Charter, these people were almost exclusively white and coalesced around the American Committee On Africa (ACOA) led by a white South African, Jennifer Davis, a white American, George Hauser, and a personable white Rutgers alumnus, Joshua Nessen. The ACOA worked in close cooperation with the Communist Party, USA which, in turn, closely consulted with the South African Communist Party which, in turn, ran much of the ANC exile leadership as well as, in the person of SACP head Joe Slovo, the ANC's military organization, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). The whites of the ACOA literally prepared the policy papers, speaking engagements, public relations and media campaigns, organized the transport, money, and even breakfast and dinner for the United States based ANC officials, particularly the late ANC representative at the United Nations, Johnny Makatini. With the infusion of floods of white money, cadre, and leadership, the liberation support movement rapidly changed its political character. Despite all of the efforts of the young black students who had given the movement its organizational form, the Kliptown Charter became the programmatic statement of the movement. Thus the political content of the movement went from "African Liberation" to "Anti-Apartheid", from "Return the Land to the Africans", to "let the Africans Vote". Nonetheless, the movement, while now politically diverted, could not be stopped. By the mid-1980s the pressure on American and European corporations and financial institutions to divest from South Africa became unbearable to the powers behind the apartheid regime. As a result, the racist regime made overtures to their prisoner, Nelson Mandela. The proposal: If Mandela and the ANC were to agree to forgo the return of all of the land which had been taken from the Africans prior to the codification of the Natives Land Act No. 27 of 1913, Mandela would be released, all of the liberation organizations unbanned, and a constitution and government structure would be negotiated which would enable the ANC to, ostensibly, take over the reigns of power. Initially Mandela footsied around a bit, but eventually he agreed to work out a deal along those lines. During a two year period in the early 1990s the agreement was hammered out: The ANC officially relinquished all claims to any land taken from the Africans prior to 1913, formally guaranteed that relinquishment, and agreed that the return of any land taken from the Africans after that date would solely be conducted in accordance with the principle of "willing seller and willing buyer". In other words, if the current white "owner" was willing to sell the land, the Africans would be allowed to buy the land back. Today, in 2007, South Africa remains a white owned country. Less than 20% of the land is owned by Africans and it is among the worst arable land. While a small black elite has formed, landlessness is the outstanding feature among South Africa's blacks. Africans remain subject to appalling living conditions. Unemployment has reached record highs, crime is rampant in the cities, and the whites have withdrawn into gated and guarded suburban fortress communities. Thus as its last act, the white apartheid regime successfully secured the Africans' land for its white constituents. Who is responsible? Nelson Mandela. Without the blessings of Nelson Mandela this ridiculous deal would never have been possible. The whites ended up with the Africans' land and the Africans with the toilets, better say, the contents thereof. Quite a hero:
Cobb wrote: Now I will attack the subsidiary conclusion noting in particular that it makes little distinction in how White Supremacy operates on African Americans of different abilities as demonstrated in Loury's analysis. I maintain that African Americans, in the main the 60% which are middle class are mostly realized in their cultural, political and economic expression. That 'black progress' takes place within the context of class, as well as with regard to various forces of White Supremacy and other forces are *able* to suppress black ambition psychologically or materially. I argue that those Blacks in the middle class with higher class ambitions are those most likely to benefit from any US Black Elite coordination, not the black underclass and working poor. It is not likely to be a US Black Elite which will rescue the black underclass specifically in a battle against White Supremacy from its precarious position, but a broad coalition of Americans who will effect change through positive efforts at charitable relief, educational opportunity and general mainstreaming of them. Those that are not rescued in this manner, may not be rescuable, but their fate will remain better than their 'peers' in other nations as continued net immigration to the US proves.
Michael Fisher wrote: If we are to take this assertion to its logical conclusion, either this debate is under the control of Fisher's 'global system of White Supremacy' or that system is not at all supreme. "it is not a question of degree". The debate is tolerated by the White Supremacists. "If indeed this very debate is under the control of White Supremacy, then it makes no sense to have it or heed its perscriptions." Why? The fact that white supremacy must constantly be refined in order to maintain it, demonstrates that the white supremacists are not all powerful. They are just in control. "Therefore there is no black progress to be made because the 'Global System of White Supremacy' has already pre-ordained the outcome." Again, that is an illogical conclusion. I have maintained that white supremacy controls. I have never asserted that this control can not be broken. Moreover even if the control can not be broken it is a moral imperative that we nevertheless work to break that control and institute a system of justice where no human being is mistreated whatsoever and certainly not mistreated on the basis of color. It stands to reason, that if someone wants to remain in control of another person or a group of persons it would be most ideal if one could deceive that group as to the extent of one's control, because it would make it irrational for the controlled to do anything to break that control. Thus deception becomes the primary weapon of the controller.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen: "I do not claim that either the ideas of White Supremacy or the legacy of its operation are eradicated when the legal apparatus that supports it is dismantled." Bowen has STILL not shown how this legal apparatus supported the particular forms of white supremacy that he cited. Namely Jim Crow and Apartheid. I have now provided Bowen with extensive empirical evidence in regards to the system in Southern Africa both per-1948 and presently. He could at least provide us with some empirical evidence as to his assertions of Jim Crow and Apartheid. Instead, he just skips that step and moves on: "Now I will attack the subsidiary conclusion noting:" I am getting tired of this. Bowen is not debating. He is pontificating. Where are the moderators here?
cnulan wrote: The US Census reports that in 1960 there were 18.8 million African Americans living in this country. In 1990 there were 29.9 million and today the estimate is about 38.7 million. It is generally accepted that a solid 60% of African Americans are middle class. That's 23.2 million. Today there are more African Americans in the middle class then there were total African Americans when I was born.Something defeated White Supremacy. Cobb - has now noted a correlative increase in American Black consumption without establishing "defeat of white supremacy" as the causal factor. Fisher has begun to flesh out the empirical side of his argument.
cnulan wrote: With E.C. out for a while and me about to go pick up a ginormous pizza for me and my peeps - (I absolutely vouch for the fact that stoner supremacy rules in the 26 inch pizza construction game) now may be an auspicious time to break with an eye toward regrouping when E.C. returns to moderating activity at ~8:00pm PST.
Michael Fisher wrote: "The US Census reports that in 1960 there were 18.8 million African Americans living in this country. In 1990 there were 29.9 million and today the estimate is about 38.7 million. It is generally accepted that a solid 60% of African Americans are middle class. That's 23.2 million. Today there are more African Americans in the middle class then there were total African Americans when I was born." The increase in the population of of African-Americans (a term not defined by Bowen) does not evidence the defeat of anything. In fact, under the archaic system of racism/white supremacy in the ante-bellum South and border syayes of the United States, the steady increase of the same population served the interests of white supremacy and that archaic form in particular. Bowen's argument is nonsensical. Moreover he still has not demonstrated how the System of white supremacy was able to exist in the context of a legal code that stipulated that everyone is equal and equally separate. Further, by implication, he has asserted that the non-Jim Crow states of the US were not subject to the system of racism/white supremacy, as he restricted all of his comments to the South and the Border States. I have repeatedly asked for clarifications and received none.
Michael Fisher wrote: "With E.C. out for a while and me about to go pick up a ginormous pizza for me and my peeps:" Deal
Cobb wrote: I would simply conclude from #69 that Fisher advocates a sort of blood and soil racial nationalism. Africa for Africans, China for Chinese, England for English. Each race belongs to their own land, and that there is something fundamentally immoral about 'white' stewardship or ownership of 'black' land. I then ask Fisher to defend the ZanuPF's policy of forcing white landowners to forfeit their properties in Zimbabwe under Mugabe. Is this the model of Africa for Africans he supports? If the basis for the selling out of South Africa by Mandela to a continuing form of White Supremacy (certainly an attenuated from as compared with Apartheid) was that Africans were the aboriginal owners, what kind of land reform would he propose a US Black Elite advocate? His implication is that a revolution for land is the only true and final solution to defeat White Supremacy. Does he advocate a repatriation of African Americans to Africa, or some such revolution here in America? I see the operation of White Supremacist justification for the evils of appropriation. The lands of South Africans were taken by force and treachery and the excuse of White Supremacy was used as a continuing justification as a policy of the state. But the aims of White Supremacy were subservient to the simple evil of greed and exploitation of a weaker people. I don't mean to imply that non-Jim Crow states of the US did not support any forms of white supremacy, rather I suggested that we focus on those two prime examples.
E.C. wrote: Gentlemen: You have shared your arguments concerning premise #1, and to some extent premise #2 and the subsidiary conclusion. I doubt either of you could provide irrefutable arguments that would prove or disprove premise #1. But both of you have provided arguments that would enable the audience to make their own inductions or inferences. You could probably do no better than that for a social phenomenon such as the Global White Supremacist System, as we defined it in the debate's resolution. I suggest that you each consider adopting the following standpoints and moving forward to the normative segment of the resolution's argument. Debating premise #3 and #4, and the conclusion, would enable you to discuss the actions you believe the U.S. Black elite should take, if any. Cobb: The Global White Supremacist System, which is all thoughts and behaviors that work to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color, might exist; however, even if it does, its influence is insubstantial, those whom it influences must allow it to influence them, and it is not the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world. Fisher: The Global White Supremacist System, which is all thoughts and behaviors that work to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color, exists and it is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world.
Michael Fisher wrote: I got so tired of Bow's ruminations that I fell asleep. I've been inspired by Nulan and I'm gonna go and get a pizza for me and my daughter. I'll return after she and I ate the thing.
Michael Fisher wrote: "I would simply conclude from #69 that Fisher advocates a sort of blood and soil racial nationalism. Africa for Africans, China for Chinese, England for English. Each race belongs to their own land, and that there is something fundamentally immoral about 'white' stewardship or ownership of 'black' land." Why is it that when people want to assert the rights to their property and these people are "white" no "racial" "blood and guts" nationalism is asserted, but when the people are "black", their demand for the return of land that was taken from their grandparents is without legitimacy? However, that is besides the point and his bringing that up constitutes continued obfuscation and distraction from the central issue at hand: Bowen made specific assertions about the legal apparatuses that "supported white supremacy" in South Africa from 1948 until 1990 and in the South and the Border states in the United States from 1876 until 1965. In each case he cited specific periods of duration but he has of yet has not proven his assertion that these legal apparatuses (or is it better apparatae) were indeed what he asserted them to be. The necessity for this proof is obvious. Bow's assertion that the dismantlement of these legal apparatuses were the pivotal event which dismantled white supremacy underlies the core of his entire argument. I thus do not agree that the moderators should give Bowen a free pass and let him continue to argue the succeeding premises 3 + 4. He has not established the foundation for the argument of these premises. Moreover, it should be noted that Bow keeps making concessions and modifications in the face of my counter-arguments and does not stand by his pronouncements. However, these concessions and modifications serve only to dance around the issues raised. They are not of deceisive import. Now then. Bowen says as follows: "I don't mean to imply that non-Jim Crow states of the US did not support any forms of white supremacy, rather I suggested that we focus on those two prime examples." If the "non-Jim Crow states" did support any form of white supremacy (which Bowen appears to concede here), and these states were not , by definition ("non-Jim Crow states") burdened by a legal apparatus which Bowen asserts was necessary to maintain the system of white supremacy, how is it that they supported white supremacy without that legal apparatus in place? What Bowen is conceding here is that, indeed, white supremacy can very well operate without a codified legal white supremacist apparatus. Thus bringing his whole house of card to fall. In other words, he delivered the proof that the dismantling of such a legal apparatus (assuming that it indeed existed in a formal way - i.e. black folk have less rights than white folk and it is codified that way) is NOT indicative of the dismantlement of white supremacy.
Cobb wrote: The Boers were indeed blood and soil nationalists. They developed an affinity with the land and laid claim to it. They fought wars over it and subsequent generations accepted it as their birthright. Of course white supremacy can operate without a codified legal aparatus. I have maintained since the beginning that White Supremacy operates psychologically as well as materially. There has been a well-known aphorism about white racism in America that in the South you can get close but not too high, in the North you can get high but not too close. White Supremacy operates differently depending upon the laws and social conventions of the particular system. 'Close' being a psychological barrier and 'High' being a material barrier. That twofold method of operation is more specific than any way that Fisher has described his interpretation of history. What I find annoying about Fisher's method of argument is that he cannot be nailed down about any specific characteristics of his global system. By making it everything, he has not shown at all, any way to distinguish any part of it from another part of it. Given all he has said, there is no logical way one can deduce whether one institution is more or less supportive of White Supremacy than another. He makes no distinction between a car wash that gives discounts on Fridays to white people, or paper bag tests at black social institutions, racist voie dire in jury trials, of pictures of nooses on the internet. For him it is all one giant contiguous monster that changes shape no matter what anyone does. His system is impervious to legal reform because there is always 'some' residual psychological effect or some provable discrimination. Rather than stipulate that the Apartheid and Jim Crow systems were bone fide systems of White Supremacy which have been relegated mostly harmless, he would dodge and suggest that there is still a larger latent force located somewhere within the white race that still holds greater horrors in the future, or somewhere in the past. In other words, there is no objective institution, or specific point in history upon which we can seem to agree where white Supremacy is. I have attempted to narrow the scope and talk about specific instances, and he retreats into 'Now' or some historical document of 1913. I have attempted to exemplify PW Botha as an individual totally invested in White Supremacy who perverted the operation of the nation of South Africa into a reign of terror and he ignores the example. I have attempted to get him to characterize the nature of an instituiton or organization through which the instrumentality and operation of White Supremacy is expressed and he refuses to do so. The only consistent place we can find White Supremacy is in Fisher's mind. It seems to control his worldview and renders him incapable of pointing his finger at anything specific that other people can objectively observe, examine and analyze. How from this he intends to give any prescription for US Black Elites or anyone to combat White Supremacy is completely mysterious. It's like a dog whistle that only he and his political compatriots can hear.
Cobb wrote: re #73. My assertion of material black progress brings into question the certainty that Fisher asserts that any system white supremacy itself is not curtailed or defeated. What I mean to point out is that it was the defeat of the legal apparatus of Jim Crow that was largely responsible for this material black progress and that this was the result of the Civil Rights Movement, a broad national coalition, not by a vanguard of a US Black Elite. I say that black progress is self evident, but am prepared to back that up with census data. But apparently Fisher says that the power of white supremacy is not defeated without some sort of land reform as part of the deal. And so I expect that he is willing to dismiss the psychological and material gains of African Americans I would cite.
Michael Fisher wrote: Once again Bowen is obfuscating. The material progress and comfort of a particular sector of the global black population is not indicative of the defeat of the global system of white supremacy. This would even be the case if all people classified as "black" throughout the globe would make such a progress. If black folks in Atlanta make material progress and those in Detroit do not, does that prove that the system of white supremacy has been defeated? Clearly not. I have said initially that it is the existence of a group of people that classifies itself and functions as "white" and does so regardless of any actions, wishes, and ambitions of those who are classified as "non-white" is, in and off itself proof of the is existence of white supremacy. I have also stated that logically, supremacy can not be supremacy unless it is supreme, which means above all others. Bowen has not delivered a counter-argument whatsoever. Instead he ghas pontificated about a supposed system of white supremacy that he asserted, was in existence in the South and the Border states of the United States from 1876 until 1965 when, according to Bowen, the dismantling of a legal apparatus which he asserted was the central pillar of this white supremacist system, resulted in the abolition of this white supremacist system. Along he way he has merely asserted that this legal apparatus was white supremacist, he did ot even attempt a proof. The same thing with his "examination" of a supposed white supremacist South African apartheid system. No historical context or empirical facts beyond a BBC report that in itsef made solely assertions and delivered no underlying facts for this assertion. To tip it off, Bowen makes a dismissive remark about the 19 June 1913 Native Land Act #27 as "some historical document" when this particular act is codified into the current supposedly non-white supremacist constitution of "post-apartheid" South Africa. ""A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress." Section 25 (7) of the Constitution of post-apartheid South Africa."
Cobb wrote: In #5 Fisher asks rhetorically: So what makes up a white person? What common objective characteristics have a group of people that allows them to define themselves as "white". Skin color? Where does "white " begin, where does it end? What shades of skin color qualify as "white" . Why? Hair texture? Where does hair texture begin and where does it end? Where are the beginnings and end objectively determined? Why these physical attributes? Why not define "race" by diameter, radius, or better even, the depth of people's anuses? Why not postulate a race of three-inch-radius-anus-having folks? How is such a group construct less valid than that of the "white" group construct? White Supremacy is a post-facto justification for crime. As I mentioned before, so-called white people must be instructed to believe that they are the generic beneficiaries of that crime. The physical attributes of skin color are readily available for exploitation and are roughly analogous to ethnicity. It can be done on sight. However for white supremacy to discipline its taxonomy, it must use cultural, political and economic institutions for enforcement. In the US as in South Africa the vague skin color determinations were made law. Thus white supremacists who had already benefited from their crimes enlisted the active or passive support of a potential population by gating them into whiteness, or justified new crimes by gating them out. Anti-discrimination laws passed in the US removed this very powerful tool of White Supremacists. These anti-discrimination laws were passed by nominally white people. That means that the power of white identity politics, the very expectation of White Supremacists had been defeated in those same potential converts. A white US Congress defeated the legality of racial discrimination in housing. White judges in the Jim Crow South, passed laws that disempowered whites. The career of Frank Minis Johnson Jr is instructive in this regard. White Supremacists in the US, specifically Southern Segregationists held the purity of the white race as their highest ideal. The famous Loving vs Virginia court decision rendered unconstitutional their rules on miscegenation. I use these examples to show that white identity can be successfully sublimated and white majorities can be politically motivated to work against the racial identity formation and suasion of White Supremacy. So-called white people can throw off the racial reductions imposed upon them by White Supremacy and act against the interests of White Supremacy. In the context of the American democracy progress against White Supremacy requires the establishment and maintenance of majority political coalitions. These coalitions have demonstrated their ability to disable the institutions, organizations and individuals who support White Supremacy. It is a matter of moral agency that convinces individuals that it is in their own best interests to defeat White Supremacy. This applies to those that White Supremacy would call 'white' as well as those White Supremacy would call 'black'. I will call this ability for individual so-called white people to defy the tenets and operation of White Supremacy 'The John Brown Factor', after that individual I see as one of the greatest examples of an American Christian anti-racist of European descent. I will call the ability to assemble and maintain anti-racist coalitions across lines of racial identity the 'MLK Factor' after that individual I see as one of the greatest examples of an American Christian anti-racist of African descent.
Michael Fisher wrote: I am wondering whether P6 was not correct after all when he stated that any debate with Bowen is fruitless. Bowen makes assertion after assertion without proof whatsoever and appears to believe that a further assertion is a sufficient substitute for a proof that was required by a previous assertion. At this time he should be less concerned about my supposed "making it everything" (which I, incidentally did not), but be concerned about his delivering proofs for his assertions be they in the conceptual or empirical realm. As to Bowen's assertion that I have not delivered specific examples of the operation of white supremacy, I beg to differ. I have provided a lengthy and relatively detailed example based on empirical evidence in comment #69. In contrast, Bowen has provided proof or examples for nothing beyond the assertion that the increase in the "black" population in the US is indicative of the "defeat" of white supremacy. If that is the indicator for such a defeat, then the increase of the black population in the ante-bellum slave south would indicate the dfeat of white supremacy there as well. A preposturous notion.
Cobb wrote: At this point I would ask Fisher to name the political movement or individual he would consider most responsible for the term 'black' as it applies to African Americans. We have not agreed that it is useful to talk about the New Black Nationalists. In the absence of a response I will assume that person to be Carter G. Woodson, and I will characterize his groundbreaking work 'The Miseducation of the Negro' as the basis for the psychological immunization of African Americans from the the racial reductions imposed upon them by the psychological operation of White Supremacy. And so I assert that Woodson, single-handedly stands as the culmination of all prior knowledge of the psychological operation of White Supremacy. Those who have read and understood the import of his book have been able to think their way out of the box that White Supremacists would have African Americans exist in. Woodson thus has created a way to defeat the psychological operation of White Supremacy on the minds of African Americans. I call the ability to defeat the internalization of White Supremacist tenets 'The Woodson Factor'. In general I would call it 'black mental liberation' however we have this issue over the provenance of Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Black Consciousness. I stipulate that Woodson will suffice.
Cobb wrote: Fisher says: "Instead he ghas pontificated about a supposed system of white supremacy that he asserted, was in existence in the South and the Border states of the United States from 1876 until 1965 when, according to Bowen, the dismantling of a legal apparatus which he asserted was the central pillar of this white supremacist system, resulted in the abolition of this white supremacist system. Along he way he has merely asserted that this legal apparatus was white supremacist, he did ot even attempt a proof." I would ask the moderators a question at this point. If I were to simply assert that Jim Crow as I described it and referenced at Wikipedia was indeed a system of White Supremacy, can I ask Fisher to simply deny that assertion, rather than spend time fishing around for something he might find acceptable?
Michael Fisher wrote: "At this point I would ask Fisher to name:" At this point Bowen is not qualified to ask me anything. At this point he still needs to deliver the proofs asked off him. All he did in reference to the Jim Crow laws is describe the striking down of those laws. he has , however, not shown that these laws forced "black" people into a subservient position in any form. To assert, for example, that the legal restriction of both "black" and "white" to marry "interracially" when the codified law punishes both equally, is not proof of the existence of a system of white supremacy and thus the abolition of that law is not proof of the destruction of that same system
Cobb wrote: Fish say: The material progress and comfort of a particular sector of the global black population is not indicative of the defeat of the global system of white supremacy. This would even be the case if all people classified as "black" throughout the globe would make such a progress. If black folks in Atlanta make material progress and those in Detroit do not, does that prove that the system of white supremacy has been defeated? Will you stipulate that the material progress and comfort of any sector of any black population does not imply any defeat of any white supremacy?
Michael Fisher wrote: Now another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in to economic and political power. Now no one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness (That's true) and powerlessness. (So true) Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of the white power structure. The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. Now the problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power, a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change." Martin Luther King, Jr. From "Where Do We Go From Here?" Annual Report Delivered at the 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 16 August 1967. Two years after the supposed "destruction" of "white supremacy in the South and the border states of the US".
Cobb wrote: Fish say: To tip it off, Bowen makes a dismissive remark about the 19 June 1913 Native Land Act #27 as "some historical document" when this particular act is codified into the current supposedly non-white supremacist constitution of "post-apartheid" South Africa. ""A person or community dispossessed of property after 19 June 1913 as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an Act of Parliament, either to restitution of that property or to equitable redress." Section 25 (7) of the Constitution of post-apartheid South Africa." This is essentially a statute of limitations. A statute of limitations is a statute in a common law legal system that sets forth the maximum period of time, after certain events, that legal proceedings based on those events may be initiated. In civil law systems, similar provisions are usually part of the civil code or criminal code and are often known collectively as "periods of prescription" or "prescriptive periods." Statutes of limitations do not, of necessity serve the interests of White Supremacy. They are practical conventions against infinite recourse. They are recognitions that there are limits to what legal and political systems can adjudicate. The South African Black Elite negotiated that settlement. What makes you think a US Black Elite can do any better?
Michael Fisher wrote: An audience member states: "I maintained that the notion of restricting the debate to US Blacks would prove counterproductive." The discussion has not been restricted to US blacks as we have agreed to deal with the global system of white supremacy. Unfortunately, Bowen is restricting himself to US blacks and to white supremacy as it has taken on the form only in a specific region of the United States. His lack of proof is what is not moving the debate along. I am considering dropping out. Everything that had to be said was said. Unless Bowen delivers there is no basis upon which one can discuss his assertions and thus not way one can continue.
Cobb wrote: There is nothing you have indicated here which I see constitutes an agreement that any part of a so-called global system of White Supremacy has been successfully disabled resulting in black progress. You don't concede it in South Africa, you don't concede it in America. You don't think whites have done it. You don't think blacks have done it. And yet you won't stipulate it the other way either. You will not say that if blacks do make material progress that they do so without regard to any part of White Supremacy. So you're essentially arguing that there is no black progress one way or another. And yet you assert that black elites exist and that they are relatively superior to their group, meaning that somehow they actually did make progress. While you resolve what your position is going to be on that, I'll continue.
Michael Fisher wrote: "Statutes of limitations do not, of necessity serve the interests of White Supremacy." According to the African National Congress' first Secretary-General, Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, who favorably quoted the following (see comment #69) this "statue of limitations" certainly did: "Under the Natives' Land Act, which has brought the matter to a crisis, even the poor fragment of rights in the soil that remains seems doomed. For under the Act the Native is denied the right — except with the quite illusory `approval of the Governor-General' to purchase, hire, or acquire any rights in land from a person other than a Native. Under this provision, the Native whose tenancy expires, or who is evicted from a farm, is legally denied any career except that of a labourer. He cannot own, he cannot hire, he cannot live a free man." "The South African Black Elite negotiated that settlement." Did it? I would say not. In any case first you would have to define the "South African Black elite". Who was that what made them the elite? Nelson Mandela a man without material means and without an army? Was Joe Slovo "black"? Did he qualify to be a member of the South African black elite? Once again, an assertion without proof, either empirical or conceptual. "What makes you think a US Black Elite can do any better?" Who said that I think that the US elite can do anything better worse or whatever. The question was not that elite's ability to succeed or not, the question was whether the elite should oppose the global system of white supremacy. Be that as it may, the question is once again an attempt to distract me from the central issues which yet to be resolved and delivered by Bowen: THE MOFO PROOFS!!!
Michael Fisher wrote: "And yet you assert that black elites exist and that they are relatively superior to their group, meaning that somehow they actually did make progress." Bowen. That issue is easily resolved. There existed black elites relative to the masses of blacks slaves during chattel slavery, they even existed within the mass of slaves. There were slave overseers who had power over other slaves which power was given them by their masters. There were the so-called "House Slaves" who ate better and had better accommodations than the masses of slaves. There were the sexual slaves of the masters who slept in the masters' beds at times. There were nominally "free blacks" who indeed were subject to an openly so codified white supremacist legal apparatus. The "free blacks" certainly were "elite". And some of them made substantial material progress. There even were "black" owners of black slaves. Do you want me to back up these assertions with source material? Thus even in an openly and blatant system of white supremacy "black elites" existed. Thus the existence of a black elite does not constitute proof for the demise of the system of white supremacy. Once again Bowen. let me give you a hint. The only way that you can demolish my argument is to demolish my reasoning in #5. All that stuff you are doing: been there done that.
Michael Fisher wrote: It is now 2 AM my time. I am going to retire and continue this tomorrow morning. I sincerely hope that Bowen has delivered the proofs requested by then. Good night everyone.
Michael Fisher wrote: sorry, 1 AM
Cobb wrote: 'night.
Cobb wrote: As Fisher asserts in #5; Since the existence of the social construct "white" means the existence of "white supremacy", and White Supremacy means domination by whites, which dominance by definition can only be over "non-whites", and since that domination is not obtained by consent (no one can be voted into "whiteness"), and since domination can only exist simultaneously with its opposite, subservience, the existence of "whiteness" and thus "white supremacy" will always be an insurmountable obstacle in the way of progress of "non-white" people. As African-Americans are defined as black, they are non-white, and thus subject to the dominance of white and thus subject to white supremacy. Which, by definition is global and systematic. (Otherwise it would not be supreme) Ergo the Global System of White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world. Thus, without the abolition of the System of Racism/White Supremacy there can not be any substantial progress made by the people classified as "African-Americans" or "black" and the people classified as "black" in existence throughout human existence. This is a circular definition. The people classified as 'black' only exist as blacks because SR/WS says they are. People classified as white only exist as whites because SR/WS says they are. The establishment of this circular definition allows Fisher to employ ex post facto racial implications on all human activity so long has he can claim that there are white humans and black humans. Specifically it allows him to define black progress, whose destruction is by definition the primary aim of SR/WS. Therefore it is a foregone conclusion that SR/WS is the primary roadblock to black progress. Since we all accept white supremacy to be evil, it is of course incumbent on moral human beings to combat it, including those defined as white or black - phony racial definitions. I think Fisher is correct. There is no way out of accepting the resolution if the circular logic of #5 is acceptable.
cnulan wrote: Inductive arguments argue from particulars to the whole. Unlike deductive arguments (which argue from the whole to the particular), inductive arguments do not bring conclusions which are logically necessary. Inductive arguments, at best, only bring conclusions which have a high degree of probability. In comment 5. Fisher made his deductive argument in support of the resolution and stipulated empirical particulars as given. Of course, I can cite the mountains of empirical evidence: The fact that all of the institutions of power, of decisive and overwhelming armed force and destruction, of economics, science, learning, propaganda (a/k/a "the media") , entertainment, and even the pornographic industry are dominated and controlled by people who classify themselves as "white". In the opinion of this moderator, by making his fundamental argument Fisher satisfied the basic requirement set forth by E.C. Hopkins in the procedural rules. Both debaters will begin the debate by stating their positions with respect to the debate resolution in a single comment. Neither debater will submit additional comments until the other has submitted his first comment. One debater will argue in order to prove the resolution; the other will argue in order to disprove the resolution. Cobb has not yet presented his own deductive counter argument. He has instead presented an array of inductive objections to Fisher's fundamental argument. In the opinion of this moderator, initially stated in comment 11 and restated in comment 20 - it has been and remains incumbent upon Cobb to make his own fundamental deductive counter argument. From there it would be possible for Cobb and Fisher to debate the merits of empirical particulars as these impact the internal consistency of their respective fundamental positions. No structured debate can proceed until Cobb satisfies the basic procedural rules and sets forth his own deductive counter argument with respect to the debate resolution. Let the record show that even a scrupulously objective and impartial moderator will leave you to your own logical and rhetorical devices if you argue with him instead of arguing with your debate opponent. (see comment 58.) There are no givens!
Michael Fisher wrote: "This is a circular definition: " No so. A circular definition would mean that there is no starting point to the definition or argument. You are quoting the end of a chain of arguments. However, the argument has a starting point. The argument begins with three observations. Those observation are: a. There is a group of humans who define themselves as "white". b. Only that group of people who define themselves as "white" can functionally define who is white. c. There is no biological basis to the collective group or "race" of humans who classify themselves as "white". ergo: (1) Since no one else has the power to classify any human as white other than the group of whites, these whites, in the act of classifying certain humans as white , simultaneously classify those who are not classified as white as non-white. (2) The humans who are not classified as white have no choice about their classification as non-white. (3) Thus the act of classification in and of itself already establishes a power relationship between "white" and "non-white". Now take it from here. Or, alternatively, re-read the entire argument as presented in #5. No circularity argument or definition whatsoever.
cnulan wrote: I would ask the moderators a question at this point. If I were to simply assert that Jim Crow as I described it and referenced at Wikipedia was indeed a system of White Supremacy, can I ask Fisher to simply deny that assertion, rather than spend time fishing around for something he might find acceptable? No you cannot. It is incumbent upon you to assert your own fundamental counterargument with respect to the debate resolution. From there, the two of you can proceed to particulars as these will either amplify or disprove the internal consistency of your respective fundamental positions. Fisher asserted his fundamental position at comment 5. and stands ready to defend it. You have attacked his argument on multiple fronts without ever having presented a fundamental counter argument of your own that Fisher can interrogate. Please comply with the basic procedural rules of this debate.
cnulan wrote: Fisher - you're under no obligation to defend the argument you set forth at comment 5 until such time as Cobb sets forth his own fundamental counter argument with respect to the debate resolution.
Michael Fisher wrote: @cnulan: As to #45 and #58, I do have to make a correction in that comment #45. I did begin with empirical statements, namely the initial three observations (a,) (b), and (c) as repeated in #101. Please accept my apologies.
Michael Fisher wrote: Well, what's done is done.
E.C. wrote: All: I made six deletions in the debate thread per Fisher's request. I edited comments as necessary so they would reflect the new comment numbers.
E.C. wrote: Gentlemen: The resolution has a subsidiary conclusion and a conclusion. Neither debater needs to prove or disprove every premise and the subsidiary conclusion in order to argue for or against the conclusion. For instance, Fisher could take the position that a) premise #1 is true, b) premise #2 is true, and c) the subsidiary conclusion is true. Cobb could take the agnostic position that a) premise #1 cannot be proved sufficiently to convince him it is true yet he is also not convinced that it is not true or that if it were true that the magnitude of the GSWS would be significant enough to make premise #2 sound; b) that premise #2 is untrue; c) and that the subsidiary conclusion is untrue. From this point, both debaters could still move forward to premise #3, premise #4, and the resolution's conclusion, which is, in my opinion, the core of the controversy. Please take another look at #78 and consider whether your time debating today would be best spent focusing on premise #3, premise#4, and the conclusion, after you would have declared standpoints along the lines of the ones I asked you to consider in #78.
Cobb wrote: My head hurts. But today is a new day. The Global System of White Supremacy is a myth. It does not exist as a coordinated, managed or directed system. White Supremacy itself does exist and has existed to various ways. However White Supremacy is not a system, but an ideology. It is a criminal and evil ideology that perverts ordinary human behavior and the operation of ordinary human institutions. There are no systems of white supremacy in the same way that there is no animal called influenza. White supremacy acts like a virus that infects human individuals and institutions and distorts their operation against their purpose. A human infection manifests itself psychologically. An institutional infection operates materially. We may refer to Apartheid a system of White Supremacy, but technically it is not. It is a government and system of law that has been perverted and turned against itself. It has become a host that is exhibiting white supremacist behavior. The victims of that behavior are human beings. As human beings they understand firstly the evil that the infected institution is displaying, and they understand by their very nature that they must resist that evil. It is natural for human beings to do so. Some of the human beings may also be infected with the psychological manifestations of white supremacy. These humans become second order parasites who can thrive during the period of infection. But they never cease being human beings, and they never lose their capacity to act has human beings. That capacity has mearly been attenuated due to the infection. Thus there are no 'black' people and there are no 'white' people. There are merely human beings who have been infected and incapacitated by the influenza of white supremacy.
Cobb wrote: The proposed resolution states that a US Black Elite *could* focus their collective resources in coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy. In the first place, there is no US Black Elite. This is a creation of wishful thinking. People are moral human beings or they are not. Moral people will, in their capacity, naturally do the right thing of their own accord. Human beings are only 'black' to the extent that they are infected with white supremacy or constrained by institutional infections. People *are* not black and they do not *act* black of their own accord. These are just natural reactions to external stimuli. These external stimuli are far to random and complex to typify. But the very premise is ridiculous. When you have a bunch of sick people, you don't take some fraction of the sick people to cure the rest of the sick people. Similarly you cannot take humans who are infected or constrained by white supremacy to be the vanguard against white supremacy. It is only likely to make the situation worse. Furthermore as I stated so-called black people are in a state of reaction to their constraint. The human in them wants to be well. Individuals get well because of their various strengths. These strengths vary widely within human beings. Therefore what it means to be 'black' at any moment is an ever changing quality. The composition of a 'black' elite would be similarly every changing and could not provide any consistent prescription. It is analogous to five blind men in various stages of blindness trying to find a cure for the thing that made them blind. They cannot find it. The infections of white supremacy are to variant to typify, as are the effects of those infections. There is no single way it effects its victims, they therefore cannot be organized into an elite.
Michael Fisher wrote: I have repeatedly insisted that Bowen finally begin the debate. Already in comment 61 I pointed out that he has, as of yet, failed to make the argument that he announced he would make and is required to make according to the debate rules to which both of us agreed. Consequently, I have been continuously been on the defensive as the only argument that has been challenged is the argument that I advanced in #5 in accordance with the rules. The "debate" thus has been lopsided. It now is incumbent upon Bowen to finally make his argument in support of his position which states: "I disagree with the emphasis and scope of the resolution. I find it reductive of the full ambition of African Americans, disrespectful of their capacity and fundamentally reactionary. In fact the very premises from which this racial imperative is derived are counterproductive to the progress of African Americans because at its core it is precisely what racists would have African Americans do, which is to define their life ambitions in terms of race. To accept the primacy of White Supremacy in the world is to submit to it." This means that he must show how the resolution is: (1) reductive of the full ambition of African Americans, (2) disrespectful of the capacity of African Americans (3) fundamentally reactionary (4) a racial imperative and further (5) that this a racial imperative is derived from certain premises. (6) that these certain premises are counterproductive to the progress of African Americans (7) what Bowen means by "racists" (8) That indeed the "racists" would require African Americans to define their life ambitions in terms of race (9) That "8" would be counterproductive to the progress of African Americans (10) That to accept the primacy of White Supremacy in the world is to submit to it... Please note that Bowen in all this has yet to deal with the Global as well as the systemic dimensions of the System of White Supremacy as offered by the Resolution. It would be of great benefit to the debate if Bowen would get at the task at hand as it would clarify what his position is and, above all, what the reasoning is that allowed him to arrive at that position.
Cobb wrote: The proposed resolution states that a US Black Elite *should* focus their collective resources efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy. This would be a mistake of tragic proportions because it fundamentally misunderstands the operation of white supremacy, which is, as I have explained, a perverting and disabling infection. To disempower infected institutions does two negative things. 1. A powerful institution which is made less powerful becomes less able to fulfill its primary mission which is to serve human beings. 2. A powerful institution which has been infected which is made less powerful becomes less able to combat the infection... So the effect of disempowering host institutions of the influenza of white supremacy makes all human beings they serve weaker. This is very easy to understand. Imagine a boycott of a clothing store which has been infected in its operations because it hired a security guard who was infected with white supremacy. Obviously that infected human was impaired in his ordinary function. There is nothing wrong with being a security guard. The proper solution would be to simply relieve the security guard of his position and let the store hire another. But a boycott seeks to punish and disempower the store by economic and cultural means. A successful boycott would direct people away from the store and hurt the store's bottom line. The effect would limit the store's ability to pay for a more highly qualified security guard, and limit the selection of clothing in the store. But imagine if the store itself were infected, that it had rules that perverted the ordinary use of a clothing store, that indeed it had become a clothing store for white supremacists. Certainly a boycott by ordinary humans would not alter the attraction to white supremacists, it would raise the concentration because ordinary people would not patronize the store. This illustrates why the proper course of action in dealing with institutions that are infected with white supremacy is not disempowerment but reform. There is a hugely significant difference between disempowerment and reform. To neglect that difference will exacerbate the infection of white supremacy. Disempowerment is counter-productive. Therefore a US Black Elite should NOT focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy.
Michael Fisher wrote: Noting that Bowen has posted comment 108 and 109 in an apparent effort to comply with the debate rules while I was posting 110, it should be pointed out that Bowen has not argued a single point that he presented as his position vis a vis the resolution in comment #3. Instead #108 and #109 constitute an entirely new declaration of his position as required by the debate rules. This is neither fair, nor reasonable. I submit that if this debate were subject to a win or lose judgment, Bowen would be declared defeated in light of his inability to present a reasoned argument in support of his stated position as bindingly declared in #3. Should the moderators fail to require Bowen to stick to his initial position as posited in #3, I will continue this "debate" but will do so under protest.
E.C. wrote: Fish: "Should the moderators fail to require Bowen to stick to his initial position as posited in #3, I will continue this "debate" but will do so under protest." What aspects of Cobb's position in #3 to you believe he has failed to stick to?
Cobb wrote: 110 helps. You are most kind. Thank you. The resolution is: (1) reductive of the full ambition of African Americans. The resolution suggests that the it is solely the perversions of white supremacy with which they ought to be concerned. It does so out of a presumption that their primary ambitions have indeed be thwarted by the operation of white supremacy. (2) disrespectful of the capacity of African Americans. As human beings, African Americans are self-evidently protective of their own interests and are the best judges of what is good for them. The resolution presumes that African Americans should submit to the prescriptions of a US Black Elite. (3) fundamentally reactionary. The resolution misstates the operation of white supremacy and sets up a revolutionary oppositional stance which pits African Americans against the very institutions that serve them. (4) a racial imperative. The resolution recommends that only blacks can solve the problem of blacks and does not recommend that non-blacks be part of the solution...and further (5) that this a racial imperative is derived from certain premises.
The premise is that institutions which sustain white supremacy sustain it permanently and therefore must be destroyed. (6) that these certain premises are counterproductive to the progress of African Americans.These are the same institutions, like banks, insurance companies, hospitals, etc that serve African Americans in ways they cannot serve themselves. (7) what Bowen means by "racists". Racists are those who initiate and sustain the conditions under which infections of racial and racist ideology can flourish. They are the prime instigators, the Typhoid Marys of efforts to poison and pervert humans and human institutions. They are active, knowledgeable, willful agents of racist ideology. (8) That indeed the "racists" would require African Americans to define their life ambitions in terms of race. Racists seek to dehumanize people and constrain their behavior. By referring to people by race and suggesting that people act according to the interests of a racial group, they reinforce the idea of racial identity. This serves the purpose of constraining the energies of ordinary human beings who, absent racial infections would not bother to consider the effect of race on their life ambitions. (9) That "8" would be counterproductive to the progress of African Americans. African Americans by dint of their historical tenure in the face of racism in America understand that their lives are made less efficient because of the burdens of race. (10) That to accept the primacy of White Supremacy in the world is to submit to it. The operation and existence of White Supremacy is contingent, temporary and distributed, but it is also contagious. It should be isolated, marginalized and tactically attacked. By giving it more credit than it is due, for example, by granting it global systemic status, we end up negotiating with it. Acceptance of its racial roles of 'black' and 'white' give credence to it.
Cobb wrote: I have submitted in this debate yesterday, as an observer correctly pointed out, a framework for my understanding of how I approach the subjects at hand. I recall it being one of the meta-goals of having this debate - people might be able to finally understand what I mean and where I'm coming from. It turned out to be a tiresome and overburdened exercise for my sparring partner who has, in frustration several times, turned to the ref and the crowd and said that I'm not boxing. This morning, therefore I will attempt to work lightly without bringing historical movements or figures into the debate. I have had a head-scratching time trying to figure out why my opponent would not stipulate to what I see as widely understood terms, people and events. Now I get it. I think. I will stick with syllogism and debate trickery. Again, my interpretation of the rules of the debate which allowed us to reference pre-written material by hyperlink was that we should exemplify our arguments with real-world examples.
Cobb wrote: Fish Say: Those observation are: a. There is a group of humans who define themselves as "white". b. Only that group of people who define themselves as "white" can functionally define who is white. c. There is no biological basis to the collective group or "race" of humans who classify themselves as "white". ergo: (1) Since no one else has the power to classify any human as white other than the group of whites, these whites, in the act of classifying certain humans as white , simultaneously classify those who are not classified as white as non-white. (2) The humans who are not classified as white have no choice about their classification as non-white. (3) Thus the act of classification in and of itself already establishes a power relationship between "white" and "non-white". These classifications are false and are only perversions of human identity. They must be maintained by force AND they must be acted on in order to be meaningful. Your characterization (3) may establish a framework for a power relationship but it does not mean that power relationship is acted out. You say in #5: Therefore, the existence of a functional "white race" or "white group" as a sub-division of humanity denotes the existence of a System of Global Racism/White Supremacy. The key word is *functional*. Simply because some human beings arrogate upon themselves various classifications does not make them a functional in the power relationships they define. It's like a group of nerds playing Dungeons and Dragons. They may be able to define and classify themselves into wizards and trolls, but that doesn't denote a system of any standing or power. You have not shown that the mere act of classification is manifests real power, only that it defines a power relationship.
cnulan wrote: Cobb has still not articulated a fundamental deductive counter argument with respect to the core resolution that is comparable to Fisher's arguments at comment 5. For instance, Fisher could take the position that a) premise #1 is true, b) premise #2 is true, and c) the subsidiary conclusion is true. Cobb could take the agnostic position that a) premise #1 cannot be proved sufficiently to convince him it is true yet he is also not convinced that it is not true or that if it were true that the magnitude of the GSWS would be significant enough to make premise #2 sound; b) that premise #2 is untrue; c) and that the subsidiary conclusion is untrue. In my estimation, Fisher took up such positions at comment 5. It is up to Cobb to similarly adopt clearly defined positions relative to the whole of the resolution, its premises, and conclusions - and on that basis make his counterargument(s). Instead of constructing your own systematic counter argument Cobb, all you've done thus far is make disjointed attacks on parts of Fisher's arguments and on unsubstantiated positions that you've imputed to Fisher. I will stick with syllogism and debate trickery. This would be consistent with the stance you adopted from the outset beginning with your introduction of the egregious straw man "New Black Nationalism". As of your last comment 116 this morning, you continue to refuse to state a fundamental position in respect to the resolution, its premises and conclusions.
Cobb wrote: This is wearisome, and no longer fun. But I will be a good sport and obey the rules as best as I can understand them. Once again I say contrary to premise #1, the global system of white supremacy does not exist. White supremacy it is not a global system, white supremacy is a temporary dysfunction in specific and limited national systems. This a disagreement in scope, as stated in comment #3. I also disagree in #109 that a US Black Elite can be organized effectively as premise #3 asserts. Nor do I see any historical evidence that suggests that the very premise of an elite or vanguard has been the basis of black progress. Human beings in the normal course of their lives seek and provide for themselves. This is not a 'black' activity. I disagree in #111 with the resolution's recommendation that a US Black Elite (if it could be assembled and maintained and be effective) should attempt to disempower institutions, organizations or individuals. This oppositional stance is counter-productive. I do not see how my disagreement with the scope and emphasis of the Resolution requires me to argue in the manner that Fisher has done in #5. Nor do I see why I should be restrained from attacking what few substantive points exist in Fisher's #5. I believe that I have, at this point responded to all of the outstanding requirements of the moderators, and of my opponent. I have withdrawn the strawman of New Black Nationalism and questioned the very premise of the global systematic nature of white supremacist ideology. I have characterized the operation of white supremacy as psychological and material, and I have exemplified how three counter-factors have operated to successfully curtail its operation. I have provided evidence that African American material prosperity has increased greatly over the course of several decades without the necessity for the intervention of a US Black Elite as the Resolution proposes. I have shown my fundamental position with respect to the first, second, and third premise as well as with the conclusion. My opponent has questioned whether Apartheid or Jim Crow represent systems of White Supremacy, and he has not stipulated that they are. I have subsequently characterized them as temporary perversions of human institutions under the influence of a white supremacist infection. I believe this furthers my claim that there is no global system of white supremacy, but that it is parasitic and opportunistic in nature without its own body. In support of this understanding of the limits of white supremacy I have identified its hosts as systems of law and religion.
cnulan wrote: I do not see how my disagreement with the scope and emphasis of the Resolution requires me to argue in the manner that Fisher has done in #5. Nor do I see why I should be restrained from attacking what few substantive points exist in Fisher's #5. "One debater will argue in order to prove the resolution; the other will argue in order to disprove the resolution." Is your argument to disprove the resolution pending, or have you now declared yourself incapable of making such an argument because it's not fun and you would rather simply attack Fisher's arguments without ever concisely setting forth an argument of your own?
Michael Fisher wrote: Forgive me. I had, once again, fallen asleep. "Thus there are no 'black' people and there are no 'white' people. There are merely human beings who have been infected and incapacitated by the influenza of white supremacy." If indeed "white supremacy" is an infection, which infection manifests itself as an illness, which has the symptom of humans classifying themselves into "racial" groups, and given that empirical observation shows us that hundreds of millions of humans classify themselves as white and billions of the rest of human are classified as non-white, and since the content of that illness is the Supremacy of those so affected by the infection that they classify themselves white over those that are classified as non-white and the the content of that illness is the subservience of those so affected by the infection that they classify themselves non-white to those that are classified as white, and given that we can show from empirical observation that all of the so infected people function in accordance with this "epidemic", Bowen has thereby proven that all people function in accordance with the values that the "virus" of White Supremacy imparts. Ergo, White Supremacy exists and is a real force in the lives of all human beings.
Michael Fisher wrote: Since the content of the notion "Supremacy" is "supreme", that is "before all others" and Bowen admits that the value system of White Supremacy indeed exists within all human beings that are classified as "white" and "non-white" and that this classification is indicative of the internalization of the virus, then Bowen admits that the White Supremacy is the value system that is "before all other" value systems operating within those human beings classified as white and non-white.
Michael Fisher wrote: In reference to 121: Ergo, White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of non-white people in the U.S. and around the world. As people classified as "black" are not classified as "white" but classified as non-white, then White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of black people in the U.S. and around the world.
Cobb wrote: Fisher offers no empirical evidence to support his assertion that hundreds of millions of humans classify themselves as white, nor that those self-same humans classify others as non-white. Further he does not show that others accept non-white classification. Fisher does not show that this classification of white and non-white is done specifically for the purposes of subjugation. In other words he has not shown that the symptom of racial classification is the exclusive property of white supremacy. Or that it is done for immoral purposes. Simply because people call themselves white and other as non-white does not establish them as a *functional* white race which might operate to the disadvantage of those classified as non-white.
Michael Fisher wrote: Since the value content of the "virus" White Supremacy, by accepted definition is: "all thoughts and behaviors that work to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color" and since empirical observation shows that all human beings organize themselves into systems, institutional or otherwise, and since white supremacy is "supreme", that is "above all others", all systems are organized by all those infected with the "virus" in accordance with the value imparted by that virus, namely white supremacy. Thus white supremacy is systemic. Ergo, Bowen has proven that there is such a thing as a System of White Supremacy.
Michael Fisher wrote: The functionality is contained within the word "supremacy" itself in general and the second part of the definition accepted by both debaters: " to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color"
E.C. wrote: Cobb does not need to disprove everything Fisher stated in #5 in order to disprove the resolution's normative conclusion. The resolution's normative conclusion, as it is embedded in the resolution, is: That the primary group objective of the U.S. Black elite, who are the top 25% wealthiest or most powerful or most prestigious Black U.S. citizens, should be to focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy: In the original post, I restated the resolution's normative conclusion as follows: Conclusion: The U.S. Black elite should focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy. Neither debater needs to prove or disprove premise #1, premise #2, and the subsidiary conclusion as they were stated in the original post. Neither debater needed to address premise #1, premise #2, or the subsidiary conclusion in order to prove or disprove the resolution. Indeed, the debate's winner, if we were going to judge the debate, would be the debater who had convinced or persuaded more than 50% of the audience to hold the belief that the resolution's normative conclusion were true or untrue, not the debater who had persuaded the audience that premise #1, premise #2, and the subsidiary conclusion were true or untrue. Fisher, because he concurred with the resolution in full (comment #2), has made it clear that he supports all the resolution's premises, its subsidiary conclusion, and its conclusion. Proving them all true would make his argument as convincing or persuasive as possible (it would maximize the persuasive force of his normative conclusion). Even so he would not need to prove them all true in order to win the debate. He would only need to convince or persuade more than 50% of the audience that premise #3, premise #4, and the conclusion were true in order to win the debate if it were being judged. Likewise, if Cobb were to disprove all the resolution's premises, the subsidiary conclusion, and its conclusion, his argument would be as convincing or persuasive as possible. However, Cobb would only need to convince or persuade more than 50% of the audience that either premise #3 or premise #4 were untrue, which would make the resolution's conclusion untrue, in order to win the debate if it were being judged. The following excerpt is the only part of Fisher's comment #5 that Cobb would need to disprove in order to convince or persuade more than 50% of the audience that the normative conclusion Fisher is arguing for is untrue: An elite is a "group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status". Thus a "Black elite" is a grouping derives its status in relation to the group it belongs to. The "blacks". Which means that the status and progress of the black elite logically is depended on the condition of the "black" group as a whole. Thus the U.S. Black elite, if it wants to progress, not only could, but must, focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy. That the black elite in addition is morally obligated to do so is a question of one's moral compass. My moral compass tells me to oppose injustice and the mistreatment of human beings. Thus my agreement that the U.S,. Black elite is morally obligated to disempower white supremacy and replace it with a system of justice where the mistreatment of people is anathema and not practiced.
Cobb wrote: re: 121. I do not admit that the value system of white supremacy exists within all human beings that are *classified* as white and non-white. Classification is not indicative of internalization of the value system of white supremacy, rather it is the operation in conscious acceptance of the value system that constitutes internalization. All tribal societies likewise classify themselves as 'the people' and non members of their tribe as 'the others'. Xenophobia is not racism, nor does it establish a functional subjugation. To clarify my statement: "Thus there are no 'black' people and there are no 'white' people. There are merely human beings who have been infected and incapacitated by the influenza of white supremacy." This is incapacity is key it means they are unable or unwilling to transcend their racial identity. This implies a conscious acceptance of the tenets of white supremacy which subjugates their normal human response. Only an opposing desire to transcend that racial identity enables their humanity.
Michael Fisher wrote: "I do not admit that the value system of white supremacy exists within all human beings that are *classified* as white and non-white." Note that I began my proof based on Bowen's notion of White Supremacy as a virus that acts like influenza as follows: "If indeed "white supremacy" is an infection, which infection manifests itself as an illness, which has the symptom of humans classifying themselves into "racial" groups, and given that empirical observation shows us that hundreds of millions of humans classify themselves as white". Therefore by classifying themselves as white these human beings so classified have internalized the values that the white supremacy "virus" imparts. Ergo, they function in accordance with those values, namely: " to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color"
E.C. wrote: There are three positions Cobb could take on premise #1, premise #2, and the subsidiary conclusion: 1) true; 2) untrue; and 3) unknown (or agnostic). However, Cobb must show that either premise #3 or premise #4 is untrue in order to argue that the debate's conclusion is untrue. Fisher must show both premise #3 and premise #4 are true in order to argue the debate's conclusion is true.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen: (a) "These classifications are false and are only perversions of human identity. They must be maintained by force AND they must be acted on in order to be meaningful." (b) "I have subsequently characterized [apartheid and Jim Crow] as temporary perversions of human institutions under the influence of a white supremacist infection." Since the value infection of humans classifying themselves as "white" includes the function, the act of suppressing people that are not infected in such a manner as to classify themselves as white, and since Bowen argues that such a functionality, that is, classification must be "maintained by force", Bowen admits to the imperviousness of those who practice white supremacy to democratic processes. Ergo, Bowen has proven that the notion that white supremacy has been dismantled by democratic process is false. Ergo, the dismantling of any legal apparatuses that purportedly were the primary support of any system of white supremacy did not eradicate the systemic practice of white supremacy.
Michael Fisher wrote: Well, I already showed that these premises are true in #5
Michael Fisher wrote: In any case, to continue. Bowen: White supremacy acts like a virus that infects human individuals. As "White supremacy acts like a virus that infects human individuals" the cure to white supremacy then is to eliminate this virus from those human individuals so infected. That cure would cause them to cease classifying themselves as "white" and thus they would "drop out of the white race", that is, become "non-white". That process logically would have to continue until the last person so infected and self-classified as white (and thus engaged in the suppression of those not classified as white) has been cured.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen: "Since we all accept white supremacy to be evil, it is of course incumbent on moral human beings to combat it:" Here Bowen offers the moral imperative, that is the duty for all human beings to eliminate white supremacy. Since the U.S. black elite are, presumably human beings, Bowen states that it is the moral imperative for the US black elite to "focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy." and that "focusing their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy is morally obligatory for the U.S. Black Elite." Therefore the sole conclusion one can arrive at in accordance to Bowen's reasoning is that: "The U.S. Black elite should focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy." Ego, Bowen agrees with the resolution in toto.
Michael Fisher wrote: Case closed. I believe the debate is over.
Cobb wrote: The subsidiary conclusion: "The Global System of White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world." is false. It presumes to name 'black people around the world' as specific victims. The terms of the Resolution refers to 'black' people by color. It is in the context of skin color that I make the following argument: The proposed global system of white supremacy, were it removed today would have little or no effect on the millions of black-colored people in Africa. The greatest threats to the well-being of black-colored people in Africa are not attributable to a global system of white supremacy. They are: 1. Malaria. 90% of the world's cases of malaria are in Africa. In the last decade, the prevalence of malaria has been escalating at an alarming rate. An estimated 300-500 million cases each year cause 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths, more than 90% of the deaths are in children under 5 years of age in Africa. 2. Infant Mortality
The infant mortality rate in much of sub saharan africa ranges between 62 and 284 per thousand born. There is an average of about 0.1 physicians per 1000 people. In Malawi, there are only 0.011 physicians per 1000 people. The infant mortality rate is 178. 3. HIV/Aids
Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the worst affected region, with an estimated 21.6 to 27.4 million people currently living with HIV. Two million [1.5–3.0 million] of them are children younger than 15 years of age. More than 64% of all people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, as are more than three quarters (76%) of all women living with HIV. In 2005, there were 12.0 million [10.6–13.6 million] AIDS orphans living in sub-Saharan Africa 2005. The greatest threat to the cultural development is the fact of these orphans which has destroyed the communities throughout the region. There are significant political and economic consequences are trickle down effects of the catastrophic health care problems of Africa.
Cobb wrote: Additionally, the greatest destructive force in Africa which affects the political and economic fortunes of black-colored people are not due to the operation of white supremacy, but to arab supremacy and the jihadi threat. The genocide in Sudan is the primary example of this destructive force. In Ethiopia, Somalia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Cote dIvoire & Togo are other radical muslim movements that seek to overturn native rule and overrun black-colored peoples.
Cobb wrote: In 124, Fisher somewhat establishes a case for a 'global system' of white supremacy, merely because of the definition 'all thoughts' which support its racist aim of supremacy. By this definition, a white child cutting in line at the ice cream truck in front of a black child is evidence of the existence of such a system. Such a system does not merit the attention or resources of a black elite of any sort, as human beings will find their way around it. I add this to the basis of which I challenge Premise #4. In addition, and in light of the successes of the Woodson, MLK and John Brown factors, I would assert that the application of a US Black Elite focus in disempowering institutions, organizations and individuals that sustain such weak and ineffective examples of white supremacy would have the reverse of their intended effect and embolden other political actors to oppose their overkill.
Cobb wrote: The primary group objective of the US Black elite, who are the top 25% wealthiest or most powerful or most prestigious Black U.S. citizens, should NOT be to focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy, which is all thoughts and behaviors that work to establish, promote, or sustain the global dominance of people who define themselves as "white" and to suppress the advancement of people whom they define as "non-white" or "black" on the basis of color, because the Global System of White Supremacy is the foremost hindrance to the cultural, political, and economic advancement of Black people in the U.S. and around the world. Reasons: A. There is no such thing as a global system of white supremacy. B. Disempowerment of the institutions, organizations or individuals that sustain white supremacy actually is counter-productive. C. If a truly powerful global system of white supremacy superior to law and religion existed in the world, the resources available to a US Black Elite as defined would be incapable of disempowering it. D. A US Black elite defies effective coordination. E. The cultural, political and economic advancement of Black people around the world is not at risk primarily owing to the of operation White Supremacy. F. African Americans do not require the actions of a black elite in order to find their own advantage and successfully and have increased their material prosperity in spite of all white supremacist action since the 1960s G. The legacies of Woodson, King and Brown are sufficient tools to assist in the defeat of the operation of white supremacy. Q.E.D. I rest my case
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen: #138 The terms of the Resolution refers to 'black' people by color. It is in the context of skin color that I make the following argument:: #108 :there are no 'black' people: If there are no "black" people as far as skin color is concerned then no argument can be made in the context of black skin color. Consequently all argumentation which flows from this very premise which Bowen has denied in #108 is nonsensical. Bowen can not have it both ways.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen: "The legacies of Woodson, King and Brown are sufficient tools to assist in the defeat of the operation of white supremacy." The most contemporary of these these individuals is Martin Luther King Jr. To Wit: Now another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in to economic and political power. Now no one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness (That's true) and powerlessness. (So true) Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of the white power structure. The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. Now the problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power, a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change." Martin Luther King, Jr. From "Where Do We Go From Here?" Annual Report Delivered at the 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 16 August 1967. "From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North,:" Who created the old plantation of the South? White slave masters, White Supremacists operating in an environment of white supremacy. King says that those who created the plantation created the ghetto (":and the ghetto"). He thus posits that white supremacists created the "newer ghettos of the North". Ergo, the legacy of Martin Luther King stated that white supremacy was alive and well in 1967 ("newer ghettos"). The statement that King made here was made in a programatic speech ("Where do we go from here"). The statement thus constitutes a portion of MLK's legacy. Bowen cites the legacy of MLK. Therefore he agrees with MLK. Therefore he agrees that white supremacy exists. White Supremacy is, by definition, "supreme", that is, before all others. Bowen states that White Supremacy is an "evil" and "a crime". White Supremacy is "before all others" Thus white supremacy is an evil and a crime before all other evils and crimes. Bowen states that it is a moral imperative to eradicate evil. Therefore, white supremacy being an evil and a crime before all other evils and crimes, it is a moral imperative that all humans focus their primary activities on eradicating the evil and crime of white supremacy. The US black elite is constituted of human beings. Therefore "the U.S. Black elite should focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy".
Michael Fisher wrote: As I said previously, Bowen having agreed with me that the resolution is true in toto, it would appear that the debate is over.
Michael Fisher wrote: Unless there is anything else, I'll be signing off now. I'll be monitering my e-mail boc for any further comment, though. Thank you, Michael "Muhammad Ali" Fisher.
Cobb wrote: I have nothing further. I think that I have made a clear case against the conclusion and solidly damaged the premises. It's been an adventure.
E.C. wrote: Fisher: "As I said previously, Bowen having agreed with me that the resolution is true in toto, it would appear that the debate is over." Below is Cobb's sentence from #99, in context, that you quoted in #133. This is a circular definition. The people classified as 'black' only exist as blacks because SR/WS says they are. People classified as white only exist as whites because SR/WS says they are. The establishment of this circular definition allows Fisher to employ ex post facto racial implications on all human activity so long has he can claim that there are white humans and black humans. Specifically it allows him to define black progress, whose destruction is by definition the primary aim of SR/WS. Therefore it is a foregone conclusion that SR/WS is the primary roadblock to black progress. Since we all accept white supremacy to be evil, it is of course incumbent on moral human beings to combat it, including those defined as white or black - phony racial definitions. I think Fisher is correct. There is no way out of accepting the resolution if the circular logic of #5 is acceptable. In that comment, it appears as though Cobb was challenging your form of reasoning and wrote that sentence in a passage designed to demonstrate what he believed were the fallacious consequences of what he believed was a mistake in your reasoning. Moreover, even if you were to read his comment out of context, it still would not necessarily indicate that he agreed with the resolution. In the sentence, he explains it is "incumbent on moral human beings to combat it." Stating that moral human beings should combat it (if it is "incumbent" on them, then they have a moral duty to combat it according to the definition of 'incumbent'), however, does not entail Cobb agrees that the resources of the Black elite should be focused on "coordinated efforts to disempower the institutions, organizations, or individuals that sustain the Global System of White Supremacy." The debate's resolution argues the "primary group objective" for the Black elite should be to "focus their collective resources on coordinated efforts to disempower" GSWS.
E.C. wrote: Gentlemen: I'll leave the thread open until 7:00 p.m. PST. At that time I'll lock it down for good.
Michael Fisher wrote: E.C:. "In that comment, it appears as though Cobb was challenging your form of reasoning and wrote that sentence in a passage designed to demonstrate what he believed were the fallacious consequences of what he believed was a mistake in your reasoning." E.C. my final comment "as I said previously, Bowen having agreed with me that the resolution is true in toto" was not based on Bowen's comment in #99 "I think Fisher is correct. There is no way out of accepting the resolution if the circular logic of #5 is acceptable". Instead tt was based on Bowen's reasoning as presented beginning in #108 with references to other comments Bowen made throughout the debate. The conclusion that I arrived at in #141, namely Bowen's agreement that the resolution is indeed true, is based upon a my final chain of arguments beginning in #120, concluding in #133 and , upon consideration of Bowen's subsequent comments in #135 and #138, that conclusion was reinforced in my comments 139, and, in particular, #140.
Cobb wrote: I didn't see anything in Fisher's argument that supported a claim that countered my assertion about the inability of a black elite to be effectively organized (109), or that disempowerment of infected institutions was not counter-productive(111). So I left that alone. My primary tack was that the very concept of a black elite was unsupportable within the debate's scope of an established definition of 'black' as a function of the presence of white supremacist ideology. Furthermore ordinary human agency was sufficient following the three Factor examples (84). It was firstly an attack on the basis for the definition of 'black' and secondly an attack against the elite, and then the definition of the elite/basis for that elite's creation. When I later referenced threats to Africa, I had to describe 'black' in such a way as not to concede the validity of the white supremacist definition. So I used the term black-colored, the implication being that they would be potential targets of white supremacist operation and thus relevant to the scope of discussion. I think (139) is a fair counter but only to the extent that readers of the debate can devine what we mutually stipulated to be true about 'black' people. Note that the usage of color for potential victims of white supremacy (84) is not specifically challenged. In contrast to Fisher's claim in (140) think a close reading of (84) will show that what I exemplified about MLK had nothing to do with his characterization of the nature of white supremacy, but with his ability to establish and maintain broad national political coalitions against racism in general. Specifically done from a Christian framework. This goes against the concept of Black Elite leadership and underscores the ability for individual human beings to be their own change agents.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen: "but with his ability to establish and maintain broad national political coalitions against racism in general." What does this sentence say? First the term "racism" As we can see from the MLK paragraph quoted #140, Martin Luther King, Jr. established and maintained broad national political coalitions against white supremacy. Thus, to MLK "racism" was synonymous with White Supremacy. MLK defined racism as white supremacy. Next. MLK posited that the basic pillar of white supremacy is not democracy but organized violence: "In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard, and finally, the army to call on, all of which are predominantly white." From MLK: "Where do we go from here". Note MLK's emphasis that the armed forces which the "power structure" controls and would call upon to suppress black people "is predominantly white". Bowen agrees that MLK's "ability to establish and maintain broad national political coalitions against racism in general" part of MLK's legacy which is part of an assortment of "sufficient tools to assist in the defeat of the operation of white supremacy". Thus Bowen agrees with MLK. Thus Bowen agrees that racism is white supremacy. Furthermore, in agreeing with MLK, Bowen agrees that basic pillar of white supremacy is not democracy but organized violence and that that organized violence is executed by an armed force that is "predominantly white". Ergo this is another reinforcement of the conclusion that Bowen agrees with the chain of reasoning beginning in comment #120.
Cobb wrote: Bowen agrees that white supremacy is racism, but not all racism is white supremacy. The white supremacy of the Jim Crow south may have been violent but all white supremacy is violent. Bowen agrees with some things about MLK.
Michael Fisher wrote: Bowen's last statement negates nothing I have argued. Good Night all. Looking forward to everyone's comments. Thank you, Michael "Joe Louis" Fisher
E.C. wrote: Dear Gentlemen: It was a pleasure reading your exchanges this weekend. It took more than a little courage to do something novel like this; and I respect that courage. This was the best, most penetrating single blog conversation I've read about the issues you two discussed. I certainly learned a great deal more about your beliefs than I knew before the debate. And, I'm glad we captured this exchange. I'll put up a Post-Debate thread later tonight in order to collect some feedback from the audience about the debate. I believe the moderated weekend blog debate has some serious potential. Yet, I know there are several things that we could have done better with respect to the debate rules and format. I hope this will be the beginning of a series of moderated weekend blog debates in the Black Blogosphere. Thank you for doing this and thank you for allowing Craig and me to participate. This thread is locked. Your friend, E.C. Hopkins
Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president appears to be the spur for this sharp rise in optimism among African Americans. It may also be reflected in an upbeat set of black views on a range of other matters, including race relations, local community satisfaction and expectations for future black progress.
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