Flunking Black Militancy 101

In two different pieces, black bloggers have evinced a startling disdain for the rudiments of black political history. To the point that I feel it necessary to slap some sense into some folks. I'll start with my boy. Kwanzaa? The holiday he defends to the death? Black militancy. NSBE? The organization he was elected National Finance Officer of? Black militancy.

Oh.

Cobb's hanging out in Detroit this weekend if I remember correctly. His wife's high school anniversary is coming up. She went to Cass Technical High School--one of the most prominent high schools in the country. All black now, but black kids were getting rejected from Cass like they had the plague. What stemmed the tide?

You know the answer.

If I knew Ed's backstory (and that of Baltimore) better I think I could run the same game. And of course we all know about McWhorter's dalliance with Affirmative Action.

Slapping around knuckleheads like Steve Cokely is no substitute for thinking long and hard about the triumph and tragedy of black militancy.

Be better.

Comments

[Temple3]

yo son, they don't even know the half...wassup with the brotherhood of sleeping car porters?? that was a serious militant group...planned to have the march on washington twenty years before it actually went down - and most correctly, how y'all gon assume that king wasn't in the militant group - mlk was routinely lambasted by white folks and black church leaders for being radical, too militant and for pushing too far too fast and for using confrontational tactics that didn't do nothing but rile up good white folk and give bad white folk opportunity to beat up on defenseless women and children. by the time '65 rolled around young black folk didn't think he was so militant, but then again, they didn't think a. philip randolph was so militant after he called off the march on washington in the 40's...but they took their conservative asses to work for those defense contractors, didn't they. oh, how soon we forgot...our people suffer from a lack of knowledge...a woeful, deplorable, contemptable, wretched lack of knowledge.

[Temple3]

if this was a battle, it would be ova and KRS would be pullin' the mic outta mcwhorter's grillllle.

[DarkStar]

Wow...
I forgot about the sleeping car porters. Shame on me.

My background:

NY Catholic school for 2 years then go to Baltimore.
Baltimore public schools for the rest of time. I went to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute for high school when I majored in the engineering option my senior year.

In that high school I had algebra, geometry, and trig in the 9th grade. I also took linear algebra, analytic geometry, calculus, mechanical drawing, architectural drawing, "globe valve" drawing, electrical engineering, and thermodynamics.

Blue collar/working class background. My mom and aunts were maids at one time. My family generation, which spans my age to the early 60s, has the span of blue collar to engineers to nurses to teachers.

I don't consider myself elite, or from an elite family, nor does my family see themselves as elite, but I've seen clippings from the Baltimore Afro that states my older generation family was considered elite.

[Cobb]

If there are rules for winning and you apply your talents to those rules, it's bourgie by definition. The end of A. Phillip Randolph's means was wages and benefits. That's bourgie by definition. All of the Civil Rights Movement and the Urban League before it, and the Great Migration and everything post-Civil War is basically bourgeios - all about getting a bigger piece of the American Pie, and not about destroying the enemy.

I'd be happy to see where blacks were even militant against the Klan. Show me that history.

[Cobb]

Both NSBE and Kwanzaa are bourgie. No question about it.

[Temple3]

don't send me to the stacks when you have yet to demonstrate a willingness to go yourself...

as for randolph, the ends may look like that now, but the issues on the plate before the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters were much greater than wages and benefits - and i'm sure that's not a comment you could make at a family gathering without losing your place at the table...you might be sitting with the children if you keep this up.

the porters were precluded from becoming conductors even though they performed the functions. they functioned as railroad serfs forced to pay for materials essential to the job...randolph's work broke racial log jams in white labor unions and led to the elimination of segregation laws in the federal government...if you are now going to argue that his labor to grant access to WORK for black folks was essentially a bourgie exercise, you are stretching the bounds...organizing a labor union in 1925 America was not a bourgie exercise...

ya better get it together before you start talking to the elders. you'll be eating potato chips and baby food for thanksgiving.

[DarkStar]

OK, temple3's last comment was funny. :-)

You forgot to mention eating at the kid's table. :-)

I'd be happy to see where blacks were even militant against the Klan. Show me that history.

The fact is, Blacks for the most part have never been militant by your definition. So attributing much to them, by your definition, is nonsense.

[Cobb]

Precisely.

I don't doubt that unions were violent. There's ample evidence of that. My reading of history would be that basically WW2 saved the US from itself, and the fact that large numbers of blacks served in the Armed Forces forestalled some prior uglies from getting out of hand. No doubt Roosevelt had to soften the entire nation with his social programs lest unions, mafiosi and others on the outs took their gripes to new levels of violence.

Still I cannot see that there were ever blacks who could take their militancy to the streets and win. We'd know all their names. Basically, sustained militancy was out of the question - blacks never put those two together in the same crude ways as other ethnics.

The closest we got was the bogard of Black Studies and BSUs. You could say that the black mafia is academic, and Derrick Bell is the Godfather. Nowadays we all kiss the ring of Don Cornel West. But Larry Summers is playing Bobby Kennedy...

[Temple3]

i detect some folks tryin' to flip the scrip'...

darkstar, that's not my definition (militancy against the klan)...that's cobb's definition...and moreover, it's not my argument (the broader argument of hot air and attribution)...it's your argument...

so, you two can engage one another and begin with a conversation about how mcwhorter is waaaaaaaay off base by locating the epicenter of his discussion in the 1960's rather than in places with long-standing maroons like jamaica or cuba or successful revolutions like haiti (post-revolutionary exclusion is beside the point) or multi-century struggles on the african continent to resist intrusions by europeans...i recognize he may not be aware of this stuff, but his initial point is nonsensical...

so i'll keep my arguments and definitions...you and cobb should stick to yours. i have yet to put forth a nonsensical argument in this space...i'm trying to hang on to that for at least another week. don't mess with my game.

and the illogic of suggesting we would know the names of black folk who took militancy to the streets and won requires some comment...technically, it constitutes what is known as an appeal to ignorance and i know ya luv me too much for that, so i will say...great effort has been expended to eliminate our recollection of past deeds...how much of this conversation was framed in an asinine historical context by j mc? i would argue those names would be the most difficult to find...

my argument does not suggest that black folk could sustain militancy...the die was cast as early as the incorporation of Georgia into the 13 colonies...this move was central to the US war against the Seminoles in Florida and Georgia. Native Americans were not able to sustain their militancy and they were fighting at home...what could be more absurd than suggesting we could play on the road and pull that type of upset...y'all ackin' like i just woke up yesaday. y'all buggin.

[Cobb]

Well I don't know about y'all but I take a great deal of pride in the fact that we are at a point in history where we can say without much contradiction that African Americans are fairly unique in their ability to win great freedoms without armed conflict. To be blunt and foul about it, we outsmarted and therefore outlasted the red man. Ours is a victory of intellect and politics, and consequently our intellect and politics are very much the soul of this nation's claims to democracy.

(Here's the part where you start reciting Premature Autopsies - "If you give me a fair chance I will help you better understand the meaning of democracy" )

That's why I have no compunction in dismissing the achievements of militant subversion. It didn't do the Souix any damned good, so what the hell are the homies of Tupac going to do? What did Johnnie Cochran consider his greatest accomplishment, proving that a so-called militant actually committed no deadly crime.

We all can flunk black militancy and move forward. Beyond the politics of human rights, beyond the politics of civil rights, towards the politics of social power.

[DarkStar]

darkstar, that's not my definition (militancy against the klan)...that's cobb's definition...and moreover, it's not my argument (the broader argument of hot air and attribution)...it's your argument...

I was addressing Cobb.

I take a great deal of pride in the fact that we are at a point in history where we can say without much contradiction that African Americans are fairly unique in their ability to win great freedoms without armed conflict.

No disagreement, but no one ever said otherwise.

[Temple3]

cobb: don't be tryin to hand out "F"'s to the rest of the class...

[Cobb]

i'm not teachin', just preachin.

[tootsie]

Interesting guys no one mention the genesis of the term Militant;the term is a descriptive from people in power desribing powerless people,what about freedom fighter