← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · kminta
Thread ID: 7734 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-07-01
2003-07-01 02:21 | User Profile
[color=red]Black dissidents like myself are always urging that Blacks (like Rainman) quit blaming Whites for their problems and begin conducting their lives in a responsible fashion. Unfortunately, the message has yet to fully sink in. But slowly, day by day, Blacks are starting to wake up and realize the problems facing the American Negro are internal rather than external. Take Yvonne Bynoe for example. Here is an American Black who probably believed what she was brought up to believe by our Jewish-dominated establishment: that "the White Man be evil an' he tryin' to keep the brother man down." However, she, like me, has freed herself from her brainwashing and now sees things the way they really are. [/color]
A NEW MANDATE FOR BLACK LEADERSHIP
By Yvonne Bynoe
In college I stopped singing, "We Shall Overcome," not because I no longer respected the depth of the song's history and sentiments, but because I felt that nearing the end of the 20th century that Black people should have already overcame. It is still my distinct feeling that although racism is alive and well, the "man" is not the source of all of our problems and we would be better served to recognize that fact. In our communities, the white man does not put graffiti on the walls of buildings, the white man does not urinate in stairwells, the white man does not throw garbage on the streets, the white man does not pour liquor and drugs into our bodies, the white man does not make young Black men shoot guns at each other; the white man does not make Black youth drop out of school and the white man does not make Black teenagers and already poor Black people have Black children. Despite these truths, many within the Black leadership have made careers of making Blacks into victims, leaving us impotent to change our own circumstances. My hope is that in this new millennium Black people will finally overcome.
The main barrier to Black empowerment is Black leadership who rather than inspire proactive, self-reliant behavior have instead continued to brainwash Blacks into thinking that the "man" controls everything. We then believe that we can affect nothing in our own lives and only the benevolence of the great white fathers can alter our fates. Many Black politicians and so-called Black leaders argue that while the "man" may not be directly responsible for the plight of Blacks, government policies, its actions and inaction create ghettos, therefore society should not "blame the victim." Others contend that the circumstances of the ghettos are created by the legacy of slavery that still haunts the psyche of Blacks. Admittedly there is some truth in both viewpoints, yet the wholesale use of these as a rationale for laziness, irresponsibility and plain stupidity is ridiculous. Poverty is not synonymous with ignorance, criminality or sloth; furthermore I am not convinced that Blacks are not capable of doing more to advance themselves even with the backdrop of white supremacy. There are millions of anecdotal examples of poor people overcoming obstacles, including the scorn of narrow-minded Blacks, in order to better themselves and their families.
In the next century it would be really progressive if a Black politician or so-called Black leader would be courageous enough to tell our people the following:
Instead many Black leaders rant exclusively about the evils of white oppression seeming to be afraid to tell our communities that the ills of racism are exacerbated by our own destructive and self-defeating behavior. Such a declaration, if said, would have more to do with pragmatism than with bourgeois values, religious doctrine(s) or morals. In principle victimism is a hollow, useless concept. It makes no sense to know who your foe is, be familiar with many of his deadly tactics and strategies i.e. flooding your neighborhoods with guns and drugs, providing you with sub-standard teachers in sub-standard schools, allowing a lower level of service from landlords, sanitation, fire and police departments in your neighborhoods and still claim that you are a powerless victim when you fail to act affirmatively to avoid your own annihilation. True leadership, rather than placating the masses, should help Black people to help ourselves, transforming us from beggars pleading for equality into warriors who can demand and receive justice, when necessary.
Many in the post-civil rights generation are skeptical and even dismissive of those who represent the old-line civil rights organizations because these leaders seem to be resting on their laurels rather than retiring or fighting the new fights. Frankly it seems that these organizations and their spokespeople are woefully out of touch with the real concern of Black America namely economic security, since they continue to champion symbolic integration-styled goals over more tangible power sharing and wealth-building initiatives. My generation, having sat in the corporate boardrooms, armed with our numerous degrees and stellar credentials, know first-hand that sitting at the table does not guarantee that you are going to eat. Many of us having departed the white bastions are not necessarily bitter, or even anti-white, but we realize that it is time to forget about white acceptance and start paying more attention to our own neighborhoods and businesses so that we are never again dependent on white goodwill. The appeal of rap music and hip-hop culture can be linked, in part to young Blacks wanting to start their own legitimate businesses and reap the monetary rewards of their talents, as dictated by the marketplace. For better or worse seeing multimillionaires Master P and Sean "Puffy Combs" listed in Fortune magazine has showed our youth that people like them can succeed financially in this country. Instead of lamenting the baseness of rap music, progressive Black leadership should be attempting to mentor entrepreneurs like these so that they can grow as responsible citizens and business professionals.
Perhaps the materialistic, bottom line approach of the post- civil rights generation is limited in scope, but "freedom" to a large extent flows from the acquisition and investment of real economic resources. Case in point is the NAACP's recent campaign to force the major television networks to hire more Blacks. For all the time and effort expended on this goal, at best the networks will hire a few hundred people, primarily in New York and California. I argue that Kweisi Mfume's considerable influence and media savvy would have been better served trying to affect the conditions of millions of Black Americans, rather than a visible few. In this light, I honestly believe that the NAACP should have worked on issues like organizing a national boycott to demand more equitable funding to schools in Black communities, convening a symposium to address the best ways to provide Black communities with computer technology (e.g. stores, internet access, training and actual computers) in order to close the existing "digital divide" or setting up regional workshops to teach community activists and organizers how to raise funds and run for political office. Moreover, if the NAACP felt so strongly about Black representation in the entertainment industry, rather than again asking the white man to open the door and let a few of us in, Mfume and his people should have met with investors to either help Bob Johnson improve and expand Black Entertainment Television (BET) or finance a new competing Black-owned cable network.
Unfortunately, anytime that the Black leadership is criticized for its oversights, miscalculations or blatant failures, there is an attempt to silence the commentator by calling him or her a conservative, i.e. Uncle Tom. The conservative label is a smokescreen that marginalizes the dissenter by questioning his/her loyalty to the "race" and in most cases obscures the merits of the criticisms thus discouraging thoughtful public debate of the focal issue. The Black community is not a monolith and as such Blacks truly interested in change should welcome various viewpoints and opinions in order to find solutions to the complex social and economic predicaments affecting Black America. To the already cynical, it seems logical to assume that Black leaders who attempt to suppress opposing positions do so because they are more interested in retaining control, than helping Black folks. Blacks should be wary of Black leaders who endorse a lock-step mentality that does not allow for different ideas or opinions. Although the mission of the NAACP may be out-dated, it is not malevolent. However, Black people would be better served if they got beyond "race" rhetoric and political labels and started analyzing leaders (Black and white) and policy on a case-by-case basis. The best advice my father ever gave me was, " Listen to everyone, take what you can from each and discard the rest."
Independent political thought by our Black leadership may have been useful several years ago when Republican Newt Gingrich and his marauders introduced the Contract with America, with a key tenet being the "Personal Responsibility Act." While the legislation may have had racist undertones, Black leaders automatically damned it in its entirety without first scrutinizing it for any points that could have been modified and used by the Black community. For all practical purposes, Black leaders and politicians should be encouraging Blacks to adopt behavior and practices that would make us more independent of the white power structure. Malcolm X said, "The logic of the oppressed cannot be the logic of the oppressor, if they are searching for liberation." Therefore for Black leaders to justify high rates of illegitimate births, drug use, high school drop-outs and imprisonment within the Black community by saying that whites in this country have the same problems is idiotic since the two groups are not now nor have they ever been similarly situated.
Upon closer examination, the spirit of personal responsibility is not new to the Black community. Without romanticizing the harmful social and economic effects of segregation, at least in the days of Jim Crow, Blacks knew that they could not expect anything from whites and therefore relied on their own efforts. Within Black communities businesses, schools and other neighborhood organizations were established to provide essential services. Moreover fraternal organizations and churches were there to help people in need. Maybe most important, families (in the literal and communal sense) took care of their children. However with the advent of "integration," Blacks abandoned their own entrepreneurial endeavors and institutions for a chance to be included in the white "mainstream." Rather than improve the circumstances of Blacks, it can be strongly argued that today, post-integration Blacks are in a worse position than their segregated forefathers were. The failed dreams of integration have left most Blacks unable to enter the "mainstream" and relegated to desolate communities, with no notion of self-reliance, having become wholly dependent on outside support. Furthermore, Black citizens by and large remain supplicants who must still rely on whites for their financial sustenance. In hindsight, a better and more prudent course would have been for Civil Rights leaders to have pushed for greater mainstream access while also advocating the retention and expansion of Black-owned entities.
Ultimately personally responsibility as a social precept means that adults are deemed capable of making decisions for themselves and living with the consequences of those decisions. Similar to the aphorism "You've got to sleep in the bed that you've made," it is unreasonable to act irresponsibly and then expect the Black community, white liberals or society in general to bail you out. Personal responsibility does not negate giving help or assistance to needy people, but it does negate enabling adults to abdicate their obligations and behave like guileless children. The present " I am not responsible" philosophy advocated by many so-called Black leaders acknowledges that whites are adamant to maintain the status quo, yet in the next breath suggests that Blacks implore these same whites to better our condition. The statistics do not substantiate the efficiency of this long-standing, nonsensical mind-set. At this point in time Blacks comprise of approximately 12% of the population yet they are the majority of those imprisoned in this country; approximately 60% of Black children are now born to unwed mothers (births to Black teenage mothers are still almost twice that of white teenage mothers); college enrollment for Black men is significantly lower than for Black women and whites in general; and in many Black communities the life expectancy for young Black men is less than 25 years old. It would seem logical that once we turned inward and got our collective house in order we would be in a better position to know what we as citizens, families, laborers and taxpayers really want and need from the government. Now we seem to require that the government furnish us with everything and have no ready alternative when we are denied.
Contrary to popular belief, the poor are not content being poor, however the answer to eradicating poverty is not the continuance of piecemeal programs. Throughout the country, there are Black politicians who have been in power from decades, recycling the same old "poverty programs" yet the circumstances of their constituents never radically improves. Furthermore the true beneficiaries of poverty initiatives overwhelmingly seem to be middle class, Black officials and administrators. There is no single job-training program, workfare initiative or food handout that will permanently bring the poor from below the poverty line. If the government, including Black politicians and so-called Black leaders are genuinely interested in empowering the poor, rather than keeping their individual power, they would tackle the problem at its source with bold, innovative efforts in substance abuse prevention housing and education reform. What is clear however is that as long as there is an "underclass" to advocate for and administer poverty programs to, a sector of middle class Black leaders, bureaucrats and political functionaries will remain employed.
I would describe many within my generation, including myself as neither conservatives nor separatists, but independent-thinking pragmatists. The sin qua non of the Civil Rights Movement was equal access, but people perpetually stuck in survival mode are not able to exercise the myriad of options now afforded them. The job of Black politicians and so-called leaders therefore is to formulate strategies and policies that make it possible for Black people to decide their own destinies. Very often however it seems that Black leaders relish their role as the mediator between the "underclass" and the white establishment far too much to relinquish it voluntarily; it is therefore time for the Black community to officially terminate their services.
Lunacy is doing the same thing, the same way, over and over, expecting different results. Therefore in my estimation, it is lunacy after hundreds of years in this country to continue to entreat whites to recognize our intelligence and humanity as a means of gaining admittance to their world. For the post-civil rights generation, our "inclusion" in the white world has unequivocally convinced many of us that white America is not remotely ready to admit and deal with their deep seated prejudices, the prerequisite to real integration. Therefore in this new century, Black leadership has no other purpose but to prepare Black people to be able to interact with whites on our own terms or be in the position to leave them alone.
[url=http://www.urbanthinktank.org/pb03.cfm]http://www.urbanthinktank.org/pb03.cfm[/url]
Copyright é 2000 Yvonne Bynoe
2003-07-01 02:38 | User Profile
**In the next century it would be really progressive if a Black politician or so-called Black leader would be courageous enough to tell our people the following:
Stop abusing drugs and alcohol; and 6. Stop being "crabs in a barrel" and start building businesses together.**
Accomplish 2, 4, and 6 without affirmative action, quotas, or any other minority-only gubbiment goodies.
Now, that's the really hard part.
[SIZE=1]I will say one thing: at least Blacks have suffered some real hardships in this country, unlike those so-called "Hispanics," who for some reason, qualify for almost all of the programs that Blacks do, yet haven't had to endure any of the hardships.[/SIZE]
2003-07-01 04:17 | User Profile
I say no. A negro isn't anything but a negro. Get them out of our country. They blew their chance. No more chances.
A delusional White man's solution to the "minority problem":
2003-07-01 10:37 | User Profile
Originally posted by M1488D@Jun 30 2003, 22:17 * *A delusional White man's solution to the "minority problem":
It is a solution if the following point is added: 7. And do it all someplace else
Many of us having departed the white bastions are not necessarily bitter, or even anti-white, but we realize that it is time to forget about white[sic] acceptance and start paying more attention to our own neighborhoods and businesses so that we are never again dependent on white goodwill.
Although it may be far too late in the day to implement any such schemes as the USA hurtles down Sh*t Creek towards Diversity Falls.
2003-07-03 22:15 | User Profile
*Originally posted by M1488D@Jun 30 2003, 22:17 * ** I say no. A negro isn't anything but a negro. Get them out of our country. They blew their chance. No more chances.
A delusional White man's solution to the "minority problem":
What? You mean you expect blacks to get off their asses and take responsibility for their own well-being? To actually work hard amd make sacrifices so they are all better in the long run? And you want them to do it all without the White man's help?
You must be some sort of racist! You need a good dose of brainwash, erm, diversity education! Yeah, that's it!