|
Books by Huey P. Newton
Revolutionary
Suicide /
War Against the Panthers /
Huey P. Newton Reader /
To Die for the People /
The Genius of Huey P. Newton
In Search of Common Ground /
Insights and Poems /
Essays from the Minister of Defense
* * * *
*
The
Acklyn Model Not Sufficient
Or Struggling for Our
Best Interests
Conversations with Herbert,
Jeannette, Jerry, Brisbane
A Post-Katrina Political Discussion
Brisbane: Miriam, Thank you for
including me in the discussion. It is interesting
learning about your history. I like the model that
Acklyn has established. It accomplishes many of the
goals I think are inherent in engaging our youth since it
encourages discussion, engagement, and community cohesion.
You are right on about integration's effect on our sense of and
actual community. Beyond the discussions in classrooms, our
daily interactions within our communities were fractured and in
some instances erased. Now we have to seek out folk
who use to live next door. Our barbershop
opportunities are often lost because many of us choose to use
the shop in our new community.
But even where and when we congregate a
solitary unit, there is so much diversity in how we see
ourselves and our place in the world. Some of us
believe that only by ignoring our past can we move forward. This
has left many of our children ignorant of what it took to get to
live in communities where the garbage is picked up regularly and
where there are a variety of stores on each block and not just
bars and liquor stores.
We need to reconnect in the context of post integration and the
all-consuming need for material wealth. The
discussions have to change to include the real fears our youth
have about employment of any kind, war mongering, and survival
in a country that is committed to fascism. Katrina
may have opening an opportunity for discussion and community
support that will enable everyone to get involved.
I hope that Acklyn's model will be considered by all of us as a
great point of departure because it emphasizes the beauty of who
we are while it allows the hard questions to be looked at in a
universal setting. Of course, the good food helps. After
all, we are Africans.
Rudy: Brisbane,
to summarize your previous comments: your political
activism did not have the desired impact you would
have liked on all your children, now young adults, that
more or less their sentiments are lethargic with
regard to strong convictions and commitments to economical and
political changes with regard to the poor at home and abroad,
that they are very much a part of the acquisitive, now
generation.
I am not surprised, though I am as
disappointed as you. Much of the blame I must lay at the feet of
our generation. As the old folks used to say, no need to cry
over spilled milk.
We must go forward. Of course, we should
avoid the mistakes of the past, if we are really able to
identify them. It still might not be too late to move the agenda
forward, to correct, to revive the desired activism. You think
now the Acklyn Model as one place to begin. Acklyn should indeed
do what he does. It is worthwhile activity and it pays
dividends.
I am partially the product of such activity.
I suspect it has something to do with Caribbean or European
educational models rather than American ones. Like the British
or French tutor model, actually it is an aristocratic model. But
it is indeed very middle-class, classical education, one with
breadth and depth—music, the arts, theater, museum; history,
literature, philosophy—a true liberal arts education, now
rare.
My Acklyn was from Haiti. His name was Max
Wilson. He studied at Yale and later at the University of
Berlin. His wife was German. And he spoke four or five
languages. I met him first as an undergraduate at Morgan. Later
he sat in Locke's chair at Howard.
Between those periods, we worked together,
one-on-one, through a program at Morgan called University
Without Walls. Wilson wanted me to have a classical education,
with breadth and depth—opera, ballet, the symphony, museums;
Russian, French, Spanish literatures and philosophies. It was
not just an academic relationship. The formality of the program
fell away. We became friends. Max
Wilson. became what we now call a "mentor." I was
invited to his house, numerous times, ate at his table. I was
almost a member of his family. Many subtle attitudes and views
and approaches to life were picked up.
That model and association was continued with
the Meijers, a Jewish family, originally from the Netherlands,
who escaped the Nazis and came to America in the 50s. They
eventually settled in that upper 16th Street area called
"The Gold Coast." When they first moved in, whites
were moving out and prospering blacks were moving in. They sent
their kids to school with black kids. They did not have the
fears of the American whites and so they got a good buy like
many who took advantage of white flight. They lived on one of
the flower-named streets, not too far from where Acklyn invites
his students
The summer of 78, Dr.
Wilson made a request on my behalf. I was short a French class
and unable to receive my undergraduate degree in English, at
College Park. I was living in Baltimore, no resources. Though an
older student, about 30, the Meijers took me in. I stayed past
the summer course, and the receipt of my degree. It was
wonderful. I did not want to leave and I stayed on into my fall
semester of graduate school. They finally nudged me out. It was
a very rewarding experience.
Indeed, the Meijers must be applauded for
their caring and generosity, as we must applaud Acklyn with
regard to his students. They deserve deep appreciation. All that
is very comforting and supporting. And young people need
that—and our understanding. And if we who know and are blessed
don’t do that who will?
All this desirable and valuable support of
youth certainly had nothing to do with political indoctrination,
nor anything that resembled a political education geared to the
liberation of the poor and thus ourselves (or we self). If
everything is political, well, we learned to appreciate petty
bourgeois taste and manners. Maybe, I overstate the case. There
were indeed a few political discussions I remember.
Wilson was a refugee. He could not go home to Haiti for fear of
Papa Doc and his voodoo henchmen. He warned me about the
intellectual ravages of norisme, “blackness.” Mme
Meijer, professor of French at UMCP, also brought up several
political topics. I felt somewhat on the spot. Before the Hymie-incident,
she asked me about Jesse Jackson, a black leader I’ve never
cared for, though impressed by his linguistic skills. At that
time Jesse was soliciting money for his education campaign in
which blacks were blamed for their shortcomings. I told her I
thought he was a scoundrel. Whether she wasted her money on his
campaign, I cannot say.
While driving on Georgia Avenue, one day,
Mme. Meijer asked me why blacks burned Jewish stores after
King’s assassination.. It made me uneasy. I don’t recall how
I slid out of that one. Maybe it was an answer like, they were
accessible. The more moving political tale was about her flight
from Hitler, her parents’ death, and her rejection of the
several thousands of dollars of reparation money offered her by
the German government. I was impressed by this act of tossing
blood money back at the feet of the oppressor.
But all that was a hit and miss kind of
political education. The Acklyn Model
is not sufficient.
Miriam: Rudy, it was so instructive
learning about your intellectual formation by the three people—one
Haitian, two Jewish—who
mentored you. I, too, was blessed by parents, caring
teachers, and an extended family—blessing
that too few of our young people in bullet-marked tenements
where drive-by shootings are a daily occurrence, have. I
grant you that the Acklyn Model may be a middle-class, elitist
response to some of the problems, but you can't argue with the
results.
He has nurtured a generation of politically
active students. Did you know that Stephanie, the singer,
spent a year in Jamaica working with the poor in Trench Town or
that Susie, who helped served the food, has started a shelter
for homeless women and children? What would you suggest
instead? I think and work concretely, pragmatically, and I
think with my guts, so I'm going to do what I can with that
model at least until something better comes along. . . . And
look how good you turned out! You could have still been
down in Virginia country (smile).
Jerry: Rudy, I went to my home in New
Orleans for the first time since August 28 on Wednesday. I
must confess I was very, very lucky. The roof is intact
and not leaking; none of the 24 windows had any damage (and they
were not boarded up). There was about 3-4 inches of water
in the house, so all the flooring and rugs must be replaced
along with the refrigerator; other furnishings can be restored,
but some of my books and papers got soaked beyond rescue.
Fortunately, my Tom Dent and Lance Jeffers manuscripts and
letters were not damaged nor were some business documents. I did
not have time to visit Dillard, because removing carpeting and
trying to rescue items from the mold consumed a lot of time. Workers
are clearing debris on campus.
I suspect we might discover interesting
parallels between Nero's infamous burning and rebuilding of Rome
and what some "leader(s)" will do by way of
reconstructing New Orleans. As you've said it is a
delicate and troubling problem. When Nagin dismisses 3000
workers who will staff agencies, pick up and dispose of trash
and garbage, and keep the infrastructure of the city running?
I suspect the city was near-broke when Nagin took office. Now it
has zero revenue. Those of us who really want to live in
New Orleans can't wait for government doles and construction
teams that may never appear.
We have to do as much as we can for
ourselves. Self-help and helping one's neighbors throughout the
city ought to be the grassroots theme for this year and 2006.
And if we are wise, we will ask the impossible: that any person
running for office in 2006 provide documented proof that she or
he can deliver something substantive rather than hot air dreams
that belong in coffins. It will be better for the
underprivileged to struggle in their own best interests and make
errors that are instructive than to blindly accept another slate
of corrupt people with vague ideas and little skill in analyzing
problems and promoting pragmatic strategies.
Rudy: it's wonderful there's
possibility for recovery. Of course, your losses are sad. I hope
you have insurance that will help you in the recovery. I suppose
there will be no check from Dillard until the January semester
begins at Tulane. I hope that some FEMA or government funds will
be available for citizen restoration.
In any event, it is encouraging and a good
sign that you and your neighbors are committed to remaining in
New Orleans, only such attitudes promise a new and more humane
city for all citizens. If consciousness has not been raised
sufficiently by the horrors, the loss, the absence of the lives
of those lost, those most capable and knowledgeable should be
about doing so.
Politics as usual can no longer be tolerated.
I've heard that the brother running a clinic in Algiers is doing
good work, from the ground up. And Curtis Muhammad of CLU and
other connected groups are doing political work and speaking
across the country to inform and gain support from folks
around the country, that is, to make recovery in New Orleans a
national issue. Isolation, I agree, must be avoided. Eric Mann's
outline also seems to be a helpful document.
Of course, honesty and a full commitment
to the people are necessary to move forward intelligently. Being
fully informed what the wise guys are planning and plotting,
that too will be a necessity. So it is indeed a good sign there
is a Strategy Central. But organizing on a neighborhood, small
group, or guild level will also be necessary to put our own wise
guys in check. A communication network and strategy will also be
required, and not just by Strategy Center.
I do not think in this new world we can leave
it to others to care for things political for us. There will
always be mountebanks, scoundrels, and demagogues whenever
there's money involved. Cronyism, the old racial discriminatory
methods, the good buddy system were not washed away by the
flood. They held on, waiting for this very lucrative
opportunity.
In any event, this is a new frontier, with
new possibilities and opportunities for all. What will be key to
power (a subject in which we should clear our heads) is,
what I now dub The JW Maxim,
Better for the underprivileged
to struggle in their own best interests. Without
this approach, matters political will be politics as usual.
Black folks and their allies need a new politics to remake New
Orleans an opportunity for all, to prevent misery and
another human tragedy.
There is a need to organize outside the
traditional party structure of Democrat and Republican. There is
a need for a party that will commit itself first and foremost to
the "underprivileged." That must be its MO, to
liberate the poor. Every decision and action will flow from this
mindset. Though it is a black party, it will be open to all
races, to all who are willing to accept that the black poor is
our most vulnerable population and their safety and prosperity
assure the prosperity and safety of us all.
Now, I admit I am not a professional
politician. I have no degree in this field of study. I am
however able to think outside the sweatbox in which we find
ourselves. I am able to think beyond that 4 x 6 room Huey calls
the soul breaker, its blue walls, its red rubber floor, that
white hole in the floor. I think that we can, as Huey (the
Nietzschean) in Revolutionary
Suicide points out, will ourselves to power,
will ourselves free.
That white power should rule and always win
is not that which is inherent in existence. In the absence of
expertness in politics and the politics of liberation, I think
we are intelligent enough to induce what is required to develop
an independent black political party, locally, regionally,
nationally.
Electoral politics can no longer be first and
foremost on our agenda. The only candidates we can afford to
support in that aspect of the struggle are ones outside the
Democrat and Republican parties. They must be independent
candidates ready to sign onto the defense of the black poor, and
do so in the open public, assertively. No half-stepping can be
allowed in this new political awakening.
We can’t be playing around with so much at
stake—our very lives. I’m not about any kind of preconceived
ideology, philosophy, or structure. I’m afraid this will be a
political movement that will have to be figured out in its
particulars as we go. What primarily is required is commitment
and a clear-headed agenda.
Necessity has set forth other parameters.
Those from the middle classes (the learned, the skilled, the
specialists, etc.) must organize this black party on behalf of
the black poor. They must provide this party with the necessary
resources and commitment in order for it to survive and move
forward. This commitment, of course, will be a betrayal to some
of one’s class self-interests.
For instance, if it is a question of
emphasis, a black party must come down first and foremost for
higher wages for the poor than another piece of legislation for
black entrepreneurs. Or if it’s a question of Affirmative
Action and health care for the poor; your kid will have to go to
a black school. People are not poor inherently; they are poor
because they do not have access to sufficient resources, cut off
by the powerful, by force and deceit. All must move first toward
improving the material conditions of the poor.
Such a national movement would get a great
boost in consciousness raising and activity if there were a
Belafonte-Glover presidential race, on the ticket of a black
independent national political party. Their issues would be
those I’ve sketched out above. They, of course, must make a
sacred commitment not to sell out to the Democrats and
Republicans. This national activity would further accelerate
black political activity on local levels and among the black
poor. Only if this approach is adopted will I have full hope of
black liberation in America.
Herbert: Rudy, our conversation of
last night has sparked me to read Revolutionary
Suicide. Its not a bad read so far,
but far from what I would consider a seminal text. By
the way, do you know anything about who assisted Huey in writing
this text? Also, do you know who edited this work? It
might surprise you. I'll have more to say when I
finished the reading. I am working a few hours today
in Afram so I hope to read as much as possible.
One of the things I like about you Rudy, you do make me think.
Oh, this text has been informed by Huey's life experiences,
without question
Rudy: Okay, so we move forward. That's all that I ask.
I'm sure we will be both better for it. The reading will be like
a cold shower or like getting over fever. The man is not the
monster some would make him be. They will always create bogeymen
and ghosts to provoke fear. That is par for course. I say
that the book has a social utility that is valuable for us
today, for our thinking, and for our survival. I know that might
sound like high praise. What will be important in Revolutionary
Suicide is not so much fiery literary skills or even original
thinking, all though that is there too.
It is what Huey brings to our attention,
namely, modern ways in which to look at our slavery, and the
consideration of ways to loosen the controls on ourselves but
also to place controls on those who oppress us. That he
introduces personal matters into this "political
manifesto" is of little matter. It is there to provide
substance, to show how he arrived at a certain political
sentiment toward how we as black people should go about our
liberation.
I think that it is a book worthy for study in
philosophy, in sociology, in linguistics, in social history, in
literature (slave narrative tradition), and more. My point here
is that it has been pushed out of the "canon" for no
other reason that prejudice and middle-class indictment. People
like Skip Gates and other neo-Negro liberals who run the
afro-studies industry within the powerful academic centers of
America should be branded the traitors that they are. I will
leave it up to the people, whom they consider the mad mob, to
decide their fate. But we will have what is just for us.
Banishment, of course, would be merciful.
Jeannette: Herbert,
I'm reading Revolutionary
Suicide too for the first time. I've been a
clinical social worker most of my life, so it will be
interesting to see how the book affects my thinking. I'm a
very slow reader and I process very slowly. (I'm still thinking
about a question I asked Rudy (from page 4) and his answer.)
Maybe this is one reason why it takes me so long to finish a
book. I get sidetracked from the text with questions and answers
and my own thoughts. Anyway, I'd love to read your thoughts on
what you learn if you are willing to share.
Yes, I love the fact that Rudy makes us
think. I see what he is doing with ChickenBones as
being a "Holy Mission." I think the part that
Rudy and ChickenBones played in bringing the cyberspace
community together during Katrina proves Rudy is on a "Holy
Mission." posted 6 October 2005
* * * *
* DVDs --
A Huey P. Newton Story 2001 /
What We Want, What We Believe The Black Panther Party Library
The Spook Who Sat By the Door /
Passin' It On; The Black Panthers' Search for Justice /
|
