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Books by
Joyce E. King
Black
Education /
Preparing Teachers for
Cultural Diversity /
Teaching Diverse Populations
Black Mothers
to Sons: Juxtaposing African American Literature with Social
Practice.
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A Letter to Warren
on the
Contours of Racial Identity
from Dr. Joyce E. King
Hi Warren,
This note is for when you come back from quotidian
tasks—mine are just starting for the day. My mom was in
the hospital one day and a night. So I'm not thorough in
my response. The sources you cite are on my to-do list.
I'm not down for proto-“19th century Black nationalism”
either. But neither do I think the "leap" to
internationalism-cosmopolitanism-multicultural alliances
is sufficient to undo the damage (done to us all) that
the particular form of US racism has caused (and is now
perpetuated in newly globalized forms).
I am pure and simply pro-Black; pro the survival of
Black people as a people. So I think I'm on a pathway
toward your "cosmopolitan" practice if we can also take
care of some other problems along the way that would
help us all to be more "human" partners in such a
project freed from the nihilation of blackness (Sylvia
Wynter's term). Or "all uh we no save."
It was reported that the
Belafonte
gathering of global youth that took place in Oakland
, CA (where Black youth are also killing each other in
unprecedented numbers) excluded “ghetto youth" from
OAKLAND. (See
Marvin X commentary.) I know a number of Black
educators in Oakland and no one has mentioned this
meeting or the opportunity for their students to be
involved. I am curious to find out how the "progressive"
Black folks on the Left could leave out the grass roots
Oakland community—if that is indeed what happened. See
the articles and
listen to
Belafonte.
Sometimes Left political commitments and strategies are
unintentionally adverse to a Black agenda; sometimes
leftist thinking takes people to a "universalist
position" that does not bother about healing deep
anti-blackness (anti-Africanity) hidden in the inner
Self and in this society. (Sometimes people make
personal choices like "interracial" marriage out of this
commitment to "race-free" thinking/being without any
awareness of how such matters may be influenced by
hegemony: ideas of beauty related to color and “flowing
hair,” for example.)
Marvin X
(strong Black nationalist) speculates in
his article
that perhaps Oakland’s youth were not seen to be "ready"
for Belafonte's Gathering for Justice.
Listen to
Belafonte’s comments: he stresses that "this is not
a Black thing". . .(loud cheers from the multi-cultural
audience.) See Marvin X's column on the pod cast website
(thanks to Rudy Lewis's website). It seems that these
poorest (sub-lumpen-altern) black youth might have been
an "embarrassment" for the proto-progressives—not ready
to be told "this is not a black thing." (Still too
savage, violent and raw perhaps?) Of course, I
understand the meaning: This is a multicultural
alliance—that others are also implicated and affected by
the problems of the day and we need to reach across
boundaries to do the work.
Still, what would it take for Black males in Toronto,
Oakland, Johannesburg and other parts of Africa (Liberia
, Rwanda , Congo , Sudan ) and the Caribbean (or Brazil)
to stop killing each other?
This IS a black thing at the same time that it is not
just a black thing. As Angela Davis has said: “It’s
complicated.” (See
her interview with the The Guardian.)
I submit that the position of Belafonte et al who
organized the youth gathering in Oakland—which is
vitally important—is not the same as what Skip Gates
represents in his Op Ed piece in the NY Times (“Forty
Acres and a Gap in Wealth”)—when he asserts that we
no longer have a “black community” because of “class
divisions” (the wealth gap). But the lack of
strategically affirming blackness plays out in both.
Gates is squarely in the camp of academics like
Orlando Patterson (Harvard), who has also been
trotted out with plenty of headlines. Patterson's
position has a Caribbean ("we immigrants are more
civilized than American blacks") undertone. (I like the
fact that Sylvia Wynter, also from Jamaica, has not
fallen into that way of thinking.)
Skip Gate's story is interesting. He is claiming that
his "research" shows that ancestral property ownership
right after slavery ended (e.g., intergenerational
social class advantage) is the explanatory factor for
"successful" Black folks like Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi
Goldberg today.
I would say that it is very likely a color (race)
question as much as a class matter: people who were able
to get property (and skilled craft work) then were often
the children and grandchildren of white men and our
enslaved/often raped black mothers. In New Orleans this is more pronounced
with the "gens de couleur"—"free people of color".
(Thus, Plessy was about defending the rights of this
group of relatively privileged mixed-race "colored
folks" who did not consider themselves Black at all.)
Such "mixed" people then had opportunities due to color
that included white sponsorship for education or other
opportunities.
(That's certainly the story in my family—my grandfather
looked like a white man—his mother was "jet" black. He
was able to get all kinds of opportunities that have
been passed on to me and my children. On my
grandmother’s side their father had a “white brother on
the other side of town” who would help them when times
were particularly hard.)
(Clarence Thomas represents another kind of "sponsored
mobility.")
I just read a piece of research in the American
Educational Research Journal about the Black man who
founded a post-slavery school that became one of the
historically Black colleges here in GA. His grandfather
was the white "slave master." His father was able to
become a skilled carpenter. The son, who founded this
school, was educated by Christian missionaries and he
thoroughly imbibed the racist ideology that Africans
were fortunate to be able to BENEFIT from slavery. In
his long career as an educator here in GA he defended
segregation and allied himself with the most racist
white politicians. That legacy of anti-Africanity
remains in the mentality of many Black folks today.
Even some of us in the “academy”—professors who
intellectually embrace African history—internalize this
notion that American black folks are "better off" for
having been taken out of the “dark continent” and we
would, therefore, be even better off if we could more
successfully emulate "white" middle-class values. . .
See also: T. V. O'Brien, "Perils of Accommodation: The
Case of Joseph W. Holley," AERJ, 44(4), 2007: 806-852.
St. Clair Drake whom I studied with and admired very
much was clear about his "class first" position, but he
also affirmed blackness and Africa. (See his
Black Folks Here and There volumes and a
his classic analysis of Black religion, particularly
his discussion of Frederick Douglass and the “gris-gris”
bag that he received from an old African.) Perhaps that
was the influence of his Garveyite father (smile).
My point is that there is also the "African" connection
in all of this (rooted in justifications for
slavery/colonial domination) that I am working out of.
Let's keep talking.
When you read my "Blues epistemology" chapter, you will
see that I am citing indigenous peoples like the Native
Hawaiians, the Maori of New Zealand (Linda T. Smith,
Decolonizing Methodology and Native Americans;
Sande Grande,
Red Pedagogy) who are unapologetically embracing
their own cultural sovereignty. That is the only basis I
see for true cosmopolitanism, real democracy and human
freedom. But getting there requires a practice of being
that has been denied to most of us.
Cheers, Joyce
If you like this analysis consider making a donation
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Why was Belafonte’s Oakland star-studded
gathering
whited out by mainstream media?
(Marvin X)
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updated 18 February
2008 |
