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Books
by Eugene Robinson
Coal
to Cream
/
Last Dance in Cuba /
Disintegration: The Splintering of
Black America
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Minstrelsy and White
Expectations
Reviewing
Washington Post Columnist Eugene Robinson
Editorial by Rudolph
Lewis
Washington Post columnist Eugene
Robinson is back again after his
Drive Time
for the 'Jena 6' still
seeking a special nationalism for rich and wealthy
blacks (e.g., Bob Johnson and Oprah Winfrey) who live in
the suburbs,
with
Which Black America? (Washington
Post). It seems he seeks a special white status
for them, exempt from white criticisms by leading
white spokespersons, like Bill O'Reilly and Republican Party
stalwarts. That is, he wants an "honest"
discussion on race from these white talking heads that
does not include the majority of Black Americans
whom Mr. Eugene continues to classify as
"dysfunctional."
That is, instead of
say a marxist class analysis now we have Mr. Eugene
recommending a pseudo medical, pseudo social science
analysis of his "black americas":
one) that is
healthy and wealthy and damn near white with its success
ethics in tow and two) those that are ill and poor and still
just don't get it. Moreover, these two social zones have
two different cultures: one) that which comes from
below vibrant and funky and often raging and two) that
which the near-whites absorb from their white peers much
of which is a white version of that which comes from
below.
Eugene seems
insanely sincere in wanting to distance himself from
those dusty blacks fixed down low by his corporate
social buddies who have a tendency to pat him on the
head and arse as one of the boys they condescend to
allow on the golf course.
But pray tell how
can Mr. Eugene be "honest" while a
little corporate elite sits on his shoulder whispering
in his ear, "Nigger, don't forget how you get paid."
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Hattie McDaniel, one of her famous
quips was: "I'd rather play a maid than be one." She had
been either a washerwoman or was the daughter of one
before receiving her Oscar.
One should consider
as well Eugene Robinson, columnist of the Washington
Post (WP), and his
Drive Time for the 'Jena 6'. He seems to
write with a little white man on his shoulder, that is,
with his own particular white fears, like Louie, like
Hattie. His column emphasizes briefly the mechanics of
how 60,000 blacks come to appear in the isolated white
community of Jena, Louisiana; that is, he focuses on the
"how" rather than the "why." Yet he places significant
suggestive facts on the table.
1)
"It's
fair to say that without black radio, the case of the
Jena 6 probably never would have become a significant
national story," writes
Mr. Robinson, as he warms up for self-revelation
It was not only a
national story; it was an international story. The BBC
online covered the story long before for the WP—Race
Hate in Louisiana.
Isn't that an oddity? One
may also ask, Where was the NAACP? They dragged in last
and initially began collecting money that was not going
directly for the defense of the black boys. Where was
Eugene and his column?
Michael Baisden and
Tom Joyner came late. They indeed gave it a boost. They
saw that there was a commercial appeal to the story.
2)
"Why is this interesting? Because black America
is increasingly complicated and diverse, riven by fault
lines that didn't exist back when the great civil rights
heroes were marching in
Selma,"
Mr. Robinson informs us
How is that
important for the Jena 6? He attempts to clarify but
still only suggests the reality that exists.
3)
"There are
black families
that have had multigenerational middle-class success,
and black families trapped in multigenerational poverty
and dysfunction,"
Mr. Eugene grins and genuflects
How is that
important, this "success"? At bottom the Jena 6
situation is about economics, the nooses only symbolical
of those economic frustrations, and that which doesn't
arouse the "successful" there is silence, he seems to
suggest, except from the masses who feel the nooses
tightening in numerous ways, for instance, longer hours
and decreasing wages; job discrimination without any
mechanism which to challenge it; joblessness;
underemployment; police repression; and other
repressive laws and attitudes.
4)
"'the
black community' is, for most purposes, best thought of
as plural,"
Mr. Robinson distinguishes himself as house negro.
Now we get to the
grist of Eugene's racial tale, his perspective from on
the colored heights.
What does that mean in the real life of the different
communities? There will be no second
civil rights movement because the superficial
elements of Jim Crow are dead, ostensibly?The economic
issues are too extensive and would require much more
than a civil rights movement; one would have to begin
where M.L. King left off with his Poor Peoples March..
The so-called civil
rights leaders are reserving their energies, however,
for more important game: a get out the vote to install a
Democratic president, some of whose candidates spoke
briefly in similar tones as Eugene, that is, how
regrettable the Jena situation, but little else. So did
Bush, for that matter. But a different party in the
White House makes no assurances about working class
issues and "racial" or police repression.
But all these facts
receive no analysis from Eugene.
He concludes all is
well except in Jena, Louisiana: "We don't see that many instances of overt,
unapologetic, separate-and-unequal racial discrimination
these days, thank goodness" (my emphasis).
Here he speaks with
that little white man on his shoulder. I wonder who is
the "We" in this instance when we have "plural"
communities. Is that conclusion really true? Is it true
for you?
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There's a greater
healthiness in Armstrong's antics or in those of Hattie
McDaniel, for you know they are playing a role to
appease white expectations. With writers like Eugene
Robinson,
only a few can see he's also playing his role for his
white bosses and audience, who read to find out what
a certain segment of the black community thinks.
Certainly, the few
"instances" are not true for the 60,000 that converged
on Jena from all over the country, nor the bloggers and
websites that have been carrying the story for
months. The repression of the Jena 6 (Black teenagers)
is a repression felt nationally. It's not an isolated
situation as Eugene suggests. They were marching for
themselves as well as the six black boys, who are not
too unlike the
Scottsboro Boys of the 1930s.
But
I'm sure I'm speaking to the choir.
photo left:
Scottsboro Boys and their lawyer
Samuel Leibowitz
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Mr. Robinson
seems to have learned his racial reasoning from that
great Negro scholar at Harvard University. At a 1992
"Responsibility of Black Intellectuals" forum organized
by
Reverend Eugene Rivers,
Skip Gates had this to say:
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Gates: To Margaret—you ended by
asking what happened to our community between say, 1960 and 1980? To be
concrete, I have four statistics that I would like to share. In 1960, 24% of
black households were headed by women; in 1990 that number is 56%, and 55%
of these women live in poverty. The percentage of births out of wedlock in
the black community in 1960 was 21.6%; in 1988 it is 63.7%. In 1960 19.9% of
our children lived only with their mothers; in 1990 that number was 51.2%.
In 1960, finally, two percent of our children had mothers who had never been
married; in 1990 that number was 35%. If raising our children is the most
important work of a society, its burdens now fall disproportionately on the
much-demonized single mother.
What's happened is that our community has been divided into two. We now have
two black communities, not one. We probably have more than that. Yet each of
us tends to speak of the black community as if blackness were a class. We
have to decide if blackness really does constitute a class. We have to start
with this issue, and recognize that the community we were children in no
longer exists. There is a new black community—or new black communities—out
there, and if we are trying to put it back together then we have to
recognize that reality and then talk about new solutions to new problems.
That is, I think, the signal failure of our generation of black
intellectuals. More often than not we resort to romantic black nationalism
or to some other way to assuage the guilt that we feel, and everybody in
here knows what I am talking about, about leaving that other community
behind.
hooks: I don't know what Skip is talking about. . . .—BostonReview
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I wonder from what sector
of the black community these neo-House Negroes think
came those that made the conditions ripe and possible for a Skip
Gates to get to Harvard or a Eugene Robinson to
get to the Washington Post. These neo-coloreds
have made up for themselves a revisionist history that
says that they got to their high positions merely on
their own merit.
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Black power is
taking control of your destiny—Black political power has
grown significantly in the past four decades, according
to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
In 1970, there were only 469 black elected officials.
That number has grown to more than 10,000 in 2007.
Sociologist Art Evans of Florida Atlantic University in
Boca Raton said the nation has changed and black people
have made progress in just about every aspect of
society. "There's been tremendous growth in the black
middle class," Evans said. "In the 1960s less than 3
percent of blacks were middle-class; today, 37 percent
of blacks are middle-class. . . . [Yet] "We still don't
have the control over our lives," [Kwame] Afoh said.
Gregory Lewis. “Some see lack of progress, others
strides since 1960s.”
Sun-Sentinel
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Not Gone
With the Wind Voices of Slavery—Henry Louis
Gates, Jr.—9 February 2003—Unchained Memories,
an HBO documentary that makes its debut tomorrow
night, provides a powerful answer to that question.
It gives us, through the faces and voices of
African-American actors, an introduction to a vast
undertaking that took place in the 1930's: the
collection and preservation of the testimonies of
thousands of aged former slaves in an archive known
as the Slave Narrative Collection of the Federal
Writers' Project. This archive unlocked the brutal
secrets of slavery by using the voices of average
slaves as the key, exposing the everyday life of the
slave community. Rosa Starke, a slave from South
Carolina, for example, told of how class divisions
among the slaves were quite pronounced:
''Dere was just
two classes to de white folks, buckra slave owners
and poor white folks dat didn't own no slaves. Dere
was more classes 'mongst de slaves. De fust class
was de house servants. Dese was de butler, de maids,
de nurses, chambermaids, and de cooks. De nex' class
was de carriage drivers and de gardeners, de
carpenters, de barber and de stable men. Then come
de nex' class, de wheelwright, wagoners, blacksmiths
and slave foremen. De nex' class I members was de
cow men and de niggers dat have care of de dogs. All
dese have good houses and never have to work hard or
git a beatin'. Then come de cradlers of de wheat, de
threshers and de millers of de corn and de wheat,
and de feeders of de cotton gin. De lowest class was
de common field niggers.''—NYTimes
On the Responsibility of
Black Intellectuals / Unchained Memories
(HBO on Slave Narratives)
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Ratification
The People Debate the Constitution,
1787-1788
By Pauline Maier
A notable historian
of the early republic, Maier devoted a
decade to studying the immense
documentation of the ratification of the
Constitution. Scholars might approach
her book’s footnotes first, but history
fans who delve into her narrative will
meet delegates to the state conventions
whom most history books, absorbed with
the Founders, have relegated to
obscurity. Yet, prominent in their local
counties and towns, they influenced a
convention’s decision to accept or
reject the Constitution. Their
biographies and democratic credentials
emerge in Maier’s accounts of their
elections to a convention, the political
attitudes they carried to the conclave,
and their declamations from the floor.
The latter expressed opponents’
objections to provisions of the
Constitution, some of which seem
anachronistic (election regulation
raised hackles) and some of which are
thoroughly contemporary (the power to
tax individuals directly). Ripostes from
proponents, the Federalists, animate the
great detail Maier provides, as does her
recounting how one state convention’s
verdict affected another’s. Displaying
the grudging grassroots blessing the
Constitution originally received, Maier
eruditely yet accessibly revives a
neglected but critical passage in
American history.—Booklist |
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Disintegration: The Splintering of
Black America
By Eugene Robinson
In this clear-eyed and compassionate
study, Robinson (Coal to Cream),
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist
for the Washington Post, marshals
persuasive evidence that the
African-American population has
splintered into four distinct and
increasingly disconnected entities:
a small elite with enormous
influence, a mainstream middle-class
majority, a newly emergent group of
recent immigrants from Africa and
the Caribbean, and an abandoned
minority "with less hope of escaping
poverty than at any time since
Reconstruction's end." Drawing on
census records, polling data,
sociological studies, and his own
experiences growing up in a
segregated South Carolina college
town during the 1950s, Robinson
explores 140 years of black history
in America, focusing on how the
civil rights movement,
desegregation, and affirmative
action contributed to the
fragmentation. Of particular
interest is the discussion of how
immigrants from Africa, the
"best-educated group coming to live
in the United States," are changing
what being black means. |
Robinson notes that despite the enormous strides
African-Americans have made in the past 40 years,
the problems of poor blacks remain more intractable
than ever, though his solution—"a domestic Marshall
Plan aimed at black America"—seems implausible in
this era of cash-strapped state and local
governments.—Publishers
Weekly
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The Great
Unraveling—By Raymond Arsenault—A review of Disintegration: The Splintering of
Black America—Over
. . . 200 pages, [Mr. Robinson] demonstrates rather
convincingly that no one belongs to the black community
anymore. The race-based community that was a fixture of
American life for generations — the traditional locus of
racial experience and solidarity, the idealized entity
that many of us still refer to, indeed still cling to,
as an institutional and social reality—no longer exists.
That, in a nutshell, is the thesis of this slim but
powerful book. During the past four decades, Robinson
persuasively argues, black America has splintered into
four subgroups: the Transcendent
elite; the Mainstream middle class, which
now accounts for a majority of black Americans; an
Emergent community made up of mixed-race
families and black immigrants from Africa and the
Caribbean; and the Abandoned, a large and
growing underclass concentrated in the inner cities and
depressed pockets of the rural South.—NYTimes
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posted 11 October
2007 / update
7 October 2011
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