Max,
Your analysis below concludes logically that Black self-determination is an incoherent concept in the U.S. because your statement portrays the overall U.S. working class movement and struggles on specific reforms as having an underlying "coherent", CLASS struggle, anti-capitalist SYSTEM consciousness. But the various struggles do not have that coherence and ideological glue. If there was such a coherent overall class conscious movement, it might make sense for Black people and other oppressed groups to forego significant self-determination. But since it is not and has not been effectively radical for many decades, Black people have to develop forms of self-struggle of all types to survive , thrive and continue in their long quest for "freedom". This freedom may only be a radical reform that is vulnerable to rollback ,as with the Civil War Amendments and the civil rights statutes, but it is in part achieved based on an affirmative concept of an independent national-like and cultural group, a "social-self", an affirmative group identity with significant "COHERENCE".
This freedom thrust is not antithetical to everybody's freedoms,but it won't and can't wait for the others to get their radical, comprehensive final move together.
Charles Brown
Max wrote:
>Louis Pro:
>> When I was in the SWP in the late 60s, the slogan that the party
supported
>> and which widespread support in the black community was "Black
Control of
>> the Black Community." This was seen as the conscious expression of
the
>> demand for self-determination at that time. The concrete demands
attached
>> to this slogan included:
>
>Also known as decentralization of government, which
>can be good in some cases and very bad in others.
>If the right had had any brains at the time, they
>would have moved to coopt some of this. (They've
>been trying to regenerate it since then without
>success.)
>
>> --right to police one's own community through a community-elected
militia,
>> like the Black Panther patrols
>
>I don't remember the BPP using the term militia, though
>community control of police was one of their key demands.
>I have no problem with it, though it does raise an issue,
>about which more below.
>
>> --right to control hiring and firing in the schools in the black
schools.
>> The Ocean Hill-Brownsville fight pitted the community activists
against
>> warhawk and class-oriented "socialist" Albert Shanker. All the
sectarian
>> Trot groups and the CP supported Shanker.
>
>Whoever supported the teachers is less important
>than the basic dilemma that we want workers to
>have rights (I presume) such as job security and
>we want communities to have them too, and in some
>cases these rights will be in stark conflict. If
>you have a nifty solution to this I'm all ears,
>but for lack of one I'd be inclined to support
>the trade union side. The black-Jewish dimension
>in Brooklyn was sensational, as you know, but it
>was not essential to the problem, since in Newark
>the teachers, including your intrepid correspondent,
>were led by militant black trade unionists, namely
>Carol Graves and Orrie Chambers.
>
>> --right for preferential hiring in any government funded jobs in the
black
>> community, especially in construction. This was the sort of thing
that Jim
>> Houghton and Harlem Fightback had been doing for years.
>
>Construction unions clearly had a lot to answer for
>in those days, but what does preferential hiring
>mean when the targeted union is integrated to begin
>with?
>
>>
>> --demand for federal funds to improve the infrastructure in the black
>> community, most especially housing, hospitals and schools.
>
>This isn't a black demand. All workers need this stuff.
>Why demand it separately? It certainly doesn't improve
>the odds of winning.
>
>> --solidarity with 3rd world struggles and refusal to cooperate with
the
>> racist draft. Muhammed Ali was the symbol of black nationalist
resistance
>> to imperialist war.
>
>Any worker can be in solidarity with 3rd world
>struggles. Nor was draft resistance a black
>thing. Most draft resisters were white. Ali
>was a crossover hero. What kind of black
>nationalist goes on a nationwide speaking
>tour to white college audiences, and without
>even being paid?
>
>Whether the draft is more racist than a 'volunteer'
>army is not obvious, if you think about it.
>
>> Whenever there were riots, the demand for "black control of the black
>> community" was heard in one form or another from the man and woman on
the
>> street. The FBI and local police forces were absolutely
>> determined to put a
>> stop to this movement and targeted activists in the black nationalist
>> movement for "neutralization." Dozens were murdered and many more
were
>> framed up on drug charges, etc.
>
>Which movement are you talking about? The ones
>who were targeted were the Panthers, whose
>nationalism was of a unique type.
>
>> This movement was one of the most openly revolutionary mass
>> movements since
>> the 1930s and it just boggles my mind to see such indifference or
>> hostility
>> to it among left circles.
>
>I was a Panther groupie. I did the best I could
>to support them, though laboring under the handicap
>that I didn't know shit from shinola. Only a fool
>would be indifferent to that history.
>
>My point is that these demands and struggles,
>when they are positive (which isn't always),
>don't add up to a coherent nationalist ideology
>or to "self-determination" in any sense resembling
>anti-colonial struggles. The latter can make
>perfect sense.
>
>That 'self-determination' in the U.S. context is
>an incoherent concept has nothing to do with the
>value and significance of the struggles you noted.
>
>Hope I've unboggled you a bit.
>
>Cheers,
>
>MBS
>
>
>
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