I'm not sure why you say this. In general we want to analyze things in their interconnectedness, holistically. Self-determination or coherence of a historically specially oppressed and exploited group is effected by what else is going on, n'est-ce pas ?
>It cannot be denied that the class movement, so
>to speak, has a very long way to go.
>
>> 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".
>
>Going it alone is a natural, unavoidable resort
>for workers of all types, in all situations, in
>the absence of a real class movement.
>
>The question is the feasibility of assorted ways
>of going it alone.
>
By the way, the BRC did not have a "go it alone" theme or thrust in the main. We are going it by any means necessary. Also, the main trend in African-American liberation movement history has not been to go it alone. I posted a while ago on the commonly known integrationist programs ( the losers in the Plessy case, etc.) Black people have been left with no choice but to go it alone most of the time. A self-coherence develops in that historical cauldron. At the same time, Dubois formulated the concept of two souls of Black folks in _The Souls of Black Folks_. Need I say this is a dialectical contradiction. Black people are Black AND WHITE. Our coherence is our twoness. So, we are never entirely coherent independent of European culture.
>Obviously African-Americans have much in common
>in cultural, social, and economic terms, a "social
>self" to be sure. But the question is what SOLUTIONS
>with some political possibility are available. What
>does self-determination mean in practice or in terms
>of program?
>
>Today I heard a talk from an expert on black public
>opinion (polling) report some of the key issues that
>distinguished them from others: he mentioned school
>vouchers and culturally conservative positions (for
>instance, support for capital punishment).
>
>Louis mentioned some things that were or remain
>class issues. Now if it happens, as seems likely,
>that blacks are more disposed to favor and agitate
>for class demands (e.g., higher minimum wage), and
>if they organize separately to this end, nobody
>could be happier than myself. But I would distinguish
>this from self-determination. It's really blacks as
>the militant, leading edge of what we can hope will
>be a more diverse political movement. So I think
>we're mixing up the likely vanguard role of black
>workers with parochial demands.
>
>The negative side of nationalism, or the 'bad' sort
>of self-determination, is the embrace of demands
>thast are positively reactionary and/or which have
>zero potential for instigating any broader, positive
>mobilization.
>
>Now, nobody could blame blacks or any group of workers
>from considering pragmatic expedients which could improve
>their lot. Moral condemnation is not in question here.
>To me a progressive standpoint, however, means evaluating all
>such projects for their progressive or negative potential.
>
The goals of ending racism/achieving equality and the whole long, long program of a radical Bill of Economic Rights for everybody can be struggled for simultaneously. No ayo contradiction. There is no need to pussyfoot with white workers about abolishing racism and predjudice for fear of turning them off for this Bill of Rights struggle. All of the demands from equality to economic liberation must be pursued at once and not seriatim or sequentially. The elements are coreinforcing (if you end racism the class will be stonger in fighting for the pure and simple ecoonomic gains, vice versa), plus the totalness the comprehensiveness of the demanding is more radical in effect on the different parts. To make a revolution you have to break a few eggs like making an omelette.
The barrier of "bad" Black nationalism is being exaggerated here. When has the existence of Black nationalist stopped radical white workers from doing something to the capitalists. The African Blood Brotherhood joined the Communist Party en masse at it founding. The CPUSA separated at its birth from the Socialist Party in part based on the fact that the Socialist Party reduced the race question to the class question. The CP position on the right of national self-determination of the Negro People did not change until the 1950's (I have a slightly different historiography from Louis Pro on that) after the Northern migration changed the circumstance. The right of self-determination does not have to be exercised.
At any rate, the thesis of "right of self-determination" is not only a moral argument by Lenin. Like "workers of the world unite" (perhaps its opposite complement) it is a strategic, practical argument. How best to win the revolution, what is to be done.
Charles Brown
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