In this context, that Black people should establish their own independent institutions and ideologies is inevitable.
Now comes the time for dismantling segregation. Does it make sense that the dissolution of Black institutions and identity should take place willy-nilly and at the behest of White people ? Are Black people to trust White people ? It seems clear that White people must act FIRST in dismantling White Nationalism before Black people let down the protective barriers that they have built to the furies of racism and being cast out in separation.
There's more to it than that. But this historical dynamic should make it clear to a predominantly White and non-Black group that their job is to dismantle White Nationalism, and come to Black people with a proposal for integration.
This issue comes up more concretely in Detroit, where the naked historical fact is that in the 1950's and 60's, when Black people started moving to Detroit in large numbers, suddenly the great mass of whites moved to the suburbs, such that now Detroit is an overwhelmingly Black population. Can anyone doubt who separated from whom. So, Black people find themselves by themselves, so to speak. A fact not of their own making. In that context "Black" organizations are formed. But they are not formed on the principle of excluding Whites. Whites don't want to be members ! This is the whole problem in placing the onus of separatism on Black organizations. The separatism is imposed by Whites not Blacks. To miss this is a profound ignorance of American history.
Of course, in the course of events, with for self-regard , self-respect, self-esteem, as emblemized in the life of people like Malcolm X, Black people must establish an element of rejection of the rejection. In other words, if White people keep saying fuck you, eventually you say well fuck you too, we don't have to take that shit. That's what Farahkan is an extreme expression of. That's why in Detroit we are Black and proud; and Coleman Young represents that.
That doesn't mean the Coleman Young ideologist reject Black and white unity. Young career was full of the principle Black and white unite and fight. It was he who chased the McCarthyite committee out of town and it never came back. But Black people will unite from a position of self-respect and self-determination not hat-in-hand confusion and diffusion of our Black selves after all that stuff Whites have run down through the history of this relationship.
The issue on this list should be abolish White Nationalism FIRST !
Charles Brown
Detroit
>>> Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> 01/18 10:27 PM >>>
Hi Rakesh:
>Ken Warren's argument, referred to by Adolph Reed, needs to be elaborated.
>Yoshie, what do you understand by it? It seems to me in this debate which
>may have indeed been "staged" the anti semitism of the NOI was not at all
>the focus but its separatism, class agenda, utopianism and anti feminism.
>It is of course obnoxious that some only see the anti semitism of the NOI,
>not its many other problems. Anyways, the debate began with Daniel V's over
>the top pomo embrace of the NOI as a relatively progressive organization on
>matters of race/racism and less so class/capital. That struck me as quite
>pernicious.
1. At the most basic level, it always feel a little odd to be confidently arguing, whether pros or cons, about something called black nationalism when none of the participants in discussion is a self-identified black nationalist and only a very few of those present are black. Is it only me who feels that this unfortunate demographics produces only a lot of hot air and _nearly zero influence_ on whatever direction political winds might blow in black communities?
2. I think it probably helps us to discuss something a bit more concrete--some specific demands, conflicts, political organizations, etc.--as opposed to trying to debate the nature of black nationalism, which seems to me to be defined completely differently by those who are more critical of it and those who are more supportive of it.
3. I don't think that having an independent black organization equals separatism. Neither do you, right? With a possible exception of die-hard black Muslims, I don't think racial separatism is much of a problem among blacks. If anything, those who are the most enamored of racial separatism in the USA have been and still are privileged whites. I would be more interested in discussing what to do about white suburban separatism than various perspectives on the NOI (which has very little political influence, not to mention power, even among black men). So what I am saying is, the first thing first.
4. I think that leftists often get too excited about discussions of black nationalism when they have nothing much to say about _how_ to defend affirmative action, _how_ to counter racially motivated underfunding of public schools, _how_ to stop the "war on drugs," etc. In other words, hot air about black nationalism functions to cover up the emptiness of our agenda for racial justice (or if we have some kind of agenda, the lack of power to put it into effect).
your friend,
Yoshie