> Hip hop artists wildly outsell 19th century classical
> European music.
That's not the type of shift I'm talking about. Baseball players make a lot of money too, but do we own the clubs? Do we control the game even though the game would be nothing without us? Have the pre-integration records, such as Babe Ruth's, been invalidated and thrown out as meaningless, because they were played in segregated leagues?
> Who's "we"?
"We" is African descendents, idiot. Hip-Hop didn't just start yesterday you stupid fuck, so stop being disingenous and pointing to your contemporary observations. I'm not talking about what you see now.
> I wasn't really contemplating some terroristic purge of white
> people from the African continent, raping virginal white
> women and then sending them packing, which I know was the
> scenario that popped into your White Supremacist heads.
>
> You know no such thing.
Actually, I do.
> And yes, for racism to disappear, there must be a
> profound social revolution. The argument that such a
> transformation is most likely to be brought about by way
> of a black consciousness movement might be right for
> some settings and wrong for others ('white' and 'black'
> mean, do, and relate differently in different places).
The paradigm of "white" and "black" applies everywhere, whether you're talking about the Irish vs. Brits, or European Jews vs. Palestinians. The key is NOT that Black consciousness is going to directly lead to revoltution, but that without it, analysis and understanding of the social structures of caste-like oppression is hindered. That's the fucking point.
> But if even the likes of your interlocutors here are to
> be cast as white supremacist motherfuckers, the
> revolution you have in mind is going to be a difficult
> road indeed.
The road is already fucking difficult because so many supposed allies are trapped in a white supremacist mentality, not because of anything I call them. This is the big lie that white supremacists like to tell, that if the real radicals among us would stop being so divisive and bringing up nasty issues, we could all get along, grow towards class unity, and then make the new utopia. Wrong. The rest of us already agree on what needs to be done. It's the white supremacist Left that is blocking the door.
> Reparations* as they're usually described don't lead to a
> shift in the power paradigm.
Usually described by WHOM? Of course Bourgeois liberals are going to try and hijack the concept and water it down. Those of us who are radicals already understand that the Reparations demand is part of an overall liberation strategy, not an end in and of itself. Part of the strategy is the simple act of making the demand. Even if we never get Reparations, the very act of demanding it and staying in the ruling classes face with the demand is powerful all by itself.
Also, Reparations will be meaningful even after a Socialist revolution. More than anyone, Black/African people need serious healing, beyond just the monetary, which will actually require more than simple equitable distribution. It won't be enough to simply seize the means of production and eliminate wage labor, a whole bunch of other shit is going to need to be done above and beyond that to heal Black people. If it's a serious revolution, and not more bullshit, then some serious Reparations will STILL be due. This shit is about much much more than mere "wage slavery."
> > ...The proletariat is multinational, and hip hop
> > is its music of resistance.
>
> It's curious then that, like rock'n'roll, it has been so
> rapidly and radically banalized, and its many of its
> practitioners (and betrayers) given such admirable
> material rewards by the resisted established order.
Exactly. Once again, the resting of control of hip-hop from Black people and the erasing of it's history and meaning is part of the process the ruling class uses to remove it's revolutionary bite.
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> >XIII. We will struggle to build multicultural solidarity and
> >alliances among all people of color.
What the fuck does this have to do with the points I'm trying to make? I'm talking about the realities of how the ruling class marginalizes the revolutionary spirit of Black people, and you're quoting something which is completely irrelevent to this conversation, not the least reason of which is because I'm speaking here for my fucking self.
Art