There is prejudice and there is behavior feeding into that prejudice. For this reason, I think organizations like NAACP have a special responsibility to popularize images of black people that defy stereotypes - like doctors, lawyers, teachers, academics, and other professional types. I am not saying that such efforts are not being made, but then Frederic Douglass or Harriett Tubman are long dead, and a more recent positive role models (such as Mr. Luna whom I mentioned earlier)
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I believe it will be instructive to remember the two major threads of civil rights thought that informed generations which have, in recent years, collapsed into a vortex of anomie:
1.) Up By Your Bootstraps
Those familiar with Black American history will remember the name George Washington Carver. Born during the final years of slavery, he persevered against racism and economic hardship to become a scientist and educator. Mr. Carver was a proponent of a mostly critique-free appraisal of Black people's situation in America based upon the idea that through education and economic *uplift* racial antagonism could be lessened if not eliminated. This idea persists in certain conservative circles of African American life. A good contemporary example is the work of Tony Brown, an *activist* for Black owned businesses, professional appearance and *excellence.*
2.) Destroy All Monsters
The system is rotten; it cannot be redeemed, it is polluted by racism and capitalism. Only revolution can solve the problem. Revolution is facilited via Black nationalism which will foster a strong racial indentity built upon *pride* and pan-African ideas.
Of course, the early rhetoric of Malcolm X (the pre-Mecca years) along with a host of other 60's era posh-rads - some of whom were quite serious thinkers/doers but wrongheaded nonetheless - provide a rich record of this sort of thought.
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Here is what has happened...
The *up by your bootstraps* argument has run up against the apparent limits of the American system - as currently configured - to absorb significantly greater numbers of upwardly mobile Blacks, Hispanics, etc. This presents the bootstrappers with a problem inasmuch as their acolytes may not experience the American dream promised due to macro-factors many (all) bootstrappers, by their *positivity* determined nature are unable to perceive.
The radical critique on the other hand, became commodified into a pose anyone, even kids in posh circumstances, could put on like a pair of jeans. For the criminally minded, the radical critique became a catch-all explanation for sinister deeds of negative daring.
The Black intelligentsia, not wanting to abandon the radical critique and the aura of cool it bestows, even while enjoying posh lives, found a reliable hook to apply to all encounters between *under-class* members and the police, the legal system, etc.
Thus a go-nowhere machine has been engineered and built which serves the interests of the powerful while providing neither sharp contemporary critique nor aid to those who most need it.
DRM