Fwd: Re: HNIC #3: Al Sharpton and the Slow Death

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Feb 19 11:51:32 PST 2003


[I forwarded Carrol's comments on Norman Kelley's piece to the author, who writes:]

I really don't know how to respond to this since I was talking about, uh, what goes on amongst black, which is a subset of national politics. Obviously, the man didn't really read the article. I'm not blaming blacks for the general state of American politics, but for the general state of black politics. I do contend that since blacks have stopped engaging in direct mobilization they haven't received much in the way of programmatic politics. People like Smith and Reed have said the same thing, especially Reed.

If what I wrote is trivia, it's about as trivial as Comrade Carrol's critique of the piece. People, even the most oppressed, have to take some responsibilty for the conditions that they are, especially when they are jerked around buy their putative leaders. After all, blacks were loyal to the GOP from the end of the Civil War and until the New Deal. Then they switched to the Democrats and from 1960s they have been a very loyal bloc, but badly served by the party and by either cynical or gutless black leaders. What has developed is basically conyism of the Sharpton/Jackson type and the kind of Civil Rights Industry politics that promotes affirmative action for the new black elite and nothing much for working and poor blacks.

Norman



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