<URL:
http://www.blackcommentator.com/93/93_cover_cosby.html
>
from which...
Role Model Politics is nearly as emotion-laden as cult-of-personality politics – and just as divorced from reality. The Role Model is, by definition, the template of righteousness and progress. Those who fail to follow the Role Model’s path are rejecting the Model’s persona. No wonder Cosby goes ballistic at poor Black people’s behavior – or what he imagines that behavior to be. He takes it personally. It’s as if “those people” are all playing the “dozens” at his expense. How else to explain the explosive vitriol of Cosby’s Constitution Hall performance?
However, Cosby’s inability to perceive that he is obligated as a matter of “personal responsibility” to atone for his blanket verbal assaults, is his personal problem. It is far more worrisome that so many Black opinion molders harbor similar attitudes towards politics and the poor. Cosby showed his ass, but the same ill winds are blowing through the spaces in lots of Black skulls in high places. Deep down, they value other Black people little, and trust them less. They would rather celebrate virtual social mobility (the “Huxtables”) than fight for the material resources that bring the possibility of dignity to millions. They see more virtue in a millionaire parting with a fraction of his money – although never enough to risk falling out of wealth – than in the selfless work of thousands of community organizers and activists who are motivated by a sense of both personal and social responsibility.
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I really love Black Commentator - one of the few publications (and in my experience, one of the very few African American publications) focused on structural analysis instead of well-worn themes and formulas. It was in Black Commentator that I read a tightly reasoned essay making the case for trying Condi Rice as a war criminal (along with the rest of the Busheviks course). Although Rice is not a wildly popular woman in Black circles there are still those who see her - because of her 'big job' - as a role model. This is the sort of zero context hero worship Black Commentator's been relentlessly battling for years.
Clearly, the tone of the magazine runs directly in opposition to what the author calls "role model culture", the dominant American meme.
Since role model culture and structural analysis do not peacefully coexist (indeed, you might say role model culture pushes the analytical tendency into the shadows) I wonder how much of its dominance can be attributed to propaganda?
I think it was Wilson Barber who made mention of the role of propaganda in a post about the supposed Black American disinterest in education. When I consider pop culture artifacts like film, television and music that celebrate know-nothingness (for young white kids too - especially boys) it seems to me that anti-analytical propaganda (not planned as such but a part of American culture) is a non-trivial contributor.
.d.