``But this kind of Progressivism is little more then the evil twin, Skippy, to any number of talented-tenth or five-percenter vanguardisms, isn't it? In short, whether conservative reactionary, liberal Progressive or left radical, all varieties of elitism have peculiar modes of class solidarity. Expecting reaction.'' Alan Rudy
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There is a lot to deconstruct about the Gates, Obama, and say the Oscar Grant murder. Here's the video of the Grant shooting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmJukcFzEX4
``Davey D: I was listening to a number of speeches and old news clips that went all the way back to the murder of Bobby Hutton here in the city of Oakland and was remembering the harassment and the beat-down that Tupac Shakur got and going through just this long list of Black males who have been killed unceremoniously by the police department right here in the city all the way up to last year or the year before when everybody was down on protesting for the Jena 6 - and Gary King, 20 years old, was shot and killed in the back by an Oakland officer right here on 54th and Martin Luther King.''
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oscar-grant-young-father-and-peacemaker-executed-by-bart-police/
I just want to add something that occurred to me while I was thinking about Gates, Obama, and Oscar Grant.
What occurred to me was that Gates had made himself an icon of the take responsibility and move up in life type, just as Obama. The message is if you stop acting black and provide proof of your achievements, then the world of goodies is available to you. This is the grand endosement of the merit system. Education and economic opportunities to move up in the world and out of the oppressions of race and poverty, are available to those who take responsibility for their lifes, follow the rules, and work hard.
It became obvious a long time ago that the merit system of bootstrapping yourself out of the ghettos was a lie. Here's a little local history.
Bobby Seal and Huie Newton (who met at Lanely College) were working in the Oakland Mayor's office anti-poverty jobs program in North Oakland, when they decided some other direction was necessary. Johnson's anti-poverty programs were premised on the idea of help from government, combined with the Moynihan mantra of personal responsibility could overcome the ravages of race, class, and history. So the radicalism of the Pathers grew out of the experience on the anti-poverty front, that this system of American self-sufficiency and merit was bullshit.
The connection to Gates's arrest is an example that puts the lie to the whole idea. Scrach the surface of many of these tales of `law enforcement' abuse including the local murders by cops, and you can see it.
Here's Davey D's rant on Mayor Dellums:
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4259741
Next below is a video. It follows the official police funeral for four Oakland cops killed in a shoot out. Mayor Dellums and House Representative Lee were on the stage. Dellums was asked not to speak and Lee wasn't even named or acknowledge by the introductory speaker at the podium.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4801455
(see, Zennie Abraham, http://www.zennie62.com)
This guy is pretty funny. I am watching his video of the riot in downtown, and listening to him and his surprize. He is getting a lesson, a really complicated lesson but he doesn't quite see it yet. The kids smashing cars on the street. You have to remember these guys can't buy car and can't afford the stuff in the store windows. Answer trash up-scale. This is class war on the street.
What's going on is a complicated intersection of power, race, and class. While Obama failed to say anything about Oscar Grant, he sent letters of condolence to the four families of the police killed in a shoot out with some guy pulled over with drugs, warrants and sure to do time. So he ran into an apartment building got his assault rifle and went out like the Sundance Kid.
Dellums is caught in a contradiction. If he goes back to his younger radical days and denounces the police, then he loses the power within city government and the white yuppie vote. If he supports the police, then he loses the black public support he also needs.
It is the white vote that all these officials need to stay in power, and the white vote is premised on the illusion that racism is a thing of the past. Everybody here is trapped by the other possibility that the rightwing neo-fascists will used this dialectic to their advantage to re-gain power on a national level. (I think very similar dilemmas are at work through out Latin America, in particular.)
So then, my perspective is that a politics of white identity still controls the entire scope of `politically feasible' goals, as seen by African American and other minority leadership. They (we) have to learn how to deconstruction this white identity politics by re-emphasizing a politics of class, the lies of the merit system, and the whole neoliberal corporate death grip (rich white men) on US society. They (we) have to learn how to step directly into the intersection of race, class, and gender. You can't tip-toe around. Jump in, be called a fool or whatever, but get it done.
The ultimate problem is that most of the black and latino middle class here (as represented in the above videos), has to come to grips with the fact that reasonable civil rights based liberalism is not enough. The resaon that Dellums can't go back and find his roots in a more radical politics is that the development plan for the city depends on attracting and keeping private investiment for jobs, housing, etc, in the city. That investiment no doubt comes from rich white investiment groups. The investiment guys are certainly in no mood to be lectured about where their money comes from, i.e. the exploitation of the working classes of the US and abroad. They are even less interested in getting the dress down on their class and race based identity.
CG