Lately I have been doing a lot more reading of both books and blogs, than blogging myself. It’s like I’m going through an intellectual and spiritual growth spurt and I’ve been enjoying the time, reading and reflecting on what I’m taking in. At the same time, I have taken a self-imposed moratorium on watching or reading anything that is primarily about the U.S. presidential race… if I can help it! Even here in Canada, although we are going through a federal election ourselves, we get inundated with overwhelming election fodder from south of our border (see here). The coverage has gone from being ridiculous to lunacy… and it’s all become very “Jerry Springer-esque”!
(To my brothers and sisters south of the border, I’ll let you in on a little secret… whether Obama or McCain get’s elected: 1) you still won’t have universal health care; 2) you will still have troops in the Middle East protecting American interests, if not in Iraq, then somewhere else; 3) you will still have a public educational system that will continue to be substandard in relation to other industrialized nations… and even some developing nations; 4) you will still be addicted to oil; 5) the rich will still get richer and the poor will matter even less; 6) you will still be battling political, economic, social and cultural discrimination… and it is gonna get worse for you before it get’s any better! As I heard Ice-T once state: “If voting could change anything they would outlaw it.” But I digress… this rant is not the purpose of this post… lol!)
I read an interesting article by Jose Vilson entitled “The House Negro”, which along with some other stuff I’ve been reading, inspired this post. He asks what do we perceive and therefore define a “house negro” to be? I find this interesting because it’s certainly not clear to me if there is a universal definition or agreement within the Black community of what is a “house negro”. Plus I am of the opinion that today, this whole idea of branding someone as a “house negro”, is primarily an African-American phenomenon that is used as a form of punishment… a “groupthink” control mechanism utilized mainly by (so-called) Black progressives to censure (so-called) Black conservatives. I call it: tribal intellectualism. I find that it is used primarily to discredit the beliefs, opinions and arguments, not by offering opposing arguments or engaging in a constructive debate, but by this very pointed personal attack. So instead of focusing on the debating the issues, you discredit them by calling into question their loyalty to the Black community. The term is also used to label particular African-Americans who have achieved a certain amount of financial and/or social success, as well as those who may have chosen to live, work, marry, speak, travel and engage in a lifestyle that is not considered “Black” or “Black-enough”…. whatever those concepts may represent to the name-caller… and therefore are seen as turning their backs on the Black community. They may also be referred to as an “Uncle Tom/Aunt Jemima”, “sell-out” or “acting white”.
One of the blogs I read frequently is The Field Negro and on the right margin he has a spot for the “House Negro Of The Day”. There are a variety of personalities… male, female, conservatives, liberals, democrats, republicans, politicians, sports figures, celebrities, and even some white folk, upon whom he has bestowed the designation. He explains why they receive the moniker for that moment and it’s usually for some behaviours, opinions or statements made, which he feels has a negative impact on the Black community. Most times I agree with him and I must also add that more often than not his choices and reasons cracks me up. The fundamental question though is what’s the perception The Field Negro wants his readers to have of the person whom he has labeled as a “house negro”… and more importantly what is the perception “we”… the reading audience… now have of that person… regardless whether we agree that they are a “house negro” or not?
An interesting twist I found regarding this issue was in a discussion I was following among Regular Brotha, Brotherpeacemaker, and The Black Sentinel. The discussion is a snapshot of a continual debate within the Black community between those who believe that some of our behaviours and/or choices is what is primarily holding us back, as opposed to those who believe it is primarily the actions of white society. The Black Sentinel surmised that those like Regular Brotha (like myself) who hold to the former position, are suffering from a psychological disorder: The Stockholm Syndrome! In effect, as she quotes: “The captives begin to identify with their captors. At least at first this is a defensive mechanism, based on the (often unconscious) idea that the captor will not hurt the captive if he is cooperative and even positively supportive. The captive seeks to win the favor of the captor in an almost childlike way.” Is this a blueprint for the classic House Negro!? Although this discussion spanned across 3 blogs… across a number of days, I will share one post of each of the participants which I found rather insightful: “Blacks Display Stockholm Syndrome” by The Black Sentinel; “Sentinel, I don’t want no trouble” by Regular Brotha; and “Wasting Keystrokes” by Brotherpeacemaker.
One of the issues which is often overlooked is that the Black community in North America is neither homogeneous in their beliefs, experiences, economic and/or social position… nor country of origin. There are many immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, South and Central America who may be “black” in skin tone, but have different (and a variety of) values, opinions, desires, motives and methods to achieve success, than those who are born on North American soil, especially in the USA. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled: “Black in a New Light” which argues that Barack Obama and his presidential candidacy has “sparked a debate about identity in the African-American community”. One of the sources the article quotes is a 2007 Pew Research survey which found that almost 40% of Blacks said the values of poor and middle-class Blacks have diverged so much that they can no longer be thought of as a single race. If we accept that all this is true, even a significant portion of it, what does it mean today to be “Black” and from this premise, who do we now define as a “house negro”?
The reason I say that this labeling someone “a house negro” is “primarily an African-American phenomenon” , is because growing up and living in Jamaica and Canada, visiting some African countries, as well as having discussions with my Canadian, Caribbean and African friends, we never use this term to refer to other Black people who have a particular belief or lifestyle. However, when I was living in Jamaica, we would refer to those in the middle or upper economic classes… those considered “establishment” Jamaicans… as “baldheads”… as opposed to “dreads”. This came from the idea that Rastafarians, who wore “dread”-locks were anti-establishment, non-conformists, cultural and political revolutionaries… while those who cut their hair… “baldheads”… did so to conform with the (neo)colonial standard of an acceptable Black person. Hence the song by Bob Marley: “Crazy Baldhead!” Dreadlocks is now becoming a more widely accepted fashion statement and Bob Marley is now a Jamaican National Hero and worldwide cultural icon. However when I was growing up in Jamaica, wearing dreadlocks could literally get you killed. People forget (or don’t know) that in Jamaica, in the 70’s, some in the political establishment tried to kill Bob Marley because of his political and social stance on issues. They saw it as too revolutionary and a threat to the status quo!
For me, my categorization of a “house negro” would go from rappers who strive to “get paid” by corporations for promoting genocide, materialism and misogyny within the Black community… to a Barack Obama who calculates it is more advantageous to his self-interest in the quest for the presidency, to step in for Ted Kennedy to address the future aspirations and endeavors of preppy “white” Wesleyan University graduates, than to make the time to attend the “State of the Black Union” forum in an effort to address the issues and concerns that are important to the survival and uplifment of Black America.
afrospear.wordpress.com 
“To my brothers and sisters south of the border, I’ll let you in on a little secret… whether Obama or McCain get’s elected: 1) you still won’t have universal health care; 2) you will still have troops in the Middle East protecting American interests, if not in Iraq, then somewhere else; 3) you will still have a public educational system that will continue to be substandard in relation to other industrial nations… and even some developing nations; 4) you will still be addicted to oil; 5) the rich will still get richer and the poor will matter even less; 6) you will still be battling political, economic, social and cultural discrimination… and it is gonna get worse for you before it get’s any better! As I heard Ice-T once state: “If voting could change anything they would outlaw it.” But I digress… this rant is not the purpose of this post… lol!)”
Heartbreakingly true. I’m a black woman from the U.S. and for me voting has always been a matter of the lesser of two evils. I’ve never had any illusions. This election cycle is no different.
Although it pains me to admit it, *U.S. Americans* are some of the most deluded, brainwashed idiots on the planet. That’s the only thing the U.S. educational system does well; it produces a nation of brainwashed, irrational jingoists completely out of touch with reality. That’s not by accident but by design.
My deepest regret is that my slave ancestors didn’t flee to Canada via the Underground Railroad. How I envy you, Asabagna, for living in a civilized, financially sound country!
asabagna
Thankyou for labling the rappers who promote misogyny as part of the House Negro club. They think that they are at the Heart of Blackness. I am a conservative so I don’t mind thier money or materialism so we differ a bit. Blacks like Oprah and Obama are role models. The state of the Black Union forum is unimportant compared against the race for The White House. Winning is Black power. If the forum decreaces chances for Obama winning then I am sure he feels that it deserved to be skipped. Also, Having a discussion on Black issues without discussing Obama is almost impossible today. Obama is a huge issue because Blacks are seizing power and bringing fears those who promote anti-Black White power.
I love your clarity in expressing how many African Americans use the terms House Negro, sellout, and Uncle Tom to denigrate Blacks who don’t attend a predominantly Black hose of worship, financially successful, interracially married and or conservative. You also hit the nail on the head when you described the rhetoric as promoting groupthink and shutting down debate.
I have a different equation for sellouts. Black people make the KKK fear most then they are positive Blacks. The KKK would love it if all of us were hooked on drugs, being incarcerated, selling drugs, catching AIDS and or not supporting our own children. They are in fear if we are happy, healthy moral, and financially successful. Obama is enemy # 1 in their book and that is why I think he is a role model for all African Americans.
You really brought out an important fact by explaining that 40% of African Americans view the culture of poor African Americans as divergent from their own. I also love your take on American Black diversity because our diversity is influencing the House Negro Debate. I view African American Blacks as either self destructive or self constructive. “What kind of African Americans do you want to be your neighbors?” is a good question to help to define the difference between the two. It is not necessarily rich or poor. The KKK fear African American good neighbors most.
I live in California and I feel that African Americans I meet here from the south and east coast are far less self destructive than the African Americans born in California. That is probably due to the fact that more hard working Blacks move out west making a cherry picking effect. The same is true of immigrants. Nigerian, Ethiopian, Jamaican and Haitian Blacks would make far better neighbors in my experience because they are more like Obama. They hate white supremacy but they are pulling themselves up and being happy despite racism in America. Many poor angry African Americans see these whole groups as mostly sellouts like Obama.
Those who believe in White supremacy like the KKK are in terrible fear of Barack Obama so how could Obama be any kind of House Negro? If Obama is elected he will completely change the perception of what Black leadership is in America. When he helps his candidacy he helps All Blacks world wide. This is far more important than a meeting with rhetoric. He will also go down in Black history as second to none if he wins the Presidency. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X will be forgotten long before Obama if he wins the presidency. Obama will be the template. White children world wide will be named Obama and Barack. Do not underestimate the world wide effect on the Black Diaspora of an Obama presidency.
Obama day is coming!
Interesting.
But bagging on rappers is lame. You don’t like what the rappers are preaching, you tell your friends who like the “offensive” rap that there’s another way to see the world. And then you describe that way. And you let your friend choose for him/herself.
I see “gang-banger” rappers as expressing feelings they have. I don’t share their situation, but I share a hatred of injustice and a desire to slay those who would imprison me in their unfair system. I have violent impulses. I may even talk about them. Does my talking about them make me a dangerous man?
Or is such an impulse part of the human experience, and therefore worth voicing?
While well-meaning Black folks point their fingers at rappers and say BAD MAN! BAD MAN! the cold light of cruel factually accurate analysis should be pointed instead in a direction where more injustice occurs.
Rappers are not the cause of racism.
Rappers are not responsible for Obama not being a landslide winner.
Rappers are not to blame for John McCain’s nomination.
Rappers didn’t start the Iraq War.
Rappers didn’t create the Patriot Act.
Rappers didn’t create the Department of Homeland Security.
Rappers haven’t trampled on the Constituton.
Rappers didn’t steal elections.
Rappers haven’t polluted the Earth’s air, land & water.
Rappers didn’t cause the current financial problems that the criminal Congress is about to bail out.
How about some balance?
“Sellout” and “acting white” is more recent. “House Negro” and “Uncle Tom” out of slavery. If you read the Field Negro, Malcolm X gives an excellent definition of the House Negro. When he says, the House Negro will refer to the master’s house as his own, he does not mean the the Negro has made it, or wants the American dream; it means that the Negro has taken the Master’s ways as his. The Master being the slave owner, the racist and bigot. This is what you have when blacks denigrate blacks speaking directly to whites. Someone like a Jesse Lee Peterson or have Walter E. Williams say blacks in America are better off because of slavery, which is now being echoed by Michael Medved, the great philosophical right wing wiz of the century.
I have no qualms with black people whose opinion differs than mine, but I do have real concerns when blacks speak to reinforce stereotypes, using the justification that they must enlightened us. Most black folk know what is wrong and what to do. It can be a discourse which would lead to action, but it must be among persons willing to offer on the ground solutions; not someone who is trying to make brownie points with their Master. Otherwise, someone who is a race hustler like Ward Connerly.
With all sincere and due respect; and to borrow a phrase from the past ‘African Americans know a House Negro when we see one.’ The tell-tale signs are obvious-primarily to those of us whom that have personally or have had family that came up through the post African holocaust struggles in America – i.e., emancipation and civil rights. Quite simply a House Negro is one who works for, speak on behalf of, empathizes and/or sympathizes with institutions, groups or individuals that seek to destroy (psychologically or physically) African Americans and our multi-faceted culture and way of life.
This is not true.
If you take a fire cracker and place it in your palm and light it while keeping your palm open, you will receive a relatively minor burn.
However close your fist. Then light the firecracker. The damage to your hand is much worse.
This is why working for the establishment does not make one a house negro. It is often much more effective to work from the inside. Think about it. Obama works for an establishment that oppresses blacks. Do you honestly think that he would better serve the Black community by starting his own presidency instead (from scratch, I remind you?) Or how a about if Thurgood Marshall rallied Blacks to have a court session that I came up with and that he planned to build up, eventually to the point of having the supreme court’s relevancy) – In his Garage??
p.s. – I’m very blunt and since a very young age I have offended many people when I don’t mean to, allegedly due to A.D.D. – In case I did so again.
I have a problem with U.S. Black folks using, “house negro,” a term that in and of itself represents a miscomprehension of the nature of chattel slavery in American, as a derogatory term.
1)It trivializes the abuse and subjugation that so-called “house negroes” experienced during slavery. House laborer or field laborer, slavery was soul-killing work, and that was on a good day. On a bad day, the spirit-breaking nature of the institution was accompanied by beatings, molestation, rape, and other forms of violence and harassment.
2)21st-century Black people’s use of this term to disparage African Americans that they judge to be too elitist or too assimilated or too bourgeois is patently disrespectful to the memory of our enslaved ancestors, the abuse they endured, and the struggles they undertook to survive, to love, and to stay human in the face of a institution that told them that they were anything but. This is true of all slaves, whether house laborers, field laborers, factory laborers, ship and maritime workers, millwrights, blacksmith’s, carpenters, other other types of workers; because we’ve all read our history, right? And we all know it wasn’t just about the fields or the house… right?
3)This labeling and disparaging of other Black folks smacks to me of the grown-up version of the phenomenon of picking on certain kids for acting “too white.” The only difference is that the “acting white” phenomenon is largely a myth fueled by the white media and Bill Cosby. Calling Black folks we disagree with “house negroes” is apparently real. Name calling is never productive. It kills dialogue and quickly degenerates into exclusionary litmus-test-based dynamics. As a people, we can’t afford to let this creep into our politics. If our kids don’t do it, then neither should we.
Random thoughts apropos of nothing…..
Rappers are not to be blamed for the fact that our children do not perform well in school. Nor are they to blame for the drug epidemic in our neighborhoods. Nor are they to blame for the HIV-AIDS epidemic. They are not to blame for the many Black men in the prisons of the US. They are not to be blamed for the single parent households. These things are the failure of Black Americans to ASSIMILATE into the dominant culture of this country and accept responsibility for ourselves.
Diversity is all good, but to appreciate diversity it is first necessary to assimilate. (See Basic Training in the Marine Corps.)
The ultimate problem that Black Americans face is not White America, but Black America itself. Our so-called Leaders are so focused on what White America does that they do not see nor care what we are doing to ourselves as long as they get theirs. I have yet to hear what plans they have for cleaning our own house and until our house is clean, we cannot throw stones at other’s houses.
Unfortunately, a lot of Black Americans insist on being victims by blaming everyone but themselves for their situation. Black Americans need to understand that the entitlement programs are meant to do one thing and that’s to keep the user dependent on the “slave master” (Government). Entitlement is nothing more than a government plantation. A true “House Negro” is one that cannot stop taking the government handout and start his own plantation. A “House Negro” has failed to take advantage of the opportunities available in this country. A “House Negro” is the negro that is “keeping it real”. To quote Chris Rock – “keeping it real stupid”.
Barack Obama – just the fact that he is able to compaign as a viable candidate for the Presidency signifies a major change from my childhood. Race will be the factor, not the issues facing America.
Biden – Dismissed.
McCain – More of the same sh!t we already have + too old for the job.
Palin – Scares the SHIT out of me.
You do realize there will be no change no matter who is elected and you will be screwed again…and again…and again…and again…ad infinitum.
White people use wigger.
That’s their term for house negro.
Asians use twinkie
I don’t know the terms for Latinos.
Basically, every race has a way to call somebody a House Negro since people of all races desire conformity among racial members. The idea that this is a black thing is another manifestation of the disorder I discussed in this post:
http://ravingblacklunatic.blogspot.com/2008/08/dem-negroes.html
On another note, the idea that divergent ideas are proof of that black people have split into different races is rooted in the racism of the past that has defined all black people by our base elements. All races have members with different values and different aspirations. Bluebloods in Boston have very little in common with rednecks in Georgia or mountain folk in West Virginia. They never have. Yet, I see that nobody is talking about the split of the white race. It has always been easier for white people to paint us with a broad brush, and so when they are confronted with the idea that they we are not the monolith that they assumed, it is a shock to them. This is a not a sign of a huge change in the black community, this has always been the reality. White people just ignored it.
I use the term House Negro for someone whose actions benefit the oppressor, particularly when that person seems aware of the effect of their actions. That’s what it means to me.
“Unfortunately, a lot of Black Americans insist on being victims by blaming everyone but themselves for their situation.”
What is a lot? I may define myself as a liberal, does that I mean that I look for or have taken advantage of a hand out? When you look, there isn’t that many people who ask for help, and since many people believe they are their brother’s keeper, it does not mean they want a welfare state, when they want programs for the poor.
This kind of thinking of what’s wrong with black folk is really shallow. If you analyzed the problems it is more related to a decline in culture, than people wanting a handout. Many black people have taken advantages of opportunities and have still been less better off than there white counterparts. An example, new housing built for the white working class, where working class black folk couldn’t get mortgages or their offers accepted. What is cost a black person in buying an older house could literally be enough to send their child to college. The white working class child get to go to a college debt free, that being a leg up coming out of college.
It is the little indignities of race, that keep us from true participation, not our group think. Yet I see black people standing at the bus stop 5:30 in the morning, going to work to do an honest days work. It makes me sad, when I hear black folks define them by the lowest among us.
I was beginning to think I was alone in my thinking. I’ll say, it is delightful to know others see what I see about our own. I simply feel there is a lot to be gained by talking about how Black Americans accept the” living at the lowest common denomination” life style.
What’s wrong with policing our own so OUR own communities grow strong?
Revolution, is in my opinion about evoluition, to re-evolve. It is the internal thought of a person that expresses itself externally. What you think you are, you will be. If you think you are ghetto, you will express this in an external fashion, whether it be a clothing style, tatoos, the way you speak, the way you act. This is the external expression of an internal thought process, on a micro-cosmic level. This same internal thought process expressed by the many becomes a culture, when many dress a certain way, speak a certain way and act a certain way, all based on an internal thought process. So, what outside entity came to a certain group of Black people and produced the thought in them that they are ghetto and this is how ghetto acts? How can one or a group overcome an ailment by pointing at the external factor? Does this exclude the fact that external factors influence the thought process? No. Yet, we are responsible for how we internalize an outside influence. One factor in the external influence on the Black Collective are our own so called “leaders” and “professors” that influence a certain percentage of Black people’s internal thought processes. When a “leader” or “professor” continues to express a slave mentality (I will elaborate in a post what a slave mentality is), then those that believe the “leaders” and “professors” are greater than themselves fall prey to an external influence that deters positive uplifing internal thoughts in the “weaker” collective. Example, on a different level. In order to avoid the flu or a cold one MUST strengthen their OWN immune system, an internal function. When a cold or flu virus attacks a preson and overcomes them, then it is the failure of the person to strengthen the INTERNAL IMMUNE SYSTEM. When the immune system is strong an outside influence is of little to no effect. The same is true with the Black collective. The Black Collective must CLEAN OUT and strengthen INTERNALLY to repel negative outside attacks. The more we focus on the outside factor, the white man, the European cultural influence on the Black collective, and racism the “weaker” the collective becomes. And, the Black collective will be defeated by those very same external forces. Therefore, the focus MUST be on cleaning OUR internal thought process, cleaning out the down pressing “leaders” and “professors”, cleaning out our vocabulary, cleaing up the way we dress, act, and feed ourselves, and clean up our dirty ways to eachother. Then and only then can we defeat racism, European cultural influence, the white man and bad Black “leaders” “and Professors”.
I totally understand your post. Your words provide a visual display of what our focus should be ( “the focus MUST be on cleaning OUR internal thought process, cleaning out the down pressing “leaders” and “professors”, cleaning out our vocabulary, cleaning up the way we dress, act, and feed ourselves, and clean up our dirty ways to each other”).
The external forces cannot be dealt with properly until the internal force is strong, united and clear in it’s agenda/game plan. I like it…
I have thought of the divide as conformists and reactionaries for decades. I am sure most people who have seen me have regarded me as a conformist but looking like one and thinking like one are two different things.
The reactionaries sabotage themselves economically and the conformists sabotage themselves psychologically and the technology does not give a damn.
It’s 39 years after the moon landing and the economists are not talking about the planned obsolescence of automobiles and what the world loses on the depreciation of that garbage every year. A Black MBA driving a BMW is still driving a piece of junk. The laws of physics have not changed in the last 50 years so why do they keep making the cars look different?
When are Black Americans going to focus on science and technology more than on White people? It is technology that made it possible for the Euro-Borg to conquer the world.
Torrent O Books
um
The reason why our community has not moved forward independent of white power is because our analysis has not moved forward. While Malcolm X popularized the house/field negro debate, he was trying to help people understand the dynamic of class struggle, and neo-colonialism.
We have to say that racism is the concentrated class struggle. It is the sharpest form of class struggle. And neo-colonialism is the dilution of the concentrated class struggle.
Like people who talk about the house/field nigger analogy obviously have not read Cabral, Fanon, Nkrumah, Huey Newton, George Jackson, Diop, Rodney, Mao, or anything more than Message to the Grassroots. If capitalism has developed since 1960, but our analysis is stuck in that year, black liberation is not going to move forward in relation to colonialism. This may not be popular to say, but it comes back to neo-colonialism being used to dilute the concentrated class struggle.
It is also to say that revolution does not mean anything related to evolution or evolving. Humans may one day evolve into different creatures, but within our species we either differentiate (physically, as in racial differences) or else we develop. By development we consciously make the changes happen; whereas evolution is unconscious.
Revolution also has nothing to do with revolving. This is one word meaning two different things. It is reactionary to talk about revolution being related to revolving around something when this meaning obviously means REVOLT. It is related to insurrection, the uprising in society necessary to overthrow the class system. That is what revolution means, what it has always meant, unless you are conducting a science class instead of a discussion on social trends.
{{{ If capitalism has developed since 1960, but our analysis is stuck in that year, black liberation is not going to move forward in relation to colonialism. This may not be popular to say, but it comes back to neo-colonialism being used to dilute the concentrated class struggle. }}}
John Kenneth Galbraith was talking about the planned obsolescence of automobiles in 1959 in his book The Affluent Society. Malcolm and Martin could have read it but I am not aware of either of them ever saying anything about planned obsolescence.
This relates to classism because Black Americans sabotage themselves by trying to BUY CLASS. Have you ever seen an ad for Cadillac in Ebony magazine? The laws of physics don’t change style for Black people from year to year any more than they do for White people.
The White economists don’t talk about the depreciation of consumer automobiles no matter who buys them however.
GlobaLIES
The economic effects of technology make tribalism irrelevant.
.
See, you are reading a bourgeois philosopher on a bourgeois class analysis of bourgeois values. The revolutionary class struggle watered down and diluted by turning concepts like class into classism, and turning the labor reserve into the underclass. The analysis you are working with is all very unscientific and subjective.
You do not show that you understand the scientific (objective) class analysis in even the most rudimentary forms, while simultaneously striving to show up the view that I have lent. I won’t try to fix the train wreck that you just engineered.
But planned obsolescence or historical determinism? The logical outcome of planned obsolescence is the exact same as voodoo economics, also known as laissez faire capitalism. The genuine class struggle is not engaged with conspicuous consumption or automobile pricing and devaluation. That has nothing to do with anything and that is why your analysis is stuck in the background of an undisciplined hypothesis. You cannot even crawl onto the playing field of theory and ideology. Your input is only a diversion.
I also want to briefly address what Ensayn said about revolution being evolution. Comes back to watering down terms. You dont have to use the word “revolution” if you are about assimilation. In the capitalist system, the capacity to extend mobility to a sector of the colonized community is not revolutionary nor evolutionary. It is simply mobility, and that is what you are talking about. The mobility of a middle class from the colonized society helps dilute and blunt the class struggle against racism, and watering down terms which speak to the masses is part of the trade off, which you have learnt.
Revolution, if you look it up in the dictionary, derives from “REVOLT”, uprising, insurrection. It doesn’t have anything to do with revolve, because we are not talking about hanging in limbo, either, before you take that to another tangent. All I say is if you can’t dance to the music, find another club.
Mbantunyankompong, Then please explain revolution, or to revolt in todays society? I am well aware what revolution means on a mundane level. It has been tried and failed in this era of time here in the U.S. Mao said revolution grows from barrel of a gun. Are you intimating this would be the process of revolution today? You speak of science. Science, a systematic knowledge of the physical and material world gained through observation and experimentation. It appears you are only talking about and concerned with the physical and material world. In that case you are correct and your argument is not without substance. My world however, has moved beyond the physical and material. When I am speaking about revolution its concerning the individual mind, body and spirit (soul). Open revolt is the last stage in the totality of revolution. There will be no sucessful open revolt when bodies, minds and souls have not cleansed and raised to a level that can engage and sustain a physical revolution.
Peace, Ensayn. Mao’s experience is not universal, altho that is not to detract from the critical contributions he made to theory. Armed insurrection played a small role in, say, the Bolshevik revolution. It mainly came about because the working class made it impossible for the bourgeoisie to rule. Strikes, takeovers of plants and mines, stripping fighters away from the army, stoppages of critical infrastructure, all contributed to the Bolshevik takeover. That is more what I think is necessary for a revolution in North America.
People cannot hope to wait for everybody to have a spiritual revolution in this society. America is genocidal. It believes in ethnic cleansing. It is anti-labor; it opposes and fights against working class unity and the unions. How can we have spiritual purity, and who will set about measuring that? I am not trying to ridicule your point, but aiming for measurable standards.
You must overstand that capitalism, for all its worth, has severe limitations in a world society, where a vast interwoven social fabric makes fabulous lifestyles possible for a handful of people while billions of others live at the margins of existence.
Science has logic, we can surmise that Capitalism cannot sustain the growing world society. There is not enuf to go around. Capital and capitalism cannot end poverty but it intensifies it; capitalism lacks the ability to make people happy. It cannot end wars and violence; on the contrary, it intensifies aggression. Capitalism will never make any inroads towards ending disease and mental affliction as long as a profit can be made. The capitalist class system remains responsible for dividing society, concentrating resources into a few hands, where the distribution of those resources could go a long way towards improving everyone’s lives.
A revolutionary takes on the job of agitating around these talking points. Capitalism is in a crisis without any significant external forces competing with it. So if that is the case, it cannot survive, but its collapse will unleash all the forces of reaction. World War I and II are examples of what happened in a capitalist financial meltdown. Are we going to have another do over? That’s what I am asking you, Ensayn. That is not doable, at least not for me.