Black consciousness (South Africa): The debate starts

From the self proclaimed, "unashamedly elitist website", The Daily Maverick, Sipho Hlongwane offers his perspective on black  consciousness, a South African perspective.  He questions how social justice brings the debate on consciousness to the fore.

Happy Independence Day

Tuggstar the Poet:

Happy Independence day Ghana.  Please construct your own meaning in the post-colonial, global era.

Fear and Hope in the UK

Searchlight Educational Trust commissioned the polling organisation Populus to explore the issues of English identity, faith and race. TheFear and HOPE survey gives a snapshot of current attitudes in society today. It explores the level of fear, hate and hope. It details what pulls us apart and what brings us together. With 5,054 respondents and 91 questions it is one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys into attitude, identity and extremism in the UK to date.

Miscegenation Ball by The Atlantic's Ta Nehisi Coates

TA-NEHISI COATES on what we here in England call mixed-race:

link: http://www.theatlantic.com/miscegenation-ball

The following Postbourgie podcast entitled 

The Beijing of America.  is a great follow up to the article.

The Elephant In the Room Post Update

Further updates to the update....... Frances Piven is tough.  From NANCY GOLDSTEIN at the american Prospect.

Frances Fox Piven: Still Tougher Than Glenn Beck

Update to the update:

Spotlight From Glenn Beck Brings a CUNY Professor Threats

and from the excellent blog "We are are respectable Negroes",

Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Eliminationist Speech: Do Conservatives Really Want to Kill Liberals and Progressives?

Glenn Beck continues to rattle on about Frances Piven.  The coded language, thinly veiled bigotry and class-ism is palpable.   See the original Elephant in the Room post below for further clarification on the Cloward–Piven strategy. 


P.S.
The linked video from youtube contains wing-nut banter

Getting to the seminal point

The Huffington Post described the above comments as "eye brow raising".   Beyond eyebrow raising Rick Santorum's comment,

"Well if that human life is not a person then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say 'now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.'"


This comment is indicative of a deeper psychological rift that has bifurcated the American psyche.  The chasm exists between Americans who are willing to have a person of color leading their country and those who tightly cling to a vestigial white supremacist ideology.  Santorum's unveiled bigotry serves as dog whistle politics for many on the right who trade in the politics of fear.  However, the brand of fear Santourum is peddling is white supremacy.  


The comment is forked.  On one prong, Rick states that, "it is remarkable for a black man to say WE are going to decide who are people."..  Left tacit in that phrase is the concept that black people are not human.  This is a founding theme in the American apartheid system.  The 3/5 compromise was not only a canard for census data but it is also a pillar of racist ideology, it promotes the idea that Africans do not have the stature, intellect or indeed the characteristics of human beings.  The other prong is the personal pronoun we, it connotes a group of people in America who are fundamentally unlike the standing President of the United States.  This has been a theme of the right, The President is not like "us" or "we" or "we want our country back".  Again Rick is alluding to the fact that Barak Obama does not have two white parents and is not of the social or perhaps mental status of the unnamed "we". This group of individuals called we is a group Santourum seemingly claims membership of.  Is this a social group or a cultural group?  


Clearly Santourum is borrowing a page from politics from past centuries, sadly much of the critique from the right revolves around the politics of bigotry.  Santourum likely understands and supports the ignorance of his message.


Perhaps Elon James White frames the discourse more effectively  
Video Update:

The Power of Nightmares

Continuing with the Adam Curtis cavalcade of video, The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series; the films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two. Take note of the role of Frantz Fannon. (Ilink; http://tinyurl.com/24nzrxr)

A reason for leaks.....?

The Rise and fall of Tee Vee Journalism........  Adam Curtis



link: http://tinyurl.com/3xrxx8y


A funny but sadly true update...
From Gawker

The Elephant In the Room

Article Review:

Richard Kim; The Nation

The Mad Tea Party

What makes a statement like the following plausible in America and not in the United Kingdom?

It was Cloward and Piven's article that gave ACORN the idea to start peddling subprime mortgages to poor minorities in the 1980s, knowingly laying the groundwork for a global economic meltdown nearly thirty years later.

The movement of the new right in America differs greatly from the resurgence of the new right in The United Kingdom.  While The Conservatives in England have molded the new Tory from Canadian, compassionate conservatism and American image crafting, the American conservatives have chosen a path of disinformation and fear.  The new Torys have also partnered with The Liberal Democratic party to form a collation government in England.  In stark contrast to their British colleagues, The Republican Party aligned with various Tea party organisations,  have returned to the “southern strategy” that was responsible for the defection of the Dixiecrats of years past.

The southern strategy was born under Nixon to recruit southern supporters of segregation. Disillusioned by the eras civil  rights acts Dixiecrats shifted republican. Republicans under Regan with his “welfare queens” quote  perfected its implementation and it continued to even haunt John MCcain in his GOP primary run against George W. Bush.

This article, helps to explain why race is still the elephant in the room in American politics.

link->

Post Update:

Glenn Beck Targets Frances Fox Piven

The Spin:

Glenn Beck 

Andrew Breitbart

American Thinker

Can you detect the coded language? 


How to use Cloward Piven to interpret current events and drudge up fears from the 1960's.  A thinly veiled Cloward Piven inspired rant.


Link

And now a Word from the BBC, perhaps..

The amazing Reggie Watts...

Adam Curtis The Century of the self

Adam Curtis on the Self.  The Century of the Self shows how psychoanalysis has shaped, corporations and Politics.  How to make one happy and thus docile...

James Baldwin

James Baldwin's words in this interview are applicable and relevant today as much as they were over 40 years ago.  He discusses critical consciousness, gentrification and identity.   

The Trap, Freedom

Adam Curtis is a writer and producer of compelling documentaries.  This series is called the Trap.  The trap that binds today is our post-modern concept of freedom.  He writes;

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom

This series consists of three one-hour programmes which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically, "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom."


This series can be found at The Internet Archive.  This is a truly interesting, critical and informative take on our western selves, enjoy..

The Black Elephant in the Room; Incarceration

Michelle Alexander and her book, The New Jim Crow exposes, the drug wars,  how the black  incarcerated population is a clear parallel to the American caste system. 
Get comfy and be ready to be disturbed.
Video:

Audio:
Incarceration As Social Control, an interview on KPFA 94.1 FM and KFCF 88.1 FM in Northern and Central California


Further food for thought:


The New Jim Crow | Mother Jones

TWIB is funny but if you have any questions, please read DuBois, Fanon or hooks instead.

The bell hooks critical conciousness review

bell hooks along with El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and my grandfather Ed Cooper are my cultural heroes.  They have sharpened my critical consciousness and instilled pride and humility.  In reading Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow, I am astonished by the laissez faire attitude that many Americans employ in regards to consciousness and state of being.  bell hooks provides a gentle reminder of how perception and reality are often at odds with one another.

Sign -o-the times

Welcome back to the southern strategy. It worked for Nixon, Regan and Poppy Bush. Resurrect the Black demon, make them fearful and then justify their slaughter, remember the war on drugs (NWA the concept of gangsta,, boyz in da hood and menace to society? Awesome propaganda) 2 million people in jail, 70% African (many labour for free and do not have civil rights, Jim Crow anyone?). Prison in America is another thread we will investigate in later posts.


The southern stratagem.  Is that not Fox news' raison d'etre? Van Jones, ACORN, the new black panther party (all 3 members) do you see a pattern emerging? This tactic is strengthened by projection. Project your flaws onto another and accuse them of stated flaw in order to remove them from positions of power. The worst part is that the majority of Americans are so accustomed to accepting biases that support the American caste system projection is not recognized and identified, rather it is tacitly accepted. Case in point, American de facto segregation in public schools neighborhoods and in religious establishments.  D.W. Griffith's  film, Birth of a Nation, was the highest grossing silent film.  It is also seemingly, what people mean when they declare I want my country back.







(this is the movie in its entirety )







Further food for thought:
Justice Department - Black Panther | Video | Megyn Kelly | Mediaite

Further;
Fox News, the Black Panthers, and the same old pattern | Media Matters for America

Right-Wing Groups Use Decline of White Birthrates to Stoke Fear of Homosexuality, Feminism and Abortion | Belief | AlterNet

How Republicans inadvertently made the case for confirming Elena Kagan. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

Republicans Let Their Racism Show in Attack On Thurgood Marshall | Mirror On America

The Root: Playing The Race Card With Elena Kagan : NPR

The Elephants Tea Party

Why do so many posts seem to be centered on American social and cultural issues?  I live in the UK, I work here and I follow British politics.  Perhaps it is because race is the preverbal elephant in the room in America, while class is the pachyderm of choice in The United Kingdom.

Enough thinking out loud.  Follow me down the rabbit hole, and call me Bagger Vance cuz were talking Tea Party.  The laughable concept of using the Boston Tea Party as a symbolism for protesting high taxes and high costs is historically inaccurate.  In fact,


In 1773 Parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the English East India Company a chance to avert bankruptcy by granting a monopoly on the importation of tea into the colonies. The new regulations allowed the company to sell tea to the colonists at a low price, lower than the price of smuggled tea, even including the required duty. The British reasoned that the Americans would willingly pay the tax if they were able to pay a low price for the tea.


Ironically the original tea tax protest included a little red-face minstrel show when, 50 men, unconvincingly disguised as Mohawk Indians threw tea into the sea. But much like today, even then the British colonists (they were still English colonists) ignored the fact that costs and the tea tax were at their lowest levels." The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to skirt any middlemen and undersell their competitors, even undercutting smuggled tea. Parliament would not be able to resist such cheaply priced tea.  Today's baggers rant about high taxes are and make hyperbolic claims that subconsciously exploit race in a similar way that British colonists donned red faces in an attempted to scapegoat Mohawk Native Americans.


The Tea Party's blatant fixation with race is a national fixation with race.  There are very few cultural issues, economic and  political issues which encompass Tea Parties that do not subconsciously revolve around the pachyderm in the room.  This week Newsweek asked, Why Doesn't the Media Interrogate Tea Partiers' Beliefs?  Read the article and follow the trail to the University of Washington poll.  The poll authors state that the poll "examines what Americans think about the issues of race, public policy, national politics, and President Obama, one year after the inaugurationof the first African American president."  Do you see it yet, big tusks, floppy ears?  This poll caused quite a stir over at FiveThirtyEight.com.  


The poll results point toward strong racial and cultural bias held by many of the poll responders.  The Newsweek writer asks,


Might it be possible that the Tea Partiers who profess no racial motivation are, let's say, not entirely aware of their own visceral motivations? I'm sure if you asked the Southern voters who switched to Republican voting habits why they did so, many would say race had nothing to do with it. But why should journalists take that at face value?


Might it be possible that everyone subconsiously knows that racial animus is the muse for Tea Party discontent?  Might it be possible that we ignore the racial overtones of British colonists dressed in Mohawk Red-face with the same ease that we ignore the fact that racial bias infects even the poll questions that look to measure racism?  Check out one of the questions from the poll,

Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many  

other minorities overcame  

prejudice and worked their way  

up.  Blacks should do the same  

without special favors.  (Agree) 


Check out the original elephant in the room post for more....


The Elephant in the room

4th Annual Mixed Experience History Month

Nice historical view of light-skinded America and blackness.

Light-skinned-ed Girl

Check out Anatole Broyard, His granddaughter has some interesting work.

Her book looks as if it is an interesting perspective on the One Drop Rule.

We are respectable negroes: White Newborn Babies to be a Minority in the U.S. or Which "Racial" Group will Earn their Whiteness Next?

Ah, The definition of white. Remember back in the day? Classmates would ask, "what are you?" I would reply black, or black and native American. If they strove to be "middle class" their response to the same question would usually be, You're lucky,  I am just white. Not Irish, Italian, German etc. just white. Classmates who subconsciously identified as working class would usually respond with their ethnicity.  "I'm Irish or I'm Italian".  Some construct new racial categories, the best Americanism is, I'm Scotch-Irish".  There is no such thing as Scotch-Irish.  The Scottish call themselves Scottish.  Scotch is a drink.  Just white is the most sought after racial classification in the United States, and it does not exist in the world.


Back in the States some are fearful of the rising amounts of mud bloods: [follow link]
We are respectable negroes: White Newborn Babies to be a Minority in the U.S. or Which "Racial" Group will Earn their Whiteness Next?


In London the white label is usually designated by class.  The working class are dubbed "white working class".  This classification usually applies to White British, Irish, Welch and other "very British, Oy, Oy white working class" people.  The Middle classes are usually dubbed simply middle class.  Interestingly, the middle classes are usually proponents of multiculturalism.  Multiculturalism is very PC.


Note to Americans, middle class in England is not the same as middle class in America.  Middle class in America connotes a suburban lifestyle, marked by material possessions and zip code.  Middle class in England is hereditary, one may buy into it, but acceptance takes generations, proper schooling and diction.  The Tea Party and those that scream middle class loudest in America are not middle class.  Thus we have the vague classification of white.  White in America means non-ethnic, it means disregarding any ties to immigrant ancestors, so please note, we could be middle class.    


The fastest growing ethnic "minority" in England is the mixed race, classification.

The Independant:

A black and white issue: The future of society is mixed

The melting pot is bubbling nicely. 'Mixed race' is the UK's fastest-growing ethnic group. Are we ready for generation M? Amina Taylor, a black woman with a white partner, ponders what the future holds for her children

The BBC (Auntie):

Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, has called for all citizens to "assert a core of Britishness".http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3596047.stm


Further food for thought:


Right-Wing Groups Use Decline of White Birthrates to Stoke Fear of Homosexuality, Feminism and Abortion | Belief | AlterNet