And I will be there in solidarity with the rest my more conscious contemporaries. And we will have your back as elders like Eddy Conway and Angela Davis have had ours. It may be, and it is certainly my hope, that in your generation we will see the formation of a new movement that will make the 1960s look like a Sunday picnic.
-Savant
______________________
One really sad irony of history is that Barack Obama MIGHT have become the equivalent of FDR, but didn't; this was partly due to his own errors, and partly to the obstruction of his right wing enemies. it would be unreasonable to expect an American president (in our backward political system) to be another Paul Robeson, King or Debs. You cannot be a revolutionary in high office. But he might have been a militant progressive reformer, a fighting liberal. Too bad that didn't happen. So, it's back to the streets. By the way, Timothy posted a link to an article by the International Socialist Review called "Black Lives Matter: A New Movement Takes Shape." He posted it to me, I believe, in the thread: REVOLUTIONARIES IN AA FORUM: ARE THERE ANY? It is interesting that some of the 1960s tendencies which you surely recall are re-appearing in new forms.
-Savant
___________
This past Spring saw the final release of Marshall Eddy Conway, former leader of the Baltimore Black Panther Party, from 44 years of imprisonment. I finally met him in person in May of last year. He's still strong and still committed even though in his mid-to late 60s. I had spoken to him on the phone while he was still incarcerated. I had not met him before he and other Panthers were arrested. But then, we were kids when the Panthers happened. When I met him this past spring Eddy greeted me warmly "So, you're the passionate young professor whom I've been talking to and hearing about." I was deeply impressed that his spirit was unbroken after spending TWICE the amount of time in prison as did Nelson Mandela under the fascistic regime in South Africa. Since one can only give what one had I expressed my joy in his release and gave him a copy of my book on Martin Luther King, Jr--a philosophical work which I wouldn't mind sharing with you (privately, of course). My mom, who ws deeply shaken up by Dr. King's assassination, became an avid supporter of the Black Panther Party. Even today one can find old Panther literature in her home. I once told Eddy during a phone conversation during his incarceration that though I was too young to be active in the 1960, I would keep and pass down the legacy of struggle to the next generation. It was largely with that in mind that I chose the teaching profession. Heaven knows it wasn't the money! LOL! I am still committed to strengthening and bequeathing that legacy of struggle to you as it was bequeathed unto to me by the courageous sisters and brothers of the 1960s. And I simply will not quit until we either win or die.
-Savant
_______________
Like I said, people like freddy are just along for the ride. We've more important matters to concern ourselves with. I think we're entering what Angela Davis described to a large gathering of our students as "an historical moment," a point in time which we could see the resurgence of popular democratic and progressive movement such as has not been possible since the 1960s or 1930s. And as Angela indicated to our students (back in 2013) we must PREPARE for the historical moment or the opportunity for change will pass us by for heaven knows how long. I like what Angela said to a young brother in the audience who said that "we don't have leaders like you, and our generation doesn't have people like Martin or Malcolm X." Sister Angela said: "COMMIT YOURSELF, young brother. Work with like-minded fellow students and community people to effectuate change. And if you've prepared yourself, then maybe YOU will a spokesman for the new movement." Now that's why I love sister Angela even when I disagree with her. Unlike some of our elders (and of, course, I'm YOUR elder), she has faith in the younger generation. "BE the change, brother. And YOU might be one of the leaders of a movement to transform society" she said. It seems that you're one millennial brother who is doing just that. There are others. So,, I am optimistic. Cautious, but optimistic. We CAN win!
-Savant
_________________
Great article, my brother. I'm in my office and printing this out now. Will share it with colleagues an students, especially students in the Philosophy and History clubs. And a new student activist group that surfaced on campus in reply to the killings by cops and subsequent exonerations
-Savant
_____
These "Black Hebrew Israelites" and "New" Panthers are essentially irrelevant. Movements, at least any with popular support, are happening elsewhere. As for the "new Black Panthers" they tried to upstage the community during the time of the Trayvon Martin affair. But both Martin's family and the Black community REJECTED them. I ask about REVOLUTIONARIES, and you post info on these reactionaries. Later for them.
-Savant
_____________
Great! Now this is the kind of conversation I hoped to elicit when I started this thread quite some time ago. We need to begin talking more about what we WANT, what we want ended, and what we want begun. And we need to become DREAMERS and VISIONARIES again. We must begin again to ENVISION a better world, a new kind of society which we will forge with our own hands, a society in which the human person can fully flower in all his or her manifold potentialities. A world in human dignity and happiness will become the universally recognized birthright of every man, woman and child on earth. That is what our forbears were REALLY fighting for in the 1960s. That is the quest that we must carry forth. FREEDOM RISING!!!
-Savant
__________
If this place were a REAL African American Forum it would have been ablaze during the summer of 2013 (and beyond) with discussion of the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act o 1965. It would be ablaze now with discussion of he challenges to the Fair Housing bill of 1968 now before the Supreme Court. Especially as we're in the 50th anniversary of the Selma campaign for voting rights---and the second years since the gutting of the Voting Rights Bill by the Supine Court---there should be all kinds of discussions on this matter. Young brothers like Timothy should be talking with older brothers and sisters who came up in that era about the significance of what's happening. We should be talking about how we're going to defend these rights and work to save the future for our children. The wave of police violence against Black communities has gotten attention, and evoked activism in real time among our people and sympathetic non-Black allies. An AA forum should be a place where these forces can meet, discuss and talk strategy. And what of the relationship between rising economic inequality and growing police violence in Black, Latin and poor communities? This should certainly be discussed. Or the prison industrial complex so incisively critiqued by Michelle Alexander and Angela Y. Davis? We reportedly have more sisters and brothers in prison today than ever---more Black men in prison than were in slavery 160 years ago. Economic dislocation which dislocates families and communities (which also leads to more crime), racist police violence, mass incarceration, the undermining of our hard won rights and liberties, hunger and homeless, and the mental erosion of consumerism and mass entertainment (with even "news" becoming increasingly a circus of amusement)--these are all vital issues, issues of life and death. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble: But whether or not you want to marry a Black man or woman is hardly a matter of great historical importance. It has little relevance to the burning issues of our times. And as long as you are obsessed with this, YOU will have no relevance either. No we need a forum which addresses more vital matters.
-Savant
_________________
Blacks in a real AA Forum: Let's be honest. A good number of Black people would probably not be able to be part of a REAL AA Forum. Why? African-American or not, a forum is still a forum. One of the definitions of the forum found in Webster Dictionary is "a meeting place for DISCUSSION of matters of PUBLIC INTEREST or a means through which such discussion can be conducted." (This old dictionary, copyright 1997, mentions newspapers but not the internet as an example of a "means" by which discussion can be conducted. But it's possible applicability to the internet is obvious). Another definition : "a discussion of a public issue or other SERIOUS topic." Well, unfortunately, many of our black sisters and brothers in this so-called AA Forum are either unwilling or unable to discuss matters of public concern or any serious topic in a serious way. Either they're unable to discuss a serious topic, or unable to do so in a serious way. Like the racists who demean us, like Obama noted regarding his idiotic adversaries on the Right, many of our people mistake name-calling for debate, and substitute insult for argument. And as I discovered not long after discovering AA Forum by accident about seven years ago, there is an INCESSANT focus on personal relations and (especially) INTERRACIAL relationships. I don't know that I'd say these are not important issues, but they're mainly addressed in trivial ways. Ways that are both trivial and hateful. And they are obsessively focused upon to the virtual exclusion of nearly all other issues. Many Blacks here can't talk about much else, and what they do talk about is shallow. Now a REAL AA Forum would address a wide range of issues, of which interpersonal relations (IR or not) would be but ONE. And while discussions and debates might at times get heated--we humans are not emotionless robots--emotionali sm would not be allowed to displace reason. Passion would not displace thought. Which is not to say that debates and discussions wouldn't often be quite PASSIONATE. But they would definitely be a high level of seriousness and reason. Many black people in this so-called AA forum would probably not be up to that level of participation. Ironically, there are SOME white people who might make better participants than some of our fellow Blacks.
-Savant
_______________
What difference does it make whether your cousin complains or where he works. Police violence and misconduct are more widespread in America than in most other countries, including some that are bona fide police states. And a disproportionate amount of that violence is directed at Black and Brown Americans. That's a reality that has been recognized not only by most people in the Black community, but also by the UN, Amnesty International, ACLU and various other human rights groups. At the same time there are attacks even on historically achieved civil rights advances, including the 2013 Supine Court abrogation of the enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and now the challenging by Republican reactionaries before the Supine Court of the Fair Housing Bill of 1968 (signed just a few days after Dr. King's assassination). That you and your kindred are complacently adjusted to the status quo is your affair. But Black people--indeed ALL people--with a modicum of self-respect and social consciousness feel a moral obligation to resist these many-sided social wrongs. Those who are satisfied are just along for the ride.
-Savant
No comments:
Post a Comment