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May 26, 2004

Brother Spence

Once again, I stand with great respect to my man Lester Spence. Today marks his debut at Africana.com. The good doctor who has been holding down the fort at VisionCircle.org has made another advance in getting the good word out to thoughtful folks. So you will find him regularly at Africana, and hopefully sometimes back at his old stomping grounds. With the utmost respect I wish him well in his new endeavors.

My new associate-in-league Avery Tooley threw out a word to me today. Contrarian. I find it intriguing and something that I'm not sure that I can get away from. I would not like to be known as a contrarian, not least because of one of my rules, that the Devil's Advocate is merely masking his contempt. And yet it is often true that I find myself at odds with people I admire. I do so because I enjoy pointing out what I see as logical weaknesses in positions that I abandon. I respect others for taking that angle, but I have to show them why they're weak. This fact was readily apparent to me in my recent face to face with George Kelly. The Left, I explained to him, is not sufficiently seditious to upset the great comfortable garden capital has made of America.

At any rate it is with that sword of contrarian swinging above my head that give me an itch this evening in light of one of Spence's closing paragraphs:


Finally, we have to begin to think outside of the box and use tactics of misdirection and passive aggression in order to make further strides. For most of us, for example, the odds of us casting a vote for the Republican Party are about the same as the odds of us being struck by lightning. How could we hack the Republican Party for progressive purposes?

Yike. Maybe Carly Simon has my number, because I probably thought that song was about me. Me? A contrarian, passive-aggressive misdirected hacker? I can't cop to all that, but I see where that idea might come from. I'm sure he means it in the best way. Those of us dedicated to our future pluralism are going to have to make genuine juke moves to shake off the old. Not only our old predictable selves, but the old predictable enemies who still think they can post up on us and know our next step.

Like most capable people, Spence has a positive outlook. I share his optimism. P6 is hooked into the concept as well. We're moving forward. Black politics ain't what it used to be.

Posted by mbowen at May 26, 2004 11:29 PM

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Comments

I think we're both not just about pointing out flaws and weaknesses but proferring alternatives.

Yet and still if there was a single word that covered my approach to intellectual life, contrarian would be it. Given that some of my intellectual heroes (adolph reed, harold cruse, albert murray) are contrarians...I think we're in pretty good company.

Thanks for the shout out by the way. I made a firm decision to stick around. It's all about extending the brand.

Posted by: Lester Spence at May 27, 2004 01:06 PM