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July 13, 2004
Books on Oppression
Darkstar reminds me that things I used to say are still in the Google Archive. I've always hated Welsing, but I said some other pretty interesting things to - back when I was futzing with identity and being post-modern. If you get bored, there's a rap on the next page.
(from the archives - june 1993)
Welsing is an idiot and a racist, so I won't even bother with that book.
I have read three weighty tomes by Sowell and I doubt seriously that he
has anything new to say. What kind of economist is he anyway? The problem
I have with Sowell is that he views culture entirely too narrowly and
sees most cultural values in economic terms. Thus he has been supportive
of arguements against cultures whose highest priorities are not thrift.
In short, Sowell promotes a merchant class. As I have Confucian philosophical
leanings I find most of his advice utterly barbaric. Be that as it may,
it does not lessen his appeal to Americans (and immigrants to America)
who adopt unreconstructed Puritanism as their guiding principle. But
since I understand that black progress in this country is achieved in
spite of and often in opposition to the Puritan work ethic I found little
use for his work then as now.
Schlesinger is an old man who ought to just shut up and go home. I'm
sick and tired of the voices of World War II. As far as I'm concerned,
he's a dodo. Interesting in a Jurassic Park kind of way but long past
leadership. I throw a David Halberstam and a Kennan at the old feeb.
As for what he has to say, I beleive he is simply an alarmist who is not
beyond stooping to dirty politics. But all bluster aside, I believe he
has aligned himself very much like Dinesh D'Sousa (or Digun GaDinza
depending on if you've learned Japanese by Spring) on the losing side
of a battle that should never have taken place. If he had the wisdom
and courage of his 'opponents' (like Skip Gates) in this row, perhaps
I might consider his viewpoint more seriously. But as he said in his
letters to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal(!) on the issues
of curriculum in the State of New York, "I'm afraid.." and "I'm alramed.."
Not the voice of reason for my 11.95
Nathan Glazer. I don't even know why his name sounds familiar.
What are some of his other books?
Anyway if his book is about Affirmative Action, I'm hardly interested.
I don't think most progressive blacks give a rats ass about Affirmative
Action. I know I only talk about it to piss folks off. Few, (believe me
very few) Americans could write a halfway decent approximation on how
any good Affirmative Action program is supposed to work anyway. Having
written manpower systems, I know the math and I know how limited its
economic potential is. Bottom line is the only white people a decent
Affirmative Action plan hurts economically are the incompetent ones. The
rest is a bunch of symbolism, and empty symbolism at that. As I said
before, black progress is not, in the main, a Puritan thang.
All backlash against Affirmative Action, in my view, is just white people
trying to tell blacks how they should earn their money; and all die hard
Affirmative Action wonks are just black people trying their damndest to
jump through the right hoops. And I mean those racial terms figuratively.
On the outside, a few Affirmative Action supporters just like to flaunt
the idea that this, the weakest of many possible empowerment schemes, actually
succeeded in Amerikkka.
You are almost close in dishing the dose, but you miss the most as you
diagnose. The oppression of blacks, although economic is so much more
cultural therefore it's comic to hear the suggestions of those who might
cure the entirely wrong ailment therefore I'm sure if you follow the path
of those in the know and stop fiddling with math (it's no puritan game show)
You'll see in due time the dimension of crime perpetrated by those 'gainst
the spirit of brothers and sisters
against the spirit of brothers and sisters
against the spirit of brothers and sisters
who were thought to have none
and so they offered us money.
looking for ghettoes, what shows up on the map.
is the absence of this and that bourgeois crap.
and they look around their own dream house
and covet.
or give if their liberal
(don't you just love it?)
what-they-think-we-ought-to-have
by their own definition
pre-defining the respectable
(why Jesse's position
is deemed 'unelectable')
even what race we are has to be certain
so have and have nots can be split by a curtain
or sheet if you will
some clan fills the bill
when zero sum demands that *some* must be hurtin'
the fact simply stands that america must
be led by a few and the rest ground to dust
especially those whose art makes the test stick
'against all enemies foreign and domestic'
But what makes the black people enemies here?
Is it black agression or simply white fear?
Maybe now we hit on the question
that raises to issue more than a suggestion.
Those who seek reform from the foot on her neck
is justice most noble and evil's harsh check.
And those who suggest such morality's whining
Are diners while others still hunger for dining.
And all their pronouncements and all their decrees
their arguments, politics, wit, and degrees
their windbaggy sermons about disuniting
their scoffing at activists who keep on fighting
(and writers who write despite critics trite smiting
and rappers who rap on while suckers keep biting)
their sunday morning diatribes
their frontin' and posin', their Toms and their bribes.
Will all come to nothing but much wasted time
Their grandsons well say "Now it's 2009
You're talkin' bout years ago, now we've progressed"
but still the same voices will shout in unrest
Theres no way around it; until it's addressed
directly, precisely not put off in jest
as long as the people know they are oppressed
There can be no stopping, there will be no rest.
May times many ways, still you can attest
No justice, no peace, just like open chest.
Did you ever play that game back in school?
you get fired on if you're not vigilant, fool.
A lesson learned early for kids in the hood
that no one is safe until everyone's good.
And so it will go in the place of my birth
this city this county this country this earth
as with small strokes great oaks are soon felled
the spirit of my people will not long be held
we'll do what we must and do what we can
this shit's gettin corny i'm outta here, man...
----
What stops that rap from radio airplay? What limits the tap to those who
read Thackeray? The white middle and upper classes wish (still in their
insecurity) to make blacks pale comparisons of themselves, themselves
pale comparisons of unimpressed High Europeans who have long dug our jazz.
Money is merely currency.
dig further.
dig further:
James Weldon Johnson- The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Charles Wright - Absolutely Nothing to get Alarmed About
& Sula.
Your suggestions make it seem impossible for a black man with a good
job to have any legitimate complaint. But I am not Puritan.
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mbowen@panix.com harambee!
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Posted by mbowen at July 13, 2004 07:31 AM
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