As we move toward an historic national Black convention in the
first quarter of 2006 – “Going
back to Gary,” as convener William Lucy, President of the
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists phrased it, referring to the
1972 National Black Political Convention in that Indiana city
– it is imperative that we reexamine the language of our political
discourse. Otherwise, we will wind up talking nonsense – or worse,
speaking against our own interests.
In the 33 years since the Gary
convention, corporate-speak has become ever more deeply embedded
in the national conversation, reflecting the assumptions and aspirations
of the very rich, who have vastly increased and concentrated their
power over civil society. This alien language saturates the political
culture via corporate media of all kinds, insidiously defining
the parameters of discussion. Once one becomes entrapped in the
value-laden matrix of the enemy’s language, the battle is all
but lost. We cannot strategize ourselves out of the racist-corporate
coil while ensnared in the enemy’s carefully crafted definitions
and points of reference.
“Going back to Gary” must mean going back to straight talk, from
the African American perspective. The political consensus among
the Black masses remains remarkably consistent, but has been
relentlessly challenged since 1972 by 1) the rise of a small but
vocal corporate class of African Americans who see their own fortunes
as linked to larger corporate structures, and 2) aggressive corporate
subsidization, beginning in the mid-Nineties, of a growing clique
of Black politicians who define Black progress in terms of acceptance
among rich, white people.
Thus, the internal contradictions in African American politics
have greatly multiplied since Gary. This has not occurred because
of increasing conservatism among a much enlarged Black middle
class over the last three decades – a corporate-concocted slander
for which there is no factual evidence – but by the determination
of Big Money to impose an alternative
leadership on the recalcitrant Black masses.
Time for confrontation, not celebration
The 1972 National Black Political Convention took place in an
atmosphere of euphoria over the demise of Jim Crow, which unleashed
the shackles of those Black social sectors that were prepared
to take advantage of new opportunities, and empowered a new set
of politicians who found themselves in majority Black jurisdictions.
When the call to convention went out, everyone was welcomed, and
as many as 5,000 showed up. Although much worthwhile political
work was accomplished, the general atmosphere was celebratory.
We were “Movin’ on Up” to “Celebrate Good Times.” Most believed
there “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now – We’re on the Move.”
Essentially, the Gary-era Black discussion centered on consolidation
of the gains made during the previous civil rights decade. Short
shrift was given to those who had called for deep structural change
in the United States, whose demands (and often, lives) were snuffed
out by U.S. police and intelligence
agencies amidst the carnival of No-Mo’-Jim-Crow. There seemed
to be great promise for Black America under a post-segregation
regime – and certainly there was, for some. As long as that promise
seemed attainable, demands for basic change in American (and world)
power relationships were deemed by the upwardly mobile African
American sectors as passé, distractions, quaint, but dated.
This self-satisfied analysis was encouraged by a (mostly) white
corporate class that harbored larger plans for total world domination:
for the absolute, planetary rule of money. By the mid-Nineties,
important elements of this class finally got over their reflexive
racism – the aversion to sitting in a room with more than a few
Black people – and invited some Black folks to join the club.
In 1972, Black collaborators had to work hard to get paid even
a pittance to advance the corporate agenda that is inextricably
entwined with the ideology of White American Manifest Destiny.
Today, they are actively solicited, and handsomely paid in monetary,
media and political currency. Corporate-speak is mimicked in many
high places of Black American society. For example, corporations
dominated the leadership-selection process of our largest mass
organization, the NAACP.
Corporations have always had a special place in the National Urban
League. Corporate influence has reached unprecedented levels among
members
of the Congressional Black Caucus – while most members stand firm
with the historical Black Consensus. And corporations have created
out of whole cloth a number of purportedly “Black” organizations,
such as the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO),
which serve the interests of Wal-Mart
and the rightwing Bradley Foundation – and are now also subsidized
by the Bush regime.
Under Bush, the Black clergy have been subjected to wholesale
cooptation, through the Bradley Foundation-invented Faith Based
Initiatives bribery schemes. This massive subornation of a critical
Black institution resulted in only a net two
percent change in Black party affiliation – from nine percent
to eleven percent Black GOP voters in 2004. The base remains
steadfast, but the leadership institutions have been infected
by corporate and Republican money.
Even so, the major Black Baptist denominations this year reaffirmed
their allegiance to the “social gospel” that is our proudest legacy,
and has generated and encouraged so many other movements that
have pushed the envelope of civilization.
Who, then, should be welcomed to the next “Gary” convention,
tentatively scheduled for March, 2006? Everyone, just as in 1972.
It is the job of the conveners and organizers of the next National
Black Political Convention to set the terms of the Great Black
Debate. In large part, this is a function of language – to craft
a language that is not infested with assumptions born of white
privilege, imperialism, war-mongering, and anti-social ideology.
In other words: Let’s talk Black. Among our own people, that kind
of conversation wins the day, every time. Amen.
The apologists, collaborators, and opportunists cannot confuse
us if we speak directly to the issues that our people care about
most deeply. Let the turncoats come – and be exposed. Some may
even be saved.
No rule of law?
It is at times of crisis that precise language becomes most important.
The Bush regime has plunged the entire planet into crisis – their
grotesque version of globalization. While serving as White House
counsel, the current Attorney General of the United States, Alberto
Gonzalez, derided
the Geneva Convention – the basis of international law, and codified
as U.S. law – as “quaint.” The 2002 Gonzalez memo signaled that
the regime was preparing to launch, not a War on Terror, but a
war against world order, and against the rule of law within U.S.
borders. We must reject his proclamation, in precise language
that affirms the magnificent wording of the Geneva Convention,
which outlaws aggressive war and upholds the right of all peoples
to self-determination. That means get out of Iraq now,
and no further threats to the independence and self-determination
of other nations.
Black America is the firmest national constituency for peace,
having opposed U.S. adventures abroad in greater proportions than
any other ethnic group. We arrived at this more civilized state
of being through our own gory experience of White American
Manifest Destiny, which declared that a Black person has no rights
“that a white man is bound to respect.” George Bush is acting
out this vicious dictum on a global scale, and we know it. Therefore,
we must tell the truth, as the masses of Black folks understand
it: the United States is an aggressor nation in the world, and
we demand that it cease, immediately. The problem in Iraq is not
U.S. casualties, which are the result of George Bush’s crimes,
but the predicate crime of U.S. aggression, a violation of international
law.
Mass Incarceration is Genocide
Black America has always stood for the rule of law, despite the
fact that American law has so often ruled against us. It does
so every day, in vast disproportion to the anti-social behavior
of some African American individuals. Guantanamo Bay is, indeed,
part of an international “gulag” of American prisons, dotting
the globe, as Amnesty
International has declared. But the largest “gulag”
in the world is in the United States – half Black and only 30
percent white, in a 70 percent white country. Fully one out of
eight incarcerated human beings on earth are African American,
the casualties of an internal war that has not ceased since the
Euro-American aggressions against Africa. Rather, it escalates.
At our next grand convention, we must state in no uncertain terms
that the real crime wave is being committed against us
by all levels of U.S. governments, which have placed Black people
under surveillance for the purpose of incarcerating them, and
devised laws that impact most heavily on our communities. Mass
Black incarceration is a legacy of slavery and, therefore, a form
of genocide. “We
Charge Genocide,” again – because our social structures are
being deliberately destroyed through government policy. Our language
must make that plain.
This language is not meant for the oppressors’ ears, but for
those of our own people. Black conventions are meant to mobilize
Black people. Others are invited to take note. Our object is to
galvanize African Americans to take action.
Our history tells us that others follow our lead. Therefore,
as a people that believe in the oneness of humanity, we are obligated
to lead. We must reject the entire edifice of language that justifies
a U.S. war machine that costs more than all the rest of the world’s
militaries, combined, and then claims there is no money
for the people’s welfare. We know where the money is: it is engaged
in criminal, global corporate enterprises, such as war. We demand
these enterprises cease, and that the national treasure be redirected
to domestic concerns, and to righting the wrongs that the oppressors
have inflicted on humanity throughout the planet – including the
wrongs committed against Black people in the United States.
We must not argue on corporate terms, about the “affordability”
of national health insurance, or housing. We have a right to life,
and to live somewhere. There will be no negotiation. Human rights
trump property rights and corporate rights and warmonger rights.
State it clearly.
A real social contract
Corporate politicians and media deploy the code words of “working
people” and “middle class” to mean “white people” as the “deserving”
members of the national community. We must reject such language,
which is intended to exclude all Black people, including
those who work, but explicitly dismisses the unemployed. We must
not accept that corporate decisions to eject or bar people from
the workplace, should have moral authority or political effect.
All citizens have a right to live a decent life. We must demand
a national minimum income, in addition to living wage standards.
The cost of the Iraq war and related U.S. military deployments
would finance a fundamental change in the average American’s life
expectations – and life span. Nobody needs such a change more
than Black folks. The rich can afford it. We need to say so, and
dare the rich to go to some other country with their money. Nobody
else wants them, and nobody else will fund their military, which
is the savior of their holdings.
We must directly confront the idea – the unquestioned Holy Grail
of corporate politicians and media – that corporations have the
rights of citizens. Black and brown metropolises (the top 100
largest U.S. cities have non-white majorities) are at the mercy
of corporate barons who shape the urban landscape to fit their
profit-driven needs. Inevitably, they move in white people, the
process that we call “gentrification.” This process is mostly
unchallenged, yet it decides where Black people will live and
work, and whether we will preserve the majorities that allow us
to even contemplate meaningful democracy in urban America. While
we are still majorities in these places, we must take action to
exercise the powers that cities possess, in the service of our
people. There must be a movement for Democratic
Development – development that serves the people who already
live in the city. This is perhaps the greatest challenge that
faces the next National Black Convention because, if it turns
out anything like Gary, in 1972, there will be plenty of Black
politicians in attendance who have not done a damn thing to preserve
the assets of the cities they nominally oversee, or to protect
their own electorate from being displaced by corporate power.
So be it. We must tell the truth, because our people are in crisis.
There is no solving the problem of urban education, unless we
can force the sharing of education funds. White people in the
mass have shown over the last four decades that they will not
share classrooms with us. But they must share the money, to correct
the gross disparity between suburban and urban schools. Integration
is not a one-way street, but citizenship is a shared status. We
must state clearly that we are entitled to equal funding – that
is, funding adequate for a white suburban district, and additional
monies to deal with problems that suburbs don’t have.
There are many other issues that must be tackled as we struggle
to escape the Race to the Bottom that has been initiated by multinational
corporations, and is politically empowered by the historical racism
of white Americans, and made lethal by the military power of the
U.S. state. The conveners of the next Black Political Convention
should keep the agenda as efficient as possible, knowing that
our assembled folks will add a plethora of resolutions. But keep
our eyes on the prize. Black folks understand racism, but the
whole world is getting an education in unbridled corporate behavior,
that leads to famine, wars, and the dismantling of social services
worldwide – including the United States, which is intentionally
being made to fail
as a society.
In the current configuration, globalization means corporate rule
– by the gun, if necessary. Privatization is part and parcel of
the deal, a divvying up of the spoils. National rights and the
rights of minorities are all subservient to the rights of capital.
Voting rights go down the toilet.
We must teach a lesson in resistance, and give guidance to action
– for our own people, and to those who look to us for leadership
in the desert that is the United States.
If we are to Speak Truth to Power, we must aim our words with
precision.
Black knowledge as a weapon
The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists is ideal for the mission
that faces us, since Black unionists have an intimate understanding
of both corporate ruthlessness and the racist machinations that
white privilege has found so successful through centuries of plunder
and rule. Black unionists know the animal up close, and have smelled
his foul breath. They also know the weaknesses of white co-unionists,
who are quick to claim white privilege and abandon class solidarity.
These are lessons learned painfully – but become weapons in the
hands of those committed to struggle.
We must not accept the legitimacy of the current rulers of the
United States. They are thieves: stealers of elections; of the
bodies of a million imprisoned African Americans; of the minds
that are enfeebled by their corporate media; of the countries
that they treat as plantations, and feel they can invade at will;
and thieves of the productive capacity of the world, which grows
every year, but fills only their own bank accounts.
The predatory lenders of the United States have stolen a half
trillion dollars from the pockets of African Americans, according
to anti-racist reporter Tim Wise. They have also stolen whole
continents, and converted their populations into low-wage slaves
whose labor is used as a weapon against workers of the United
States, including the dwindling number of Black workers fortunate
enough to have jobs.
The global tentacles of multinational corporations are not a
logical consequence of human civilization, but a construction
of predators, whom we know all too well. It is our task to uphold
civilization, against the corporate machine that would crush all
humans underfoot. We know the feeling. We’ve been crushed before,
and reel from the butt of the gun. But still we rise, to indict
the criminals.
And we, alone, have a constituency that is ready to march – if
we tell them where and why to go. Let us choose our words carefully.
Reaffirm the Black Consensus
We are not looking for drama, but for clarity. The corporations
and their war machines are providing the drama. A nation and world
in crisis need clarity. Black America retains the power to speak,
in the terms of our elders who identified with – and were
– the Wretched of the Earth. On this coming Fourth of July, remember
the words of Frederick
Douglass, our greatest thinker and leader of the 19th Century,
who spoke in the darkest hours of our people’s oppression, in
1852: