Dear Mr Redding:
I read your book.
I agree with you that the present system produces a "blood sport" that ultimately fails the long term interests of all Americans - at the expense of "short yardage gains". The Black community, in particular is left vulnerable as our "long term Permanent Interests" are incessantly hijacked into the "Malcolm X Political Football Game".
I am not going to do a "book review".
Instead my goal is to communicate my model of national politics AND "The Black Community Political Consciousness" that has been fused around it - all as a means of articulating my opinion that your model (as presented in your book) does not adequately represent the forces that are bearing down upon the Black community. In fact "the Black Community" isn't even represented in your book.
You are a member of the National Association of Black Journalists
You are an important player with "Black Talkers"
Your radio show appears on various "Black Wing Talk Radio" stations around the nation
Of course it is legitimate for me to assume that - while your book may have been a treaties on "The Dysfunctional National Political System" and, of course, as a Black man you should not be pigeonholed into talking about "Black issues" only - the fact remains that "Black Politics" is ultimately what you have the greatest chance of changing - as a new conscious order is assumed within.
Again - I hope to avoid doing a book review.
I do not plan to make this an indictment of you.
I have no desire of exposing you as a secret "liberal"/"Democrat" or other as I, like you, hate when people seek to classify in order to marginalize - so they don't have to debate the points of fact.
I do need to impart one major point of critique of your book (OK 2).
First - I believe that you should have been more transparent in your relationship with "Occupy Atlanta". Whether formal or not - everyone in metro Atlanta saw you in Woodruff Park giving "affirming advice" to "The Occupiers". At this point you strayed from your transparent journalist role.
The second is best described by a graphic.
Clearly, Rob "RACISM(!!!!)" and "Racism Chasing" is an integral part of your show. I record every night and listen to about 30% of your content and your co-workers each week.
Here is my push back.
While no doubt "Racism(!!!!)" is a component force in the various slights, policies and economic schemes that are transacted upon Black America - I don't see the "Popular Black Political Discourse" exercising sufficient discipline in which they show motivation to quantify the measure of racism as they focus upon addressing these other, non-racist forces. In the course of which they might end up pointing to themselves.
An aircraft engineer understands that crosswinds are an ever-present danger that can destroy his aircraft. At the same time there are other forces such as gravity that seeks to return all objects in flight into their natural grounded position. Even the "white unmarked aircraft" must countermand this force. As such the aircraft engineer can't just note that there is the lateral force of crosswinds. He must MEASURE this force, gravitational force, tail winds that push affirmatively, windsheer as well as the possibility that the cockpit could be HIJACKED FROM THE INSIDE. (OK - there is nothing that an engineer can do about an internal hijacking. Some greater protection of the company's crown jewel - its expensive aircraft must be protected by layered SECURITY).
Rob - let's be honest - you live vicariously through President Barack Obama - the Black man in the White House. I am NOT saying that you are a shill for him. I am saying that each and every slight against him that has any hint of racism you relay it on your show and web site.
While indeed it is true that you do more detailed political analysis of Obama and other political figures - I am positive that you are well aware that many if not most Black people see these "slights" and allow them to trump all other considerations of their "political investments". See here:
The request of you IS NOT to "ignore these slights" (real or conjured up) but instead to PRIORITIZE them within the larger terminal struggle that Black America faces. Notice that even though the above quote from a blogger is about the liberal NY Magazine's "Evolution Of Obama" into a "Gay Rights Flag Carrier" - he (a Black poster) notes that with a Gay Progressive showing Obama in such a light merely improves the votes that Democrats will give to Obama. (WTH???)
Did you get that one Mr Redding? This is like saying - "The more my left arm punches me in the eye......the more I will be motivated to make my legs run faster".
It is my opinion that RACISM CHASING has the very same self-serving impact - stripping dispassionate governance to our community's considerations
Which brings me to my Model #1:
Racism Chasing As A Political Strategy
Click on the graphic to the left and study it carefully.
It is my observation that the Black Community can be tactically made to "VOTE......Against Its Own Interests" to do so in pursuit of a FIX for a community based problem IF we are riled up into a "Racially Defensive Posture".
When the walls are seen closing in on the incompetent leadership in Detroit, for example, we now see those who we thought were supportive of "regulation" (ie: over incompetent banking corporation leaders) are instead seeking to erect a protection racket against those who drove the "Super Black City" into the ditch. The best way they know how to nullify such state regulation is to claim that RACISM(!!!!) is the motivation of the "State Republicans" to push Black (Progressive) leaders out of power.
A city is a "state chartered franchise". The state has a fiduciary responsibility to its citizens and did not abdicate its state constitutional responsibilities when it granted the "city fathers" a charter for the city and the school system to collect taxes and provide local services for the benefit of its citizenry.
Where are the Black Press operatives who come at the situation with a level head and set the table properly? I am not even expecting a rebuke of the "Traveling Embedded Confidence Men". Just a basic civics lesson.
With cities like Detroit, Chicago and Philly - where the "Permanent Interests" of the Black Community are molested and yet the "Mission Accomplished" state of the city remains unchallenged - I too have come to understand the folly of seeking to address this problem with an opposing POLITICAL PARTY.
Unlike you, however, I don't believe that there is a political remedy to be had (in the "American Political Domain"). This brings rise to my argument that there is some other force. (See the diagram at the bottom)
The Black Racial Services Machine
A major omission in your model, Rob, is the force that envelops the development hopes and dreams of the Black community, translating them into POLITICS for the advantage of the Progressives and Democrats.
The reason why "No Progressive Ever Gets Fired For Failing Black America" - Rob - is because in the world where "A Fish Don't Know He Wet" - the judge and jury are BLACK PROGRESSIVES. For them to call out the FAILURE of our community to reach that which was prescribed by great Progressive voices on the inside like Bayard Rustin - they would have to admit to being CO-CONSPIRATORS on the scheme.
The LampBlacked Yellow Journalist Black Press
Rob - what exactly does the NABJ do?
It certainly does NOT set and enforce "journalistic standards" for those who subscribe to its membership.
I still have my bounty offered to any attendee of the NABJ conference in Philadelphia who recorded the conversations among the Black journalists who were in attendance as they discuss how they were going to get Obama reelected in 2012.
Actually Rob - I don't need a "recording" (I'll save this reward money and purchase a new iPad 3). I can look at their abundant content and then reverse engineer what is in their minds.
Out of all of the cogs in the "Black Racial Services Machine", Rob, "The Black Press" in its present condition is the most FRAUDULENT.
How can you mention "political parties" and not the CORPORATIONS that are sponsoring "Black News"? (Comcast/NBC Universal/MSNBC, Viacom, Washington Post Co, NY Times, AOL, Time Warner, News Corp, CBS)
Architecture, Time Line, Messages And Assumptions
The new talking point is about "Income Inequality" and "Social & Economic Justice".
Actually they are not new.
If you play back the recordings from many millions of "Equal Black Vote" Investments into the present configuration of politics - you will hear predecessor such as Bayard Rustin, A Phillip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr, and William Monroe Trotter talking about how "The Vote" is going to cure these things for Black America.
Where is the concept of matching where we are in time in the "Development Struggle" of our people and the assumed ORGANIC BENEFITS that we should be able to point to via the "vital statistics" of our people?
Can we justify having the same machine that compelled Black people to invest our "Equal Black Ballots" for the take over of the local institutions - now 30 years later LEADING us further up the mountain? Why is it that the "income inequality" is not seen as a function of their failure to generate organic employment inside of the cities that they now dominate? The same places that the Black voter invested their hopes into?
I believe that your model was a "Federal Government Focused" model. It did not sufficiently address the facts that are present in the municipal governments in which "favorable people" elected by the people now dominate and how these forces may have failed the community.
Ironically, with the homogeneous political parties in place (see Chicago, Detroit and Newark) we now see "Progressive Cliques" doing battle - as if they were separate parties (See "Brick City").
I believe that what you are seeking to communicate with reference to "Political Parties" (and I agree with you on this specific point) should be moved into a discussion of boundaries that are both vertical and horizontal.
This highly connected world has made the federal government and politics all together more central in our lives than we can ever hope to survive the experience. Television, Internet and Tweets have put the concerns that you have raised about political party "blood sport" on steroids.
I subscribe to a large number of progressive and conservative mailing lists. To see how talking points that are in the news are then "self-chummed' out into the 'feeder fish' is stunning.
It amazes me how more people are able to refer to the "Stolen African Culture" that imperils us (oh yeah - and the racist police) but they can't bring themselves to see that the TRANSACTIONAL EXPERIENCES that the Black community of today are presented with and how we MANAGE THEM with reference to some comprehensive, long term conscious outcome that we prefer does more to DETERMINE OUR FUTURE than does the struggle for "Reparation" or "Political Power" yields for our benefit. The former seeks to have the entity that is $15,000,000,000,000 in debt and printing funny money every day to honor its liability lawsuit from Slavery and Jim Crow. The later will have the Black community "accidentally" transformed into a machine that is able to be transplanted onto any other soil, hitting the ground able to regenerate that which it has cemented in its mind and culture. This after the collapse of the 'beast" who's "belly" the people were ensnared in for centuries.
Discipline implemented within the Black community in which we REFUSE to allow certain community issues to be OUTSOURCED into another domain (ie: politics).
This feeds the "Winner Take All" blood sport more than anything else.
I believe that it is a bigoted vote of no confidence in "the rank & file" for operatives to seek to have them VOTE for their salvation instead of leveraging the institutions that they have at their disposal to develop their people.
0 comments:
Post a Comment