Harms Black People Do To Themselves
& Allow Others To Do To Them
-A Discussion Series of 7-10 Long Essays-
Gibbs Magazine has asked the following writers to express their thoughts on
the above concept in
a series of long essays: Dr. Fancia
Davis; Professor Fred Gaines; Dr. Tony Jackson; Dr. Frank A. Jones; Dr.
Edward J. Valeau; and Dr. H. Wright. Over the next six months; through this
series of essays, Gibbs Magazine will examine self-inflicted wounds Black
people are afflicted by and wounds not self-inflicted but allowed. Both the
self-inflicted and allowed are preventable, but they have been tolerated by
Black America. These scholars will examine this condition of our Black
circumstance as a way of unearthing and exposing needless debilitating
offenses, as it were, against the body of Black America, to the view of
Gibbs s audience of readers. Our writers will also set forth broad remedies
when possible.
These are
original essays specifically written for Gibbsmagazine.com and may not be
copied without express authorization from Gibbs or the authors. Each essay
is copyrighted. © Each essay will be published in equal parts until
completed.
The first in this series of long essays is by Frank A. Jones, BA, MA, PhD, who is the CEO of Gibbs Community Foundation and Publisher of Gibbs Magazine and Mirror-Gibbs Publications. He has been an Adjunct Professor of Literature at five local community colleges for many years; he is also an activist in the Black community; he was the Director of Juvenile Court Services for a large California Country court system in Northern California; and he is the author of a number of books, his latest is, What Have We Done To Our Children? Positioning Black Children for Success
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The Dialectics of Our Black Shame
Frank A. Jones, BA, MA, Ph.D.
copyrighted © 6/4/07
Introductory Comment
There are detrimental
actions, self-destructive behaviors, and deprecating mental gestalts Black
people have tolerated as a part of our national character that are
inconsistent with and alien to a healthy nation that is situated in the
midst of hostile others. Those behaviors and gestalts could, if allowed to
continue, become widespread and deform or even destroy Black people as an
enlightened people.
It is an inescapable truism that any people who would be a healthy people, a strong people, a great people, and/or a people who will survive to see the light of a better day must be a people willing to look at themselves honestly; not through the mirror of others who do not mean their good, nor through the distorted imaginations of others or themselves, but through the prism of honest reality. (1) It is, therefore, from this conceptual framework I examine parts of Black America, whose child I am and from whence I came. (2)
Delimitations and
Contention
There has been a
metamorphosis in the imagination and behavior of many Black people in
America over the past 30 years so that in one generation Black Americans
have experienced a sea change of hopes and ambitions. In the university,
fresh out of the Civil Rights Era, I was one of millions of Black pride
warriors whose battle was in the schools and on the intellectual playing
fields to show the historical Black genius and brilliance that was a common
element of Black life from antiquity until now, slavery having taken a
certain toll on us. All of this was, of course, for the race, a race
that has been demeaned, abused, and told it had no history, no intellectual
legacy from which to pull, no greatness from which it came, and no future to
which it need aspire. Nevertheless, millions of Blacks became a part of the Civil
Right Era Black Intellectual Renaissance; they wore their hair long because
they knew they were beautiful, and determined that they would go to the
best schools and emerge culturally intact and intellectually stout, as they
continued to fight for the race. "For the race" was the call, the
mission; it was almost a religion that they adhered to with such zest they
leapt over intellectual walls and worked intellectual exploits, knowing
nothing was beyond their intellectual abilities.
At their side were the Black Muslims (3) and others who were cognizant of the acculturative and seductive nature of America's systems of distorted assimilation cautiously warning them to, "Remember the race. Remember that you are Black men and women and nothing would ever change that!" An admonition well worth heeding, for the sake of not being diffused in focus and thrust.
Under that ethos young Blacks fashioned themselves, pushed themselves, and pushed the systems of aggression set up against them. (4) And although many of those having gone before shepherded Blacks in the right ways of preserving their sanity, somewhere along the way, their advice and influence waned on many young of the intelligentsia. Consequently, many young, and some old, were caught up in and overwhelmed by the montage of education and acculturation that blended easily with the sexual revolution that loosed hordes of Americans seeking sexually forbidden worlds, which worlds many Blacks had been, and that action worked to diffuse many from their racial focus, thinking that a racial verve was harmful and that a multiracial utopia was just over the horizons or possibly here.
And for others, a more profound, diffusive and diluting force than the sexual revolution came to take its toll and shape a new paradigm within a certain portion of the Black culture: the new gods of money that now guide all aspects of American life and dreams. The money madness era or get riches at any cost era has taken the nation by storm so that many live only for today and cast their futures and their children's futures to the wind for the riches and good times of today. This era cultivates a culture of living for today/in the moment and to have money is to have all things in the moment.
The result of these forces on Black America diluted much of Black America's focus and caused some to issue a dialectical disposition (5) that race is irrelevant in today's discourse on Black and White American life. And as odd as that dialectical disposition is, it is propagated by a number of Blacks, educated and uneducated, both young and old who have sway, as seen by the cache of cottage industry of Black entrepreneurs selling Black bashing and extolling the virtues of White thought, perspective, life, etc., more than that of Black thought, virtues, perspectives, etc. Their dialectic is in fact, Black shame that has reverberated throughout a spectrum of Black America, and the consequences of that reverberation are seen in our politics, Black self-perception, and in Black racial esteem.
A new found Black politically Conservative class now envisions a color-blind society in which all things are race-neutral. This may well be the thrust of Ward Connerly's push against affirmative action for Blacks. His reasoning is that if Blacks are going to live in a color-blind society, they must give up the idea that something is owed to them based on race-oppression or past discrimination; there are laws against such racial discrimination to ensure that it does not occur, and if it does these laws are the legal remedies. He also argues that affirmative action actually harms Black self-esteem and makes Blacks feel less valuable and worthy as students or workers. As an example, at one Cal Day (6) a young Black female spoke of the hard work she did to gain acceptance into UC Berkeley, the flagship school of California's university system, without affirmative action and how proud she was of that fact; she stated that she would feel ashamed were she accepted into Berkeley under an affirmative action program for Blacks. She may be the epitome of the new Black Conservatives' dream for young Blacks.
This race-neutral perspective is not only in affirmative action in school admissions, but it has crossed into all areas of American life. While in Atlanta, an interviewee on a Black TV program, (young Black magazine publisher of Beautiful Black) almost apologized for his magazine's name and focus that is primarily on Black people, saying that his magazine is not meant to be anti-white--whites are welcome to read it. Does race-neutral mean that one cannot be Afrocentric? (7) From that young publisher's view, he found it necessary to make his Afrocentric focus clear as not meaning anti-white. Why is it necessary to add such disclaimers to our Blackness?
Is this the new era of Black life that we unwittingly compromise all that we do and say about our blackness to the new paradigm of a race-neutral society? Could it be that the factors of the "for the race” diffusion result from an educational acculturation and an acculturation of America's money ethos that sways the lives of most Americans? How deep is this acculturative influence on Black America? Is acculturation something that would bring about many of the self-inflicted wounds and putrefying sores on the body of our Black nation?
Acculturation is the process in which attitudes, mindsets, and/or behaviors of one group of people are modified or changed by the acceptance and imitation of another's cultural behaviors, mindsets, ideas, and/or perspectives. Often the acceptance of another group's culture (way of thinking, behaving, etc.) is because the group accepting another's culture sees it as better than their own. Assimilation, in contrast, is the process of cultural absorption of a smaller group into the main culture of the larger group; in this process, the dominant culture enforces the adoption of their values rather than any blending of values with another group. (8) As we explore our subject carefully, you may want to keep these two definitions in mind.
While in school, Civil Rights intellectuals were cautioned against losing themselves as a result of acquiring an education; they were admonished to remember the race and not to forget who they were or lose their Black identity and culture. Such advice was prudent in the light of education's historical impact on those who received it. Educational historians cite that one of the purposes of early mass education in young America was to solidify a diverse pool of new Americans and massage them into one nation with a single culture. (9) There were no pretenses of not acculturating the diverse masses. Now, however, such open acculturation is offensive and demeaning to the diversity that is this nation's people. Needless to say acculturation still takes place, but it is a gentler and more subtle regimen extended to all and with a pretense that it does not exist. And to some, it is so subtle that they are unaware it still exists, and they accept it unknowingly and lose themselves to others or unwittingly become self-haters (10)
American acculturation leaves the acculturated person extolling Euro-American virtues, priorities, espousing unquestioned and uncritical patriotism, and seeing money as the sine qua non of all things. (11) Such an acculturated person normally views Black claims of unfairness with skepticism and disbelief but allows credibility to White claims. He/she upholds the position of others that is contrary to his own interests because he has merged his/her interests with those of others, and that others he has seen as intellectually and socially more compatible with who he is now than he was before attaining to his present position.(12) He easily rationalizes his position and sees it as logical and sensible; Black positions contrary to his positions are suspect and require support. Most strictly Black positions are not favored unless they have a white constituency; this person usually abhors the affectation of being Black or a leader of Blacks. He willingly gives up his identity and walks in a shadow world, appearing black but seeing matters through a Euro-American perspective as he services those interests and receives remunerations for doing so.
Today's acculturation is subtle, but it can be detected and seen throughout all the circumstances of Black America, even though many acculturated do not realize they sport the affairs and causes of others, while disavowing their own and refusing to carry the cause of Black people. This is a behavior that harms Black people; for it is what Blacks do to themselves, as they allow others to seduce them into servicing interests not their own.
A typical case of Black refusal and white interest-carrying that harms Black people is the refusal to perceive a profound deficit in the Black community and address it when there is a viable way to do so. A case in point is this: an absence of institutional philanthropic development throughout our community nationwide has not been realized and addressed. This is something Black people have done against themselves even while having the wherewithal to change this condition for the good of the whole.
Why a Conspicuous
Absence of Black Foundations
In the San Francisco Bay Area, as a typical example of what is
happening throughout the nation among Black America, there are over 500
foundations with assets in excess of some $50 billions. Not one
of these is Black!
[Next week we will explore the above self-inflicted harm that Black America allows.]
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1.) Law Professor and ethicist, Stephen L.
Carter, writes that mere honesty is not enough if that honesty has no
integrity so that is is an honesty that sees all the relevant and up to date
facts and issues of a particular situation. And one is obligated
to know such matters. Our attempt is to
be honest with this matter and look at relevant materials, even the spin of
our current crop of spin doctors.
2.) To use a King James Bible expression familiar to most Black people whose
culture is rooted in the Christian church. I was born in Baton Rouge, LA and raised in San Francisco from the age
of 14, when my parents moved there to make a better life for themselves and
their children.
3.) Many Black scholars warned young Blacks that education is never given
without acculturation, and young Black students should never accept the
idea that somehow they were different from other Blacks because they were in
colleges and the universities, hence they should identify with those whom
they were intellectually most aligned. The Black Muslims were an
Islamic nationalist group under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad. They were
most pronounced in their warnings: while they encouraged young Blacks to get
an education, they vigorously warned against America's educational system
built in biases. They warned against Blacks losing their Black identity or
"becoming white."
4.) In much of Dr. Martin Luther King's scholarly writings, which most of
America is unfamiliar with, he cites that systems of aggression and harm
have been institutionalized against Black people. There is more than a close
similarity between Malcolm X and Martin King than is generally known, but
since they are both safely dead, many can now acknowledge those similarities
and see both of these national figures in a new light.
5.) Dialectical disposition is a conceptual position that
has been deliberated among some, as dialectic is the process of thoughtful
decisions arrived at through contentious discussion, and concluded in a
conclusive protocol used as a talking point.
6.) Cal Day is a day that UC Berkeley welcomes student families, past
graduates, and other interested parties can come and see the programs,
benefits, pomp and circumstances, as it were, of the school.
7.) Afrocentic means that the magazine was published with and around the
idea and goal of uplifting Black America or Africa. Why must there be any
explanation or permission, as it were, for doing this be given to anyone?
8.) These are generally recognized definitions of these two words that can
be easily gotten from any academic text in sociology or anthropology.
9)America was started by diverse immigrants coming to this nation. America
is still a nation of immigrants, but each generation establishes itself and
is often jealous of new arrivals that follow, especially if those arrival
are nonwhite, which the majority are in this current trend.
10.) Throughout the history of racism and colonialism, this paradigm
is seen repeatedly; it is a phenomenon of oppression. Many years ago, French
social psychologist Frantz Fanon treated this subject in his "Wretched of
the Earth."
11.) Sine qua non is commonly used law Latin expression that means, in
short, the essential ingredient.
12.) Were he a new university graduate or a new elected official, etc., his
position has changed and often such a change in position changes the mind
and perspective of the person in a new and more lofty status. This is not
new, it is very common among politicians.
[See Part Two: Absence of Black Foundations: A Self-Inflicted Wound ]
