Ben Chavis, former National Director of the Million Man March, and current CEO and Co-Chairman of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network held a press conference announcing "Occupy the Dream" designed to create a bridge between the Occupy Movement and African American Leaders. The group has three demands–increasing grants for college education, ending home foreclosures, and a wall street created fund that will deal with pervasive unemployment. Pastor Jamal Bryant (founder of Baltimore's Empowerment Temple) one of the spokespersons, promises a series of events (beginning with protests at federal reserve banks around the country on MLK Day) that will galvanize the country and bring added attention to the issue of inequality.
Call me skeptical.
One way to read this is that it is a natural and real response to the critique that occupies weren't quite inclusive enough. Occupy either can't or won't get access to the black community, and as a result either can't or won't respond to the particular needs of the African American Community. Chavis, Bryant, and others are black leaders. They speak for the black community. They can bring together their constituencies with the constituencies of occupy folk. Everyone wins here. The black community gets its needs met. Occupy expands its reach.
I don't read it this way.
I read it as the attempt by black elites to broker deals for constituencies they care about. And the very act of brokerage will have the impact of increasing their own leverage and political capital. Along these lines such a move should be understood as part of a longer wave of black elite brokerage going back before the civil rights movement. The problem here is that such a move has a few problematic consequences:
1. It further crystallizes the concept of national black leaders outside of elected ones.
Even before the moment black men and women could legitimately vote, we have had the capacity to make political decisions and change ourselves. We've been able to articulate and work through our interests. We've been able to set up organizations in which we can hash these issues out. And every now and then, through political organizing, we can get some of our needs met. The national leaders we require need to be individuals we can elect, there needs to be a structure in place that allows us to see their behaviors, and their needs to be a way we can kick them out. The concept of "national leadership" implied here is NOT that concept. Ben Chavis for example was appointed CEO. The only people he is accountable to is the board of HSAN. Reverend Jamal Bryant is only accountable to his church body.
To the extent blacks and non-whites buy into the concept of Occupy The Dream, they buy into a problematic concept of black leadership we need to toss.
2. It neuters local organizing struggles.
Here in Baltimore there have been at least two responses to Occupy Baltimore lead by people of color. Furthermore the national organization Take Back the Land has begun work on staving off foreclosure eviction in Baltimore, empowering homeowners to take control of their own communities. I don't see how an organization like Occupy the Dream can co-exist alongside these local movements. More likely I see these local movements subsumed at best or dissolved at worst into a national movement, led by unaccountable charismatic male spokespeople. And this neuters the capacity of local development. And this neuters the likelihood that black alternatives to the status quo can be generated and fought for.
3. It similarly neuters direct action.
Pastor Bryant promises a series of events designed to call attention to income inequality. What is the likelihood that national spokespersons, with their own agendas, their own aims, their own issues, would call for something like Occupy the Ports? Would have called for something like Occupy in the first place? Nationally, Chavis was critical in the promotion of the Million Man March. At a local level he was influential in the various HSAN led actions against the Rockefeller Drug Laws. But what were these actions, exactly? The Million Man March was a "permitted event" (that is to say, the Nation of Islam applied for and received a permit) that at its base was a protest NOT against government but against black men (read Minister Louis Farrakhan's speech). HSAN's biggest event was a march in New York City, one that was more critical, but also one that was "permitted". National organizations like Occupy the Dream tend to support an extremely narrow range of tactics, tactics that siphon energy away from local activities and towards the national organization (and leadership) itself. Tactics that generate the appearance of being anti-status quo but have the consequence of reproducing it.
There's more, but hopefully this is food for thought, food for thought we can continue in the conversation thread. If you are involved with Occupy and don't believe it to be inclusive enough on whatever axis (gender, race, sexuality, homeless status) then don't give that responsibility to someone with another agenda. Do the hard work on your own.
With that said though I really want to see what people think about this. Particularly supporters of Pastor Bryant. It's very possible that I am ignoring critical information. And because I tend to be skeptical of charismatic authority in general, it is also possible that my own biases are working against me here.
“Black Leaders” want to Occupy the Dream. Call me skeptical. http://t.co/JlRnH8IN
I read it as the attempt by black elites to broker deals for constituencies they care about.
Let’s unpack this assertion first Doc.
Do you REALLY consider these characters “elites”?
Not a Sigma Pi Phi Archon among them.
Each and every.one.of.em – a badly, publicly, discredited MC.
Each.and.every.one.of.em – a formatory construct obviously and conspicuously floundering around in search of a stable identity and engineered identity-based platform (Benjamin Chavis Muhammad/Jamal Bryant Scandal) from which to effect their respective and collective “move the crowd” hustle.
Lindsay Lohan is more real than these muhphuggahs!
jes sayyin….,
1. It further crystallizes the concept of national black leaders outside of elected ones.
Measured along the killer-ape scale of primate influence, there are killer-ape crackheads.., You.Know.That.These.Creatures.Exist
But they ain’t got a dayyum thing to say to you and me – and – our respective collective individual reaction to such a construct is sincere visceral disgust. Right?!?!?!?!
lol…,
To the extent blacks and non-whites buy into the concept of Occupy The Dream, they buy into a problematic concept of black leadership we need to toss.
truth, accept no substitutes….,
{actually “truth and Cobbian truth” when you get right down to it}
More likely I see these local movements subsumed at best or dissolved at worst into a national movement, led by unaccountable charismatic male spokespeople.
I’m convinced that the Occupy strategists have taken the tragic lesson of Wikileaks, and know specification of a “head” is instantaneous and irreversible submission to the risk of decapitation.
In the case of the jiggaboo assortment professing/pretending to “occupy the dream”, well…., shiiiiiiiiiit…., I wish a ninja would put up ass-clowns with crosshairs this prominent on their foreheads…., Julian Assange don’t even begin to hold a candle to these personal/historical trainwrecks….,
And because I tend to be skeptical of charismatic authority in general, it is also possible that my own biases are working against me here.
lol, it’s not possible to be a grown-assed black man in America with daughter(s) and not have an axe to grind against the pimping game….,
lol
So, one of the original victims of my hater-outing activities of several years ago has relocated to Switzerland and now comments under a very different alias. Formerly, I thought nothing of taking the time to track this monkey down, surreptitiously set him up, (I actually had my then 12 year old daughter do it so she could understand the particulars of a phishing attack) and then publish his real name fairly far and wide – just to hear his shrieks and howls of impotent fury. Fast forward to now, and his vitriol has become even more concentrated, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go to the effort to out or suppress the point of view he represents.
Another one of the victims of my hater-outing activities (and a negro security professional in the ATL area) routinely trolls very far and wide on a variety of sites, and given the passage of time, I’ve come to see his POV as not at all insane, and, my latent objections to his steeze have to do with the hamfisted and awkward style of his presentation, rather than the substance of what he presents.
Bottomline Les, with the passage of time and given the fullness of additional experience, I find my own POV falling into an increasingly hardline frame of conservatism exemplified by my extreme disgust with the 2nd and 3rd line inheritors of the civil rights movement.
I talked to a brother doing real work on this issue as we speak. It seems there’s more room for real collaboration here than i thought. Hope springs eternal.
Supporters of #OccupyTheDream should take heed: http://t.co/eS4Kr4Qx Thanks @LesterSpence