there is something about this particular moment that brings the ridleys and mcwhorters out into the woodwork that bears study and witness. but ridley? yeah…pimp is as accurate a term as any.

John Ridley will get to represent, and we probably won’t be rid of him for a good while. The pimps over at Esquire and Huffington will get him to shake his ass over a few more solemn subjects, and who knows, he may become as influential as Sista Soljah or maybe even Eldridge Cleaver. Yay for free speech. Yay for America.

Black America’s intellectuals have been at war for more than a century. This war preceded and, I think, begat the Black American Renaissance and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. Its modern combatants and battles, however, are markedly different in this new 21st Century. Its modern philosophical and ideological battles involve thinkers, speakers, and writers who are quite heedless and believe they, as individuals, would have little to lose and their fellow Black Americans (and non-Black American world citizens) stand only to gain, if they were to submit their often bootless theses—theses that fail to penetrate, fail to synthesize, and fail to invent—as rhetorical pleas aiming to motivate or persuade Blacks (and non-Blacks). Aiming, in their minds, to do more than just badly rephrase thoughts that were published by wiser, more operose, and more altruistic Black thinkers, writers, orators, and leaders in the 19th Century and early 20th Century. Aiming, to save Black America from herself or other forces that wish her harm or wish her no good.

These are noble aims. However, most of those who are sharing their ideas believe they have tongues of silver and pens of gold, when in fact, they have not prepared well enough to evoke responsible speech—they have not readied themselves to become vehicles for novel ideas and real solutions. They have not developed the linguistic and rhetorical competences that would enable them to be both effective esoteric and empathetic exoteric communicators. Nevertheless, the roses have been drawn: Cultural vs. Structural. And, the combatants and the battlefields abound.

I would like to dialogue with or use what I know of the art of rhetoric in order to compete against, thinkers, writers, and speakers such as John Ridley. If his “Manifesto of Ascendancy for the Modern American Nigger” reveals his true opinions, then his rhetoric and arguments would mostly compete against mine. However, unless or until I win a seat with a proper elite law school and gain a fitting horn through which to blow my ideas upon graduating from it with honors, I’ll remain a municipal entrepreneur, a community servant, and a casual and occasional blogger, who would not and should not be viewed by many as a combatant of consequence in this Black Civil War of Ideas. An important war, I think.

If I do win a seat with the right law school, I’ll try to shake a radiant spear and strike my first major blow in a few years. So, though I now sit back in a somewhat disappointed state, reading and listening to the sciolistic, heedless, and selfish words of so many Black thinkers and Black “leaders,” feeling impelled to strike a blow myself, this quarrel will have to drink blood another day.

“There’s a meme that’s been going around black communities at least as long as black people have been organizing against white supremacy, blaming black failure on self-hatred. If we were to just “unify.” If we were able to somehow figure out how to get over “willie lynchism.” And inevitably, someone gets around to talking about people who do it right”

just about covers it for me sorry bout the long post next time I won’t be so impatient.

peace,
clr

Couldn’t agree more this piece is of little value other than shock. It’s filled with methodoglogical flaws and heaps of historical revisionism.

For example, the historically dubious statement:
“Now, let me tell you something about my generation of black Americans. We are the inheritors of “the Deal” forced upon the entrenched white social, political, and legal establishment when my parents’ generation won the struggle for civil rights. The Deal: We (blacks) take what is rightfully ours and you (the afore-described establishment) get citizens who will invest the same energy and dedication into raising families and working hard and being all around good people as was invested in snapping the neck of Jim Crow.”

I got it so MLK et al. bartered a deal with the white establishment basically saying that they would keep the unruly blacks in check in return for a “seat at the table” as it were. Talented tenth rubbish.

Obviously Huey and Bobby weren’t at that meeting where “The Deal” was brokered

“If we as a race could win the centuries-long war against institutionalized racism, why is it that so many of us cannot secure the advantage after decades of freedom?”

I wasn’t aware that the war was over and if black folks won the war then somebody ain’t stickin’ to the peace treaty, see Florida 2000, New Orleans 2005 etc., etc., etc.

On a more important note, I’d like to know what you think about this whole line of argument. Is this something that in your opinion has existed for awhile, i.e. is it some form of mutated Garveyism or DuBoisian talented tenth stuff.

Or is this elite black shame(? I don’t think I like that characterization but I can’t think of anything else) a new phenomenon that could be seen as a logical consequence of the civil rights movement. Not in the way Ridley characterizes it but more in the way Nelson Peery (don’t know if you’re familiar, he’s with The League of Revolutionaries for a New America based out of Chicago) does, saying that the civil rights movement took the pressure off blacks as a nation and the different class elements were able to gravitate to their natural resting places. I’m butchering his analysis but it can be found in his book The Future Is Up To Us.

I happen to think that both are a little top down in their methodology and both ignore the reasons for why young poor folks of any color act the way they do. These kids are without any visible signs of a future and so Tupac’s “Me Against the World” thug life anthems become not a vision for the future but a romantic
way of dealing with presently oppressive and depressing conditions.

It seems that when we get caught up in telling people what they SHOULD be doing instead of asking ourselves why they ARE doing what they’re doing and doing away with the morality that so often clouds any kind of scientific thought.

Anyway this was a long-winded and hastily thrown together comment that will maybe come off more disjointed than the original comment itself, it just seems like this kind of thinking is on the rise but I’ve only been paying attention for a few years now, and I thought you, or Mr. Hopkins perhaps?, might have something to say.

peace,
clr