neither did i…

so perhaps i missed something. the police commissioner has called for little in the way of resources (defined anyway you want other than black male bodies)….how exactly does this work as an example of state involvement? because HE’S going to help does this make his suggestion a state-aided activity?

there are a range of ways in which something like this could be helpful or at the very least not hurtful. of the range of ways this appears to me to be the least helpful. even with the idiotic racial frame the commissioner is putting on the entire policy.

let me say this another way. if this activity were accompanied with a significant outlay of funds needed to in effect deputize these 10,000 brothers….then something like this couldn’t hurt. probably still won’t help much given the hypercapitalistic nature of the violence.

No. I’ve argued clearly that we need a new vision of what cities do, of how they operate.

statement of the obvious…,

And I’ve also argued that this is a cultural endeavor that comes from the generation of new practices and new identities to accompany those practices.

neato.., now let’s square up on the specifics of how this gets operationalized?

But I’ve never argued that we should ignore the state, particularly not in urban contexts where blacks constitute a significant body of citizens.

neither did I. So I was particularly struck and heartened by the fact that the Police Commissioner was forwarding the suggestions he had received from local business execs and muslims to organize a cadre of concerned men to engage the issue and that he himself intended to participate.

It doesn’t work theoreticaly (particularly given the scale of cities), it doesn’t work practically.

you’re arguing with yourself here….,

The hasidim if they thrive will do so because they are exceedingly small in number

huh?????

and white for all intents and purposes.

um hmmmm…., let one turn up in Forsythe County GA or Sedalia Missouri and let’s see how that “white” thing is working for him.

No. I’ve argued clearly that we need a new vision of what cities do, of how they operate. And I’ve also argued that this is a cultural endeavor that comes from the generation of new practices and new identities to accompany those practices. But I’ve never argued that we should ignore the state, particularly not in urban contexts where blacks constitute a significant body of citizens. It doesn’t work theoreticaly (particularly given the scale of cities), it doesn’t work practically. The hasidim if they thrive will do so because they are exceedingly small in number (how many are there worldwide much less within the states?), and white for all intents and purposes.

To the extent then that I acknowledge that the state exists, that the market exists, and that these things cannot be ignored and you do not….

I don’t ignore the existence of any of these things. I don’t argue that the hasidim have ignored any of these factors either. To the contrary, they’ve absolutely mastered the exoteric environment in which they operate so as to enable their mesoteric and esoteric worlds to thrive – and they’ve done it in the most idiosyncratic and normatively oppositional ways you might ever imagine short of donning renaissance festival or star trek gear!!!

Where you and I differ is that I elect not to depend on external public factors in the same prostrate, passive-receptive begging-assed way that defines the regressive political world-view – whether we’re talking about education, self-defense, economics or politics.

Kilson gave a secular-materialist, and thus from the outset doomed to failure, prescription for intentional Black community across socio-economic lines.

What you’ve proffered is vastly less than that, as it depends on organizations and structures with built-in disincentives to change and established track records of antipathy to poor and working class Black folks even during the most resource flushed salad days of the American culture/market/economy and even under second-line inheritor management. (mismanagement)

The hasidim are onto something worthy of emulation and they’ll thrive no matter how stank things become in the culture/market/economy over the next several years.

To the extent then that I acknowledge that the state exists, that the market exists, and that these things cannot be ignored and you do not….even as you rely on those things…we have very different ideas.

1. You sign a contract with another party, and that contract is violated. Who do you go to for redress if you can’t get the needs of that contract met through peaceable means of resolution?

organization is key, plenty of models to choose from – why exactly do you suppose the FOI is effective?

2. How exactly would it be less difficult for neighborhoods with limited resources to police themselves than cities with billion dollar budgets? There are a variety of disincentives at the level of the municipality, yes. But it isn’t as if disincentives are absent at the (collective) neighborhood level.

and if they don’t begin taking fledgeling steps, 9th ward here they come…, keep waiting for the calvary to arrive and save the day.

The hasidic jews are ultra-conservative. Ultra-conservatism and fascism are inextricably linked. I’m not sure how to parse “from what i can see…” given their private nature.

I don’t share your uncertainty. When I was much younger, a good friend of mine from South Africa embraced hasidism. Because we remained friends, and shared interest in the “mystical” – or better psychological motives – underscoring his adoption of seriously observant practice, I was afforded a rather unusual degree of access and exposure to the culture.

It is decidedly NOT what you’ve characterized it as, and, abundantly worthy of emulation insofar as it is centered on an interior life which is scrupulously guarded and cultivated.

Black culture has damn near devolved into pure dopaminergic self-titillation. If open source self-debasement is where your values fundamentally reside, then you should stop equivocating and jump on Cobb’s uncritical embrace of all things American.

Say whatever you want on the ideological tip Spence, but bottomline, your polity is your way of life. You’re not advocating anything substantively different from Cobb and neither is Earl no matter how much lip service you pay to the contrary.

1. You sign a contract with another party, and that contract is violated. Who do you go to for redress if you can’t get the needs of that contract met through peaceable means of resolution?

This is what I’m talking about. Yes you’ve got your own business, and interdependent means of providing for the education of the people you care about (the Dubois Learning Center is an excellent example of this). But you, just like the rest of us, rely fundamentally on the state.

2. How exactly would it be less difficult for neighborhoods with limited resources to police themselves than cities with billion dollar budgets? There are a variety of disincentives at the level of the municipality, yes. But it isn’t as if disincentives are absent at the (collective) neighborhood level.

3. The hasidic jews are ultra-conservative. Ultra-conservatism and fascism are inextricably linked. I’m not sure how to parse “from what i can see…” given their private nature. One of the reasons I don’t hold much truck in comparisons to [insert ethnic group here] is because we often DON’T see what happens within them and are willing to make tremendous leaps of logic based on blindness.

4. Martin Kilson and I AGREE. Where do you see disagreement EXACTLY?

5. Similarly you and I agree on many things. We just don’t agree on the benefits of what is in effect black libertarianism.

And with the last comment I’m assuming you are referring to the recent decision of the Assault folks to start a speaker’s bureau. This actually isn’t a bad idea…..

it’s ironic that you rely on the state for your contract protection, and are willing to push for training 10,000 volunteers (at a rate of one per day?)…but aren’t willing to even think about pushing those same people to get resources that they are in effect SUPPOSED to get.

Personally, I don’t rely on anything or anybody for any aspect of my protection. Consequently, my entire ethos is constructed around autarky and the nucleation and proliferation of enlarged spheres of comparable cultural competency.

The move from neighborhoods to cities requires a level of structural differentiation and accountability that is very very difficult for neighborhood organizations to wrestle with alone.

and demonstrably impossible for the municipal authorities to wrestle with given the current array of systemic incentives available to municipal governance constructs.

Unless you’re willing to take the type of fascist top down approach that characterizes the ultra-conservative jews that Fisher referenced.

ignorance of hasidic organization is no excuse for an allegation of fascist social order. from what I can see, they are exemplars of racial/ethnic/cultural autarkic competency – absent control of a single essential resource and in stark defiance of the norms of the culture in which they’re embedded.

Spence, I waited a week to cool down and not respond angrily to your handwaving. What with being banned from the hermit’s lair for rhetorical non-compliance – I thought it best that I just leave this one alone for a while. Problem is, returning to it, it doesn’t look any better.

Martin Kilson does a wonderful job of affirmatively countering much of what you’ve written and alluded to here, including direct reference to DuBois on Philadelphia.

It’s clearly time for me to disengage from further correspondence with folks who are simultaneously conflicted and disengaged because their primary preoccupation is the cultivation of a careers in pop media….,

critically:

craig when you say you presented a workable model what model were you talking about exactly? the move from vmb enabled community hubs to quasi state institutions that deal not with neighborhoods but with cities requires both private AND state resources. i’ve emphasized the role of the state and institutions in general a few times before and it bears re-emphasizing now.

further you’ve made claims about black communities before integration before that bear further clarification. structural dynamics made it very difficult for communities in the south and in the north to police themselves the way that you argue they did. i’d argue that these communities had crime rates that were significantly higher than those of their non-black counterparts. this isn’t due to cultural reasons, but rather it is due to poverty and the lack of structures of equitable law enforcement.

you proposed an idea of vmb enabled communities to somehow deal with the gaps left by police and by the state. while i can empathize with your critique of what you call regressives, it’s ironic that you rely on the state for your contract protection, and are willing to push for training 10,000 volunteers (at a rate of one per day?)…but aren’t willing to even think about pushing those same people to get resources that they are in effect SUPPOSED to get. i don’t understand this at all.

now in thinking about what conflict resolution should look like I ran across Restorative Justice Online. But with the plethora of resources available I don’t see these plans being scalable.

I talked about this in urban politics. There are only three possible connections between three people. Between 30 taken three at a time? Almost 900. The move from neighborhoods to cities requires a level of structural differentiation and accountability that is very very difficult for neighborhood organizations to wrestle with alone. Unless you’re willing to take the type of fascist top down approach that characterizes the ultra-conservative jews that Fisher referenced.