Blacksmythe

One of my younger fraternity brothers, in the wake of the Imus scandal, made the following Whitlockian move:

In realtity, what ever parts of our culture become mainstream will affect their preceptions of us and their interactions.

How we treat each other sets precedent for how others will treat us.

In response to my request for data, my younger fraternity brother cited The Black Image and the White Mind by Entman and Rojecki…and also the recent poll conducted by Cathy Cohen out of Chicago for her Black Youth Project. What I’m going to do here is respond to him…minus the smackdown. The bottom line? There is a difference between blame and responsibility. We have the responsibility to carry ourselves with dignity and honor, regardless…but we are not to blame at all for what Imus said. (more…)

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Somehow I missed Gary Dauphin’s take on John McWhorter. I’m interested in McWhorter about as far as I can throw him, but what I am becoming more interested in are the politics of The New Accomodationism.

Accomodationism refers to the ideology taken up by blacks in the Jim Crow era. Given the pervasive nature of Jim Crow terrorism blacks had to decide whether (and how) to fight, or to go along to get along. This latter strategy involved using various means to change the self-image of black people as well as their image in the minds of whites. It also involved various forms of self-help either through religious, fraternal, professional, or educational institutions, or through various media publications. But the one strategy that was largely disavowed was that of political and economic action against the terrorist regime. The best way for black success was to accept the contours of Jim Crow and to do everything they could to help themselves within those confines (along with getting out of the way of whites).

What we are dealing with now is nothing less than a new form of racial accomodationism. When was the last time that someone posited that structural factors were responsible for black life chances, without qualification? That is, instead of saying “well, we know that some police have it out for black people…but yet and still black crime is real”, saying “some police have it out for black people and we need to figure out how to deal with this.”

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Over at Afronerd they’re discussing the Queen brutality case. Their ideological line is very far from mine, but I am not interested in that as much as I am interested in what flows from that. How does a moderate conservative ideological perspective alter their conception of this incident?

They note the following:

1) Policing is a stressful, difficult and dangerous job that no sane person wants to do.

2) Police officers (some who are also persons of color) have been killed in the line of duty leaving families (like the victim’s in this case) orphaned and widowed. The key difference is that Sharpton, to my knowledge has not shown up for cases like these.

3) And of course, you do have reprehensible cases of police misconduct and corruption.

And black/Latino communities have to keep in mind the following (some context deleted for space reasons):

1) The police have to discern who has criminal intent in an atmosphere that idolizes rebel behavior thanks to commercial hip hop imagery. Gone are the days when the heroes and villians wore opposing color schemes. Now there are legions of Black and Brown youth, whose fashion sense and mannerisms mimic those comprised of the thug element. Many are not criminals but (a la 50 cent) how is one to tell the difference between a gangsta and a wanksta.

2) Not only do you have a street culture that has risen to mythic proportions but also street ethics that manifest in “stop snitchin’” policies-the ghetto version of the Italian omerta.

3) And lastly, we have a youth culture that unfortunately fulfill the stereotypes that have been ascribed to them. In the Bell case, all three parties had numerous arrests for drug and weapon charges in the past.

Questions:

• When the writers say “of course there are some reprehensible cases of police misconduct” what do they mean? Are they saying that this is a part of the job? That we should except misconduct as routine? How is this misconduct distributed? Are Manhattan socialites as likely to be the victim of misconduct as Puerto Rican working class men? If not, why not?
• If no sane person would take the job of the police, then are we to believe that the police are in fact, insane?
• The three aspects of black/Latino life they focus on are modern in nature. Is police brutality against communities of color a modern phenomenon?
• Did the police know about Bell’s record before he was shot and killed? Is this why they sought to stop him?

If we don’t take into account the stated purpose of the police, as well as the historical trajectory of their development vis a vis black communities, then it is very easy to take Afronerd’s point of view. But if we take into account the fact that police are paid by our taxes to protect us, then the first viewpoint we should think about are those of the citizens they are supposed to protect. Further if we understand that police misconduct is not a “natural” part of the job, in as much as it is targeted towards certain populations, and that this misconduct is not a modern response to hip-hop, then rather than taking some brutality for granted (and blaming it on hip-hop), we’d likely take a more sensible approach to crime fighting and to police behavior.

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Over at Cobb, my boy Mike is arguing that Conservatism may be the saving grace of America and the West. I don’t expect to get a response from him because he’s got a job to do…but while conservatism very well may be the saving grace of the North (not the west), it’ll be because of its identity politics rather than because of its support for democracy, reason, and modernity. Quiet as its kept, conservatism as a philosophy stands against each of these. Political equality? Nope. Reason? Nope. Modernity? Nope.

Now I guess I could be persuaded to believe otherwise. But then again if you pressed hard enough you could convince me that the tigers lost last night.

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I was going to call this post “the best argument for conservatism I can think of” but the thing is that conservatism really isn’t about small government, it’s about small government for interests conservatives don’t support. Hence the change…

But anyway, the problems with Iraq, with Foley, with Afghanistan, all point to gross negligence, incompetence, and (in the Foley case) a crass desire for power that knows no end.

(An aside on the Foley issue. The Nation has an excellent piece on Foley arguing that if he would have been able to come out of the closet and be who he was then perhaps this would not have happened. For what it is worth I believe them to be right.)

Anyway. Let’s say that the entire political landscape was different, and the political interests that you as a voter prefer run the entire government…and that government does exactly what you want it to. If you knew that this government would not only be replaced by that of your political opponents, but they would be TOTALLY INCOMPETENT…how big would you want your government to be? The Republican Administration is the worst administration I have ever seen from top to bottom. They are incompetent, corrupt, and millenial. Not to mention classist, racist, sexist, etc. etc.

I believe in a government large enough to counter private corporate interests. But times like this? I want government to be small enough that these people (and those that voted for them) can’t do any more damage.

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