Introduction to the Black Slate
My name is Lester Kenyatta Spence. I’ll cut to the quick. I believe that we, black voters, represent the most powerful force for democracy in the 50 states, and one of the most powerful forces in the Western World. While the odds don’t look that good in the hour of chaos, I know we can win.
What the hell does this have to do with domestic politics?
Sit around a barbershop long enough and you’ll hear any one of the following things about black people: we air our dirty laundry in public too much, we don’t have any unity, we are too materialistic, we don’t support our own businesses, we don’t work as well as the [insert non-WASP ethnic group here], we don’t support education, we don’t have any leaders, we hate ourselves. In some more politically active churches, you’ll hear the same thing…and given that it’s the 21st Century and all, it isn’t uncommon to see people debate these issues long and hard on the Internet. Most (nope, make that all) of these ideas have negative political and economic consequences for black (and brown and red and white) folk. I say this given what I know about black people, what I know about American history (and our role in it), and what I know about the science of politics.
Now, many of these statements if whites uttered them would be (perhaps rightly) called racist. That is to say that if you happened to get your hair cut one day at…hell I don’t know where whites get their hair cut, but you know what I mean…if you were to get your hair cut at a white barbershop, and the barber looked at you and said, “I like you people. One of my best friends is colored, but you know what your problem is? It’s that you spend your money on all that blingy blingy stuff. What you think about that?”
I know what I’d think about that.
I believe that for a number of reasons, we’re in a trick bag of sorts…thinking on the one hand that racism is all-powerful, and that black people are all powerless. Thinking that politics is just another form of parlor trick. Now obviously, there is something about the notion that black people have an iron boot on our collective throats because of racism. We have less money, less wealth, less education, our neighborhoods are closer to environmental waste dumps, we…you know the drill. But at the same time, not only can racism not fully describe our condition (issues of class, gender, and sexual preference play a powerful role as well); it cannot totally dictate our human responses to it.
Many of us have grandparents who themselves have eight or nine brothers or sisters. To hear tell from my father’s side of the family, my great grandfather and great grandmother died within a short time of each other (my great grandfather from an ailment, my great grandmother from a broken heart). My grandfather and grandmother were expected to take care of their own kids, as well as his siblings. He lost one to the game back in the ’50s, but the rest ended up being tradesmen and professionals in the city of Detroit. Now if we hated ourselves, if we were rendered so powerless and lacking in self-esteem as a result of racism, how in the hell could my grandparents have accomplished what they did? My family isn’t unique; we’ve all got stories like that. Stories of perseverance and uplift in the face of chaos. Stories of victory in the case of long odds.
So, what the hell does this have to do with domestic politics?
Over the past 20 years, many of the gains of the sixties have been dismantled. I’m referring to the erosion of Affirmative Action in some of our best colleges, as well as the erosion of the Voting Rights Act (see: Florida 2000). But I ‘m also talking about the erosion of the safety net played off as “ending welfare as we know it.” I’m talking about the erosion of environmental safeguards, and the erosion of public schools. The policies have been replaced steadily and stealthily, with a language that supports individual initiative and bootstrapping. The barbershop language of black pathology and self-hatred, combined with a knee jerk belief that government cannot aid our situation, has neutered our ability to combat those wishing to return to 1896.
I note above that we can win.
I sincerely believe this; however, for us to do so we have to open up democratic spaces within our communities and within our institutions. We have to engage in a number of projects simultaneously.
We have to promote, applaud, and laud local organizing. How have individuals and organizations not only fought against subjugation but promoted a vibrant new vision of what American life should look like in the 21st Century? What type of tactics and strategies did they adopt? How did they (or didn’t they) use popular culture in order to mobilize black folk?
We also have to detail the various and sundry ways we’re being snowed. On one level, this is relatively straightforward. How is George Bush using images of black people (and you say Condoleezza Rice? I knew that you would…) in order to bolster anti-human policies and practices? How has the Freedom of Information Act been gutted in a way that could prevent progressive men and women of various backgrounds from uncovering government wrongdoing? But we also have to turn the gaze towards our own representatives, both elected and non-elected. How are they using the language of race and community in order to hoard benefits for a select group of black people, leaving the rest of us in the lurch?
Finally, we have to begin to think outside of the box and use tactics of misdirection and passive aggression in order to make further strides. For most of us, for example, the odds of us casting a vote for the Republican Party are about the same as the odds of us being struck by lightning. How could we hack the Republican Party for progressive purposes?
I will try my damnedest to root the column in the best tradition of American (read: black) life, and in the best of social science scholarship. Consider this an attempt to shatter old myths about black political life and culture, and to emphasize a new way of thinking that focuses on the possibility regular black folk have of actually WINNING. A new common sense so to speak that seeks to dismantle shibboleths and charlatans. If I am on my game, I suspect a great many of you will be pissed.
And that some of you will get to work.
We’ve got a world to win, and just a little bit of time to do it in.
