Prometheus 6

Thoughts kind of jumped at me when looking at the chart.  I'm not sure how much to try to focus them and how much to just let spill in a stream.

I don't know, but I'd bet that Madame CJ Walker (here used as the archetypical rich black person from a long time ago) has descendents who are in prison today.

Assuming she had at least some white household help, I don't know but I'd bet that the descendents of her white help are more wealthy on average than her descendents today.

So collective goals at least for black people merge with individual goals if one of your individual goals is the well being of your direct descendents.  (Assuming I'd win my bets).

Movements also need resources and they need to be supported by as many wealthy people as possible. So anything that encourages or enables individuals to become wealthy is good collectively.

I don't know if I'm making some kind of argument for collective behavior or an assertion that individual behavior is collective behavior.

On second look at the chart I think the group boundaries issue is settled.

100 years ago, there was such a thing as black people who "passed" because they had enough white blood that they could pretend that they were not black, for example when applying for jobs.  Today we call those people white.  There is no such thing as passing any more.  If they have a spanish last name then kind of maybe but not like before.

I don't think there is much debate about group boundaries.  The most militant black people believe that if you try hard you can advance in the white world.  Not as far as a white person would with the same talent and effort but you would not be running in place.  The most accomodating black people would for the most part agree.

Accomodating people can say that they do not care about other black people - but other black people are their cousins and their great-grandchildren.

People who know me would put me into the orange group.  But I've interacted and interact with a lot of people whose friends would put them into the blue group.  When blue group people interact with me, they sound a lot like me.  I'm not sure if their ever was or if there is now any substantive debate about either the basic outlines of what America represents or of the importance of collective advancement.  Maybe when blue group people get together they talk entirely differently.  Who knows?

What does individualized behavior look like? I don't know but I'd bet that there are a lot of black officers in the armed forces who will tell you that Colin Powell took a special interest in their careers and helped them a lot - basically because of an orange-group collective interest on the part of Powell.

Individualized behavior means Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas?  Do those fringe characters even get their own color? Because if the blue group is the single-digit percentage of black people that is completely outside of mainstream black thought: They exist.  They are annoying because they use such cheap tricks to take advantage of the fact that whites are so much richer than blacks in America that it is possible to eat just by performing for whites.  But they are not really worthy of analysis.  You can't call it a belief system.

Ok.  Third look.  Now I'm thinking maybe the interesting distinction is between the two orange tracks.  Maybe they should get different colors and the blue group should be a footnote.  Seriously. 

I'm starting to put together thoughts about the two orange tracks - along the lines that the bottom confrontation track is smaller and disproportionately active in manning and organizing collective behavior. 

I'll be back.  I have to figure out what I think about the relationship between the more and less confrontational wings of mainstream black thought in the US. 

Thoughts kind of jumped at me when looking at the chart.

Exactly. It was like observed patterns...crystalized. I think it's a good framework to start with.

I got it from this pdf. 

Now I'm thinking maybe the interesting distinction is between the two orange tracks.  Maybe they should get different colors and the blue group should be a footnote.  Seriously.

Your three looks are like starting with a bird's eye view and zooming into your own position. I did something similar...and I'm thinking about how it would look if I "zoomed in" on a position other than mine.

My instantaneous reaction to the pdf suggests to me that loss of community in the context of a "white ice is colder" ethos was a categorical disaster for black social ecology.

So I don't know how to make links here or I would.  But there are two books worth reading as it relates to black intrapolitics. 

One is Behind the Mule by Michael Dawson.  The other is Stirrings in the Jug: Black Politics in the Post-Segregation Era by Adolph Reed.  This graph above is interesting, but it doesn't really fit the present reality of black America that well.  One can for example pursue individual mobility while still believing fervently in blackness as measured by social psychology indicators.  In fact I'm not even sure how well it fits the past reality.  BEHIND THE MULE argues for a "black utility heuristic" that doesn't rely on any feely-touchy "love" for black people, but rather cold hard calculations.  Then STIRRINGS IN THE JUG deconstructs that utility heuristic.

[P6: books linkified with my Amazon associate code!] 

This graph above is interesting, but it doesn't really fit the present reality of black America that well.  

Granted. But (and this is one of the reasons I find it a useful starting point) illustration is not about Black America, It's about humans...one human at a time, in fact. It came from a report on that BBC reworking of the Stanford prisoner/guard experiment we discussed.

Though it's not perfect it's as good a framework for investigating white collective responses as Black ones. Assign white folks a belief in inpermiable group barriers (because no white person thinks they can become Black) and insecure relations and start investigating.

One can for example pursue individual mobility while still believing fervently in blackness as measured by social psychology indicators.

You jumped the gun a bit...but notice the blocks are aligned vertically as well as horizontally.

In the mid-60s Black folks pursued individual mobility as a method of effecting social change. The signed onto the Pursuit of FirstBlack, and regardless of how one views the outcome you can't deny these folks were race men and race women.

I brought the diagram, not to define things but as a framework that

• is at least in the ballpark
• is unfamiliar enough that it requires thought

The next book I want to get a review copy of is My American Life : From Rage to Entitlement, but  Behind the Mule and Stirrings in the Jug are now on the official list now.

I stared at it for a while and came to the conclusion that with some tweaks, it explains a lot on race relations. My focus on racism starts with the first boxes. There's a question on reinscription, but the social mobility model works for me in a modernist framework. The Social Change model reinforces racial barriers in an essentialist way that doesn't seem to change if you just substitute 'culture' in a hard multiculturalist way.

The tweaks have to do with the structural and percieved permanance of the basis of 'superiority' and what exactly is meant by collective behavior.

You're missing it too.

This chart is about HUMAN reactions, inevitable patterns of behavior that are inherant in our structure as social animals.

But how do you think the "secure relations" track reinforces racial barriers?

because it starts with the premise of impermeable boundaries - that there is always Us vs Other and never the twain shall mix. Considering what I'm looking for (longer term) in C. Wright Mills, the top model seems to be one of pluralism and the bottom of elitism. So I'm wondering if the black Left and progressives are not overborrowing from Marxist tropes of permanent class struggle and just substituting race.

because it starts with the premise of impermeable boundaries - that there is always Us vs Other and never the twain shall mix.

There will always be those for whom this is the case. In fact, in most cases the barriers are designed to be openable from the inside only. That's the definition of an in-group.

So I'm wondering if the black Left and progressives yaddayadda...

You'll have to work that out yourself. For myself, I'm looking at the biologial fact that we are a social species. All individuation takes place within that basic physical fact.

You DO know we're a social species, right? 

what if the first blue box said "permeable individual boundaries." how many folks who advocate for or believe in "social mobility" (in this particular time and space) believe in that for groups vs. for individuals? i mean, from a group perspective, that's almost silly. for individuals, it has some serious merit.

Keeping in mind this chart was not developed to describe inter- or intra- race relations, but subordinate in-group to dominant out-group relations...

By merit you mean individuals can move out of the lower caste but the caste is still lower. Everybody believes that. I might have said there's some truth, rather than merit, to the idea (trying to make this point is more like whittling than construction). But even for individuals, the gate-keeper must allow passage, and the doorknob is on the inside.

Maybe I should make another few mods. If I hadn't stupidly published a post that wasn't ready, you'd have never known...

by merit, i mean that is resonates with me - merit to the idea. i like that gatekeeper thing - and the doorknob thing. secret is out - we all know! muuuwaaahhhh hhahaahhh!