Prometheus 6

"I've probably personally seen more racism from my fellow black people than white people. The idea that every white person should walk around with the legacy of Bull Connor on his or her back is ludicrous, no more than the idea that black people are automatically filled with virtue and sanctity because our ancestors were treated as subhuman (I don't get to act like an ass simply because Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. were on my team)."

I don't know who wrote the sentence I quoted above but I think the writer wholly misses the point perhaps because they really do not know anything at all about Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. When Connor ruled the Birmingham roost most white people in America, let alone Birmingham, probably did not have or display the degree of animosity toward black folks that Connor did.

Nonetheless, it would be historically incorrect (and opinion polls taken at that time support my argument) to assume that a majority of white Americans did not harbor some racist attitudes towards black Americans at that time. It is clear from Michael Richards' outburst that some Americans still do but I doubt if Richards, for example, supports siccing German Shepard dogs on black school children.

I don't think that a majority of white Americans, whatever their level of antipathy toward blacks, felt that Bull Connor's actions were correct. So using him as an example to illustrate the decline of racism in America is simply a lazy and disingenuous argument. I suspect that the person making this argument is an immigrant West Indian or black African. Many of them are always claiming that native blacks are more racist than white Americans. They are wrong but their "enlightened attitude" endears them to many in the fast fading majority population. If Oliver Wills wrote it then what else can you expect from a .95 caliber asshole?

I don't know who wrote the sentence I quoted above

That was Oliver...hence the "brain falling out" thing. 

We cannot paint all whites as Bull Connor (or the late, great old man Mayor Daley of Chicago) so why do white people get a free pass to use the N-word because random rappers and comics use it?

Um...personal responsibility?

What actually annoyed me was Oliver saying, in essense, "Just like not all Black people are good, not all white people are bad."

Why not, "Just like not all Black people are bad, not all white people are bad," or "Just like not all Black people are good, not all white people are good." Shit sets me like a heartbeat away from another Britney Spears joke.

I suspect that the person making this argument is an immigrant West Indian or black African. Many of them are always claiming that native blacks are more racist than white Americans. They are wrong but their "enlightened attitude" endears them to many in the fast fading majority population. If Oliver Wills wrote it then what else can you expect from a .95 caliber asshole?

When my mom moved us to the burbs of Chicago, we moved someplace with a lot of blacks from Jamaica, Haiti and Belize/British Honduras. I very quickly realized some divisions even though I was pretty clueless as to why. By the time I graduated college during the Reagan years and couldn't find a good job, I realized that white folks got to be non-racist by grabbing onto a black who wasn't born in America.

In fact, so many of me and my friends were working with college degrees for Kelly Girls (yes I am that old) that we said we were going to start pretending we were Jamaican so we could get a real job. Fast forward, now, I have foreigners from other countries asking me or assuming I am West Indian ... The underlying thought is that "regla black folks" are too stupid to be in real jobs or not be in some ghetto ... or not be smart.

My mom even has East Indians accusing her of "passing." (and I'm like who would try to pass for "nigga" in this here America)? One of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books is from the Autobigraphy of Angela Davis where she and her sister got service in a racist department store by speaking French and the white folks were falling all over themselves to bring the shoes to try on. White folks are slap happy to avoid being labeled racist by latching onto non-American born blacks just so they can talk about the descendents of slaves.

At my last job, some Indian woman must have bought into the stereotype and was asking me where I was from ... the West Indies? I told her no ... I was just a regular black American who was the product of some black slave and a rapist white slave master ... My sister (who can often be mistaken for a ding bat) is often asked where she is from because she doesn't look/sound like she is from an illiterate family. I am over it. We aren't rich but we are more like the Cosby's than the family on Good Times.

Thank you so much for providing your perspective and experiences on this issue. Briefly, what I think is going on is that many, although not all, of our so-called brothers and sisters from the Caribbean are simply copying the by now well documented behavior of many immigrant groups, which is to join the white majority in "niggrafying" and stereotyping African Americans.

West Indians see us as being on the lowest tier in American society and in order to avoid being placed next to us or, worse, lower, they actively buy into and engage in describing us to each other, and especially to whites and anyone who will listen, in the most pejorative and offensive terms. By and large, they see us as competitors for jobs, housing and all of the perquisites and status that America provides and they mean to push us aside by any means fair or foul.

In this regard, their behavior and attitude is not significantly different than what Irish, Italian, Eastern European, German and Jewish immigrants thought about us during their resettlement struggles in this country. One can find the same attitudes about African Americans today among Asian and Hispanic immigrants.

This is a fascinating conversation.  In thinking of relations between West Indians and American born blacks, it is curious to consider if Marcus Garvey's career in America and the Garvey Movement in general illustrates this division between these two groups in the manner described by qusan.  There were certainly divisions between the traditional civil rights leadership and the UNIA.  Was there a perception, however, during Garvey's time that West Indians were more hard-working and industrious than native born blacks and did certain whites mask their dislike of native born blacks by ingratiating themselves with foreign born blacks?  Or is this phenomenon more recent?          

You'll note Garvey, Claude McKay and such had common cause with American-born Blacks. You'll note many American-born Blacks are children of Carribean-born Blacks.

Has that common cause been preserved for subsequent generations?   

harold cruse writes about the relationship between american blacks and blacks from the west indies.  exhibits some real "issues" too.

the angela davis case does not serve as an example of whites tripping over themselves trying to prove they aren't racist.  i believe that they put american negroes into another analytical category.  i remember reading about dizzy gillepsie (i think) doing something similar, faking like he was from africa to eat in a whites only restaurant.  

Or is this phenomenon more recent?

I think it is of more recent origin, i.e.,becoming more prevalent after World War II due to the increased influx of working class and professional West Indians. More celebrated and prominent West Indians like Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, C.L.R. James, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Portier and Stokely Carmichael had a quite different perspective with regard to the competence, intelligence, energy and ambition of native black Americans.

Dr. Cruse was of the opinion, however, that regardless of their views of native black Americans black Carribeans, by and large, lacked a sufficiently developed and nuanced understanding of the racial issues that black Americans faced because all of them came from countries where blacks were the majority.

White folk practice proprietary racism. They respect the boundaries of one another's "ownership." By that I mean US born blacks have always "enjoyed" more social freedom in Europe than African or even Caribbean Blacks. American blacks are not subjected to the same social "sanctions" as travelers in the Caribbean - but if one looks carefully at Jamaica, prior to Patterson, it was run by white folks for as long as anyone could remember (Manley-Manley-Seaga-Manley, etc.) At the height of apartheid, Al Jarreau or Ben Vereen (or both) were invited to Sun City in South Africa and treated like royalty.

The first time my mother went to Europe and experienced this she was shocked.  I told her, "Of course, you're not their nigger.  You belong to their cousin."

It is interesting that this pattern holds - even across language "barriers" within the European diaspora.  Black baseball players often feigned Cuban roots in order to gain access to American facilities.  This notion of property extends deep into the psyche of white people across the planet.  The question of who owns which Africans is almost always at hand.  Africans who may get a measure of respect here do not get it from colonial holdovers in their home nation - nor do they get it as migrants to that colonizing nation in Europe.

Curiously, many Africans from the continent and Caribbean have seen fit to come to these shores and talk much shit while so many unresolved issues remain front and center at home.  Whether the issue is ownership of reggae music (who the phuk is Chris Blackwell?), nationalization of bauxite production, diamond production or immigrant rights in Europe, the same folks who assail Africans in the US for being lazy have left a treasure trove of untended business on the home front - and find themselves trailing behind nations like Brazil (sans African leadership), Argentina, India, and others.

My ancestry is rooted in several states within the US and Jamaica.  My grandfather, born here to Jamaican born parents, never harbored any illusions about the need for work to be done in both places - and he never countenanced any sophomoric bullshit about which struggle was larger or whose warriors were more valiant because the question, on its face, was absurd.

It appears that Oliver's site (not to be dismissive) is loaded with folks wholly ill-equipped to have this conversation.  In fact, he may be equally ill-suited.  This is not a place for "i feel" and "well, for me..."  That type of phrasing is better suited for immaterial shit like whether or not you like Emmitt Smith's dance shoes.

Quickly, I believe that common cause between American Africans (read US born) and Caribbean Africans (read ENGLISH-speaking Caribbean black folk) obtains around issues of politics and social justice, but is significantly fragmented at the level of economics. While this is not always the case, I am residing in Brooklyn and this borough is the primary looking glass for this question. I believe the economic fragmentation is considerable and the opportunity cost of failed collaboration is nearly incalculable. Is that empirical? Nope. Is that sufficient? Nope. Just an observation seeking correction.

Mostl likely there is an inherent failure in the choice of planning a black economic program in a free market economy.

You could gauge the economic impact of the money implicitly spent by travelers to and from the Million Man March, but you couldn't raise that much money directly. This is the fundamental problem with such redistributive ideas. Nobody wants to be black that much - to register themselves into a program of economic development that exceeds (stereotypically) the annual expense on potato chips by African Americans. 

 There might be a program of aggregation, but I don't see any black communities that are as tightly knit as to generate the necessary foothold .  The fact of the matter is that barriers to economic progress  via  generic integrative tactics are so low, that selling out to the mainstream remains more profitable than buying in to a black economic program.

I remain particularly interested in bourgie organizations for signs of aggregative agendas, but I don't think those which are particularly self-interested are sufficiently well-endowed to address much more than the luxuries of say.. a private black golf resort. The majority tend to be charitable organizations sufficient to deflect crabbage, but perhaps not much more. I have openly wondered about the fate of the Talented Tenth.. very hard to say from my vantage point.

Does anybody buy merchandise from Spike Lee any more? Remember School Daze and that t-shirt craze? What about 'the blacker the college, the sweeter the knowledge'?

Given that there is likely to ever be a consolidated uplift economic plan outside the outside chances of a Reparations windfall, it seems that the best small scale direction is towards.. how shall I say... legitimate 'gangsta' opportunities to take blocks after blocks in specific Second World communities. That is the equation I would expect from follow-on agendas of individuals like the guy who runs Unity First Bank - the next generation of business from the likes of Magic Johnson. 

The question is a matter of degree to which competent professionals and managerial class individuals who have hung close to traditional black neighborhoods are willing to invest locally (given financing from black banks like UF, who would have to do balance a sub-prime portfolio). Also it is a matter of degree to which the vast numbers of working poor, skilled and semi-skilled black workers are willing to trust 'the black man's ice' and the economic principles of entrepreneurship.  Practically speaking, is the black community together enough to buy out the Korean grocer, staff the store and serve the neighborhood, or do some targeted genetrification?

You have to wonder if folks love those communities enough... I mean I'm positive that JayZ will put posters up on every corner in Brooklyn if his artists are to perform at BAM, but will he buy the property for Nkiru Books so that that black bookstore can go rent free? When do black millionaires decide to buy a block of storefronts in a black community. I know we have come partway over in Leimert Park in LA, but there's still some distance to go (actually, I'll ask the twins next time I go around).

You don't like the topic, so you change it?

How about them dead African babies lowering the African unemployment rate? 

I'm going to be fleshing out some of these issues on my blog as I go through Amos Wilson's Blueprint. Two quick points: black folk in the Caribbean are asking themselves the same questions - do we love this country enough to dedicate more effort than retirement years to this work. Typically, the answer has been a resounding no. Folks would much rather live in Miami, New York, Toronto or London. Second, with respect to Nkiru, I would hope that JZ or anyone else would do a sound business analysis before allowing a bookstore (of all things) to live rent free. Since Nkiru left, three other businesses have failed in the exact same location. While I can appreciate the example, I hope you can appreciate these particulars will apply regardless of the investor or the service/product offered. Moreover, given JZ's partnership with Forrest City Ratner, his efforts to subsidize an Nkiru would put him in direct competition with his role as future landlord to national book chains that presently do not serve the neighborhood. Forget rent free: invest to allow an Nkiru to carry enough titles and purchase in sufficient volume to serve the entire neighborhood - and it's a HUGE neighborhood.

It was an outsized example. Somebody lower down the capitalism scale would be more appropriate. But is there always, of necessity, a higher cost of doing business with blackfolks? I bring up this angle because here in LA the part of town where I grew up was years late getting cable TV, and the only big development has been church expansion. Only recently have banks been willing to loan money for improvements to storefronts and light industrial in the area. If it's mostly subprime lending where critical masses of blackfolks are, then we have a fundamental issue. It might just be that the value of black aggregation is worth paying the premium, but is it a well-understood premium or is it redlining intransigence?

Dead african babies lower the African unemployment rate.

Africa's a big place

Submitted by Cobb on November 22, 2006 - 4:16pm.

Nigeria's a big place too.

When there's a 6% infant mortality rate, what's the unemployment rate? Should people grow up just to starve?

I think I'm going to create "move comment" function, so I can shift off-topic comments to an open thread.

But is there always, of necessity, a higher cost of doing business with blackfolks? I bring up this angle because here in LA the part of town where I grew up was years late getting cable TV

Cable companies are granted monopolies or franchises to operate. Why didn't those kneegrows who sat on the L.A. City Council or that kneegrow-who-would-be-governor Tom Bradley write black folks' neighborhoods into the franchise that was granted to Adelphia or whatever cable company that was given the contract?

Only recently have banks been willing to loan money for improvements to storefronts and light industrial in the area.

This is a relatively easy problem to solve. The City of Los Angeles has literally hundreds of millions, if not several billion, dollars that it keeps on deposit in several banks that operate in Los Angeles. An enterprising and resourceful council member, for example, with the blessing of the mayor and the city's treasurer and controller, might lead a delegation over to the CEOs of these banks and explain to them that if they do not begin to loan money to business people in certain districts or neighborhoods the city will no longer do any business with them.

In addition, political leaders should approach the heads of the municipal employee unions and ask them to begin using their financial clout as depositers of millions of dollars annually with these banks to demand that the banks begin making loans in certain areas of the city.

This is not extortion.

Cable companies are granted monopolies or franchises to operate. Why didn't those kneegrows who sat on the L.A. City Council or that kneegrow-who-would-be-governor Tom Bradley write black folks' neighborhoods into the franchise that was granted to Adelphia or whatever cable company that was given the contract?

Because LA was perhaps the least desirable metropolitan cable franchise in the U.S.

At the time it was built, the original cable franchise in LA was the largest metropolitan cable system in the country - Because of its sheer size, and the concommittant capital requirements (cable operators like any other infrastructure builder want to fund as much as possible out of operations, as opposed to out of their pockets) - it was a very difficult challenge getting any operators to step up and make the attempt at provisioning in LA.

In order to solve the problem, initial buildout of the franchise was focused in areas with a high concentration of apartment complexes and hotels. These are the cherry picks in the cable business, as a little infrastructure provides a considerable return on capital investment.

Because of its scale and complexity of funding from operations, mainstream operators would not take LA on. Into this vacuum steps an organized criminal crew. Deeze nefarious muhfukkaz didn't even attempt a best practices rollout that met the unique challenges of LA topography. Rather, they focused their routine efforts on the high density/high yield areas, and, in the residential areas, they setup a shakedown operation in which field reps were doing "collections" for services. (since these were expected to underperform anyway...,) said collections never making it onto the general ledger. Effectively, the banking syndicate which financed the original buildout was getting soaked for all infrastructure with no return on its capital lent to make this happen.

LA's original metropolitan cable system became a grand criminal enterprise netting its owner operators a rich criminal booty and putting some of the largest non-performing loans ever on the books of some fairly significant banks.., those banks were eventually forced to foreclose on the system with the upshot being that banker governed operations went into effect for a couple of years. Banker management took an already bad situation and failed to improve on it. What was already tore up from the floor up got much worse after bank imposed stop-loss management was put into effect. (after all this, the plot actually thickens.)

Once the racketeers got pulled out of the picture by the FBI and the banking syndicate that financed the original boondoggle, they were replaced as owner/operators by a group of Mormon sheepherders from Wyoming...., about a year into this change of ownership, I was sent into this situation to help find out why cash flow hadn't substantively improved over the halcyon period during which straight gangsterism had been the order of the day. I was 26 years old and spent several months in LA having the time of my life.

IMOHO - every young man should have such interesting and instructive adventures...,

You people are so easy...

I don't intend to respond further to Cobb although Nulan's explanation of the cable business in L.A. is extremely interesting. I agree we should move this discussion to another thread.

would be more appropriate...the competition will be Barnes and Noble and Borders and the like...It's not obvious to me that Jay-Z or anyone is his income bracket has sufficient revenue or even consumer base to push an Nkiru that could lock down this part of Brooklyn. Imagine Nkiru as a coffee maker owned by Magic Johnson - instead of Starbucks. The question of branding is as important as the question of financing, ultimately - though clearly not in the short term.

I think we have the makings of a script for a Chinatown sequel based on this discussion of the criminal under-current behind the development of the cable television industry in Los Angeles.  Water apparently isn't the only corruptible industry in the city of angels.  The fact that this whole story would include Mormon sheepherders in Wyoming is pure gold.  Somebody inform Roman Polanski we have a script idea....  From what I understand, Jack Nicholson directed a sequel to Chinatown chronicling the criminal influences in the development of the natural gas industry in LA that bombed and subsequently dropped plans to direct a third installement chronicling the development of the region's freeway system.  I think we have a chance to revive the franchise with a story focusing on the cable television industry.  Seriously, this would make a great non-fiction book.  I favor another thread to continue this conversation.                   

Somebody inform Roman Polanski we have a script idea....

I think Polanski would have to do a little time in a California prison if he showed up in the U.S. again. The sequel to Chinatown also had Harvey Keitel playing a lead role. I didn't think it was a bad movie at all but the critics did.

BTW, didn't Polanski play a role in Chinatown? Wasn't he the little hoodlum with the knife who sliced open Nicholson's nose.