Prometheus 6

I had to read Dr. Patterson's piece several times to make sure that what I thought he was saying was what he was saying. I know a professor at Bryn Mawr, for example, who has done several mobility studies regarding the preferences of African American, Hispanic and Asian homebuyers. In all of the studies she has done African Americans have exhibited a greater willingness to purchase homes at a greater distance from their old neighborhoods than have Hispanics and Asians. 

Orlando has got me back on my original mission: to make sure no one can freely lie to, on or about Black folks.

In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave this is a 24/7 mission. 

Pretty insane piece by Patterson. But what would one expect from this icon of  "paid" but truly irrelevant thinkers in our mist. His pieces are written more as an appeasement for 'them' than it is for 'us'. BTW, check out Bob Herbert's piece today in the NYT 1/1/07. This "paid thinker" gets it right on soooo many issues afflicting our people. The only problem is that he's a minority in the "paid thinkers" clique that has something truly relevant to say with his highly accessible analysis and critques.

I've been reading Patterson's work for decades. Yes, he's dead wrong, but it's important to take his assertions in context.  Like many other British-trained black historians (either Caribbean, from the Empire itself, or schooled within the Colonial system), Patterson simply can't make the jump from Continental and colonial  racism to American racism.  This problem is also evident in the work even of more liberal scholars like Paul Gilroy.  Very few manage to be exceptions (Stuart Hall is one) who are able (or who take the time) to grasp the contextual differences between being black in Britain and the Empire/ex-colonies and being black in the U.S. 

What historians like Patternson either simply don't understand or adamantly refuse to recognize is the importance of the "one-drop rule" and the color line in the U.S.  Given the "peculiar institution" of slavery in the United States, there was a necessity -- a compulsion -- on the part of whites to draw a distinct and apparently uncrossable line between being white and being... anything else.  The entire political and economic structure of the pre-Civil War  U.S. would have been destabilized by any de jure recognition of gradations of being "colored," any "slippery slope" of granting rights to black Americans. Though there was and is de facto color stratification within the black community, this is largely invisible to whites to this day.

The completely arbitrary but ruthlessly enforced boundary between white/other is the key to understanding race in the U.S., and most British scholars (whether they are black or white) are simply not equipped to make the analysis. Instead, they act as if Continental assumptions about race were in place in the U.S.

Thus, Patterson winds up making judgments based on his own assumptions about what U.S. blacks are thinking -- dismissing the continued restrictions that are (de facto and sometimes de jure) in place to prevent black Americans from "moving up" like other groups of "immigrants" (as if black Americans were mostly "immigrants"!), ranging from red-lining by banks (and internet service providers), to "homeowner's associations", to job discrimination,  to gerrymandering voting districts, and so on.

 Patterson is not a friend of white right-wingers in the U.S., but his work easily lends itself to exploitation by those people. He may or may not realize that the reason that conservative venues like to publish his work is because it support their distinctly American-flavor racist assumptions, rather than because what he is saying is correct.  Successful British-schooled academic that he is, Patterson is distinctly classist (this comes through in all his work, over the last three decades) and it is probably easy for him to presume that the blacks who are disproportionately  represented in America's lower- and under-classes are somehow personally and communally responsible for their fate, rather than the victims of a system so oppressive that all but a very lucky and talented few can "rise out of it" without assistance. He may not realize how closely his classism dovetails with the interests of white supremacy.  But he's smart enough understand this, if he chooses.

 None of this, of course, is an excuse for Patterson's very public and insistent wrong-headedness.  But context is always important. And it's no accident he's found a home at Harvard, where classism is a way of life.  One many levels there isn't much difference between Skip Gates' take on poor black Americans and Patterson's.  Skip just wishes he was educated in Britain.  That's why he talks with that affected accent and adopted that cane well before he ever had a limp....

DAMN! Very astute obervations and analysis of what I consider to be probably one of the most vexing problems afflicting some Black intellectuals, the seeming enabling of anti-Black and Darwinian socioeconomic policies and the like. BTW, all things being equal, Darwinian ideas/observations, in light of current biologic dogma seems not so  farfetched. But that is where I draw the line. Because for most Black Americans, in most, or, at least insignificant aspects of our lives all things are not equal. And are in fact induced artificially by man and not nature.   But then again, I'm also mindful of the seeming willful cultural blindedness that afflicts the works of scholars like Patterson that give Blacks the short shrift in probing deeply, and objectively, in the historical context of our particular American narrative but are offered up these high perched position to distort and confuse. They, in a way, are just, as cogs in the wheel of Black domination and, therefore, are as critical in the hindrance of full citizenship for Black Americans and the asssociated priviledges intertwined with being an American. Nice. 

This is very informative analysis.  Ktal....  I would be interested to hear how you think Patterson compares to black intellectuals and scholars like Eric Williams and Frantz Fanon who hailed from other European empires.  Would you say that classism was present in their views of race, and if so how does it differ from British-style or North American-style classism?   

Thing is, Patterson is a sociologist, not an historian. That means he can make ahistorical analyses with a clear conscience.

But he's smart enough understand this, if he chooses.

The other thing is, these most recent op-eds of his are straight bullshit. Not scholarly, I know, but concise...and if he can say crap like this with a straight face (I assume he wasn't laughing his ass off as he wrote) he deserves little better than dismissal as a serious commentator. 

P6, A Happy and Prosperous New Year to You!  Your point that commentators like Patterson not be dismissed is well taken.  But the point is is that  the arguments that they are parroting are not original in that they, seemingly, blame Blacks themselves for their misfortune, to a significant degree, it seems, is not helpful at all, in my view. There is nothing in the observations they project that is newly insightful nor motivational in and of itself, especially without the 'proper' context of circumstances or events that would lead to socioeconomic fragility of the Black community in the first place.  That is, if a 'truly' contextual analysis was performed then this might then would lead to, perhaps, a less burdened response by the dominant culture and lead to the resultant remediation measures required to facilitate relief, of sorts, for this distressed group in those aspects of life that's taken for granted by those not so afflicted. It just seems to be a fairer way to get things done for all parties involved. So the idea that he is, or is not, a "serious commentator," for me, is not under contention. The question is, who is he seriously commentating for, and for what agenda or purpose? And, how does it, his poisonous commentaries, in effect, impact upon the Black American community? And if it does, in what aspect?   BTW, what persons of Patterson's ilk has is akin to the sometimes transient affliction known as selective "Stockholm Syndrome." Check it out!  God or bad, depending on your persuasion, it's epidemic. (Hmmmmmm?!  Since reading Patterson's piece today in the NYT, now, in a funny way, I'm somewhat reassured. His comments today addressed the tourism dynamics in some parts of the Caribbean today. They were congent and thoughtful.) So he is a Nationalist, in his peculiar Jamaican way. 

The question is, who is he seriously commentating for, and for what agenda or purpose?

I'll just kick it to the curb. 

  Yeah Okay. But Patterson's piece in today's NY Times clarifies so much for me in the questions I raised above concerning the ideological underpinnings for the interpretation of observations made of some aspects of Black American culture and life.   First, and foremost, it is clear to me that most folks, especially nonwhites, in my experience and observations, truly pimp off of the struggles and triumphs of the descendants of American Blacks of plantation origins, it seems to me, writing as one of those descendants.   Notwithstanding the notable works of Garvey, CLR James, Carlos Cooks and many others, too numerous to name, it seeems the ones with the highest perch, at this point, are those who easily vilify us, seemingly, without a real contextual input. Perhaps it is deliberate. Perhaps it is not. To me, it's like walking in circles. Its wasteful and breeds contempt.   Or, for example, it is akin to the thesis in the movie "The First Date" with Adam Sandler and the Barrymore girl. In it, her longterm memory is soooo bad, that each date with Sandler is like a first date.    Finally, what Patterson's piece critically reflects for me is that one's nationalism is classless, in a real sense. He may reflect one particular political dynamic towards American Blacks while here. But in his deeper being he has a love or caring for his Jamaica that would inspire him to write this instructive piece  for his countrymen. And I say right on!   So why give us so much hell Orlando?

First of all, it's not limited to Orlando. It's nothing so personal as that.

Constant rhetorical attack keeps Black folk in fight-or-flight mode. Damages the body and impairs the judgment. If folks understand there's legitimate responses to them, can see the responses made successfully it is helpful to them. Even if they can't make the argument themselves, simply knowing the attack is invalid helps.

This is not theory. It's an observation on my part, and there's actually some social science supporting it.

It is clear that it is not limited to Orlando. There's plethora of both native born haters who fit into this mode of thinking towards Blacks too.

I just feel attacks on us by these folks with these invalid arguments give succor and cover to folks who really don't want us around anymore.

Yes it does. That why they pay the gentlemen to write such articles.

It damage Black folk to the degree we believe them, and we accept too much of the mainstream analysis of things to just ignore them. They need to be responded to dispassionately.

But it "poisons the well" regardless.

these intellectuals are simply dishonest frauds (not impaired by a conceptual difference) committed to looking at the success of immigrants who've traveled afar - and equally committed to ignoring poverty, dependence and wretchedness at home. it could be that phukkin' simple. if these phake phuks went home once in a while, they wouldn't have time to write this shit...they'd be too busy trying to get lights and hot water and a decent phukkin' road in the countryside. but, nah, these cats wanna holla about empirical this and empirical that and separation this and white folks that...ain't no rocket science here...just muhphukkas on the move incapable of reclaiming their own homeland talking shit on a visa. shut the phukkk up and keep it movin. patterson, willis, etc.

by the way...i can't always favor a dispassionate response...because these folks often have personal axes to grind which will not be revealed unless there is some fire.

ubstu's question up thread re: Eric Williams and Frantz Fanon is particularly instructive because their approach to these questions puts the onus of scholarship and work on the shoulders of Patterson and others of his ilk. This is not a question of "willful residential segregation." I mean the very idea of quoting a decontextualized 30-year article is an indication of some mental or moral dysfunction. The man cannot be deemed to be healthy or right in any meaningful way...and getting him right or out of sight may require some passion. At this juncture, it may be too late to reconcile him to his youth and his feelings of hurt and rejection (or pseudo-superiority) which took shape in his formative years. Nonetheless, a trip home would do him some good.

by the way...i can't always favor a dispassionate response

You'll note I don't always give one. The the core of the response has to be crafted dispassionately so middle-class folks will feel comfortable sharing it. But I'm not above wearing an iron glove.

you do know how to get down on both sides of the aisle

Did anyone read Patterson's NY Times editorial a couple of days ago about tourism to the Caribbean?  What can be said about his views of class that were on display in this editorial?      

Temple 3 your comments are on point. Thanks!