So here it is, the first day of Black History Month. It feels a little funny this year. I think I'm still a member of ASALH, the organization started by the founder of Black History Month, Dr. Carter G. Woodson...I forgot memberships sort of reset on Jan. 1, so I gotta pay my dues. I've found I'm more of a “studies” guy than a “history” guy (difference being “studies” is a search for correlations across disciplines where “history” is a search for patterns within the documentation of a single discipline). But history-the-discipline produces information I use to both direct my attention and establish limits of sanity on my speculations on how people work.
So that's not how folks tend to use history. Sue me.
There'll be a lot of Black History Month stuff going on all month, and I'll link more than a couple over the next four weeks. Right now I'm more interested in right now, because of what I understand from history. I think we're in for a reboot.
We've rebooted before. The War of Northern Aggression was a reboot. The Great Depression was another. I think the GI Bill prevented another one, post WW-II. Things came back together in ways at least plausibly related to the Constitution, but a fundamental part of each recovery was the exclusion of Black folks from the programs that got folks on their feet. Power player got their accustomed percentage of influence, mainstream folks got a citizen's share and whatever was left went to the Black gatekeepers for distribution. That's the pattern. And the groundwork is being laid so that, whatever happens, the power players can keep playing.
On the other hand, we're not quite the people we were at that time. We have resources that can't be taken away without collapsing the system. Not as things currently stand.
And it is interesting to watch white folks adjust to the same dual soul syndrome DuBois noted in Black folks.
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I look forward to the
I look forward to the discussions provided on your blog throughout the month,
Interesting
The concept of "rebooting" is an interesting analogy. In that same vein, the contextual dynamics of the next reboot, considering that the nature of the operating system has changed exponentially since the last reboot, will be even more interesting. The crash would be harder and the recovery would of necessity have to be sytemwide to prevent recurrent glitches. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.
What I don't get, and please forgive my ignorance, is exactly how are white folks haveing to deal with a "dual soul syndrome"?
The Journey to Freedom Starts with Your Mind. http://exodusmentality.blogspot.com/
After the Egyptian and
White folks first experienced this double-consciousness as a result of the 1960s civil rights advances. Suddenly they had to be concerned about being seen as a racist by someone else. Not that they weren't seen that way, but it became an issue then. And since this society fairly generates racism, most of them have been on edge ever since.Â
It's why "political correctness" is so abhorred...it expects them to be conscious and NO ONE really wants to be conscious. We'd much rather be able to just reach out a pluck a fruit of the tree. They could do that with a subservient class and they did, until their entire understanding of society and culture postulated the ability to pick fruit at random.