Prometheus 6

The Racial Uplift Symposium at Temple University was an interesting thing. The participants didn't coordinate other than by showing up in the same place. Not even those on the same panel. This is why you couldn't assign a theme to the panels, which I should perhaps place in quotes.

Caveat: I have no notes.

Panel 1:

Missed it.

Panels 2:

Kenyon Farrow discussed how gay men are framed as the nemesis of Black families and the survival of Black women by the current incarnation of racial uplift movement. The primary example of this is the “down low” discussion (sadly, that nonsense is still going on).

Kevin Gaines discussed his personal reactions to the 90's which led him to be quite receptive to the racial uplift ideology.

Kathryn Gines discussed her work on where the meaning in pejorative expressions lay...in the words, the speakers or the target of such speech. Her interest is in how the terms are redefined. Her examples were the terms “new negro” (which originally referred to unseasoned. i.e., unbroken, slaves, and now is tied to the meaning advanced by Alain Locke at the start of the Harlem Renaissance), and the classic “nigga”.

Panels 3:

Joy James presentation was on the criminalization for Black bodies (a good phrasing, since individual identity seems pretty irrelevant to the process).

Aishah Shahidah Simmons spoke on how the communities responded to Mike Tyson when he was convicted of rape. The type of folk that tend to be the major supporters of racial uplift ideology were big supporters of Mike. Churches and church-types, including some pretty odious statements by Min. Farrakhan that I was unaware of, were the examples in a clip she showed from her documentary, NO! The Rape Documentary.

This is the one where I'm most tempted to go off the rails. You see, I have a daughter. And nieces out the wazoo. And female friends. I can't help but feel that if you have one out of three of those things you need to understand this and get behind educating and correcting muhfuggas around this issue.

Because she chooses to blog anonymously, I will say Names4Things could also fill you in on some ugly reality around the Tyson issue and let it go at that.

Ronald Sullivan spoke about how Black lawyers pre-Brown vs. Board of Ed were more about racial uplift than assimilation because they didn't believe there was any mainstream support for the latter.

Panels 4:

After a brief discussion of the shortcomings of Coates' article on hugging Black Conservatives in The Atlantic (for the record, it's a discussion of a male heteronormative hierarchy which leaves out the significant female players), Beverly Guy-Sheftall discussed a poet she feels should be seen as a public intellectual and never will be. Having lost said poet's name in my personal memory hole I can't disagree.

Adolph Reed wandered a bit. He doesn't really distinguish between racial uplift and other collective efforts to improve Black folks situation. There's style and focus differences but the goal is the same. He says there's no such thing as an Uncle Tom (though Shelby Steele is as close as you get to one). Uncle Clarence really believes he's a race man...I find believing Clarence really is that stupid a greater insult to him than calling him Uncle Clarence...). He doesn't support Obama because he thinks McCain will win and a losing Obama would be worse for Black folk than a losing Hillary.