Ode to the Generations of 1967/2017

Ode to the Generations of 1967/2017

Yo Logan,

I had read A.O. Scott's review of the movie Detroit in the New York Times a week earlier.  I can quibble with a lot of things he had to say (not enough character development, etc.). But one big concluding point he made was that American film isn't good at dealing with "division and real-world problems that have yet to be solved. It made me wonder if European, or Chinese films are any better at that. I suspect that you've consumed more serious film than I. So I put that question to you?

He also says that in the film, "the white men, the decent ones, as much as the brutes, have answers, agency," ... not the Black folks. I guess Kathryn Bigelow is a big time director ... liberal ... and Scott talks about how she tried to give us some agency back in the end.

But anyway, as I sat there, getting more and more depressed, I realized two things .... Our generation was some bad MFs, cause in ‘67 and ‘68, we literally kicked the walls down and came storming through. The young kids today, as outraged as they seem, haven't done what was done back then. We got everybody's attention!

But as I salved my wounds from the disrespect I've gotten from the kids post-Ferguson, because we didn't change enough, I realized that the kids are right. The shit the went down at the Algiers Hotel ain't that different than Michael Brown or Tamir Rice, etc. The white boys and their institutions are still holding all the cards ... body cameras, indictments against cops ... ain't worked yet! What can I tell the young to do?

Maybe it is time to for them/us to throw themselves in waves at the barricades, until, like Czar Nicholas' security police in Petrograd in 1917, the gendarmerie refused to continue the carnage, and the moment of transformation is at hand.

We took it ask far as we could brother, back in our day. Maybe, especially in the time of Trump, the next more awful surge is now needed.

Wes

The Past was Another Country/Is the United States Finished?

The Past was Another Country/Is the United States Finished?

The British historian and journalist Martin Meredith published a book entitled The Past is Another Country in 1979. It chronicled the dying days of white settler colonialism in Rhodesia as guerrilla movements representing the black majority were grinding their way toward power. That settler past was indeed a different place from what Africans had in mind for the future. White Rhodesians didn’t want to live in the “new country” Africans had in mind and they worked assiduously in the 1960s and 70s to prevent it from coming about. Many might argue that given the catastrophic outcomes of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe today, whites may have been right to fear the new country’s arrival. But let’s save that discussion (which I’m perfectly happy to have) for another time.

Today I want to use to metaphor “the past is another country” to talk about the United States in the era of Trump. The U.S. is often talked about as a relatively new nation. This is usually stated by white commentators speaking from a Eurocentric perspective relating it to the “older nations” of Europe (or sometimes Asia). They rightly observe that the U.S. is the first modern state to break away from European colonialism, and in that sense, it is one of the newer nations.

But in the modern world which has emerged since the Enlightenment, the U.S. is one of the older nations. In their book The Right Nation John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge point out that the U.S. has the world’s oldest continuously operating written constitution. It is the world’s oldest republic (government without hereditary rulers). The Democratic Party originating in Andrew Jackson’s calls for universal white male suffrage in the 1820s is the oldest popularly-based political party in the world.

So America is an old modern nation. It has navigated the course of government by the people for more than two centuries undergirded by the values of individual liberty and equality before the law. Liberty gave us freedom of association and speech. But unencumbered by a communal past, it also gave us an unflagging faith in free markets and a nearly unbridled capitalism. The value of equality in a society founded on conquest, slavery and patriarchy bequeathed to us successive generations of struggle to approximate that great ideal.

But an undying belief in capitalism and tenacious commitment to equality do not sit easily at the same table. Elsewhere I’ve written that the U.S. is not one nation, but two. Individualist economic conservatism and cultural conservatism based in white supremacy and Christianity are juxtaposed to equality before the law, multiculturalism and secularism. More than two centuries of unending political struggle have made us grow weary of each other. All white men hardly had time to savor the achievement of their own right to vote, before women were clamoring for the same right, and blacks and whites began the struggle to end slavery. Then came a bloody war that ended slavery and forced the resentful former slave states back into the republic. Soon however, they would be permitted to reconfigure white supremacy in a Jim Crow system, which by the way, was imposed upon all people of color in differing ways and degrees until the great transformations of the 1960s. Those transformations included positionality in the public discourse for women’s rights, lesbian and gay rights, environmentalism, and a critique of militarism and imperialism.

That progressive nationalism forced its way onto the stage, but was met by the backlash of Reaganism in the 1980s, Gingrich’s “Contract on America” in the 90s, and finally, a resurgent imperialism under Bush junior. Progressives, to our credit, always pushed back. Finally, there was Obama who was black, but not really as far left as many of us would have liked. But by that time demographers were telling us that by mid-century the country would be majority-minority; and the opinion data was suggesting an attendant tilt to the left. But while the Obama generation weren’t voting in 2010, the right took control of statehouses, gerrymandered the hell out of legislative and congressional districts and began passing voter I.D. laws designed to keep people of color away from the polls.

Then in 2016, we stunningly, got the fascist Trump. The left is rightfully traumatized by this turn of events. My (few) conservative associates tell me that many of them were equally in shock when Obama got elected in 2008. How could they have been so fearful of so mainstream a politician as Obama? The answer must be because he was black, and folks on the right had not thought that mid-century would arrive so fast!

So the right does not want to live in the same kind of country that we do, and we don’t want to live in the land of Trump. The good news is, the left is pushing back hard. But the right has shown its skill at push back over the generations. Aided by the internet and the man in the White House, the public discourse has never been as vitriolic as it is now. We have become thoroughly exhausted with each other. The past was another country. It was a country that the right, under the mantle of “make America great again,” would like to bring back; but one which the left cannot allow to return. Where doth lie the political center in this depressing societal landscape?

I started to name this essay “The United States is Finished” … Is it???

What Happens When Black Rage Becomes Uncontrollable?

Now that my intensive summer course (on civil rights by the way) is over I have time to reflect upon recent events in the ongoing drama over race and law enforcement in this country.

On June 14th a gunman opened fire on Republican Congress members practicing for the annual softball game against Democrats. Congressman Steve Scalise, was critically wounded, but the gunman was was killed by two African American Capitol police officers. In quick succession over the next two weeks, we saw police officers in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee, one white and one Latino, acquitted in the killings of unarmed black men. And in Cincinnati we saw a second mistrial in another case where a university policeman killed an another unarmed black man.

Two intellectuals of African descent responded on social media to these events. Johnny Williams, a sociologist at Trinity College in Connecticutt, responded to an online article in which the anonymous author disapproved of the actions of the Capitol police saying:

     “If you see them (whites) drowning. If you see them in a burning building. If they are
     bleeding out in an emergency room. If the ground is crumbling beneath them. If they
     are in a park and they turn their weapons on each other: do nothing,” ... Let Them
      Fucking Die!"

So Williams didn't actually say "let them die" himself. He did however, offer that he was ...

     “fed the fuck up with self-identified ‘white’s’ daily violence directed at immigrants,
     Muslims, and sexual and racially oppressed people," (and) ...  “the time is now to
     confront these inhuman assholes and end this now.”

After his post went viral in conservative social media, Williams receive death threats and has since taken his family into hiding. He has also been placed on Administrative leave by the college pending investigations.

Then there is the case of Marlon James, Jamaican professor of English at MacAlester College, and winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for English literature. In an online article entitled "Smaller, Smaller and Smaller," James shares his confusion following the recent acquittals and the mistrial.

    " Do I kneel and get shot? Do I reach for my ID and get shot? Do I say I’m an English
     teacher and get shot? Do I tell them everything I am about to do, and get shot? Do I
     assume that seven of them will still feel threatened by one of me, and get shot? ...
     (Finally) Do I fold my arms and squeeze myself into smaller and get shot?"

James offered us an almost traumatic befuddlement over what black men can do to be safe. He comes across as very reasonable. In contrast, Williams' suggestion that blacks should do nothing when they see whites in life-threatening danger, seems harsh and even inhumane. But when Williams implores blacks not to protect those whose system does not protect them, and James wonders what he can do to secure his black body, they both call attention to what can be done to dismantle institutional racism in law enforcement in this country.

Ta-Nehishi Coates makes a similar to Williams near the end of his Between the World and Me. He calls white people "dreamers," because they believe in the American Dream and can't see how institutions built to assure it systematically oppress black people. Coates also advises his son not to be concerned about white people, but to worry about securing his black body.

White anti-racist educator Robin DiAngelo has written a seminal training manual called What it Means to be White. She talks about active versus passive anti-racism. Average white people; the decent people who teach their kids to treat everyone the same and not see color are passive-anti-racist. They don't actively work to change our racist institutions, elect anti-racist politicians or call out racism when they see it in their day to day lives.

As jury after jury fails to convict black people being murdered by the men in blue, as they allow gross racialized inequities in school funding, as some white people systematically work to suppress the POC vote, and other whites sit back and allow it to happen, one cand see why Coates calls "yall" Dreamers, and Williams supports his kind of black passive humanism, when white folks are in danger. As a black university professor who has been teaching students to assertively work the system since Ferguson, I also wonder if I can continue to sell that argument?

This country is in trouble. I add my voice soon to the debate about the rest of what's wrong with America ... but for now, your thoughts?

Dear friends,

Here's an interview with Asad Haider, a Pakistani American Marxist critiquing identity politics as a deadend street. Check it out! I'll have my own take on it soon.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/a-marxist-critiques-identity-politics/

Dear friends, Been on spring break and out of town! Grading finals before that, but here's some analysis of the leading neo-Nazi in Trump's inner circle.

I invite responses ... The give and take could be scintillating!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-thought-he-could-bully-republicans-on-health-care-he-couldnt_us_58d6d12ce4b03692bea683e1?gomn34ryaqxnzsemi

Dear friends, let's talk Latino immigration ...

Progressive Nationalism and the Latino Presence

Some of you may have read my article entitled “Racial Contestation and the Emergence of Populist Nationalism in the United States,” which was attached to my last blog post.  I argued that after decades of political polarization, America has become two nations, not one. And I offered a typology with the features of the two identities. Here I want to take up two of the elements in the typology: “character of nationalism” and “racial ideology.” And I want to relate them to the question of Latino, and especially Mexican presence in our midst.

 I said that populism on the right, or American traditionalism, embodies a parochial, narrow-minded view of who constitutes the nation. The racial ideology for that nationalism is white assimilationism: the notion that people of other races or nationalities who come here must assimilate to the values and beliefs of white settlers who founded this country. Conversely, the populism of the left, American progressivism, advances rooted cosmopolitanism: the acceptance of peoples and cultures from all over the world, but within a “firm sense of American identity and allegiance.” I wrote that progressive racial ideology is multiculturalism (or perhaps, multiracialism). This is the belief that non-white races have had different historical experiences than the white majority; and that a new value system embodying all of those narratives should be advanced. One might say that traditional nationalism is exclusive in two ways. It requires that those who come to the country after the founding era assimilate to the Anglo-Saxon culture they find upon arrival. But also, those who are concerned that what is good about America cannot be sustained if whites become a minority can be found in the traditionalist camp. I’m talking here about people like Charles Murray (Coming Apart) and Patrick Buchanan (Suicide of a Superpower).

Progressivism is inclusive. It upholds the idea that America is a nation of immigrants, and that injections of successive waves of immigrants has brought vitality and innovation to the America experience. Progressives are not concerned that since the 1960s the vast majority of immigrants have come from the brown parts of the world, and are fueling the browning of America that we are witnessing. Whether it’s software geeks in Silicon Valley, or those working in sweat shops, or the fields, immigrant drive and creativity are quintessentially American and should be welcomed.

These broader dimensions to the discussion of immigration must wait (hopefully) for another post, but here let me focus on immigration from south of the border. Progressive multiculturalism, most eloquently proffered  by Ronald Takaki in A Different Mirror, spins a narrative anchored in five racial groups: Native, European, African, Mexican and East Asian Americans. He weaves a powerful narrative unpacking the original contradiction between what was already a multiracial socioeconomic system and a white supremacist political order. He shows how European immigrants and people of color embraced the American creed, and through struggle, compelled the nation to incorporate them.

Those five racial/cultural elements of American society, however, have two powerful poles: the white people who founded the country and have dominated it historically, and the Latino, but primarily Mexican population who’s “homeland” is next door. If you read the chapter in Takaki about the decades in the Southwest after the Mexican War, you find that Mexican labor was absolutely essential to the building of a viable economy in the region. Mexicans worked in the mines, the fields and on the railroads. They even taught white boys how to be cowboys! Another good read is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. She chronicles the way in which the American West was politically, economically and culturally integrated to those lands south of the so-called border before the Spanish conquest. Throw in the other non-Spanish speaking indigenous people around the region, and the Chinese and Japanese on the West coast, and you begin to see that the West has also, always been multicultural.

Another enduring, though not particularly sexy American value is pragmatism. That is, simply doing what is effective and works! The pragmatic position on immigration is what progressives are advancing. It’s cosmopolitan, humanistic, and it also is what has always worked. A 2015 Pew Charitable Trust poll found that “(72%) of Americans – including 80% of Democrats, 76% of independents and 56% of Republicans – say undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. should be allowed to stay in the country legally if they meet certain requirements.” But 45% believe increasing deportations would be a good thing, and an equal share believe it would be bad.

So there’s pragmatism in public opinion. If people have been here working and not breaking the law, most Americans think they should at least be able to gain legal residency. But there is also ambivalence at the aggregate level around the extent of deportation. But the acerbic tone of the Trump presidency has stoked fears, and with both houses of Congress in Republican hands, the immediate future hangs in the balance. Another interesting read in this respect is George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years. It’s mostly about global affairs and great power competition. But in the final chapter Friedman spins out a scenario in which the southwest quadrant of the country is dominated by Mexicans culturally and demographically. He outlines a chain of events in which the US Army is patrolling the border, Mexican-American governors are refusing to call up the National Guard to support the army, protests are rampant in the streets, and a Mexican-American bloc in Congress is vociferously opposing such policies. Friedman predicts that will happen in the last quarter of this century. And he leaves the door open as to how that crisis might be resolved.

But with Herr Trump in the White House, events may speed up dramatically. So especially, to my white American comrades, are you ready to defend the multicultural/ multiracial nation, if necessary with heart, soul (and blood!)? Are you ready to make the arguments around rooted cosmopolitanism and good old American pragmatism to your white family members and friends? People of color can be of assistance here, but what we are witnessing is a battle for the soul of white America … Which way are yall gonna roll?

Two Nations, Not One

Dear friends,

Happy new year, if that is possible in the era of Herr Trump. I’m finally starting to blog as of right now. I have been writing about race and identity politics in The United States and South Africa for many years now. The topics that I will be addressing in upcoming posts will revolve around two themes: Populism and American national identity, and thinking globally, while acting locally. Let us begin today on the issue of American populism.

Two Nations, Not One

The year that Obama ascended to the presidency, I wrote an article entitled “Racial Identity and the Emergence of Populist Nationalism in the United States” (see attachment). In it I argued that the since the emergence of identity politics in the 1960s, political polarization in the United States increased to the point that by the 21^st century we had become two nations with widely diverging views about what it means to be American. Secondly, I argued that our differences over how we viewed race where a central feature of that polarization. Populism is a useful way to talk about the poles of opinion over the meaning of American national identity. 19^th century American populism was basically, the anger of common everyday people overt the collusion of big business and big government against small businesses and the working class.

In the 20^th century American populism broke off into two streams: a left-wing populism seeing big business as the enemy, and a right-wing populism seeing big government as its problem. Populism requires a mass movement and charismatic leadership. Left populism began with the labor movement in the 20^th century and was responsible for bringing Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932. People of color gained position in the labor movement and used those organizing experiences to launch the civil rights movement after World War Two. Activists wanted government to expand its reach to include African Americans and other people of color into first class citizenship in this country. By the end of the 1960s women’s, environmental and LGBTQ rights movements had emerged, all asking government to do more to support the goals of their movements. Part of what government would need to do was to make corporate capital and the other institutions of civil society treat marginalized people equally, and protect the natural environment.

That specter of such government “overreach” was alarming to the more conservative sectors of society. The right populist backlash began with the white supremacist mobilization against the civil rights movement. Race was central to its genesis. But as the movement against the Vietnam War grew, and the feminist, gay rights and environmental movements exploded, by the end of the 1960s, right populism was centered around the defense of the status quo pre-1960 … That is to say, patriarchal white supremacy, heterosexism, American imperialism and as little regulation as possible of environmental degradation. Thus, right populism uncritically defended capital.

Most of you know the rest of this story. By the 1990s James Davison Hunter was dubbing these political divides as “the culture wars.” I have chosen to define them as the two poles of populist nationalism. In the 2016 presidential campaign Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump represented the left and right poles of American populism, and also, opposing versions of the American national idea. Unfortunately, for the left, our populist lost, while the right populist landed in the White House.

This is a warm-up. In the posts that follow I’ll be sharing my thoughts on what populist on the left can do to stop Trump’s right-wing and fascist populism from steamrolling over us.

Link to my article on race and populist nationalism:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630903205290