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My Brother, Hotep and salaams:
Your points about the position of conventional black politician are well taken. Coming as you are from within the varied ideological tent of black nationalism, I would expect you to be highly critical of conventional black politicians, no matter what they managed to achieve. Black nationalists have most frequently seen themselves as somehow detached from the mundane realities of mainstrem political thinking; advocating instead a kind of extra-constitutional political strategy of on-going protest against mainstraem politics. I have no deep seated arguements with that stance and have many nationalist tendencies myself. Therefore, of course, I think you are correct in your nationalist assessment as far as it goes. I just don't think you have gone deep enough into the matter to make any final, irrefutable conclusions.
Camden Mayor Dana Redd, like most black politicians throughout the country, finds herself situated in the position of being subordinated to the local Camden County white political establishment/machine and capitalist money interests who have an outsized part in controlling black destinies. That has been the problem with black political power in America since the 1870's Reconstruction period. The Civil Rights Movement and Black Power movements of mid-last century did little to change the fundamental fact that, even with the end of legalized segregation and third class citizenship, black people remain mainly poor and mostly among the least politically empowered sectors of society.
The problem we are faced with, in Camden and across America where blacks have subordinated political power is not unlike that of post-apartheid South Africa. In South Africa blacks have an overwhelming majority of the electorate and it would seem that with that majority, things would change materially for the vast masses of our people. But obviously, the white minority enjoys economic power and privilege while South African blacks linger in poverty and are making no more progress than black folks here who are in the minority. I understand that black suffering is worldwide and requires universal solutions so that Pan-Africanism, anti-capitalism and ant-imperialism in the non-white southern tier of nations (the world's majority) becomes useful.
So yes you are correct. Electoral politics and democracy remain severely skewed and racist against the ultimate interests of black people. Most of our thinking black politicians are acutely aware of that base feature of their political existence. These politicians also know full well that "racial integration into America's mainstream" means that our people will likely end up at the back of the line when federal and state bucks are distributed because the criterion for distribution is based on race, class and gender myths deliberately manufactured to keep some folks down while allowing others benefits and privileges
Then why would I give Mayor Redd any praise for being a black politician under these set of circumstances? Especially why would I, as a black radical, do such? One response is that I try to understand the pragmatic circumstances of how she was elected, why she quit her senatorial office to run for mayor, where she received her campaign funding from, who the other local blacks are who helped her get into office and have helped in her political career thus far and how she must respond to Democratic party bosses when requested. Another answer is that I trust the vision of some of the Ancestors who fought to stay in white ruled America and gain the right to vote and elect as many leaders as they could, while hoping these leaders could prove effective on at least some levels. Another is that my stance at the intersection of black radicalism and black nationalism is sometimes inconsistent because both perspectives tend to have positive pushes and pulls creating a dynamic tension in my outlook.
The black radical tradition follows both a political and economic line. Politically it has most often projected the views of giants like Douglass, Truth, Wells, DuBois, King and Cornel West. These folks stood for radical integration, but were not accommodationist as was Booker T. who was an economic nationalist, and like his honored student M. Garvey, was an ardent advocate of black capitalism and black separatism. Elijah Muhammad, taking cues from Garvey was for complete separatism and yet Malcolm and now Farrakhan called for the ballot or the bullet. Farrakhan waved the U.S. flag and endorsed Obama as has Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who at first feigned hurt opposition and threatened damage to Obama;s private parts.
As a radical I can't endorse black capitalism, for like white/greedy capitalism it depends upon the foul exploitation of working and impoverished black folks by a black owning class few for the pleasure of that few. The enrichment of a few black folks at the expense of most of us is foul.
But then again so is the black nationalist idea of total separation from American while apparently wanting to enjoy the economic and social benefits of being a black American worker or business owner. To be serious separatists nationalist purists would have to disassociate themselves immediately from benefiting in a horribly unethical production system that never stops hurting black people.
So I construct a pragmatic and partial black nationalist framework for action coupled with a semi-black radical critique of capitalism and imperialism in favor of a socialist alternative. The fight for reparations for me is couched between those two abiding political perspectives. The fight against capitalism is necessary in the struggle for reparations, whereas the fight for black political empowerment should take on a concomitant struggle for both socialism and autonomous black civil institution building, including black controls over our education, family relations, youth discipling and our intellectual and cultural productions.
There's a final onlook that I employ which may be termed black liberation theology tinged with a sort of skeptical humanism. In this onlook black religion and spiritual matters are seen as man-made mental projections that often bring comfort to our people who sigh for relief from the pains of oppression by means of resort to the realm of the beyond or the metaphysical. Among some of us old time denominational and sectarian religion (ie, as in Christianity and Islam), has long been replaced by "civil religious exercises" calling for black patriotism and loyalty to things black and African Redemption as prophesied by Garvey and saluted by the black power movement in religion. It is out of this onlook that I can see hope in young people like the Mayor because of her tragic life-story, her own conventional (but not radical or nationalist) pragmatism and youthful ideas.
Yes, she like M. Nutter in Philly, Corey Booker in Newark, most members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the black governor of Massachusetts along with President Obama in the White House, will most assuredly allow for the continued white over lordship of things including in Camden the gentrification of Camden in exchange for a paltry few new programs and policy initiatives for the black masses in Camden. And yes negotiated political gradualism will prevail slowly and grudgingly yielding only small benefits for black people en mass with the continued bile of racism. But then that's America is it not?
Black spirituality, despairing of the presence, has long been premised on hope for the future. It cannot seriously be denied that some progress has been made and that some credit for the progress can go to black politicians who, while not very radical, have played the conventional game with the cards dealt out to them by ruling class whites. Some have done better than others. All in black politicians do reflect the bulk of thinking within their constituencies.
Remember, in hearing Malcolm's words most of us chose the election ballot and the pitfalls of white ruled democracy, not the bullet --- like the revolutionary brothers and sisters who gave their lives in gun battles with paramilitary forces or ended up as political prisoners or in Algeria, Cuba or other foreign places. Or worst yet, dying early via heavy drug use, ala the Supreme Servant of the People Huey P. Newton
All is not despair though. Alliances with other minorities and a minority of serious whites can turn the tide against complacency in politics as usual. See my piece below on Obama's record among black folks and the need for action organizing. Let's not forget that the current criticism of Obama, by Cornel West and Tavis Smiley sounds much like your criticism of Redd and other black politicians.
So yes, I am serious. I think the Mayor intends well and has done as much as she could under the circumstances. We can and should unite to push her to do her utmost to act as independently as she realistically can given the pragmatic requirements of her office.
United organizing, intense community educational campaigns and broad based coalitional work with other dispossessed people and/or white allies in the labor, anti-war, ecological, liberal religious and progressive political communities can obviously help.
