Remaining Yourself in the Face of Cultural Hegemony

Dude, just copy and paste me into it. I'm spent for now. Seriously.

I think the momentum is gone

The Black Nationalist Rationale For Separatism; A Synopsis.

Harold Cruse, author of the great book, 'Plural But Equal', makes a great point about what integration did to Black America. It by default destroyed its institutions. True integration, Cruse argued, would have meant the integration of Black INSTITUTIONS into the American economic mainstream. The reason integration was viewed sarcastically by the nationalist/ Black nationalist folks is that it insiduously destroyed Black schools, Black businesses, and by extension, Black communities. By disabling Black institutional economic involvement, Black institutions were bled of their talent.

I love to use the example of Baseball, the quintessential American pastime. Every year much ado is made over Jackie Robinson's INDIVIDUAL struggles to 'integrate' baseball. But, from an economic standpoint, what really happened? Mr. Robinson was paid a substantial amount of money to leave a team in the 'baseball ghetto community' to come and play within the baseball 'gentrified community'... Who wouldn't leave that? After the mainstream baseball leagues saw that great money could be made by appropriating other players from the Black baseball leagues, they went to work, quickly draining Black baseball teams of their talent. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe it would have been more equitable to instead of taking the TALENT from a Black institution and putting it in a white institution, why not incorporate the whole team into the league? Why not expand the league itself and TRULY integrate baseball, and ergo, America? Every documentary I've ever seen about Jackie Robinson always has someone who comments by saying, 'we knew that with Jackie's success, it meant the END of the Negro Baseball League'. And what did the end of the league mean? It meant the END of Black employment, it meant, the end of Black institutions, it meant the END of economic relationships. Hip Hip Hooray... Three cheers for Jackie Robinson...

This is the argument Black nationalists have always made. But no one pays attention to that. When most hear 'Black nationalist', one thinks of coke-sniffing Huey Newton, or some rabid manifestation of a Black Panther. Not that those icons didn't have their place, but that's not the nationalism I've ever espoused. The irony here is that the 'self' that Whynot_31 refers to is the one subject to white integrationist pressure to dissolve Black institutions, and to subject Blackfolk to the normalcy standards set by Whitefolk. And this manifests itself in what whitefolk think a 'presentable Black person' looks like, sounds like, and acts like. And thus Obama's easily palatable aesthetic, and body politic. To paraphrase Colin Powell who made reference to how he is perceived versus how Jesse Jackson is perceived by those in power (in an article that appeared in the New Yorker years ago), he's Black, 'but not THAT black'.

So 'remaining yourself in the face of cultural hegemony' becomes a day to day challenge when you are Black and you want to drink a 'Ting' (a Jamaican soda), but you have a subsidiary of Coca-Cola (Tang)suing the company for trademark infringement, or when you are trying to find employment but the white people who will hire you don't like the fact that they don't think you speak the language properly just because you intonate as if you're from the south, or because you have a name that in the African American tradition, treats its progenitors like Hegelian principles and names the resultant offspring with a novel hybrid; what, you thought 'LaShawn' sprouted out of nowhere? So the pressure to CHANGE (read ASSIMILATE) becomes one that will yield economic incentives as result.

In such a world, a separatist perspective -- if not a nationalist one -- becomes a salve for the memory of being a slave, and subordinate. Not because you hate anybody, but because you know that when you are in 'their' world you are constantly expected to adhere to a certain protocol 'they' create, because of how you are perceived. Why not want to be 'amongst your own' when subject to that? And other groups of people do this every single day. It's my argument that the history of integration has destroyed Black communities, and when Black people make attempts to coalesce in attempts in 'remaining yourself in the face of cultural hegemony' we are labelled racists for doing so. I don't hear anyone lambasting the Hasidic community for doing this. The irony is that in the past where I have equated the Black Nationalist sentiment to Zionist/Jewish sentiment (and success!) I have been attacked personally, accused of ignorance, and subtly deemed a racist. I don't think I need to speak Hebrew to conclude that Jews, both secular and religious, have been very successful at perpetuating their institutions and themselves when public policy allows for it.

Why not 'us' too?

every chance i get stick it to the man by posting on message boards .

Armchair Warrior?

The posting above is what's so exhausting about so many on the Brooklynian.

In an honest sober attempt to have a conversation about important issues, there are always those who want to throw misplaced comedy into the works. And the reason this humor is here, is the very reason why it is so important to 'remain yourself in the face of cultural hegemony.' When people act out of a sense of entitlement, when the prism through which they perceive reality devalues everything not 'them', then they act accordingly. In this case to subtly attempt to demean the conversation by injecting inappropriate commentary.

what i said is what i said. if everyone agree on same message, its agreeing to the standard message, generally standard message is the conformity of this society. generally the white way is the right way.

another words sometimes i just say things to disagree with them even though i actually agree with them.


I'm the wrench that gets thrown into the machine. the clog in the drain sometimes .

I came cause my name been said three times!!

actually i rarely go back to a old thread unless when i catch it on top of the page. I rarely look down a few post from the top.

on a tangent you should see me bait those guys on the right wing sites lol. i throw them with wild conspiracies etc... fun bunch.


also its not fun if everyone agrees, it always best if someone throws another thing out there, just doing it for doing it sake sometimes.

how is that off topic!! i answer your question about how i fight cultural hegemony.

lol not really . i show many different sides to different things to different sites.

most people who post here are fairly liberal. So you get to see something else than what i show to the right wing. thats why i mention right wing sites above.

its that type of liberal here i'm talking about.

some "liberals" are very condescending and paternalistic towards minorities its very aggravating. as if they are the only ones who know what is right and wrong. by liberals i mean white folks generally who consider themselves liberals. in my eyes they aren't really just some assholes who happen to consider themselves liberals.

I can tell between real liberals and someone who just uses the label because everyone else uses it to identified themselves as it just to be part of the crowd.


there is a method to my madness .

"...Ironically, I've noticed that often - no, usually - it's white people on this forum that initiate discussions of race, the most compelling example being the thread about "spitting". My guess is that race suddenly becomes an issue for many white people when they move to predominantly black parts of Brooklyn and find themselves in the racial minority. I think that this experience prods them to suddenly start thinking about their "whiteness". They realize that "wow, I'm being perceived by the color of my skin, sometimes unfairly". I'd guess this mostly because I had this experience myself moving to Crown Heights after living in mostly-white enclaves for years. I'm sure for many people it's uncomfortable (it has been at times for me), but guess what? Black people go through this all the time..."


"...People who aren't white in a white dominated surpremacy are certainly going to think about race a lot more than we do, whether or not they talk about it with us. Most will choose not to, since talking about it will so often make the white majority uncomfortable and put certain features of their lives at risk..."

[Krowonhill]

Dead on. Nail hit by hammer. Bullseye.

"But MHA let's keep it funky, your means of expressing your views in many times are just offensive and often based on stereotypes/generalizations/claims that just aren't true. When called on said claims you get offended as though people are attacking your overall philosophy- which is not the case- people are just calling out the inaccuracies of the justifications for said philosophies."
CTK

CTK, I don't agree with you that I do this. I've made NO claims here that 'just aren't true.' To say it's not truth is to imply that it's UNtruth. And if it's untruth, then that connotes that either it's inaccurate, or I am lying; I have nothing to lie about. Where people have said argued that I am inaccurate, I have consistently sought verification, and where it was provided I have stated, 'thanks for the correction.' In fact, I've done that more than anyone here! Whynot has not called me on any inaccuracy, or truth. He has offered, at best, an alternate way of seeing a situation, and then he consistently makes his argument personal by stating some version of 'here we go again, MHA telling us what to believe...' MHA is only telling you what HE believes, and why. And it's up to the reader to agree or disagree, but what I aggressively do is ask the reader to CHALLENGE their presumptions. My statement on the West Indian thread for instance, would have been better placed here, because it was made in the spirit of 'Remaining Yourself in the Face of Cultural Hegemony.' And that statement was a directive: Strip away the label, and what do you see, Black faces (West African derived) smiling on the parkway happily. Now this is SO obvious, but the first thing naysayers want to do is to object and state what's NOT obvious: 'The French! The Spanish! The Asian! The Indian!' People are quick to make attempt to LESSEN/Dilute a raw truth here; a RAW fact here. And when I point my Black finger at the attempt, what comes next? The attempt to devalue the messenger... And Whynot does that ALL the time.

One of the most annoying thing about white gentrifiers is their desire to change the environment around them, because they realize that THEY are the minority -- as Krowonhill so accurately points out. They feel uneasy in their minority whiteness. They feel how WE are made to feel for MOST of our lives. They don't like it so they try to alter what they see. They don't want Black people to remain themselves 'in the face of Cultural Hegemony'. They want Black people to make audacious claims about Irish, Scottish, Chinese, Indian and otherwise exotic derivations for who they are. Well my brother, I am not going to do that. I am a Black man, a proud brain-endowed brotha who has no qualms calling them on b.s... I make no audacious claims about what otherness runs through my blood, or my hair for that matter. I feel no need for that. I am not a West Indian. I am a descendant of Africans, brought to the Caribbean, now living in the belly of the blodclot beast.

Last Labor Day I saw Caribbean people, the descendants of Africans -- West Africans predominantly -- parading on Eastern Parkway. There is no such thing as West Indies. That term is a colonial appelation that yes, some Black people still have affinity for -- in the same way that some Black people, anachronistically (Stanley crouch for one), still like to use the word 'negro' (small n) to describe themselves. Whynot created this thread in AGREEMENT that people subject to 'cultural hegemony' have a right to define themselves, and in contradiction to HIS own opinion, he back tracks, and doesn't even focus on the logic of what I said, but rather on what he perceives who the messenger is, and the messengers foibles as a person.

And my own gaze upon him is marred by the fact that he has made attempt to reveal who I am publicly. It is difficult to view him with equanimity as a result.