Body:
i feel as if i've been banging my head against the wall with this project over the last six or seven months. i force curtis to repeat himself again and again; what he says makes sense, but i can't make sense of it. somehow, i need to be told repeatedly what to do and i still don't really understand it - i can't translate words into action. but i feel like i'm getting closer...
tonight in conversation it came across to me clearly that i can't be the one who writes the plan. just like that. just so simple. "but that's what i know best!" i protest. i can think about things. i can offer ideas. why doesn't that count? the point is, it does count, but not towards dismantling white supremacy. i need to learn how to follow black leadership. how to follow - period. the planner leads, inspires, encourages, coalesces, etc. no more of that for me.
i had heard it said before that the underground railroad and SNCC freedom summer were the only times when white people have been able to do this. tonight i had it repeated a half dozen times. and, some clarifying details were added:
* SNCC (a group of less than 100 blacks) was only able to effectively lead a group of roughly 1,000 white volunteers because goodman, schwerner and cheney were killed at the beginning of the summer and so SNCC could say without exaggeration that failure to follow black leadership could get you killed.
* white folks were able to effectively do the underground railroad because they were not slaves and so could not run away themselves.
john brown - on the other hand - wrote himself a plan for how to liberate the slaves and set out to do it. he didn't go to a group of rebel slaves or even rebel free blacks and ask how he could help end slavery. sounds like a simple critique, right? damn is that powerful and slippery the way it slides out of my focus all the time. how did i miss that in all the studying of john brown i've done?
well, in fact it's quite simple. all the projects i've been involved in to try and end racialism have been my own initiative. people would tell me, "you need to listen to this and that group and find out what their grievances are, etc." and i would just respond glibly and flatly, "no, i don't. i already know what i want to accomplish and the people who want to work with me on that, will." so my desire to carry out my own plans has blinded me from seeing the inherently white supremacist nature of that tendency, that desire, that "need" of mine.
ok, so now i have at least a computer screen as a witness: i'm throwing in the towel. from here forward, i don't write the plans, i implement them. let's see how well i can do with this.
if you see me slippin,' call me out...
and let's both remember:
"the rich are only defeated when running for their lives.
sad as this is, that is the way that humanity progresses.
the anniversary orators and the historians supply
the prose poetry and the flowers..."
- c.l.r. james
tonight in conversation it came across to me clearly that i can't be the one who writes the plan. just like that. just so simple. "but that's what i know best!" i protest. i can think about things. i can offer ideas. why doesn't that count? the point is, it does count, but not towards dismantling white supremacy. i need to learn how to follow black leadership. how to follow - period. the planner leads, inspires, encourages, coalesces, etc. no more of that for me.
i had heard it said before that the underground railroad and SNCC freedom summer were the only times when white people have been able to do this. tonight i had it repeated a half dozen times. and, some clarifying details were added:
* SNCC (a group of less than 100 blacks) was only able to effectively lead a group of roughly 1,000 white volunteers because goodman, schwerner and cheney were killed at the beginning of the summer and so SNCC could say without exaggeration that failure to follow black leadership could get you killed.
* white folks were able to effectively do the underground railroad because they were not slaves and so could not run away themselves.
john brown - on the other hand - wrote himself a plan for how to liberate the slaves and set out to do it. he didn't go to a group of rebel slaves or even rebel free blacks and ask how he could help end slavery. sounds like a simple critique, right? damn is that powerful and slippery the way it slides out of my focus all the time. how did i miss that in all the studying of john brown i've done?
well, in fact it's quite simple. all the projects i've been involved in to try and end racialism have been my own initiative. people would tell me, "you need to listen to this and that group and find out what their grievances are, etc." and i would just respond glibly and flatly, "no, i don't. i already know what i want to accomplish and the people who want to work with me on that, will." so my desire to carry out my own plans has blinded me from seeing the inherently white supremacist nature of that tendency, that desire, that "need" of mine.
ok, so now i have at least a computer screen as a witness: i'm throwing in the towel. from here forward, i don't write the plans, i implement them. let's see how well i can do with this.
if you see me slippin,' call me out...
and let's both remember:
"the rich are only defeated when running for their lives.
sad as this is, that is the way that humanity progresses.
the anniversary orators and the historians supply
the prose poetry and the flowers..."
- c.l.r. james
Comments
what about obama, then?
so i know it's not exactly what you had in mind, but what are your thoughts about obama? sure, he's a fairy tale character like king arthur or kennedy, and he's just another millionaire, only slightly better than, say, hillary or lieberman. and though he's not the only black politician to throw his hat in the ring, he's currently the most viable, and one the media loves to love.
on the one hand, i'm actively working to overthrow (or at least ignore) the current system. but four to eight years under obama ought to be heaven on earth compared to bush and co. and it really will be a victory, at least symbolically, for black and white america.
les fortune, a professor of mine sometime back, said that in the scheme of american politics, we'll have a black president before we'll have a woman in office. this could be an interesting primary, with a woman, a black man, and a latino (bill richardson) in the running.
at least ignore, i agree.
i agree with you that we need to at least ignore the current system, if not surpass or smash it.
i shake and applaud with that one hand of yours.
i don't mean to be insensitive to the points on the other hand, but i just stay totally ignorant about it all, and on purpose.
whatever the big names are doing, we're still us down here on the ground and we've got to do whatever it is that is needed - and that's a lot - to be able to learn how to live in a new way.