Re: [A-List] Singer Belafonte Likens Powell to 'House Slave'

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 10/12/02 4:10:03 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Waistline2@xxxxxxx writes:

> "There's an old saying, in the days of slavery, there were those 
> slaves who lived on the plantation and were those slaves that lived 
> in the house," Belafonte said. "You got the privilege of living in 
> the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master 
> intended to have you serve him.
>
> "Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master," the 
> performer continued. "When Colin Powell dares to suggest something 
> other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out 
> to pasture."


Comment 

I have the deepest love and respect for Mr. Belafonte. To this very day I play his historic recoding at Carnegie Hall in the late 1950s with its wonderful rendition of the Jamaican song. Yet, something is not right - absurd, with the above picture however. 

Harry Belafonte and Colin Powell, as is Louis Farrakhan and for that matter CLR James, are individuals expressing the complexity of what for another generation was called the "Negro Question."  Not withstanding their notoriety and popularity these men have on more than a couple of occasions been mistaken for Negro - that is descendants of Southern slavery. Given the history of our country this "mistake" is probably historically justifiable, although no one mistakes the first generation Pole (Polish immigrant) who has a command of English for the white Southerner or for that matter the Irish minority in America. 

A case of mistaken identity is of course a mistake in identity and the identity mistaken in the picture above is significant enough to convert the picture/concept of Southern slavery - as it arose and evolved in the core plantation area, into a caricature.  This obscures the evolution of class relations in America. 

"There were those slaves who lived on the plantation and were those slaves that lived 
in the house," - really? . . . how quaint and idyllic. Was the house on the plantation? 

All that is missing from the picture above, is ole Master in a white neatly pressed cotton suit and straw hat, sipping a mint julep or rather, large glass of ice tea in one hand and holding a very long and elegant handkerchief - cotton of course, in the other hand to mop the sweat from his brow as a rather large and fiery sun passes through the Southern sky. If one could take their eye off ole Master for a moment and look closely at the screen door, you would see "The Misses" in all her glory. She is wearing neatly pressed cotton and gently fanning her left hand across her face in a futile effort to break the wall of heat that surround her pretty head. The heat is real and appears as waves that cascade the field and roll upon the front porch and into the house. Every so often Misses ever so gently sops the beads of sweat from her ever so generous bosom with her right hand and one is reminded of the greatest of God bounty. 

Inside the big house are several administrators, cooks, baby sitters and butlers - I mean house boys, that insure that the big house is run in orderly fashion. If we can get the rolling camera to focus on the back door - with a tight frame close-up, one can make out the face of "Fiddler" - who . . .er, fiddles, and was never really good at much of nothing when it comes to work. Fiddler is of course seeking one of those really big sandwiches and trying to find out when ole Master is leaving for his weekend business trip into town so that weekly dance can be organized. 

See - I am a stone fool or rather, sucker for a great American story. Throw in a little sex - even if it slightly violates the boundary of misbehavin' and  . . . .bingo . . .you have a potential box office hit. At any rate if you show enough flesh - tastefully of course, one can forget that a plantation is a more than less self-contained infrastructure relationship that sits upon a definable stage in a distinct mode of production. 

There were "slaves who lived on the plantation and were those slaves that lived 
in the house." 

Well, the slaves on the Southern plantations were a class. As with most class there was stratification. This class of slaves was more accurately a distortion - blasphemy, in the capital form. They were most certainly proletarians and their labor power was most certainly sold and purchased and through this social contract the buyer put their labor power to work to create a very important product for the world market. This product was of course cotton - there were other products, and it entered the market like ever other commodity and underwent conversion into capital in its money form.

 At last, the slave did not own his own labor power and this was the distortion - blasphemy, which would be undone in the bloody Civil War. This bizarre form of capital where the labor power is purchase through the purchase of the human being just goes to show you that "what ever can happen will" or better yet, capital in its emergence assumes every form of laboring that can drive an immediate quantitative phase of development. Capitalist slavery - is this not the ultimate contraction and absurdity? 

This plantation with Master, Misses, house-boys, cooks and fiddler has a division of labor. You have a couple of blacksmiths doing plow work, repairing wagons and so forth and a couple boys tending to the horses and everyone is not a field hand, although the majority are most certainly that. Taken as a whole this self contained infrastructure has been more than less fine tuned to do one thing as the axis of its existence. What is this one thing - to watch Misses rather bull bosom?  Serve Master ice tea? Make Fiddler big sandwiches? Raise the slaveholder kids? Cook for the slaveholders?  What rivet the social relations is the production process and the creation of a product for exchange. This peculiar production process is the fundamentality that everything else is dependent upon. 

This is why the house Negro, field Negro thing is . . . . oh  . . . . so inaccurate and obsolete. I am not being funny or anything like that but where do you live Harry?  Harry of course does not live in the "Big House" although he may have a big home and nothing wrong with that. I am not mad at or hating on Harry. Nor does Harry live the life of a field hand on the plantation and that is all right also. Harry is more than less Fiddler and that is no crime.

A sector of the Negro section of historically evolved capital has always condemned another sector that in our history was the equivalent to what the Communist in China called the comprador bourgeoisie. Colin Powell is not a House Negro or what during the 1960s and early 1970s was called an "Uncle Tom." Powell is an agent - spokesperson, of and expresses the dominance of the speculator over the world total social capital - American style, and is no ones "House-boy" by any stretch of the imagination. Colin Powell cannot be accused of originating in our expressing any aspect of the historically evolved Negro section of capital. Mr. Powell history is well known and everyone understands that he personally developed on the basis of the military apparatus of the state of the United States of North America. 

Mr. Powell is not and has never claimed - in his autobiography, to personify or represent the peculiar political phenomenon called the "black leader" in America. Powell is not a counterpart to or high development of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is not an embryonic Powell. 

If anything Powell is an advanced development of the character Sambo from the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was Sambo who beat the slave Uncle Tom to death for refusing to wipe a female slave. Uncle Tom is the gentlemen on the back poach of our movie handing Fiddler the "big sandwich" - actually it's pronounced "sammitch" and letting him know Master's "whereabouts." 

The irreconcilability of class antagonism and its evolution unfolds for all to see the class configuration of history and current day society. Anyone that chooses can currently understand the colonial question on American soil as it evolved after the defeat of the slave system in the Civil War. This national-colonial question is of course another movie and for now the balck characters are being filmed. 

Mr. Powell is not a black leader as such . . .but Jesse Jackson is. Jesse is a highly developed black leader with appeal that far exceeds the moods and aspirations of the black masses as such. Mr. Powell existence is totally different from that of Jesse or Louis Farrakhan for that matter. Powell does not represent an intermediate link in the chain of capital conversion, expressed in the political arena as that portion of capital historically generated on the basis of the previously segregated Negro/black masses and financial-industrial capital. 

Mr. Powell is not a House Negro - intermediate link, expressing the policy of Master but rather a highly skilled spokesperson - with substantial military credentials, of imperial capital. If and when a Jesse Jackson goes to Angola to talk of economic development he does so rooted in a specific economic development based in the social position of the black masses - their purchasing power, and various sections of Negro capital. Jesse Jackson emerged as Jesse Jackson on the basis of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago - not the core areas of the old plantation system or the military apparatus. 

If and when Louis Farrakhan goes to Angola he would represent another aspect of Negro capital organized as a more than less co-operative movement. To this very day the underlying theme of the Nation of Islam remains "do for self" - which I am not against or hating on, although the self has changed substantially, since the founding of the Nation in Detroit six decades ago.

Actually, "Negro capital" is more than less obsolete as a social category and is entirely merged with capital and began its collapse as relatively "independent" with the destruction of legal segregation. If you don't believe me ask Snoop Dog and Puff Daddy. Puff Daddy is currently fronting for the large Record Producers in their fight against downloading music free on the Internet. 

When Powell's goes to Angola he is the clear voice of the dominant sector of imperial capital and not a black leader but rather a leader who is black.  

Conceiving the world in the framework of an expired - spent, historical era is asking for trouble. Articulating this expired historical era from the standpoint of any section of capital places one on the wrong side of historical progression. "House Negro" and "field Negro" are historical categories not applicable to the reality that is Colin Powell and this stage in the decay of capital. Actually, Colin Powell is Sambo boss. 


Melvin P.