Re: [A-List] US elections 2004

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

>A good friend of mine last election, an African-American woman who feared Republican scorched earth policies that impacted on women and people of color, knowing full-well that Democrats were complicit, said - speaking of Nader-voters - a vote for Ralph Nader is an exercise of white privilege. <


Aspect of the Modern Presentation of the African American National Colonial Question

By Melvin P. 

How people think things out and their language to express politics - as they perceive their self-interest, is really a question of the art of politics. White privilege is an inverted way of addressing the issue of the unity of the working class. Perhaps the long way around is the shortest way home on this question of exercise of white privilege. The good part is that one can play their favorite song and enter a realm of a Marxist approach to the national and colonial question. 

As a child I earnestly thought the world consisted of basically white people and we - as African America, were different in a way I could not quantify or qualify. All my comic book heroes were white and my God concept - mother was a church going women, was more than less white. That is to say Jesus as the Son of God was white. Since neither of my parents advocated such a view nor spoke in these terms, much of these ideas came from schooling, the cultural medium, the ethical norms of the societal infrastructure and media. On the surface of my childhood thinking were ideas about white people being a majority on earth and superior, because that is how I thought things appeared. As we get older we learn that things are not as they may appear. 

Detroit contained what I would later come to understand as a massive concentration of Negroes - (at this point in time Negro was still popular having replaced "Colored" and term "black people" had not taken firm root to be replaced by African American), with all classes more than less coalescing in the same or similar neighborhoods. Similar neighborhoods means different economic area bounded by one another within a larger division based on color. A major street could separate a prosperous black neighborhood of skilled workers, lawyers, professionals and even doctors from a lower sector white working neighborhood. A lower sector black working class neighborhood hardly ever bordered a prosperous white neighborhood. 

What would become the modern technological revolution had not manifested itself yet on an industry wide basis as the application of new production processes. We were passing through what would later be identified as a quantitative boundary expansion - the transition from vacuum tubes to solid-state transistors, which created new applications throughout industry. This was expressed in a history-altering manner in Detroit and made possible what became the Motown sound, which in turn created a new sense of _expression_ and feeling amongst the rebellious masses of Detroit and the country. 

This "Sound of Young America," - absolutely black, urban and hip, was not the historic sound of the South and arose during a period of social upheaval and technological innovation. The technological innovation was the mechanization of agricultural and the historic mass migration North and the post Second Imperial war world industrial expansion led by America. Detroit was also a center of jazz and the post war cool movement occurs within this context.   

What arose in the industrial sector was a form of sophisticated love songs with simple but clever lyrics, a new form of music with first tenor as lead, falsetto and a faster paced dance music. How the Motown music factory saw itself and its music was much different from how the music industry saw Motown and how the individual may have saw himself and his relationships in "society."  That this musical form gripped America and carried forward the Cultural Revolution that broke out in the 1950s is without dispute. Scores of revolutionaries appeared in the music industry, but for my money the major seminal figures in popular music are Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and James Brown, with James adding the fourth beat at the base of all modern music. The cultural riots of the 50s prove in my mind the validity of culture (small "c") as an indicator of material unity of class and classes in America. 

Very little to nothing is written on the technology basis of the rise of the Motown Sound and why it could reconfigure its specific blend of European harmonic structure and African rhythm. Pioneering the usage of eight-track recording, large-scale utilization of equalizers, the five head microphone, the "echo chamber," plugging the guitar directly into the control console, isolating the drummer and remixing his time keeping function was combined with a youthful urban group of youngsters who not only could hold a note but also excelled in the enunciation of the English language. During the late 1950s and early sixties the industrial form of education meant that every school had a large music department and everyone was taught European harmonic structure - dough, ray, me, far, so la, tee and dough. Anyone that listens to Motown's early "girl groups" will immediately be struck by their power of enunciation. Motown's first official million selling record was "Please Mr. Postman," and one cannot be amazed by the power of articulation of these young women, which in a fundamental way expressed how these youngsters saw themselves. Much of "Please Mr. Postman," was reshaped and written by the young ladies. 

To this very day there remains a view that the Motown Sound was a black synthesis of a white synthesis of Southern black music - birthed in the chambers of slavery, as opposed to a development rooted in the urban industrial experienced and articulated on the basis of a certain stage in the development of instruments and mass cultural proletarianization. The dictum of the music language was not white but Northern. The Motown Sound is not a black _expression_ of a white _expression_ of Negro music. White American music articulation is not white - European, or simply an _expression_ or mimicking by Anglo-Americans of Southern black music.  These concepts of white and black do not adequately express the richness of American music, which is Southern/Negro (or Negro/Southern because there is no such division at this stage of its emergence) at its matrix. The category of white and black are simply inadequate, historically obsolete and belittle that rich is culturally distinct in our country, although this understanding persists in the minds of hundreds of millions of people. The answer to every historical question is contained in history. How we approach this history shapes the answer. 

There were only two fundamental sources of culture in the formation of America (USNA)  - that of the Native peoples or Indigenousness Bands and the people of the Black Belt, while there is a Spanish hemispheric basis of culture. This is so because America was fundamentally Southern before the Civil War. Even the culture of the whites of the Black Belt is fundamentally based in the culture of the "colored people" as they evolved into what is called the Negro. Negro means black in Spanish but we at not a Spanish-speaking nation at our root and therefore imbues the word "Negro" with an American meaning. Negro means the specific historically concrete and material real people that evolved on the basis of the evolution of American society and not simply black because there are a lot of black people on earth and we are not talking about everyone that is black. Today Cuba is 70% black but we are not talking about the revolutionary people of Cuba and their evolution. 

No maturing national formation - America is still maturing, can have a culture that is simply the extension of another nations culture. The process of maturing in part means the creation - emergence, of a nationally distinct cultural form. The simplest explanation of this process resides in the fact that America is a nation of continuous immigrant with two exceptions: the Native peoples and "the black" - Negro, slaves of the South. This will seems absurd at first glance but that is why we are Marxist and attempt to unravel the underlying living movement - dialectic, of process and shape. 

Up until perhaps the outbreak of World War 2, the working class in America was expanded on the basis of successive waves of European immigrants. These ethnic immigrants carry with them the culture, language and customs of their native lands and require several generations to assimilate that, which is distinctly American in American culture. This generation process is not an absolute category but a description of process logic. For example, the ethnic white post War World 1 singer Al Jolson assimilated the Negro musical disposition and not simply something abstractly called "black."  Every chance I get to watch the 1946 production of the Al Jolson story is a treat for me because the cultural dialectic cannot - not, be described. Let's face the issue in a sober manner; Al J. did much more than black face and sang more songs than Mammie. Yes, I would right now today, "walk a million miles for one of her smiles."  Every time I hear his line, "the folks up North won't see me no more, when I reach that swany shore," I laugh my ass off and break into a wide grin. Yes sir, if I could carve me out a safe haven from official Yankee insanity "the folks up North won't see me no more." ;)

This generation process operated on a different basis with the Native bands and the Negro people in history although there is a certain intermingling of peoples. The growth of the African American people in our country was not on the basis of successive waves of ethnic groups or tribes from Africa as immigrants and evolving on the basis of the expansion of the industrial infrastructure, as was the case with the Anglo-American people. 

The historical consequence was that the "culture" of the Negro People would emerge as the axis of stability in a land whose growth is driven by successive wave of immigrants. This process began consolidation in the historic old South where a most peculiar process unfolded. From time to time I am asked why the Native Bands and their culture did not become the primary cultural axis. This is a profound question that can only be approach as materialist. 

Once we admit that all of humanity exists on the exact same evolutionary plane, it becomes obvious that one can only enslave another that exist on the same general plane of economic development. Technological superiority - economic development, does not equal biological evolution. The Native bands could not be enslaved on the basis of private property relations because these property relations had not begun to take root in their culture. This does not mean that manufacturing was at a developed stage in Africa. What is meant is that slavery existed but the character of slavery varied. Slavery must exist for one to have a concept of selling (offering) another into slavery. Private ownership of 'means' appear as insanity to the Native Bands and outside the bounds of the personal possession of things. I am convinced they were right in their historical thinking. To continue. 

The various ethnic African slaves were consolidated as a class first - a class of slaves, and in the course of decades (perhaps a century) began to emerge as a distinct people that to this day defy the category called ethnic group or tribe. What accelerated this process of people creation and chemical mixture of various ethnic groups was the transition in the economy of America. The capitalist character of economy in America is very important. This was not a form of slavery were the "other people" are brought into the fold on the basis of the production of use-values and biological imperative - reproduction of the species. How does one say this properly? You cannot fuck your sister and first cousin in a continuous cycle and produce healthy human beings. Slavery also arises in isolated areas as a biological imperative. I did not want to get this deep. 

The development of this new people - the Negro People and not simply blacks, would enter its phase of completion in the post World War 2 eras. No one in their right mind would speak of the Anglo-American people as a tribe or ethnic group but a people formed and coalescing on the basis of various white ethnic groups continuously becoming Anglo-American. This process has generally been referred to as "the melting pot theory." 

Today no one can seriously talk about American culture that is not riveted to the cultural expressions whose genesis are the African American people. Actually, American culture means a peculiar fusion of European harmonic structure and African rhythm as it took shape on the basis of the formation and revolution of the Negro people. "European harmonic structure and African rhythm' is not limited to the music of sound but used also as a general cultural index. Walking and talking is a particular form of European harmonic structure and African rhythm. "Slapping skin" - a peculiar form of embracing on the basis of the handshake, is an _expression_ of "European harmonic structure and African rhythm."  Perhaps it is necessary to state again that the culture is still maturing, but it is fundamentally "black."  This thing called  "black" is being defined on the basis of slavery in America and not black Africa. 

Old ideas and concepts die very hard deaths. Marx once stated to let the dead bury the dead. OK, but what does one do when the living has to bury the dead in order for the living to advance to the next level? 

There is no need to try and understand the method of Marx if we do not from time to time shut our eyes and try and think out the process we are living and use his method and standpoint - our materialist conception of history and how we understand dialectics in real time. The most reactionary sector of the ruling class very well understands that the front line struggle to isolate and oppress the blacks is the cultural arena. Here is how class fragmentation is maintained and fought for in the ideological arena. There is no way to ideologically defeat the demand for reforming the health care system on the basis of point a finger at blacks because to many people are affected. Check this out! 

As the ethnic whites become "Americanized" they drift away from "European culture." "Negro culture" is filling the vacuum. Not because it is "better," although I hold that it is in fact better and define "better" as a materialist - a category moving away from historic feudal customs, and this poses serious problems. Everyone - revolutionary and reactionary, face the same problem because history poses the same questions to all of us. 

Cultural fusion if you will, means the emergence of the same generalized categories in which people think things out. No matter what our eyes tell us, the increasing separateness of the black masses is more apparent than real and the process fact is that separateness is being abolished and for the first time in our history there is a material bass for mass unity of the working class as an objective process of the infrastructure and in the ideological realm. 

We are at a new juncture. When someone says, "White privilege" I reach for my culture or rather analysis of the black masses as class and then masses. Why? Because we are dealing with a peculiarity of history, where a people evolved first as a class and then became a people and basically everyone else on earth developed as a people (distinct ethnic groups) and then fragmented into classes. 

What was called the black community as a specific formation and coalescing of various classes held together as a social category no longer exists as it did in other periods of our history, although there are large communities of blacks in most major urban enclave of America. This description of a social category where all classes were combined into definite geographic areas on the basis of the most violent white chauvinism is not the present configuration of American society. The black community does not exist as such as the social category that gave rise to the term black community. This old class configuration has been superseded, but the pressure of the reactionaries in the ideological sphere and the color psychosis has made us crazy and dampers our ability to discern class configuration.  Snoop Dog does not live in my neighborhood or neighborhood like mine or your neighborhood. 

What are we talking about? 

The ruling class of America that founded and expanded what has become the multinational state of the United States of America is without question Anglo-American - white. The national figures to run for national office are without question fundamentally white. Why is this? To answer the color factor or "white skin privilege" does not answer why because this means, "Because they are white" and that is a circle of logic without a defined beginning or end. To answer because the Anglo American people are racist does not answer why and how did history present this thing called "white skin privilege" - a concept no Marxist worth his salt can uphold. The question has to be approached on the basis of how America developed and a developmental process particular to the Anglo American people. 

America as a nation of immigrant and coalescing on the basis of the various ethnic whites culturally assimilating the "Negro" and/as the inner meaning of becoming Anglo-American also means that the previously white ethnic politico's have access to a historically evolved national structure that allows one to enter the national political arena as Anglo-America. National political structures in America were founded and evolved on the basis the exclusion of the slave - African, and her descendant. 

This process is articulated as a category but today - after 225 years of development, it is not a hard and fast category as such. Black political figures that are perceived to have cast off that which is identified as Negro are slowing gaining assess to this historically evolved political structure. 

Let's look at this a little closer. A Polish politician who retains the heavy accent of his native land will catch hell running for any national office in America, as is the case with any "Slavic" person who is most certainly white. An Irish national with a thick Irish accent will face formidable barriers in a climb to national prominence, although one can claim a historic Irish ancestry. As these white ethnic politicians lose their ethnicity they begin to resemble the Anglo-American people perse, and this is the constituency base of the Anglo-American politician. The contradiction for the bourgeoisie as the opening form of a body of class politics is that very real fact that the base of culture for the Anglo-American people is black culture. 

On the other hand the absolute majority of African American politicians can only come to prominence on the basis of their constituency - the Negro or rather African American people. In this respect the African American politician to a degree resemble the Irish politician at the turn of the century. At a certain point in Irish immigration their mass was converted into politics and victories in political wards. The same hold for Italians.  

We forget that there is a national-colonial question in America and tend to lump all black people together and all white people together and this is not the political reality. The emergence of black office holders in the South is somewhat different from in the North, although this process had to unfold in the same time frame. I guess we are going to have to see a slew of fascistic Southern black politicians before we face reality. This is not to say the color factor is no longer pronounced in America or that discrimination is not very sharp and real. It is to say that staying on the level of "black and white" and screaming "white skin privilege," makes one lose sight of changes in present day society.  

The point is that what allows for a white person to ascend to national prominence and enter the national body politic is not white skin privilege as such. White skin is not a privilege within a historically evolved white political infrastructure, but a historical configuration mirroring the formation of the Anglo-American people and the various ethnic, economic and class tensions within the Anglo-American people. That the Anglo American people have a historic privilege over African Americans is not disputed. To make sense of how politics are being played out one has to mention the process in which the white ethnic minority becomes part of the Anglo-American majority. 

I have not a clue what is meant by a vote for Nader is an exercise of white skin privilege. Is a vote for Bush or Gore an exercise of white skin privilege? In my estimate the Nader candidacy represented the efforts to break away from the Democratic and Republican Parties - and contain this motion, a process Jesse Jackson played a role in during his first run for presidency under the banner of the Rainbow Coalition. 

What is being contained is a class motion no matter what the skin color of the forces involved or how the class motion of the lower sections of the working class expresses themselves. To advocate for national health care uninhibited or not limited and defined by ones income is a class demand because this speaks to and seeks to survive the striving of the lowest sectors of the working class in real time. 

Now the question of National black politicians seeking national office like President is simple and complex, but it is the only way I know how to get to the essence of this question of white skin privilege and what is generally called the petty bourgeois left and what a small section of Marxist in America have always called the petty bourgeois black masses.  Here we are going to have to put on our thinking caps and leave the comfort of the womb of "white privilege." 

End of part 1. 


Melvin P.