MIllion Man March

[LeoCasey@xxxxxxx]

Sometimes I wonder if I am just tempermentally unsuited for this list. A
while back, when we were discussing the OJ Simpson verdict, I pointed out the
need to develop an analysis of what was then yet to be Million Men March. I
did so because I, for one, found it to be a very troubling political
phenomenon, an amalgam of a lot of contradictory impulses and tendencies,
some praiseworthy and hopeful, some downright reactionary and repulsive.
Among my African-American male friends -- both those who participated in the
march and those who stayed home -- there was a great deal of agonizing over
unpleasant political choices; I do not know anyone did not have doubts and
second thoughts about their choice.

Now, it would seem to me that if there was nothing that a Marxist (or
post-Marxist) would want to claim from dialectics it would be the capacity to
grasp the contradictory nature of a political phenomenon. But I must say that
the main fare among us on this topic seems to fall into two equally mindless
refusals to grapple with these contradictions. On the one hand, we have the
most overwrought spewing of vitriol and vulgar, offensive rhetoric aimed not
simply at Farrakhan, which one might understand at some level, but also at
every participant in the march, and even (it appears) at anyone who might
have a somewhat different take on these events; on the other hand, we have a
classically thoughtless celebration (I believe we used to call it tailism) of
whatever the current mass formation among the oppressed is, in this case, the
Million Man March.

On the chance that most of the list has not commented because they are
appalled at both refusals to engage in thoughtful analysis, let me offer a
few observations/thoughts/ questions I have been mulling over in my own mind.
As much as Farrakhan is a demagogue of the first order, a bigot and a
murderer (yes, he is responsible for Malcolm's assassination), he -- and the
tradition of the Nation of Islam -- also have an insight into the condition
of African-American life that allows them to construct a message that clearly
resonates with a lot of folk. It is a serious mistake, I think, to conclude
that all of those black men were brought to Washington by a rhetorical/
discursive interpellation which was simply reactionary and bigoted, or that
they all were blindly taken in by demagoguery. It was not anti-Semitism, or
sexism, or homophobia, that motivated them, and we neglect the power of
messages of responsibility, dedication to family and community, and of
spiritual reconciliation at our own risk. The problem is the central role of
Farrakhan in articulating the message, and the way in which he discursively
connects those messages with bigotry and reaction. He was able to fill a
massive political vacuum in African-American life, and we are now left with
figuring out how to deal with the consequences of his new power.

In a more historical mode, I have reflected on how the rise of certain
streams of nationalism sentiment and organization in African-American life
has been organically connected to and responses to periods of intense racial
reaction in white America. Thus, for example, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in
the North during the 1920s was matched by the development of Garveyism.
Separatism makes a certain kind of sense when avenues for interracial
alliances and progress are increasingly blocked and cut off. There was
something to Jesse Jackson's comments in his March speech that it was not
Farrakhan but Gingrich who had organized the March. I would be interested in
how others see these historical parallels, and what lessons they would like
to draw from them.


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