RE: [Marxism] RE: African American Liberation and Social Revolution 5

["Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Melvin wrote, "The reactionary ideologists of the bourgeoisie understand
very well that the cultural arena is the front line in the struggle to
isolate and continue to oppress and exploit the African American."

I don't know that this is actually a disagreement, or if it's just a
question of emphasis....  I tend to think that they understand very well
that the front line is actually the political struggle to validate and
legitimate the capitalist order.  Those ruling class ideologues have
also spent a generation finding reactionary ways to celebrate black
history.  We saw where this was going when the city of Chicago
orchestrated hit squads against the Black Panthers and named a new
community college for Malcolm X, already safely dead and ready for
cultural mummification.  Indeed, the same government that is proclaiming
black history month through the school systems are also maintaining the
inequalities of the status quo on race...not to mention miscellaneous
acts of war on "the other".

It's not as though they aren't willing to discuss black history--indeed,
they've been happy to fund it...so long as it is a "safe" version--not
political and not touching questions of class.

Conversely, they have also spent a lot of time energy and effort (and
grant money) redirecting the attentions of the critically minded into
cultural preoccupations.  As a result, "the Left" has gained control of
the English Departments of the elite universities and other
less-than-essential parts of the system.

In the end, I think we have a much more complex situation than we did in
the mid-1960s when we were seeing the first wave of Black Studies fights
sweep across the campuses.

Of course, underlying the most sanitized versions of the black
experience are the rich complexities that capitalist mythologies
ultimately can't contain--but this is true of all human experience in a
class society.

Solidarity!
Mark L.





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