[Fwd: [sixties-l] The Lesson Of Election 2000: Neo Slavery]

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

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Subject: [sixties-l] The Lesson Of Election 2000: Neo Slavery
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 12:46:42 -0800
From: radman <resist@xxxxxxxx>
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Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2000
From: criticalman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Lesson Of Election 2000: Neo Slavery

By J Tolbert Jr,

When it was published in 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. asked a critical
question in the title of his book, 'Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or
Community?' Even before King considered it, this question was not
unfamiliar
to generations of Black people in America. In fact, 'Where Do We Go From
Here' has always been central to our struggle. Unfortunately, this
necessary
cultural imperative, for any people is no longer an important
consideration
for many of our people. Our collective political behavior during the
recent
presidential election demonstrated that many of us are incapable of ever
addressing 'Where Do We Go From Here' because we are satisfied being
America's 'neo-slaves.'

When 17th century Europeans went to Africa in search of labor to build
their
empires, they did not find a continent of 'slaves.' Instead, they found
human beings who they (the Europeans) hoped to develop into slaves. The
captured Africans eventually succumbed to servitude, but they didn't
make it
easy for the Europeans. Africans committed many acts of resistance and
rebellion. They remained vigilant until the end of the 1960s, when
someone
told them they could be Democrats. Since then, the 21st century
descendents of the enslavers have found a large population of 'free' and
'willing'
Blacks to build the political empires of others without compensation.

Touted as the best educated, wealthiest, and most sophisticated group of
Africans ever produced in America, many of our people have totally
abdicated their destiny to the whim of corrupt electoral politics.
Consistently used
by the Democrats and permanently ignored by the Republicans, we spend
our
time and energy narrowly fixated over which wing of the white
supremacist
population is going to rule us. No matter what party wins; white folks
are
in sole charge of determining "Where do we (Black people) go from here?"

There is no better example of this 'neo-slavery' than what occurs in the
'City of Brotherly Love.' Every four years, 'Philadelphia Negroes' with
money, good jobs, titles, and delusions of importance, berate the masses
of
the city's Black population with the slogan 'if you don't vote, you
don't
count.' What they might as well say is, 'if you don't vote Democratic,
you
don't count.' Partisan cheerleading then degenerates into a holy war
against
those Blacks who, critically analyze or question the sincerity of
Democratic candidates.

Black media people, Black politicians, and various HNICs, using the
moral
suasion of the civil rights movement, buttress this crusade by resorting
to
the 'racial guilt trip' -invoking the spirits of our ancestors and those
who
'died for the vote.' When 'National Negroes,' are sometimes brought in
to
stir up the masses, they suffer from selective amnesia when questioned
or
reminded of their previously expressed doubts over their party's turn to
the
right. Any rational dialogue about Democratic Party's treatment of its
Black
constituency is dismissed as a Republican plot to send us back to
Africa.

Our ancestors and those who 'died for the vote' have to be spinning in
their
graves' seeing how we relent to 'plantation politics' and end up, once
again, being the recipients of political welfare-not power sharing in
the
Democratic Party. In retrospect, some of us need to stop criticizing the
Republicans. For all the buck-dancing and fiddling that Blacks did on
the
stage at the Republican convention, at least the Republicans pay their
'help.'
----
Copyright 2000, J. Tolbert Jr., All Rights Reserved. J. Tolbert Jr. is
the
editor of The Digital Drum 2, an electronic newsletter which
disseminates
information and encourages critical thinking among people of African
descent. To subscribe, email TheDigitalDrum2-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxx