Note :
I always speak to the double consciousness of being Black in the United States and how interesting the way Black life and culture in our own spaces appear juxtaposed against mainstream white ones. I'm always interested in how we change or divert from the White way of doing things like dance, speak, engage, etc.
But even more, I'm interested in the way we replicate Whiteness in our own society.
Identity comes into play with this. I identify, politically, as a leftist. More specifically, I'm a Black Marxist, as well as Black nationalist. My grandma always told me, when you know better, you're supposed to do better, and this is my MO.
With that being said, let's get to the piece.
Last week, Mr. Umar Johnson come to our school to give a lecture, accompanied by some of Morgan's most esteemed panelists Dr. Natasha Pratt-Harris and Dr. Paul Archibald. While many of us already knew what we were up against, this type of dialogue exposed a lot of things for a lot of people. Several topics were discussed: womanhood, Black queer, disease and pathology, Black youth, Black capitalism, etc.
There are several observations with last night:
1) The questions were definitely censored. The microphone should've been made open to allow the dialogue people were expecting to happen. Censoring the questions went against the stated openness; thus wasting time for people who expected a critical dialogue.
2) Umar and friends don't seem to understand anything going on in today's movement. Umar disrespected Black youth as if Baltimore youth didn't take the highway last year at Afromation. Or as if young folks ain't been shutting down airports, businesses and other things. Umar chooses to ignore what's going on because it doesn't fit his narrative, but the work is definitely being done.
3) Black folks love to be talked down to. Umar did nothing but pathologize (definition: to view or characterize as medically or psychologically abnormal) the Black community by saying we wanted to be White and a bunch of other bollocks. This is very similar to President Obama's talking down to Black people, with his more mired in respectability politics whether in his "My Brother's Keeper Program", constant use of Jethro and Pookie, and other things.
As someone who loves's Black people, this felt oddly bizarre, yet people were applauding and cheering it on. Protest and civil disobedience, for all it's worth, is a part of "the work".
But one of my biggest questions for others who call themselves Black Nationalists:
2) What is Black power for niggas that don't know what power is?
There are two scenarios: (1) Umar Johnson's politics aren't mature enough to understand power, hegemony and what it actually is to the core. (2) Umar Johnson understands what power means and just seeks to replicate it in Blackface. I believe its more option two than one, but another part of me believes that Umar doesn't have the intellectual range or scholarship.
We know what happens when niggas don't know what Black power is. That's how you get Malcolm X, MLK, and President Obama on the same shirt when the two were nowhere near each other ideologically. President Obama doesn't represent Black power in the slightest, yet people will seem to compare the two. The term "Black excellence" has been used as some coverall to celebrate all, but it seems abit backwards to celebrate free Breakfast programs and a system of inequity that makes it where they're needed, no?
Nevertheless, if we aren't critical of power as it is currently, we get a dangerous and circular vision of power where will be forever entangled in struggle. Black women, Black queer, and other marginalized folks have every right to be free and every right to fight for it. This system is patriarchal just as much as it is racist, so Black male domination isn't Black Power in the slightest.
Looking at the White experience in White America ought to be a great place to start when looking at power. Whiteness in America has its own hierarchy, tangled in gender, sexuality, ownership of resources, and nationality. We must remember, for a while Irish people weren't considered White in America.
With that being said, whawqt does Umar Johnson's Pan-Afrikan "Utopia" look like? Is it something imaginative and radical or is it just a Negro recreation of this mess we have in the states? From what I heard the other night, it's more the latter than the former, which is rather unfortunate given Johnson's building of celebrity by posing as such. Loud, obnoxious hollering and petty dramatic spectacle is all that you need to move people as we've learned with 45's Presidency and many times before, critical thinking be damned.
Black Power, as most people in the work seem to define it, is based in self-determination and liberation of all Black people. The radical Black Power movement spoke of revolutionary nationalism, socialism, and anti-imperialism. Waving an RBG, wearing dashikis and other African garb, and renaming oneself doesn't make Black Power. Maybe the proper term is "Black Hegemony"- doesn't quite roll of the tongue all that well - but "Black Power", it is not.