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Jena Just Isn't Enough: Protest or Participation?

In the wake of news, both good and bad, about minority crime, Congress finally coming to grips with the crack/powder cocaine sentencing travesty, and actionable analyses of the prison-industrial complex gaining traction, the question remains one of finding a way forward to inner city uplift. (Of course, for some, the question remains "how can we get those ig'nent black people to accept that all their problems are entirely of their own making. That they, and they alone, live in a socio-historical vaccuum, untouched by the doings of the dominant group.")

White apologists to the contrary, and except in Louim-ian circumstances, we do not need a "21st Century Civil Rights Movement." Not if that means an emphasis on marching, protesting and denunciations of racism. Been there. Done that. Move along, now. Whites' consciousness isn't going to be raised any higher until the black one undergoes some major renovations and maybe not even then; people see what they want to see. In fact, we'd do best to assume whites will never be any more enlightened than they are now because, to paraphrase Chris Rock, it wasn't the white media chasing him home from the subway.

Is it whites' fault that Ray-Ray was chasing Chris? Ok, let's go with that, but to stop there is to fetishize white people. It's to assume that whites are all-malevolent, all-powerful and there's nothing blacks can do to protect, let alone better, themselves. On the other hand, to procede to figuring out a way to reach Ray-Ray is to love black people and the black future. It's to believe in them. And, here's the hard part: believing in someone or something has to mean a willingness to critique it closely for flaws, for failing to live up to its potential, then working to correct those flaws.

So when I hear of organizations like this one, I know I've encountered a true "nigger lover." They didn't just harp on blacks' disproportionate unemployment levels and how the prison-industrial complex keeps black men forever on the margins; they opened the "Homeboy Bakery" and created jobs with futures for America's despised. And talk about a work ethic when you know your boss, and your clientele, wants to see you shine. Leaders like this talk about "watching people become the truth of who they are." The other kind talk about white people.

Here's another way forward vice back, yet again, to whites:

The plan to put 10,000 men on the streets for an initial period of 90 days starting late this year is the latest effort by Philadelphia’s black community to curb violence that drove homicides to a nine-year high of 406 in 2006.

Groups of volunteers will be stationed on drug corners and other trouble spots in a bid to stop the shootings and other crimes that have given Philadelphia the highest homicide rate among the nation’s 10 largest cities. They will not be armed, will not have powers of arrest, and will be identified only by armbands or hats during their three-hour shifts.

They will be trained in conflict resolution, and are intended to be peacekeepers and mentors rather than law enforcers. Each patrol, however, will include a police officer.

Sure would be a lot easier to walk a picket line once a year or so and yell stuff at TV cameras.

Needless to say, the folks who secretly believe that all the lies are true, that black dysfunction and underachievement is the truth of who we are, are putting far more effort into derailing the plan than volunteering for it: "Critics say the plan will fail to meet its recruitment goals, partly because it is too closely identified with the police, who will be responsible for selecting the areas to patrol and who are distrusted in many neighborhoods." It doesn't take a CIA analyst to see who here is invested in black progress and who in preserving a status quo that enables their fascination with Anglos and absolves blacks of any responsibility for their own uplift.

My frustrations with the problematics of the Jena protests has me stuck on this topic, I know, but never fear: I'll move on. I'd planned to today; my umbrage isn't even close to fully taken and it's a target-rich environment out there. But then I happened upon the following article early this morning. One participant at a recent conference of marginalized black/migrant European women summarized their goal thusly: "We don't want to protest, we want to participate." Sounds good to me. It also sounds like a critique.

Comments

I'm starting to understand Ms. Dickerson's perspective a little better from this article than from her other article about Jena. I'm white, and therefore, I don't think the short-falls of black leadership bother me the same way.

I still don't understand why protest marches are not helpful, in her eyes. Would congress be talking about the powder cocaine vs. crack issue if people didn't take to the streets?

I'm frustrated by the protest marches of the anti-war movement, too. But to me, any kind of activism is better than none. Definitely better than sitting at home watching TV and grumbling about everything, which is I think what most of us do.

Posted by: emily b on 10/02/07 at 9:24 PM Respond

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam advocates the goal of resurrecting the spiritual, mental, social, economic condition of the black man and woman of America and belief that God will bring about a universal government of peace. God has called the Divine Leader, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan to lead Black men and women of America out of the wilderness.

Posted by: Maryam on 10/02/07 at 9:50 PM Respond

Maryam,

How, though?

- Jonathan Stein

Posted by: Jonathan Stein on 10/03/07 at 5:27 AM Respond

Here's where Ms. Dickerson and I differ. I infer that she views mass protests as pop theater, simply attempting to force feed "white consciousness". I'm pretty sure that along the spectrum from Obama to Sharpton that there is no expectation that one more march or demonstration is going to make a critical mass of white folks say "Oh...we get it now." What this does is remind people that these problems are not mere entries in history books. Jena was overt, MOST of this stuff is covert, and some of us take different lessons from these experiences. But Jena reminds most of us that we will probably ALWAYS face a few more bumps in the road than our "tan-challenged" fellow citizens. And my Hispanic friends are nodding in agreement.

Posted by: Egalitare on 10/03/07 at 6:44 AM Respond

Mr. Stein. The Nation of Islam wants our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own--either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years--until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.

Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by white America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.

Posted by: Maryam on 10/03/07 at 6:56 AM Respond

25 years wouldn't be enough maintenance for you militants, because you would be bringing yourselves. If you couldn't prosper in a country so rich as to have the luxury of guilt for you to evoke, you certainly couldn't survive someplace else. Addicted to fighting and without any external group to unite against, you'd collapse amidst killing one another. Then you'd ignore the fact that civil warfare, chaos and economic stagnation have been going on in Africa way farther back than white colonization.

Posted by: asterexasper on 10/04/07 at 6:54 AM Respond

It seems as though your position, Ms. Dickerson, could be summed up as, "Black unity and identity, yes, but based on black responsibility and accomplishment." This I admire. Credibility and respect are at the core of position, after all, which are usually unspoken, are not subject to legislation or social pressure, and can come on no other terms than the respecter's. But almost everyone respects hard work, self-sacrifice and investment in those who are your own.

Posted by: Forrest on 10/04/07 at 7:26 AM Respond

Forrest, those are the same values that the Nation of Islam advocates.

Posted by: Maryam on 10/04/07 at 7:37 AM Respond

The main problem with Ms. Dickerson's argument is its either/or nature: Either we protest or we do community development. A holistic view would not see these methods as dialectic but instead would see both as necessary. We need a full range of strategies to be able to create change, from increasing knowledge and raising awareness to creating alternatives to changing public policy. Resistance needs to occur at all of these levels, to fully engage the whole community and to move us forward.

Posted by: vozpopular on 10/04/07 at 8:01 AM Respond

Avoid the "dualism". There is only the one. Desire not to desire, without desiring. The Tao that can be spoken, is not the Tao.

Posted by: TAO on 10/04/07 at 8:32 AM Respond