I remember, really recently, a quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates (and don't worry; I see the immense irony in my quoting a Marvel misleader like him) that even for all of my contempt for the Black Misleadership Complex in liberal politics, has still been sitting with me, chewing at me for a long minute; and it's not for a lack of framework.

I know there are Black outfits out here actually trying to get on one accord and properly form up for us; but I was looking for a decade; only spending up more and more time and patience tryna organize with "lemme-talk-over-you"-assed crackers. And we're only like ten percent of the population at best. So when I think about how long it took me to find folks I could unabashedly align myself with, then I look at the shit Coates was saying, my marrow runs cold.

“I have a deep-seated fear that the Black struggle will ultimately, at its root, really just be about narrow Black interest."

That's where my mind goes, every time I see a Black face trying to harangue a vote for Harris anymore. Whenever I see a Black body, shrieking that 'voot bloo no mater whoo' slogan like a true believer, that's the record spooling up in the mind palace. That we'll never see liberation as long as a fraction of us continue to aspire to the capitalist's brass ring. As long as they're trying to edge each other for the White man's chair; and trying to browbeat us back under the Big Tent™, I don't think we'll ever get around this bend in the river.

  • LGOrcStreetSamurai [he/him]
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    edit-2
    3 months ago

    That we'll never see liberation as long as a fraction of us continue to aspire to the capitalist's brass ring.

    Bars. I wish more black people understood that. It's so frustrating to know that so many people don't want to get ride of the misery machine, they just want a black face on it. Which is almost understandable to me for a particular subset of black people, I don't know the age cohort name or whatever but black people who came of age in 60's and 70's and even the 80's. I feel like those people have this weird blend of earnest liberalism, where they believe the all of the whooie of the DNC subsuming/consuming the post civil rights era momentum.

    I feel like a lot of those people believe in a DNC that simply does not exist anymore. Perhaps they saw it be real for a moment in time, but that party (or that idea of a party) is utterly not real anymore. The DNC has done nothing but fail upwards with a large section of black people of that age cohort. It really just bums me out that to think they are sticking with a political organization that failed them and will turbo fail their children and grandchildren. Like the article says, they turn a blind eye to both record and rhetoric.

    There is no black business that will liberate us, there is no black enterprise that will elevate us, and we are no taller when we try to exploit each other like the capitalist class. A lot of the "vote blue maga" types talk about it's important for black people to "be in the room" or "be in the halls of power", but never really question what that rooms is for or what those halls of power are doing.

    Also Forever keep posting Black Agenda Report. They aren't the perfect journalism group but they are one of the least OG real ones.