Chokwe Lumumba, mayor of Jackson MS. died. One comment in
a NY Times report:
To the white business establishment, he had evolved into a surprisingly pragmatic politician who promised to fix the potholes and the sewers and passed a sales tax increase to help do it...“The expectations when he was elected were not very high, and he surprised everybody pretty dramatically.”
Why was it surprising? I'll tell you why. So called black nationalists and other assorted "pro-black" "afro-centric" persons usually spend their time and energy trying to get paid to talk about white folks, ingratiating themselves to white folks OR trying to get paid working in institutions built and/or run by white folks. Exhibit
A:
Temple University took on the wrong adjunct professor when they terminated Dr. Anthony Monteiro’s contract, without warning, in January. And Dr. Molefi Asante, the proponent of “Afrocentricity” who Monteiro and his student and community allies propelled to the chairmanship of the African American Studies Department after a bitter struggle with the administration, last year, chose the wrong man – and the wrong movement – to stab in the back.
That article goes on to discuss the "struggle" to get Temple U to "do the right thing". Meanwhile back in Jackson MS. Lumumba was actually about running things. I have often said that most of the people who call themselves activists have absolutely no idea about building and running institutions. Calling white folks names does not fix streets or schools or bring down crime rates. African-American studies departments at HWCI's only give those non-black institutions that much more of a reputation. It does NOTHING to build up the reputations, clout and eventual high value teachers to black institutions of higher education.
This is why Garvey was opposed by many African-American "leadership" when he was around. African-Americans have long since been singularly focused on white folks and being accepted by them to the detriment of their own economic and community development. But to get back to Chokwe and the statement.
See the actions of persons such as those at Temple are why it was "surprising" that Chokwe got to "running things" business. Real nationalists are about running things. This is why Garvey was interested in Tuskegee. Booker T. Washington, like Garvey understood that the long term solution to black dependence and exploitation was to own and control our own resources. That no group that is economically dependent upon another group has a secure future.
But the masses of African-Americans weren't and still aren't trying to hear all that. Booker T Washington is widely seen as a sellout. When we are taught about Booker T Washington we are told that he was a sellout because he made a speech to white folks in Atlanta where he "approved of segregation" with his famous "hands and fingers" speech. Booker T and build your own: Bad. Dubois and the Talented Tenth: Good.
So the people of Jackson MS. had to live under the ideology that if they appealed to white folks and the expertise of the talented tenth long enough, they would prosper. That didn't work out so well.
Enter Chokwe. Not Anthony Monteiro. Not Cornell West. Not any of the Popular Negroes(tm) with lots of degrees from Ivy League institutions or books on Afro-centricity or shows on popular cable shows. Here he comes talking about running things which includes taxes and fixing potholes. Real. Nationalist. Business. The rest of y'all can stay in the street protesting HWICs to re-instate degreed negroes. After all, positions for the talented tenth in HWIC is a very important thing.
Salute Chokwe
