ALONG THE COLOR LINE — MAY 2004
The demise of affirmative action and the degeneration of national political culture to the far right should force African Americans to critically re-examine their own black leadership, their political institutions, and the strategies they employ to pursue power.
Across the board, with a few notable exceptions, the quality of leadership capacity has steadily declined since the mid-1980s, a period characterized by the brilliant mobilization of Harold Washington’s insurgent mayoral campaign in Chicago, the Rainbow Coalition’s presidential campaign led by Jesse Jackson, and the anti-apartheid campaign targeting South Africa. Today, there is an obvious absence of accountability and responsibility displayed by the majority of African-American officials. They do “represent” their constituencies, but generally do not perceive themselves as “leaders” of black people as a group, or even for blacks per sé within their narrowly-defined legislative districts.
What should be the core elements of leadership? First, as an attitude that says that anything of value requires work, leadership means doing the mundane things, things that most people don’t want to do. Carrying out the garbage, or cleaning dishes isn’t glamorous, but it’s a necessary task for political organizations to function. As theorist Antonio Gramsci once lamented, everybody wants to be the ploughman, cutting the furrow into the ground; nobody wants to be the manure, fertilizing the soil. Leadership means the recognition that manure is essential for an abundant harvest. This recognition requires a long view of history that our people generally do not have.
Effective leadership, in the uncertain era of globalization, requires the ability to think globally, but to act locally. Recognizing the nexus between racialized processes of inequality in Johannesburg, Brixton in South London, and Harlem, demands a level of analytical sophistication that transcends that of parochially based elected officials. We must prepare people now to navigate in a world where there may be few, if any, governmental guarantees to a decent life: no social security or pensions; no unemployment compensation or government job training programs; no subsidized public health clinics; no public housing; no decent urban public schools. In an atmosphere of fiscal austerity, how do we enhance and empower black institutions?
In so many ways, African-American young people are being taught to prepare and plan to enter a world that no longer exists. It’s reminiscent of Booker T. Washington’s principal mistake, one hundred years ago. At Tuskegee Institute, Washington taught African Americans to become skilled artisans, brick masons, architects, and blacksmiths. He preached patience, thrift, and preparation for employment in skilled craft and trades positions. But as the iron curtain of Jim Crow segregation descended across the South, blacks were expelled from skilled trades, and excluded to the very bottom of the labor force. Advances in early twentieth century technology eliminated blacksmithing. Leadership requires the capacity to grasp fundamental changes within the economic structure of society and to take appropriate measures to adapt to new realities.
I believe it is necessary for African-American people, at this moment in our collective history, to “return to the source.” The phase “return to the source” was basically Amilcar Cabral’s call for blacks involved in anti-colonial activism against the Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau to recognize the resilience and transformative power of indigenous cultural forms and practices. In the U.S. context, this may be interpreted to mean a move inward; culturally, psychologically, philosophically, even spiritually. To appreciate the collective lessons learned, to consolidate and archive our voices and aspirations, is to construct the living architecture of a people’s collective memory. From that architecture, newer, more hopeful and creative visions of freedom may flow.
Too many young African Americans are taught that the purpose of an education is to run away from black masses. A Ph.D. is interpreted as the entry to prestige, power, and color-blind acceptance. Something is terribly wrong when people are rewarded and reinforced to run away from groups or constituencies, which reflect their own image. There is, within the idea of liberal integrationism, a subterranean, unspoken denial of the legitimacy and value of self. When young African Americans have been taught to appreciate or to value their own heritage and the collective struggles of their people, it’s not surprising when they divert their anger and disappointment about how things are against each other, and even against themselves. Returning to the source of our history of struggle, and our culture, may produce a healthier, clearer vision of collective emancipation.
Perhaps the ultimate test of leadership is being bold enough to stand alone. That is the true meaning of integrity. And if we as a people are ever to advance, we must expect and demand a level of integrity among those who seek to represent us. People get the quality of leadership they deserve. If our leaders are opportunistic, shallow and poorly-informed, they merely reflect the failure of their constituencies in holding them accountable. If we want a higher quality of leadership, we must finance and sustain structures that carefully tutor young people in the art and science of leadership. No one will do this for us.
By turning inward, examining our collective values, and critically reviewing the weaknesses and contradictions in our own political institutions, we have an opportunity to once again take the political offensive. We must mount a challenge against the New Racial Domain of “color-blind racism.” To do so, a new strategy transcending the old, tired divisions of integration and black separatism must be hammered out. That task must be addressed now if the national black community as we know it is to survive.
