Separatism and hatred

Great Debates
1

The theme of this thread comes via my late awareness of an event in New York City a couple of weeks back, where a 7-year old poet/activist by the name of Autum Ashante got up and performed two bitter, factfully distorted afrocentric poems in front of middle school students. The upshot: parents were upset, students were shocked, she was unofficially banned and the school district is putting programs like this under review. End of story, so I thought.

Her father is reported to have called school officials, “racist crackers.” Lil’ Autum has been quoted as calling them “white devils” and claiming that blacks should never have left africa. Comments like these give credence to that the accusations of racism is pretty well-founded.

NOW: One of a handful of NYC-area columnists to record the event – but, by at least second hand attribution, if I’m reading between the lines correctly – is a reporter named Michelle Malkin. S’okay. Second hand attribution happens.

In her column lead commenting on these events, Malkin colorfully paints young Autum as “One of the nation’s fastest-rising poetry prodigies…” and a “New York girl whose poisonous demagogic advocacy of black separatism makes Al Sharpton look like Mr. Rogers.”

This alone was news to me on a couple of fronts, as I was not aware of Al ever being a black demagogue for black separatism (I always thought Al hung around Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam 'cuz he liked bean pies) or this rising trend of primary school poet prodigies. Of course, I’m out of the loop, but such wealth of information from this obviously perceptive journalist with her finger on the public pulse of hot City trends had me riveted what would be claimed next.

She recounted the incident much as I did, and more. She carefully recounted a series of high profile events where Autum has appeared: a Marcus Garvey tribute, Amiri Baraka’s annual family cookout, and the New Black Panther Party’s Million Youth March.

Of course, Malkin calls poet/activist Amiri Baraka an “America-bashing 9/11 conspiracy monger” and the New Black Panther Party “extremist”, but, y’know it was kinda factual by putting them on the fringe of black racial politics.

Malkin prints a samples of Autum’s poetry, the first,“White Nationalism Put U In Bondage” and the second, “The Black Child’s Pledge” which you can read here.

Malkin disappoints when she ends with this observation:

I’m all like, Say what now?

I’m kind of scratching my head here at her conclusions. They confuse me. I mean…“set asides” are there because people asked for them, so you’re not forcing anybody to do anything, and you’d have to be dumb like a brick to endorse a racist organization. It’s not proof of hardcore racial separatism. There’s no firm numbers about how many people or how widespread this sort of thing is, which is usually a cue to my inner bullshit detector its not widespread at all and incidents like this are isolated.

I was curious, too, what constitutes a racist set aside in this reporter’s mind until I was reminded that “academic departments” and “college dorms” make the list. You know… the same places that set aside programs and living space for, among other people, college athletes, Greeks, women, married couples and geeks. But do it for people voluntarily on the basis of race and its suddenly that’s just insidious. Ooo.

Black History Month isn’t a separate holiday. It’s an ethnic holiday. Anyone can participate, but don’t be surprised if people from the actual ethnic background take the lead in the program’s shape and celebration.

Some criticism of separate college graduation ceremonies might be warranted, but I fail to see how being in a one-day commencement is proof of hardcore racial separatism. How are racial recruiting programs inherently a bad thing? Are they shoring up recruiting figures for a revival?

None of this makes much sense when you think about it. As far as I can tell, the only thing Autum is the natural offspring of is a pissed off bigoted and racist father with an axe to grind, using his daughter a s a mouthpiece. Blaming this on “militant mutliculturalism” is silly. Why not just blame it a one-off instance of black racism?

2

I’d be interested to hear whether you would apply that same sentiment to, say, Augusta National Golf Club, among others.

3

Golf culture isn’t on my radar, maaa-aaa-an.

4

Askia, I generally agree with you about Michelle Malkin’s comments – they’re a bit of a grab bag of some things that may be genuinely troubling, and some things that are not troubling at all. For example, Black History Month, as you mentioned, is something all kids participate in – white kids should learn about the black experience in America, dammit. Academic departments, same deal – it’s just specialization of a routine kind. You might as well complain about hospitals having departments of anesthesiology.

There’s a line to be drawn between separatism and self-segregation. The latter is, again, routine – people do it all the time, along whatever cleavage appeals to them. But separatism is basically rejectionist. It can be voluntary or involuntary, but at its heart is the idea that the group from whom you are separating is somehow dangerous or defective, and has to be pushed aside. Whether racially segregated dorms fall into the separatist or self-segregationist category is difficult to say. I’d guess there are elements of both.

And affirmative action and set-asides? There’s nothing separatist about that. It’s an attempt at redress for historical wrongs, simple as that.

5

I wouldn’t exactly call Malkin a reporter. She’s a favorite pundit among conservatives-- sort of a poor man’s Ann Coulter (although I wouldn’t put her quite in that category).

Anyway, she has in this case, as usual, lumped a bunch of unrelated things together and come up with a “problem” that is “tearing at the fabric of our society”, so to speak. It would make more sense to discuss the merit of each item rather than assuming there is some connection. MLK day, for instance, is hardly the same as Afrocentric college dorms or even African American Studies departments. Besides, I can’t see that a 7 year old girl is anything other than a product of her family environment. There certainly are people who advocate a seperatist approach to race relations, but I don’t see them as anywhere near the mainstream these days.

6

I don’t think it’s the girl, herself, that is being complained about. More the environment that lauds her behavior.

7

Perhaps I’m missing the point. Other than in the “Boondocks” cartoon and original strip, is there a faction of black America that desires segregation from mainstream (or any other form of) white America while at the same time harboring a deep and bitter resentment for white America, not generally that they are white or oppressive or ignorant, but specifically due to said self imposed segregation? If so, are they really prone to the use of grade school children, prodigy or not, to propagate their views to the public the same way McGruder juxtaposes the bitterness of experience and adult views upon the young characters in his strip?

8

Ho-hum. Another afrocentrist, this one using his daughter as a puppet, allows a reporter to get all in a dither and meet her deadline. I’d be alarmed, but I’m more worried about killer bees.

9

I’m not sure I believe that a seven-year-old wrote this poem. I mean, I guess it’s possible, but the sentence structure, the vocabulary, and the grasp of abstract concepts just don’t ring true to me, even for the brightest seven-year-old around. Far more likely, I’d think, is that her father writes these poems (or “guides” her in writing them) and then farms her out.

Daniel

10

Sal Ammoniac. Pretty much how I see it, too.

**John Mace. ** That was my point. Even within afrocentric minded culture diehard racial separatists are a minority.

AFAIKnow. But who’s lauding her behavior, other than her father and (likely) whatever teacher set this up? There’s no evidence that she performed the same kinds of hateful, smug poetry at those other events that she did at this one. Even if she did, the reporter’s assumption that this kind of hate speech is at all correlated with things like separate graduations and affirmative action set asides is ridiculous.

kelly5078. As an afrocentrist, I’d like to think I’m a wee more vetted and self-critical than old dude and his darling daughter.

nd_n8. Let me introduce you to Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and their decidedly less racist (but every bit as racially prejudiced) sect, The Nation Of Gods And Earths.

Left Hand Of Dorkness. Agreed. That’s why I said she was a mouthpiece for her father, who had an axe to grind.

11

What do you mean? Every seven year old I know uses phrases like “They drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with / Steel laden feet…” :rolleyes:

I, too, call bulls— on this one.

12

What, like they had a choice? :confused:

13

Askia, you’ve probably done this elsewhere, but can you write a 50-word essay on “What Afrocentrism means to me”? I think it’d be a useful adjunct to this discussion. Don’t feel you have to limit it to 50 words, but by God, if you come in at 49 words, your grade will suffer.

14

Sal Ammoniac. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever spelled it out as such, but I will be glad to here.

To me, afrocentrism are studies of the impact of African arts, culture, sciences, aesthetics and population movements within the continent and on world development. It includes such teaching aids as non-traditional maps to challenge your perception of reality and exposing the rabid racism, omissions and casual slurs omnipresent in teaching texts just two generations ago.

Particular areas of interest include Egyptology, colonial and post-colonial African history, African-American culture, Afro-Caribbean culture, South American culture, and European history. It embraces such notions as the Middle East, South Asia and the aboriginal cultures of Austrailia being part of a distantly connected African diaspora, and the many pathological behaviors that sprung from both the intraAfrican slave trade, Islamic slave trade and TransAtlantic chattel slavery. Afrocentrism includes historical events that may have been glossed over in favor of Eurocentric history and bizarre racist claims like melanin’s role in spirituality, Michael Bradley’s research into the iceman inheritance and the belief systems of American black racism. Now MANY of the claims of (black American) Afrocentrists lack scholastic vetting and criticism, somewhat more weight is given to oral histories and anecdotal evidence than is typical in Western anthropology, but all ideas need to be weighed and judged by available evidence.

The discipline is in desperate need of critical self-evaluation and debunking, as well as shoring up of new proveable beliefs and historical truths.