The Movement for Self Sufficiency

Reprinted from my former blog, "Leapfrog: leaping beyond His Story"

A response to Korngay's call for New Black Movement"[Francis] I read your article ("Resurrecting a Black Movement in the Age of Obama") at BlackAgendaReport.com and found it to be, like many of the articles dissiminated by Glen Ford and his crew, insightful and on point.

I write with a few questions and suggestions about ways in which to position the call for a new Black Movement.Your sentence about developing an "interlinked duality of pursing a nationalist cum-communal nation-building agenda within the context of a broader re-democratizing process," is perfect way to understand the challenge and opportunity that we Black folks have to put our own house in order. When I'm on the road carrying the White man's water in my capacity as a professional political operative, I often get into good conversations with the various Black folks that I come across, people that are interested in our progress and hence, somewhat jaundiced about participating in a political process that offers Black people nothing but platitudes and an invitation to more sacrifice.

When I talk to these sophisticated Black people, I candidly tell them that none of these candidates or parties have our best interest in mind, that I am working for them because it gives me an opportunity to come into direct contact with other conscious Black folks. I tell them that the Democratic party, for me, is simply an organizing tool, a resource that we can use to identify and cultivate a cadre of Black folks in cities across America that could constitute the infrastructure of our own A-A nationalist ascendancy.

From this experience, I can say that generally, Black folks know what time it is. They know that following behind the Democrats and/or Republicans is a trip to no where we want to go. The biggest stumbling block to our own organizing is money. There is no way around this. The biggest stumbling block to raising money for a Black movement is Black middle-class fear of being tagged as Separatist, or Black radicals, which congers up the negative imagery of the government assault (post-reconstruction and COINTELPRO) on the Black freedom fighters of the past. Black folks simply don't want to experience the discomfort of being odd wo/man out socially, economically or politically.

Although, we can all recite statistics that show we are already odd man out across the board, enter the discussion about re-democratizing the system. Reminding folks about checks and balances as the bedrock of democracy. We Black folks owe it to civilization to get our act together because as one leg of a three-legged stool, our infirmity has thrown the world out of balance. The other two great legs of civilization - Whites and Asians - are handling their business. Without a strong Black nation, civilization is in jeopardy of spinning out of control like a unbalanced washing machine.

Couched in such terms, African-American Nationalism isn't soscary. We are not simply trying to replace a system of White supremacy with a Black one. We are trying to make it impossible for It to destabilize the world through its aggression and greed. And certainly the Progressive Agenda is the perfect non-threatening vehicle for Black folks to hitch a ride in on the road to our own redemption.

However, there is only one way to approach Black survival: our own economic infrastructure. Without the ability to employ ourselves and to fund our own freedom, we will not be able to shake loose from our terminal dependence on everything White.

Fortunately, the Internet is enabling the kind of direct contact that heretofore could only be had with the support of corporate advertising. And while the "Corporatocracy" (from "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins), controls just about every aspect of our economic life, there remains, I believe, an opportunity for us to regroup and build this economic infrastructure out of the economy of our own existence.

Now, while the "Economy of our Existence" is defined as our images and stories, our physical perculiararities (hair, skin, body type), our cultural proclivities in music, dance and language, the Internet, with information as its stock-in-trade, gives us the opportunity to begin with information: our images and stories are commodities that have value as media content. The time is right to build an information infrastructure that serves the survival needs of Black people, worldwide.

Now is the time for us to create the media and get it to our consumers directly. Even something simple like printing Black Agenda Reports (BAR) every week and handing it out at Black pedestrian hubs in our dense cities like Harlem could be a starting point. Putting information that is relevant in the hands of what I call the "cultural grassroots" (Black resisters of White supremacy), would reinforce the inclination for resistance in these folks, and embolden them to further action because such an effort, along with follow up organizing, would let these folks know that they are not alone, hence, counteract the mainstream propaganda that makes resistance seem so lonely and impoverished.

Naturally, in talking about building an information infrastructure, the distribution apparatus is the beginning. We would go on to create web-based content, and direct to consumer distribution of news, information and entertainment. Becoming the source of regular information that relates to Black people directly and specifically would be the most powerful way of developing the capacity to ascribe value to our goods, services and ideas, which is the only way that we will truly be competitive.
###