…and while I do get the irony of the title “Black Lives Matter,” I do wonder if it’s the best political strategy for ending police brutality and/or outright murder of Blacks, (presuming that’s the goal, and I’m not being coy here as I just don’t want to presume anything). Nonetheless, I’m reminded of the conflict between Martin Luther King and his “Civil Rights” strategies versus Stokely Carmichael and his “Black Power.” First, let me confess that I’m with Dick Gregory when he insists, (and I’m paraphrasing), that King was the only man who took on the empire, and won! I mean, say what you will about the Black Power advocates, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, whomever else, and their cosmic effects, their “revolutionary spirit” and whatnot, but King and his determined movement got laws on the books, and that’s documented, and that, indeed, has led to a quantifiable change. Granted, arguably not for all of us, but you needn’t look farther than the White House to see how the “Black Elites,” (the “Talented Tenth,” if you will), benefit from the King-led movement of which the Black Elite at the time were quite influential. (Of course this is also true of so many other ethnic elites as well as white women, who never experienced the Middle Passage, but certainly benefit from the Civil Right Movement in regards to, say, higher education, employment, and so many other areas—and that’s very cool, no beef there!)
I cannot say exactly what “Black Power” has yielded in terms of institutional gains, in fact when I hear the appropriation of the term by today’s Black Elite shameless capitalists, exemplified by a character such as the rap star Jay Z, I see how the term has inspired a vanity among Black Elite individuals that has proportionally very little to do with the basic humane treatment that the larger number of Blacks seek, such as not being brutalized by the police; decent work and housing.
Looking at “Black Lives Matter” in another way, the masses of the American people may just be too stupid, too brainwashed, too spectacularly misinformed to get anything as simple as “Black Lives Matter” too, or as I said in my previous blog that it doesn’t mean only “Black Lives Matter.” In my humble and in effect unimportant opinion, as a political strategy, focusing on deterring excessive police force or police brutality in general—which would inevitably shine the spotlight on Blacks who are disproportionally affected, (and to which I do presume a fair number of reasonable people do object)—might allow all varieties of American nincompoops, the stupid, cowardly Whites and all the other simple-minded USAers, to see that the movement is wholly concerned with human dignity.
(Though this is not really connected to “Black Lives Matter,” and it might even be considered a cheap shot on my part, I feel the need to remind you that Black Power’s Carmichael is rather infamously known for his flippant comment regarding the position of women in the movement, saying that their position was to be “prone.” Some argue that his remarks contributed to many of the activist sisters turning their attention more directly towards the feminist and womanist movements as Carmichael’s attitude revealed that “Black Power” was chauvinistic and by implication exclusive, and this may as well be a concern about “Black Lives Matter.”)