Mimi Sheller's Democracy After Slavery: Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica

Sheller's suggestive critical look at the political sociology of the post-emancipation periods of 19th century Jamaica and Haiti reveal the political activism and radicalism of black former slaves. Though the book is equally divided in looking at the Haitian political crisis of the 1840s against Boyer's autocratic presidency and the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865 in Jamaica, the most interesting and compelling section of the book focused on Haiti. Instead of being politically apathetic, ignorant peasants who accepted their exclusion from formal political institutions and educational networks, black peasants, as well as some radical elites, collaborated to unseat Jean-Pierre Boyer and create a democratic constitution inclusive of all Haitians with electoral democracy. Unfortunately, movement in the early 1840s, while succeeding to force Boyer into exile in a bloodless revolution, the tensions between elites, often of mixed heritage, and the black illiterate majority maintained the socio-racial hierarchy through which the educated elite continued to justify their rule as necessary until the black majority gradually attains the ability to share governance. This eventually led to the Piquet Rebellion, led by a black peasant, Jean-Jacques Acaau, who also possessed some religious prestige among  southern Haitian peasants who fought government troops with pikes.

Sheller's text also disproves the widely spread beliefs by those with a perpetually negative view of Haiti throughout its history regarding peasants and institutions. Black peasants possessed cooperative social organizations that collaborated on agriculture, home-building, and other aspects of rural life, as well as cultural and religious activities that celebrated the African heritage of Haiti. In fact, some of these societes were rooted in slave organizations based on African ethnic or regional identities and practiced African-derived Vodou rites or public parades and spectacles, such as Carnival, but all based on democratic systems within these organizations. Surprisingly, some of these mutual aid societies and cultural institutions and traditions were also permanent, tying Haitian peasants together against the exploitative Haitian state that provided little to no public services or education. In addition, black farm workers on plantations often elected cooperative work leaders in their workers associations. However, Sheller's text reveals the full form of an old Haitian expression regarding mixed, mulatre and noirs, essentially stating that Haitians fully understood the dynamics of race, class, and education and that formal education in French was essential for gaining entry into the Haitian political system. However, since public education was never provided by the state on a massive scale and the Vatican refused to recognize and work in Haiti until the 1860s, Haiti lagged far behind other Caribbean and Latin American states which had the fortune of Catholic education in many instances since these states rarely supported large-scale public education.

The central thesis regarding Haiti in the text is that civil society could never subordinate the military structure, created during the Haitian Revolution, to a democratic political system. She proves this by looking at how the military and government were inseparable, with the military elites of the Haitian Revolution maintaining regional power and the attempt by Boyer under the 1826 Code Rural to implement militarized plantation agriculture, which outlawed collective ownership of farms and worker self-management. The army during this period functioned as the local government, since each commune was under the authority of a commandant de place and troops who enforced the law, checked passes, and punished offenders. The military remained central to the Haitian state since it's inception was due to a military apparatus whose continued prominence and excessive role in civil society was justified by fears of a possible French invasion well into the 19th century. However, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, democratic practices were embedded in other aspects of Haitian life and resistance to the exclusionary political practices of the elite and the military in the form of peasant uprisings such as the Piquet movement in southern Haiti was a resurgent political crisis. Thus, Haitian opposition to the various dictatorships and shams of republican government was a constant factor in Haitian history, and Haitian political culture cannot be deemed dismissively as incapable of democracy or self-improvement by Haitians themselves.

Furthermore, Sheller's use of Haitian newspapers, mostly read by the French-speaking elite, reveals deeply radical ideology on the part of some. For instance, some newspaper articles espoused socialism and the trade-union movement which were gaining ground in Europe at the time while others, such as Felix Darfour, praised an African identity that sounds like something from the 20th century rather than the 19th. However, since most people were illiterate, elites mostly wrote in the formal public discourse for themselves, offering competing views on democratization, or relations with former colonial power France. Nonetheless, these important views are important for understanding Haitian political thought and how the newspaper functioned in creating a discourse of opposition to Boyer's rule and faced government censure.

This is a great text that simply requires more critical commentary, especially regarding historical agents whose voices are not represented in the newspapers, archives, or any other form of text. For example, how could one gain more insight on the cooperative organizations of rural Haiti in this epoch? Are her suggestions and interpretation of the data that does exist accurate? Moreover, does her thesis truly disprove the theory of caudillismo suggested by Stincombe, which would identify Haitian politics as another form of a Latin American undemocratic system, since the military's regional leaders essentially ruled the state, even if they lacked the personality cult and charisma often associated with caudillos? The inevitable class distinctions among Haitian farmers of the countryside also adds some nuance, since some independent black landholders distanced themselves from the democratic movements for inclusion represented by peasant uprisings. This illustrates the class prejudice among Haitians of predominantly African heritage against each other and competing views on how to attain black power, with some preferring the statist military and others republican institutions. Overall, Sheller's text offers exciting new interpretations of 19th century Caribbean political thought and how former slaves conceived of freedom beyond land use or freedom from coercive labor. She also includes gender in her analysis, since a slight majority of Haitians were women who were denied all political rights and subjected to a masculinist narrative of Haitian identity yet consistenly present in public protest and action as well as in the public sphere in local markets, which allowed for mobility. Thus, women, who by sheer numbers and mobility entered the public sphere, participated in protests as well as the Piquet Rebellion as well as challenging sexism by thrusting themselves into political debate and movements.

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Dan8efgjw

How Sweet It Is live by my man Marvin Gaye!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQIrwprU1SY

Another live version at the Copacabana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCwdlR8LzPs&feature=related

Live again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPKXKt5pkpo&feature=related

The best version of the song, featuring Jr. Walker's funky saxophone and an amazing funky backbeat. "I wanna stop and thank ya baby!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b35kP8MvV4U

James Taylor's version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsOBSo_jKnM

Sade's Love Deluxe

Just rediscovered this album. Classic 1990s R&B from my Nigerian-British singer. Here are my favorite songs from this great album. Unsurprisingly, these happen to be most of the songs on the album.

Cherish the Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aBAMnIUi8Y

No Ordinary Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6DQavhJUrk

Kiss of Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bD5j4bPNxA

Pearls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDMg8M4HmnQ

Feel No Pain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P9t7DFr_R8

I Couldn't Love You More
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NP6RnTsL5U

Bullet Proof Soul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryAoJWbzpg


Paradise is not from Love Deluxe but is a great Sade song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxTd8pkxYLc

Smooth Operator is also a great song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA9gUspn6gc

Your Love Is King another jam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k0nMxO6mu0

The Sweetest Taboo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRFmnAw1siY

Racism Doesn't Change That Much

Pat Buchanan in 2008: 
"First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known."


Robert E. Lee in 1856
"The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence."

Congolese 'Rumba' and Popular Music

Here is a link to my youtube playlist for Congolese rumba and soukous

My favorite Congolese song is African Jazz Mokili Mobimba by African Jazz, another pan-African jam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvnhiELp2GE&feature=related

It is also one of the most widely covered songs in the Congolese repertoire.

1. "Independence Cha Cha" by Joseph Kabasele Tshamala  and featuring Dr. Nico on guitar, composed in honor of Congolese independence. Long live the legacy of Patrice Lumumba and African self-determination. Also, a beautiful song showing how Congolese music is indebted to Cuban and Caribbean styles. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reModLpEloc

Indépendance cha cha tozui e
Oh! Kimpuanza cha cha tubakidi
Oh! Table Ronde cha cha ba gagné o
Oh! Dipanda cha cha tozui e

Franco and OK Jazz were legends of Congolese popular music. Franco, a singer and guitarist, carried on the fusion of Cuban, Caribbean, and local Congolese styles with OK Jazz. His song, "Mario," a statement on gender relations in 1980s Congo DRC became an international hit sung in the Lingala language, which is a widely spoken and understood language used in Kinshasa and western Congo. Unfortunately, Franco was not an outspoken critic of Mobutu's regime, but his music has unquestionably changed the course of not only Congolese but African pop music in the 20th century. Several of his songs are beautiful lyrically and always feature aesthetically pleasing guitar lines.

2. "Mario" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JTWuPjW6Dw&feature=related

Oh Mario
Luka ata mwasi yo moko obala
Mario mosala kolinga ba maman mobokoli
Basuka yo te ?
Lelo makambo lobi makambo nalembi
Lelo bitumba lobi koswana nabaye
Naboyi kobebisa nzoto na manzaka nalembi eh
Mario nalembi e e
Mario nabaye e e

Dr. Nico, or Docteur Nico, was a great guitarist and composer himself. He helped create the 'merengue' style of Congolese 'rumba" (but 'rumba' in Congo owes far more to Cuban son than Cuban rumba and has nothing in common in Dominican merengue). He was also a founding member of African Jazz, a 1950s band that included Joseph Kasabele, author of "Independence Cha Cha." Like other guitarists in the 1950s, he began using an electric guitar and moving away from acoustic music. However, Congolese music did not become heavily dependent on electric instruments until more recently, when soukous international fame and spread to Paris led to increased use of synthesizers, etc.

3. "Merengue" has some nice saxophone lines. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDr_Zk5V9mQ

4. "Parafifi" by African Jazz is also good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftd18tr1M6g&feature=related

5. "Maria Valente" is also great. Sounds like Cuba. 

6. Franco did a sequel to "Mario" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVFg7nCUWB8

7. "Papy Sodolo" is a live recording of Congolese musiciens in London in the 1980s. "Africa!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9ASvTcFjWk

8. Wendo Kolosoy's "Marie Louise" is also worth hearing. Beautiful name, beautiful voice. Also one of Kolosoy's early hits dating back to the late 1940s, when he became one of the first Cuban-styled bands in Kinshasa (Leopoldville back then) to record his music. He worked with a Greek who established Ngoma, a record label where Wendo starred and helped increase the production of Congolese records.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S_YVhK4Mts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3yJ6l8IpmM live 

9. "Mosala Mibala Ya Bato" by Franco & OK Jazz has some great guitar playing and a nice saxophone solo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7MrYv5jmIc&feature=relmfu

10. "Paquita" by Dr. Nico http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TJBvqI2MZQ&feature=related

11. African Jazz's "Merengue Scoubidou" by Dr. Nico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHbMDttZktU

12. "Merengue President" by Dr. Nico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWeMYsCUWbY

13. "Bella Mambo" by Franco & OK Jazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZ9GU_HxpI&feature=relmfu

14. Franco & OK Jazz's "Misele"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLsdZIzleWU

15. "Merengue" by Franco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmixJ8mZ1WQ

16. Franco & OK Jazz's "On Entre OK, On Sort OK"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-_bsKkpxhM&feature=related

17. "Pepe Kalle" by Wendo Kolosoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdufbSIkzfU&feature=related

18. "Lokumisa Congo" by Les Bantous de la Capitale 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lviFJXl405Q&feature=related

19. Wendo Kolosoy's "Bangala" and "Inongo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckLPU-MXOW8&feature=related

20. "Ele Wa Bolingo" from Franco & OK Jazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OO3jwHAX0U&feature=related

21. "Les temps passe" by Franco & OK Jazz 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_pjrIr-cjw&feature=related

22. "Mobutu" by Franco. Even though it's a praise song for an autocrat, the saxophone sounds amazing.

23. "Candidat na biso Mobutu" by Franco 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cSTL4dpcsA&feature=related

24. "Likambo Ya Ngana"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvkwOfLiDNc

25. "Ambiance Calle Katho" by African Jazz is one of the first Congolese songs to use saxophone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q2ObK85t-w

26. Succes African Jazz  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcJZN8fo7mA

27. "La mulata rumbera" http://grooveshark.com/s/La+Mulata+Rumber/3vo1AE?src=5

28. "Banana ages" http://grooveshark.com/s/Bana+Ages/3vntxm?src=5

29. "Massu" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa09d1ioU3E

30. "Ngai oyo nazongi" 

http://grooveshark.com/s/Ngai+Oyo+Nazongi/3vnsPO?src=5

31. "Grupo OK Jazz" http://grooveshark.com/s/Grupo+O+K+Jazz/3vnxzm?src=5

32. "Finga Mama Munu" by Franco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxtywNOr4V8

33. "Aya La Mode" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvnnWzMyf2k

34. "Attention na Sida" is important because Franco himself had AIDS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dwiZ5pRFU

35. "Matanga Yo Modibo" by African Jazz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkVr8Ara7oE

36. "Table Ronde" by African Jazz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReDXC0yK31M

Haiti and Colombian Musical Currents Crossing

The kompa Haitian band, Les Shleu Shleu, have a song which became a huge hit in Caribbean Colombia in the 1970s, I believe. A Colombian group, Wganda Kenya, recorded a cover that is quite interesting to hear how Haitian and other Caribbean bands influenced each other.

Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3z9yD-diU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-yB-ONr_l0

Another great song by Les Shleu Shleu, the kompa band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8j0rdkB4GY

Here is another example of Haitian music influencing Caribbean Colombia, "Homenaje a los embajadores," covered by Wganda Kenya and becoming a huge hit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSht_0JdOjU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxLQ6xml43g

Part of Charles Mingus's Letter to President Johnson and Governor Rockefeller

"I'm Charles Mingus. Half black man, yellow man, half yellow, not even yellow, not even white enough to pass for nothing but black, and not too light to be called white. I claim that I am a Negro. Charles Mingus is a musician, mongrel musician who plays beautiful, who plays ugly, who plays lovely, who plays masculine, who plays feminine, who plays music, who plays off sounds, sounds, solid sounds, sounds, sounds, sounds ... a musician who loves to play with sound."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKuwFVDmt5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23sah6aWk3A

Divinity and Natural Philosophy in the History of Western Science

Divinity and Natural Philosophy in Western Science

Concepts of divinity and have invariably impacted natural philosophy throughout the history of science. This is due to the inevitable development of cosmology in any religious system of beliefs, which in turn influences how societies across time elucidate natural phenomena. Beginning with the Homeric worldview found in the Odyssey to the Cartesian and Newtonian natural philosophy, one finds the presence of some type of cosmology influenced by a concept of divinity. From attributing all natural phenomena to divine intervention to cosmologies that gradually limit the actions of a monotheistic God in the natural world to creation. The various changes in cosmology throughout history demonstrate the inalienable relationship between concepts of divinity and natural phenomena.

Homer's Odyssey provides the reader with an important, polytheistic cosmology rooted in direct intervention of the plethora of Greek gods and goddesses to explain natural phenomena. In the Homeric worldview, the cause of each particular natural event is personified, meaning that each event is related to the personality of the gods, who like humans are emotional deities.  These deities, such as Zeus and Poseidon cause natural phenomena related to the clouds, the sea, earthquakes, storms, and the Sun. For example, Homer attributes storms to Zeus, “who marshals the stormclouds,” or power over storms. Thus, Zeus’s anger becomes the personification of thunder and storms in the Homeric worldview. Likewise, Helios, god of the Sun is enraged when Odysseus’ men steal his cattle so he calls on Zeus, who “hit the craft with a lightning-bolt and thunder.” The Homeric cosmology of divine intervention as a personified cause of natural phenomena continues in later periods of ancient Greek natural philosophy as well. The healing cults of gods such as Asclepius demonstrate a continuing belief in the divine intervention of gods in the physical world. Followers of the cult of Asclepius relied on temple priests to pray for divine intercession to heal the ill rather than diagnosing and treating illnesses. Cures through this concept of divinity derived from dreams, purging, dietary restrictions, and offerings to the gods, which were believed to miraculously restore one’s health. Indeed, one person afflicted with disease was healed through a dream in which Asclepius performed surgical operations to excise an abscess while another man’s his toe was healed by a snake during a dream. These healing practices undoubtedly have an origin in the Homeric concept of divinity as constant forces causing and shaping natural phenomena.

Future Greek schools of thought, however, moved away from divine causation of every natural event. The Milesians, Eleatics, atomists, Platonic cosmology, and Hippocratic medicine all evince elements of monotheism, atheism, and impersonalization in explanations of natural events. For instance, the Milesian worldview generalizes instead of focusing on specific natural events and transfers characteristics of the gods to non-personified entities, such as Anaximenes and Anaximander’s apeiron, the unlimited basic principle of the world that  “out of which come to be all the heavens and the worlds in them.” The Milesian divergence from the personified deities of the Greek pantheon cosmology of Homer also manifests itself in complete absence of the Greek gods, since they never appear in the writings of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. In fact, some philosophers, like Anaximenes, “determined that air is a god and that it comes to be and is without measure, infinite and always in motion.” Though they disagreed on what constituted apeiron, the Milesian cosmology moved toward non-divine intervention toward a reductionalism that endeavored to elucidate natural phenomena through epistemological shifts to empirical observation and logic. For example, Anaximenes’ explained cloud formation, rain, snow, and hail as a process beginning “…when the air is further thickened. When it is condensed still more, rain is squeezed out. Hail occurs when the falling water freezes, and snow when some wind is caught up in the moisture.”  Anaximander and Thales also described natural phenomena in a process of interrelated natural forces in ways logical to them rather than attributing to personified deities the origin of earthquakes, rain, lightning and other natural occurrences. A similar change also arises in Hippocratic medicine, which focuses on the role of empirical observation, diagnosis, and Hippocrates’ belief that “human bodies cannot be polluted by a god; the basest object by the most pure.” Though the authors of the Hippocratic writings clearly believed in the Greek gods, they rejected the attempt by charlatan temple priests to attribute human malady to divine forces. Using reason and observation, the cosmology and origin of illness described in the Hippocratic writings shares the impersonalized causes previously mentioned in the works of Milesians, Eleatics, and other natural philosophers. Plato’s divine craftsmen described in Timaeus represents a similar, impersonalized cosmology that creates an orderly world due to the agency of a good god who wanted “everything to be good and noting to be bad so far as that was possible, and so he took over all that was visible—not at rest but in discordant and disorderly motion—and brought it from a state of disorder to one of order, because he believed that order was in every way better than disorder.” Plato’s concept of divinity is that of a creator who sets into motion an orderly world.

During the medieval period, concepts of divinity also impacted natural philosophy. Scientific inquiry and the reliance on Aristotle and other classical sources during this period focused on using rational approaches to understanding the world in ways that fit Christian doctrine. This led to Catholic philosophers of the Latin West receiving support from the Catholic Church to propagate Greek natural philosophy that did not directly contradict or undermine Christianity or theism. Philosophers of the epoch also embraced rationalism and philosophy to justify and prove unequivocally their Christian faith. God to the Christian philosopher was omnipotent, omniscient and beneficent, culminating in a being of ineffable goodness that created a world through which humans are made in His image. The influence of Aristotelian natural philosophy inevitably pushed medieval philosophers toward naturalism, but Aristotle’s Prime Mover as the first cause of existence was not impersonalized due to Christian beliefs on the nature of God. The process of applying reason to validate Christian belief also led to thinkers such as Anselm, who endeavored to prove logically the existence of God in his ontological argument. Anselm, started from an assumption that God exists and begins with a prayer, nevertheless appeals to the rational mind to establish God’s existence because that which no greater can be conceived must exist both in the mind and body. In addition, the doctrine of double truth attributed to Siger Brabant represents another attempt to reconcile Christian doctrine with natural philosophy, which was not durable because of its illogical premise of two simultaneously true statements regarding the natural world. By rejecting the doctrine of the double truth, Christian Aristotelianism under Thomas Aquinas and later medieval philosophers used reason to further faith, a trend already started by predecessors such as Abelard and Anselm. Thus, despite attempts to censor the teaching of Aristotelian natural philosophy that contradicted Christian doctrine at the University of Paris in the 13th century, the reading and study of Greek natural philosophy continued and the condemnation later annulled by acceptance of the teachings of Aquinas by 1325.

Furthermore, Cartesian natural philosophy relies heavily on the interplay between concepts of divinity and cosmology to illumine natural events. For Descartes, his Christian background and belief in God as cause in the creation and establishment of the laws of nature. Descartes describes in The World a God that continues to preserve the world but that the many changes in its parts cannot “properly be attributed to the action of God (because that action never changes), and which therefore I attribute to nature. The rules by which these changes take place I call the ‘laws of nature.’ Consequently, these laws of nature are the various causes of the change in the natural world since God is immutable and would not create a perpetually changing world. Descartes’s corpuscles, sub-sensible particles set in motion by God, and always colliding to create matter, so God’s role in the natural world is solely that of Creator. He also appealed to his concept of a God that has given humans rational minds as the evidence of superiority of reason to determine knowledge. Indeed, for Descartes God cannot be a deceiver, since, as he states, “This certainty is based on a metaphysical foundation, namely that God is supremely good and in no way a deceiver, and hence that the faculty which he us for distinguishing truth from falsehood cannont lead us into error, so long as we are using it properly and are thereby perceiving something distinctly. Clearly, Descartes’s conception of God is essential for Cartesian rationalism and cosmology.

Finally, the relationship between concepts of divinity and explanations of natural events becomes self-evident with an overview of the relationship between religion and natural philosophy.  Concepts of divinity have a symbiotic relationship with natural philosophy since the two reinforce each other. Especially in the case of Descartes, or even earlier with medieval philosophers, God is essential in comprehension of the natural world because God is the source of Creation who endows humans with reason. For Homer and early Greek thought, the concept of a pantheon of personified deities causes every natural event, and is constantly intervening in the natural world. In each case, both concepts of divinity and natural philosophy have a reciprocal relationship that strengthens or builds on the structure of theology and cosmology. Often overlooked or misrepresented in history, religion and science never had an either/or relationship, since varying ideas of the divine have often been part of the furthering of scientific inquiry in the natural world.

Black Gentrification, Black Solidarity and Race in Chicago

The Contradictions of Black Gentrification as Black Solidarity

Mary Pattillo argues in Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City that black solidarity is practiced in the process of black gentrification of North Kenwood-Oakland, a Chicago historically black neighborhood known for its poverty. She asserts that despite the divergent class interests of the recent influx of black middle-class homeowners and the working-class residents, black solidarity is still the predominant factor in political action due to the primacy of race as a unifying factor of in the lives of black Americans and her belief that this dialogue on race between newcomers and the poor is the process of solidarity. Michael Hanchard and Stokely Carmichael, however, would criticize her view on black solidarity as practiced in this southside Chicago community. Both Hanchard and Carmichael would counter, due to black gentrification’s contradictory results for the working-class and poor that reproduces classism, white supremacy, and singular notions of blackness, the black solidarity practiced in this case is not real solidarity that can produce social change. Where Hanchard and Carmichael disagree is in the role of race as a key component of African American political action, since Carmichael’s nationalist position emphasizes organizing among blacks before joining coalitions while Hanchard notes the inevitable disunity and contradictions that arise from focusing entirely on racial identity as a unifying force due to the multiple identities an individual possesses simultaneously.

Carmichael, who sees the primary problem of black America as the double reality of being poor and black and any political program for blacks must acknowledge this duality, which black nationalism does as envisioned by Carmichael. Although he would admire and respect the black middle-class’s feelings of obligation to the black poor and the belief in a linked fate that predominates among blacks of all classes, since black unity across class is necessary to build political and economic power within black communities, Carmichael opposes the capitalist system which creates and reproduces the unequal social conditions that constitute racism. His economic philosophy of black nationalism embraces cooperatives under community control rather than black bourgeoisie, which participates in the white-dominated capitalist system. The black gentrification also works against the economic interests of the black poor, represented by the renters who rely on some form of public assistance to live in the North Kenwood-Oakland area.¹ Moreover, not all homeowners share the same economic background. The older residents who have acquired homes lack the higher income of professional, black gentry who cause property values to rise, hurting retirees and older folks without the means to pay their rising property taxes.² Thus, even those with stable incomes and who own their homes find their economic foothold challenged as a result of black gentrification, which contradicts Carmichael’s belief that real black economic nationalism would provide businesses and wealth through cooperative means. For Carmichael, black power economically means, “We want to see the cooperative concept applied in business and banking...The society we seek to build among black people, then, is not a capitalist one.”³ The persistence of economic injustice and absence of cooperative businesses, housing, and rising property values, in addition to measures taken by the black upper-classes to limit accessibility to public housing demonstrate the lack of real black solidarity. The poverty of blacks, who comprise a majority in this Chicago neighborhood, must be addressed to be a move toward solidarity. The larger issue of poverty remains unaddressed, despite the four mechanisms that supposedly protect the interests of poor blacks. The four mechanisms Pattillo describe that result from mixed-income communities theoretically combat poverty by doing the following: 1. establishing social networks across class that could lead to employment or education, or other resources, 2. improve social control by bringing order, strong management and eventually overall safety, 3. provide a model of upward mobility for the poor, and 4. bring increased political and economic attention to the neighborhood.⁴ But the results of black middlemen fighting poverty have not improved the conditions for most poor blacks. By clinging to a unity that privileges race over class without recognizing the intersection of poverty and race, the poor and longtime blacks of the neighborhood suffer since these aforementioned social mechanisms have served the anti-egalitarian interests of white capitalists and politicians.

Carmichael would also criticize the practice of black solidarity in North Kenwood-Oakland for its attempts to impose cultural assimilation on lower-class residents. Black gentrification paradoxically supports the imposition of middle-class white values. If one perceives Patillo’s characterization of black solidarity as just an updated version of DuBois’s Talented Tenth theory due to her belief in the power of black middlemen, then the increasing class differentiation of the neighborhood perpetuates elitism and middle-class values as the normative for social behavior. Those who cannot act in accordance with white middle-class values as practiced by the black middle-class bear the brunt of black elites’ attempts to criminalize their behavior and attacks on behavioral patterns, dress, and hairstyles. One finds evidence of the black elites’ battles with the working-class and poor by complaining about their barbecues on their front lawns and public spaces, their littering, lack of attention to middle-class standards of house decorum and how they repair cars in the street.⁵ Carmichael proposed black nationalism based on democratic practices and cooperative economics to reject the assumptions of white supremacy inherent in assimilation. Carmichael’s example of black children sent to white schools, or blacks moving into white neighborhoods as part of this underlying assumption of integration, which perpetuates whiteness as superior and blackness as inferior.⁶ In North Kenwood-Oakland, a perverse form develops that, though blacks are returning to the ghettos, they continue to accept white middle-class expectations of social behavior and morality, something that takes the form of pernicious actions against the poor. For example, new residents support screening of tenants of public housing, which culminated in a ban on anyone with a criminal record. This excludes an enormous amount of the working-class and poor since approximately 55% of black men in Chicago have criminal records and would not be allowed to live with relatives in the area.⁷ Clearly, the black middle-class’s claims to leadership in racial uplift are grounded in, as Patillo herself indicates, white middle-class notions of respectability: patriarchal family relations, sexual conservatism, financial sobriety, reserved comportment and intellectual achievement.⁸ These values reflect a class bias against lower-class blacks, who are gradually eliminated from public space as the eradication of high rise housing, screening of tenants, rising property values, and heightened policing by University of Chicago police limit the numbers of opportunities of using public space and living in the area.⁹

Hanchard, on the other hand, would defend his critique of black gentrification and its reliance on race as unifying factor by challenging the assumption of race as a singular identity. As the class distinctions and battles linked to class rage between the black upper-class and the working-class, both sides reassert the primacy of race as a factor in unity. However, as Hanchard demonstrates, using race as sole criterion for political action and organizing inevitably excludes some blacks, thereby ignoring the huge differences and multiple identities every individual balances.¹⁰ Black nationalism, for instance, is limited by its reliance on race as the sole identity for those perceived as black in society, thus ignoring the role of gender, sexuality, class and multiracial individuals whose oppression survives in masculinist, heteronormative organizations. Pan-Africanism also failed for the similar reason of assuming a monolithic blackness that ignored the unique experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world which vary according to nationality, ethnicity, culture, and lived experience.¹¹ As Hanchard himself elucidates, “By asking not “what are black people” but instead, “what tends to happen to people defined as black that does not happen with the same relative frequency to other people in a given society,”¹² one can develop a better basis for political action and solidarity that challenges sexism, heternormativity, racism, poverty, and attacks on the environment. For Hanchard, the only way black politics can make long-lasting social change is to avoid racial essentialism, which imposes a totalization of identity that ignores the multiplicity of lived experience of those designated as black. Chicago’s example of black gentrification displays this by the persistence of class oppression and poverty.

Like Carmichael, Hanchard would also criticize the class-based assault on social behavior of the black poor. Due to competing notions of what constitutes blackness, both the afrostocracy and urban poor express their individual notions of blackness and their other identities in various ways. The lower-classes may express themselves through talking in Ebonics more often, barbecuing in front lawns, and dressing more casually than black gentry, and the homeowners should not dictate what comprises proper blackness for others. Moreover, Hanchard’s theory of black politics emphasizes coalitions, since, “The creation of political community necessarily entails more than recognizing a problem or phenomena, such as racism. It encompasses the combination of ideas, peoples, and practices mobilized in response to a set of circumstances that involves other political communities, peoples, and institutions.”¹³ Without real coalitions that connect those at the bottom of the income scale to others outside of the neighborhood, beyond neighboring black middle-class residents, the ability of the black community to affect societal change by achieving redistributive economic policies is severely limited. Pattillo’s text does not elucidate how black gentrification will connect poor and working-class blacks to broad coalitions that share the same goals of economic and social justice. In fact, the black homeowners seem more concerned with protecting their investments than economic redistribution, though they also wish to dismantle racism. Unfortunately, their economic interests tie them with white elites in Chicago’s economic and political spheres, therefore they are unable to provide less fortunate blacks with a broad coalition that must include poor whites and others who share the same goal. Even Carmichael also agrees that the best type of coalition to develop and fundamentally change the nature of American politics is a coalition between the poor blacks and poor whites.¹⁴ As a consequence, the notion of a singular blackness that ignores the salience of class, gender and other identities limits the effectiveness of using race as sole criterion for a political community.

Another detrimental flaw of the political community built through black gentrification and using race as primary source for political action is the loss of politicizing social spheres. Hanchard identifies a source of black political action in its emphasis on politicizing social spaces due to the formal exclusion of blacks from politics after Reconstruction.¹⁵ For example, during the Civil Rights Movement, blacks politicized the social arena through sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotts, and music, effectively polarizing the nation to aid the attempts to end segregation through formal political practices, such as the black vote in the North. The current practice of black politicking lacks this social dimension since formal politics takes precedence through black middle-class relations with white developers and politicians in Chicago’s city politics. This loss of politicization of social spaces excludes lower-class blacks from the black coalition’s ability to enact social change for multiple reasons. First, low income residents are silenced in community meetings or outnumbered by black middle-class, who can afford to devote more of their time to neighborhood associations.¹⁶ Those less fortunate individuals without the time and funds to attend neighborhood meetings consequently lose one of their spaces to address their own socioeconomic needs. The black gentry also contradict the aims of racial uplift by their dominance of relations to whites in the political and economic systems, since they work with these formal spaces of politics in a way that hurts the interests of working-class residents in housing, economics, and policing. Their ability to express themselves and act in their own interests in neighborhood meetings and on the street is limited by attempts to curtail their individuality and behavior, which are seen as causes of poverty to some of the black middle-class.

For most blacks, the persistence of racism makes race one of unifying factors in black politics. However, as both Carmichael and Hanchard would concur, black political action that emphasizes race ignores prioritizing the class interests of the poor that transcend race. Black gentrification of North Kenwood-Oakland has failed to bring redistributive economic justice and build a stronger, black community built on cooperative economics, preferred by Carmichael’s characterization of black nationalism. Hanchard criticizes black political theory that emphasizes solely race without acknowledging the multiple identities and problems facing blacks. By clinging to a notion of race-based solidarity that neglects the divergent class interests of blacks, the people of North Kenwood-Oakland actually perpetuate social inequities that occurred as a result of racism. Although it is tempting to privilege race as the key factor of black politics due to the preservation of racism in America, Hanchard correctly notes that black political organizers should focus on “what tends to happen to people defined as black that does not happen with the same relative frequency to other people in a given society.”¹⁷ Black nationalist Carmichael would only agree in that black solidarity as practiced by the people of North Kenwood-Oakland is limited by ignoring the class-based oppression of blacks, which can occur under blacks or whites, regardless of who is gentrifying the neighborhood.

Bibliography

Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want,” September 22, 1966.

Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” Political Theory, 38, No. 4 (2010).

Mary Patillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

1 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 14.

2 Ibid.

3 Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want”: 6-7.

4 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 109.

5 Ibid., 15.

6 Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want”: 4.

7 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 282.

8 Ibid., 104.

9 Ibid., 286.

10 Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” 524.

11 Ibid., 527.

12 Ibid., 529.

13 Ibid, 525.

14 Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want”: 6.

15 Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” 520.

16 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 15.

17 Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” 529.