Posted by Editor on October 22, 2007 12:48 PM to Commentary GreaterDiversity.com The New Voice of American Media
Commentary GreaterDiversity.com The New Voice of American Media: No "Monolithic Black America" - Tired Argument
By Ron Walters
I am plain tired of folks arguing that Black Americans are not "monolithic" in their thinking as if we ever were.
In the days of plantation slavery as Malcolm X said, there were Blacks who didn't want to leave the master, in fact identified with the master so much that when the master was sick, they said "we sick boss."
The damage of Booker T. Washington's conservatism was not widely appreciated by Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois and others until it became clear that he was essentially an apologist for the thinking among the White establishment that Blacks should remain in a subordinate social role. But in the post World War II era, there were people like George Schuyler, a prominent Black conservative who wrote for the Chicago Defender, who elevated his patriotism as a Cold War hawk above the deprived station of blacks.
So, these people have always been around and their role as representatives of the interests of the dominant class within the Black community has often put them in opposition to that community. In this sense, Justice Clarence Thomas is a "Johnny come lately" as the most prominent of those that Blacks have long regarded as "uncle toms."
The fact that Rev. Al Sharpton went to have a private meeting with Justice Thomas on the morning of October 9 was not to legitimize Thomas or to patronize him, but to have a frank discussion about differences. That is the same dialogue that Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter had with Booker Washington in 1904 that stimulated the Niagra movement and the birth of the NAACP. In those days, the NAACP represented the dominant interest of the Black community, as the NAACP, Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Marc Morial and others do today.
But Eugene Robinson, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, suggested in a recent column that there is no Black community because it is not "monolithic."
This is an unfounded position and about as silly as suggesting that there is no White community for the same reason. Scholars most certainly believe that these two constitute communities that are defined as such by the dominant tendencies in their attitudes and behavior - many times regardless of social class.
For example, Whites without much regard to social class oppose Affirmative Action, while Blacks support it. This says that dominant trends in cultural, political, economic attitudes and behavior define communities and Blacks are no different. Therefore, if we take the 10 percent of Blacks who vote for Republicans in most national elections as a measure of their support for the establishment, how do you disregard a nearly 90 percent show of solidarity among Blacks and say that is not the sentiment of a community?
It seems that some Black folks want to use the idea that "Blacks are not monolithic" as a badge of modernity, or as cover to side their essential agreement with the dominant themes in the establishment for whatever reasons.
The Conservative establishment uses this notion to devalue the strength - and thus, the legitimacy - of Black attitudes toward major issues of the day. If people want to espouse the line of the Washington Post, or the conservative movement, or George Bush, or Wall Street, just say, "I'm not with you folks over there any more, I'm with these over here. I'm not with the legacy of Martin and Malcolm, I'm with Donald Trump, and J. P. Morgan, or Tom Delay.
But, please don't wrap it in the easy excuse that "all Blacks are not monolithic." That is not only dishonest, but smacks of using Black people once again.
True, the Black community is diversifying and it is a big community, the size of a small nation, as I have often observed. But attitudes toward the preference for Black history, for reparations, for the value of Black music and other aspects of culture, for achievement in education, for the economic uplift of the Black community, all attract dominant responses from Blacks regardless of social class. One thing that shapes those attitudes is the history that we have undergone in America that has produced a powerful and roughly similar mind-set. Another is that events occur frequently, such as the Jena 6, or the rash of nooses popping up around the country which reinforce the notion that Blacks are the other, that they are not preferred, and thus they are under constant negative social pressure.
So, the fact that Blacks are not monolithic in thinking and behavior does not negate the fact that they exist as a strong, proud community.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Institute and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest books are: White Nationalism, Black Interests (Wayne State U. Press); and Freedom Is Not Enough (Rowman and Littlefield)
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