The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (96 page)

51
. Other Marxist, socialist, and progressive approaches to race theory and racism attempt to theorize race as a socially, culturally, historically, and politically constructed category that undergoes change over space and time. See, for example, Cornel West, “Marxist Theory and the Specificity of Afro-American Oppression,” in
Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture,
ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp.
17–33; Lucius Outlaw, “Toward a Critical Theory of ‘Race,’” in
Anatomy of Racism,
ed. David Goldberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), pp. 58–82; Michael Eric Dyson, “The Liberal Theory of Race,” and “Racism and Race Theory in the Nineties,” in
Reflecting Black,
pp. 132–156; Leonard Harris, “Historical Subjects and Interests: Race, Class, and Conflict,” and Lucius Outlaw, “On Race and Class, or, On the Prospects of ‘Rainbow Socialism,’” both in
The Year Left Z: An American Socialist Yearbook,
ed. Mike Davis et al. (London: Verso, 1987); and Michael Omi and Howard Winant,
Racial Formation in the United States:
From the 1960s to the 1980s
(London: Routledge & Regan Paul, 1986).

52
. See Thomas Gossett,
Race: The History of an Idea in America
(Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1965).

53
. Wolfenstein,
Victims of Democracy,
p. 37.

54
. Bruce Perry,
Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America
(Tarrytown, N.Y.: Station Hill Press, 1991).

55
. Ibid., p. ix.

56
. Ibid., p. x.

57
. Ibid., pp. 41–42.

58
. Ibid., p. 54.

59
. For further discussion of this subject, see Dyson, “Beyond Essentialism,” pp. xiii–xxxiii.

60
. For insightful discussions of the predicament of black intellectuals, see, of course, Harold Cruse’s pioneering
The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual
(New York: Morrow, 1967); Cornel West, “The Dilemma of the Black Intellectual,”
Cultural Critique,
no. 1 (Fall 1985): 109–124; and Jerry Watts, “Dilemmas of Black Intellectuals,”
Dissent,
(1) Fall 1989: 501–507.

61
. Christian ethicist Katie Cannon writes about the “white academic community’s flourishing publishing monopoly on the writing of black history, black thought, and black worldview. Black scholars did not abdicate their roles in these fields to white academicians. Blacks have written monographs, theses, conference papers, proposals, and outlines for books on various aspects of black reality since the 1700s, but white publishers did not give them serious consideration until the 1970s” (“Racism and Economics: The Perspective of Oliver C. Cox,” in
The Public Vocation of Christian Ethics,
ed. Beverly W. Harrison, Robert L. Stivers, and Ronald H. Stone [New York: Pilgrim, 1986], p. 121).

62
. William James,
The Varieties of Religious Experience
(1902; New York: Penguin, 1982).

63
. Lomax,
To Kill a Black Man,
p. 142.

64
. Goldman,
Death and Life of Malcolm X,
p. 189.

65
. George Breitman,
The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary
(New York: Pathfinder, 1967); Malcolm X,
Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements,
ed. George Breitman (New York: Pathfinder, 1965);
By Any Means Necessary;
and
Malcolm X: The
Last Speeches,
ed. Bruce Perry (New York: Pathfinder, 1989).

66
. Breitman,
Last Year of Malcolm X,
p. 69.

67
. Malcolm X,
By Any Means Necessary,
p. 159.

68
. Breitman,
Last Year of Malcolm X,
p. 65.

69
. Malcolm X,
By Any Means Necessary,
p. 159.

70
. Given the variety and complexity of black nationalist thought, Malcolm could have accommodated and advocated such changes had he had sufficient time to link his broadened sense of struggle to the subsequent social and political activity he inspired. It is important, however, not to overlook the tensions between groups like SNCC and Malcolm while he lived. As Lomax says: “. . . Malcolm was never able to effect an alliance with the young black militants who were then plotting the crisis that is now upon the republic. His trip to Selma was arranged by SNCC people but no alliance resulted. The Black Power people would later raise Malcolm to sainthood but they would not work with him, nor let him work with them, in life” (
To Kill a Black Man,
pp. 157–158).

71
. Breitman,
Last Year of Malcolm X,
p. 27.

72
. Ibid., p. 34.

73
. Malcolm X,
Malcolm X Speaks,
p. 128, quoted in Breitman,
Last Year of Malcolm X,
p. 35.

74
. Malcolm X, “The Harlem ‘Hate-Gang’ Scare,” in
Malcolm X Speaks,
p. 65.

75
. Ibid., p. 69.

76
. Malcolm X,
By Any Means Necessary,
pp. 159–160.

77
. See Leon Trotsky,
Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self-Determination
(New York: Pathfinder, 1978).

78
. C. L. R. James, interview in
Visions of History,
ed. MARHO (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 270.

79
. I do not mean to rule out other genres in which Malcolm’s life and accomplishments may be examined. For an example of a science fiction approach to his life and thought, see Kent Smith,
Future X
(Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1989), which appears to have been influenced as much by Schwarzennegger’s
Terminator
films as by ideological currents in African-American culture.

1
. Gary Wills,
Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984), p. 109.

2
. Sidney Hook,
The Hero in History: A Study in Limitation and Possibility
(New York: John Day, 1943), p. 153.

3
. Ibid., p. 154.

4
. For a good social characterization of the figures who surrounded King in the civil rights movement, see Taylor Branch’s commanding social history,
Parting the Waters: America
in the King Years,
1955–1963 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989).

5
. This quote is from Benjamin Mays’s introduction to Lerone Bennett,
What Manner of
Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King Jr.
(Chicago: Johnson, 1976), p. ii.

6
. Hook,
The Hero in History,
p. 157.

7
. Bennett,
What Manner of Man,
p. 131.

8
. James P. Hanigan,
Martin Luther King Jr., and the Foundations of Nonviolence
(New York: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 31–32.

9
. Wills,
Cincinnatus,
p. 132.

10
. Conrad Cherry,
God ’s New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), p. 6.

11
. Paul G. King, Kent Maynard, and David O. Woodyard,
Risking Liberation: Middle
Class Powerlessness and Social Heroism
(Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 15.

12
. Albert J. Raboteau,
Slave Religion
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. iv.

13
. Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have A Dream,” in
A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of
Martin Luther King Jr.,
ed. James Melvin Washington (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), p. 219.

14
. Ibid., p. 219.

15
. Ibid., p. 217.

16
. Cornel West,
Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982), pp. 74–75.

17
. These terms refer to the important works of James Scott. See especially
Domination
and the Arts of Resistance
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

18
. These Census Bureau figures are usually reported on annually by Robert Greenstein in
Christianity and C risis.
For a good example of such reporting, see John Bickerman and Robert Greenstein, “High and Dry on the Poverty Plateau,”
Christianity and C risis,
October 28, 1985, pp. 411–412.

19
. For example, the Supreme Court is now, in effect, “Reagan’s Court,” due to Reagan’s appointees, who legally enact his conservative political agenda. For commentary on how the Supreme Court has turned back the clock on affirmative action, see my “Deaffirmation,”
Nation,
July 3, 1989, pp. 4–5.

20
. For a brief exploration of racism in both segments of society, see my article “The Two Racisms,”
Nation,
July 3, 1989, pp. 4–5.

21
. Washington, ed.,
Testament of Hope,
p. 38.

22
. Roger Hatch describes the relation between the perspective of the mature Martin Luther King Jr., and Jackson’s vision for America, and addresses Jackson’s evolution into the second phase of the civil rights movement, which concentrates on equity in every area of life (particularly economic justice), in
Beyond Opportunity: Jesse Jackson ’s Vision for America
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), esp. pp. 11–23.

23
. Washington, ed.,
Testament of Hope,
pp. 67, 70.

1
. Rose,
Black Noise;
Neal,
What the Music Said;
Boyd,
Am I Black Enough for You?
George,
Hip-Hop America.

2
. Sleeman,
Rambles and Recollection of an Indian Official,
and
Journey Through the Kingdom of
Oude,
1849–1850; Barren,
The Rastafarians;
Dyczkowski,
The Doctrine of Vibration.

3
. Hobsbawm,
Primitive Rebels
and
Bandits;
Seal,
The Outlam Legend;
Duncan,
Romantic
Outlaws, Beloved Prisons.

4
. Boccaccio,
Decameron.

5
. Davis and Troupe,
Miles: The Autobiography;
Carr,
Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography.

6
. Patillo-McCoy,
Black Picket Fences;
Massey and Demon,
American Apartheid;
Wilson,
The Truly Disadvantaged
and
When Work Disappears;
Kelley,
Yo’ Mama ’s Disfunktional.

7
. Kasher,
The Civil Rights Movement;
Morris,
The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement;
Dittmer,
Local People;
Fairclough,
Race and Democracy;
Hine,
Hine Sight;
Giddings,
When and
Where I Enter;
Garrow,
Bearing the Cross;
Carson,
In Struggle;
White,
Too Heavy a Load;
Norrell,
Reaping the Whirlwind ;
Branch,
Parting the Waters
and
Pillar of Fire.

8
. Guralnick,
Sweet Soul Music
; Wolff,
You Send Me.

1
. These statistics, as well as an examination of the social, economic, political, medical, and educational conditions of young black men and public policy recommendations for the social amelioration of their desperate circumstances, are found in a collection of essays edited by Jewelle Taylor Gibbs,
Young, Black, and Male in America: An Endangered Species.

2
. William Julius Wilson has detailed the shift in the American political economy from manufacturing to service employment and its impact upon the inner city and the ghetto poor, particularly upon black males who suffer high rates of joblessness (which he sees as the source of many problems in the black family) in
The Truly Disadvantaged.
For an analysis of the specific problems of black males in relation to labor force participation, see Gerald David Jaynes and Robin M. Williams Jr., eds.,
A Common Destiny,
pp. 301, 308–312.

3
. I have explored the cultural expressions, material conditions, creative limits, and social problems associated with rap, in “Rap, Race and Reality,” “The Culture of Hip- Hop,” “2 Live Crew’s Rap: Sex, Race and Class,” “As Complex As They Wanna Be: 2 Live Crew,” “Tapping into Rap,” “Performance, Protest and Prophecy in the Culture of Hip-Hop,” and in Jim Gardner, “Taking Rap Seriously: Theomusicologist Michael Eric Dyson on the New Urban Griots and Peripatetic Preachers (An Interview)” (see chap. 3, this volume).