Subtitled the Politics of Black Organizations.
Spence is a great provocateur for me. In the past couple of months we've talked on the phone maybe 7 times. Each time we ramble into interesting places. There are only a few people I know with which I can do that. One of them was Richard Yarborough, the prof at UCLA with whom I've had exactly two conversations in 15 years. I suspect that Gerald Early and I could talk up a blue streak. These are the geek moments I live for.
Part of the great difficulty of black intellectual life at this moment in American history is that we live in a post-Civil-Rights world which also has a real cultural acceptance of racial integration. Though I haven't mentioned anything about the passing of Kenneth Clark, we live in his legacy. For ideological and economic reasons, there is now an internal black diaspora in America. In Clark's day, all of the best and brightest black scholars could be found at Howard University. By the time I was ready to apply to an undergraduate program, it was clear that I had a wider variety of choices. (It is interesting in hindsight to review which colleges recruited me - I really had no idea about their repuptations). This creates an interesting problem which I feel personally and that Black America feels collectively. That is the matter of The Hookup.
Just like the idea of the Drop Squad, African Americans have a sense of longing for The Hookup. 'Hook a brother up', means where's my cheese? Where's my inside track? We've been on this land for more than 400 years, show me the places I can breathe free and get some benefits. This is social and it is political as well. We want not to have to be the first blacks anywhere. We want somebody to introduce us, show us the shortcuts, tell us whom to ignore and whom to mind. Having been a road warrior for many years, the Hookup for me often entails something as simple as finding a good barbershop in whatever town I happen to be in. But it's also as sophisticated as determining which of the many black conservatives who get national exposure are closest to my own political philosophy and determining their influence on the national scene. Blackfolks looking out for each other is made manifest by the Hookup, simple or complex.
So getting into the point, what do black undergraduates do when they begin classes at a predominantly white campus? Do they join a black fraternity or sorority? Do they join the black student union? Do they sit at the same cafeteria tables? Do they form study groups? Do they segregate into various cliques? Those are too many questions, but let's focus on the matter of how it is that blackfolks who would be leaders go about getting leadership experience.
Even that's a huge area of study, but I think it's very useful in determining what the hallmarks of leadership are as regards whom black masses might consider their leaders and how black leaders might seek to appeal to those masses. Leave it at that black on black dynamic for a minute if you would.
What Spence told me that resonated was that his fraternity was tightly organized whereas the Black Student Union on campus was lame. The same was the case at my school. Furthermore, what the BSU tended to do was grab the lowest common denominator of black students on campus, therefore having the largest numbers.
I'm going to get specific to my own experience and make some general assessments. Your mileage may vary.
I never bothered to be a black leader per se although I was called. It's probably fair to say that much of my early concept of my Talented Tenth upbringing was more about being 'proper' than it was to modify the behavior of my peers. My sense of responsibility always had more of the connotation of ability than that of didacticism. I figured I might be a leader because all the other kids were just cutting up, while I was being straight. They wouldn't because they couldn't, it had nothing to do with my force of personality. And so that left me in strange places, especially when dealing with charismatic individuals who were just wrong. Hell, I could name names all through the 'hood and into high school - people who lead with black style and charisma, but at some level were knuckleheads.
Examining this dynamic from a black perspective could be said not to be useful at all, except that the general presumptions against blackfolks in general allow black fakers to be exposed more often than white fakers. The consequences of that, and general black on black hateration results, to my eyes, of black organizations not getting much benefit of any doubt. Despite whatever validity they might have in their aim or organization, this concern about fake leadership is a burden that black orgs have. I'm not so sure this has changed much since my college days.
So what I'd like to investigate in this thread is what might be done to establish the Hookup. Determine what are reasonable expectations of it and assess where my generation and the next are able to take this. How can I know when I'm getting hooked up with an okey-doke organization? How can I get objective when the subjectivity of it being a *black* anything might be making me irrational? What's particularly fascinating to me are some of the stories I am getting back from, among other places, South Africa which seems, very much like Brazil to offer African Americans (ok African American men), some very extraordinary social and business opportunities.
Posted by mbowen at May 11, 2005 01:29 AM | TrackBackHow do you class men and women with SPF 500 who occupy high-office in corporate and public sector America but seem terribly grudging about extending the hookup?
Black politics in Kansas City - and I'd argue across the state of Missouri - is terminally constipated by fakers such as the ones you describe above. However, still deeper in the cut, are those folks who've historically occupied high stations in large organizations and who from all appearances had the wherewithal to do tremendous good, yet for whatever combination of reasons, [COONING] ranks high in my list of motivational suspicions, were
1. prevented,
2. refused,
3. failed, or
4. neglected
to do so. My sense of history is always offended when I thumb through old Ebony's and look at the *firsts* in some or another corporate field of endeavor, and note that as often as not, these folk were also the *lasts* inasmuch as they did the bare minimum to extend the hookup to many they shoulda, woulda, coulda?
Posted by: cnulan at May 11, 2005 11:33 AMI think part of it has to do with the college experiences of the would be organizers. Those who had no prior experience with leading a successful black organization on a white campus would tend to be more circumspect about doing so where they make their money. There are a whole host of dysfunctions that issue from there.
Among those who aren't fake, there is equally the difficulty in reaching out to rabble-rousing community groups that bite the hand that would feed them. Once burned, twice shy.
Thirdly, from the corporate side, there is the pressure to do what other non-black colleagues do, which is network for success rather than role model for community props. This is a particular nit with me; another reason I tend to be elitist.
More later
Posted by: Cobb at May 11, 2005 03:53 PMI don't role model but I do mentor. You can network for success but still help out along the way.
Or am I missing something?
Posted by: DarkStar at May 11, 2005 09:52 PMI can certainly understand where LKS was coming from in discussing the BSU at the college level...my undergraduate experience differed from his, but my graduate school experience was THE SAME as his undergraduate (same school, same time). I would say the core issue continues to be Certainty of Consequence. In most black organizations, there is no certainty of consequence...sanctions of an extreme nature are not part of the calculus of decision-makers. In LKS' fraternity, there was a COC that created integrity, glue, follow-through and results. The black community in the US has not restored the COC that is fundamental to a sovereign entity with viable economic and military institutions. LKS' fraternity served as a type of military institution (in the best sense) by providing security and the threat of sanctions. The BSU lacked the internal dynamics to achieve this. It was only achieved on an ad hoc basis and generally through the machinations of outsiders serving a support function. "Fakers" operate in environments where the potential payoff greatly exceeds the likely sanction. The lower the probability of a sanction, the higher the probability of "fakers." Hence the overwhelming number of preachers, non-profit CEO's and poverty pimps.
Posted by: Temple3 at May 12, 2005 10:55 AMAs to the notion of giving back, leadership is defined by the context of the organization, not the words of the "leader." If the organization is weak in terms of mission, finances, training, and project fulfillment it is a weak organization...regardless of the charisma of the leader. Weak organizations cannot provide effective mentorship - and they are invariably led by weak leaders.
Simply, getting the hook-up means identifying, networking and collaborating with strong leadership and strong organizations. Building a chain with weak links is hardly worth any time and effort. That are there are so few strong organizations is a logical by-product of our experience here.
The final component of this is that not everyone seeking a strong organization is prepared to belong to a strong organization. These collectives retain their strength by excluding some segment of their "universe of potential members." So, this is a two-sided issue, at the least.
Posted by: Temple3 at May 12, 2005 11:01 AMThis is actually a discussion that I would like to keep alive because it's so broad and there are so many angles to investigate.
I'm going to drop in Colin Powell's Rules of Leadership.
# It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
# Get mad, then get over it.
# Avoid having your ego so close to your position that, when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
# It can be done!
# Be careful what you choose, you may get it.
# Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
# You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
# Check small things.
# Share credit.
# Remain calm. Be kind.
# Have a vision. Be demanding.
# Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
# Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
I bring this up because an expanded version of these rules adorned the walls of the company in N. Salt Lake City where I spent the past week and a half. I completely forgot to take a digital photo of them and now I'm going to have to call my new colleague back and see if he can get me one, or at least the address to the place where I can order them.
The point underscores the matter of military discipline and that most business organizations of the 20th century got their first cues from military organization. Things have become a lot more sophisticated beginning in the 80s in reaction to the emergence of the Japanese, the rise of the MBA and advances in IT with management consulting but the hierarchies of command are the predominating model.
The reasons that individuals are drawn to black organizations, I think has a lot to do with Powell's last rule - Optimism is a Force Multiplier. I've heard Cornel West bleat a derivative of that a dozen times. He speaks of blackfolks having Hope as opposed to Optimism. But the force multiplier of hope works the same way. The problem is, however, that an organization that is all carrot and no stick cannot function on hope and optimism when times get rough. Then it's back to the paradigm of outrage.
I'm going to post my thesis on Black Rage as a follow up.
Posted by: Cobb at May 12, 2005 12:55 PMThe "stick" for black organizations has to be the same as it is for other effective organizations - the ability to alter the material circumstances and physical choices of participating individuals or induce psycho-social compliance. Simply put, coercion or brainwashing (also known as "paradigm changing")
Human nature will not allow the convenience of an authentic, unbridled participatory democracy...folks with effective structures should be willing to dictate terms and follow through. It's not always pretty, but then, the aesthetics are hardly the point. Powell's phrasings sound good from here - but his is the case of the quintessential divorce from cultural imperatives. Were Powell a dynamic blend of Thutmosis III and Touissaint L'Ouverture, we would have more than pithy maxims. Instead Powell follows in the footsteps of enlightened European soldiers/statesmen like Rommell and Churchill - waging external battles for external reward. Still useful, but not the Hook up.
Posted by: Temple3 at May 12, 2005 01:24 PMI find it difficult to believe that anybody at all gets kicked out of the NAACP. I bet that Cosby is still a member in good standing. There's no cost for heterodoxy and there is very little but psychic benefit for orthodoxy.
Let's bring it down to cases. I know that if you join the Nation of Islam, they will help you buy a house. Yeah you have to give them your salary, but they do leverage your moola and get you a good rate. This may have changed since the last time I looked, but it was the case when a friend of mine joined less that 8 years ago.
What you get from being a member in good standing of the Urban League or the Congress of Racial Equality is what? Black community activist credibility cookies? If you laid all of the black commmunity activists end to end, you could reach the moon, but you wouldn't make a dent in black unemployment statistics. So where is the accountability? Hell, where is the list of these organizations?
If somebody came to Vision Circle today and said, where can I find a homeless shelter in Jacksonville, could we ever possibly be better than Google? No. Not until the Hookup is real. And this is the opportunity I've been banging on for 15 years. It's one of the reasons I started this joint. Now is the time to make it real.
Posted by: Cobb at May 12, 2005 01:43 PMOne of the problem that temple pointed out was a quasi military organization that is lacking in the hookup vs fraternal.Lets take it one more step Black people in the main have a hard time folowing other Blacks but not so hard following white people.In order for the hook up to work you must follow instruction and don't deviate.
Posted by: tootsie at May 13, 2005 01:05 PMi was surprised to see that no one commented on the third problem faced by the Black trendsetters looking to create 'the Hookup'. that is, if you hire people that look like you then you're accused of 'favoritism'. it means that you have to be extra careful (and critical) of the cullud people you do hire, while your white colleagues can bring in their nephew or heywood jablomie without a second thought.
far as the leadership thang, I'm with DarkStar on the mentor thang. i've been blessed to be a mentor for the Posse Foundation (www.possefoundation.org). they award full-ride scholarships to urban youth, and one of their criteria is that the student has to show leadership in highschool AND obtain a leadership position once they get to college. it won't be a problem for any of my twelve - they're so talented and mature that i feel like i'm blessed everytime i talk to them. in any case, check Posse out...do they fit the criteria for the discussion so far?
Posted by: bemused at May 16, 2005 11:37 PMLet me think about this a bit. I remember talking to a friend of mine on the phone the day before the Million Man March. We worked together briefly in undergrad--my boy and I had gotten him the job in fact. He reminded me of what I'd told him after he'd been absent on the job.
"We got you this job, and when you work here you not only represent yourself, you represent US...and you represent BLACK PEOPLE."
Now I did say this to him...but I had absolutely no recollection of it until he mentioned it to me. It made a great impact on him at the time.
As I think back on this, the critique of favoritism wasn't what I was scared of. I wasn't nervous that my boss would sanction me and my boy. But I DID want to represent a certain vision of what black people were capable of.
Posted by: Lester Spence at May 17, 2005 01:46 AM
The path to the hookup;what should it entail,and how wide a path should it be and all inclusive sojourn even for those outside the talented tenth.The Black expierence in of itself is a path.
Posted by: tootsie at May 11, 2005 09:00 AM