‘Self-Help': A Stolen Word Wielded as a Weapon Against
Black Activism
by BAR executive editor
Glen Ford
"To be successful, all
mass movements had to rely on themselves."
The mantra of "self-help" has been fashioned into a club to
bludgeon or shame African Americans into inaction on all fronts that might
challenge real power relationships in the United States. Stripped of all
meaning other than philanthropy, non-controversial volunteerism, individual
entrepreneurial pursuits, and varieties of motivational exercises, the shrunken
term is deployed as a deterrent and
warning against mass political action. Especially in recent years, Self-Help
and its attendant terms "self-reliance," "self-discipline" and "personal responsibility"
have been stolen and twisted by right-wing forces in both white and Black
society, to morally defame those who would organize Popular Power in opposition
to Money Power.
From Faith-Based Initiative-funded preachers, to corporate
groomed and financed Black media propagandists, to the near-incoherent rantings
of Bill Cosby, to the raw cynicism of George Bush's White House, a stilted
version of Black Self-Help is presented as the wise and moral alternative to
"Sixties-style" mass movement-building. A logical outgrowth of this insidious,
calculated word piracy is the theory of "victimhood," used to pillory anyone
that dares to indict the rulers for their past and present crimes against
African Americans. "Stop acting like a victim, and you won't be a victim," snap
the sneerers - the equivalent of the common white demand that Blacks "get over
it."
Victimhood theory fits nicely with some forms of narrow,
dwarfish Black nationalism, which is much more common than the number of
dashikis sold yearly would suggest. "Don't ask the white man for nuthin', stand
up like a man!" Of course, the admonition is irrelevant, since "the white man"
has never given up a stitch of his unearned privilege and power in response to polite requests - that is, in the absence of a demand and implicit, credible
threat. The directive to "stand up" while at the same time do nothing to
confront those who put and keep Black people down, is pure bravado - and
harmless to the powers-that-be. Which is how they like it.
"A stilted version of Black Self-Help is presented as the
wise and moral alternative to ‘Sixties-style' mass movement-building."
The Black/white right-wing's attempted usurpation of the
civilized qualities "self-reliance," "self-discipline" and "personal
responsibility" amounts to slander against Black ancestry. To be successful,
all mass movements had to rely on themselves, be more disciplined than the
oppressor, and imbue participants with a deep sense of both personal and
collective responsibility for their actions. The entirety of the Freedom
Movement was a glorious saga of collective Self Help, Self-Sacrifice, and
Self-Growth, that transformed African Americans, the nation, and the world.
Having nothing to offer a people in dire need of a mass
movement against increasingly hostile Power - except bromides, navel-gazing,
and "prosperity churches" - the status-quo crowd robs the English vocabulary,
expropriating for themselves the terms for all that is virtuous, while
risking...nothing. At the desired end of the process, the poor are to be left
without even the words to defend themselves. Worse, when you steal people's
words, you steal pieces of their minds.
Induced Shame
The self-styled self-helpers thrive on banalities and
generalities, through skillful use of which they get applause and "amens" from
folks who should know better - who would actually like to confront en masse
the real sources of Black economic and social hyper-vulnerability. Chanting the
mantras of "self-help," "self-reliance," "self-discipline" and "personal
responsibility," they induce group shame - an extremely debilitating, rather
than liberating, emotion. (Preachers have long understood that folks will pay
good money to be released from shame.) Substantial sections of the audience
transfer their shame to the most powerless among them, who become the
repositories of all that ails Black America.
John McWhorter, the vile Black servant for the reactionary
Manhattan Institute, even blames the poor for the Katrina catastrophe. Under
direct questioning from a radio talk show host, just months after the deluge,
McWhorter explained the horrors of New Orleans' Coliseum/concentration camp, this
way: "What we see in Katrina is single women who also have a great many
children."
Such is the logic of the Right, in blackface. It is
pointless to spend precious time arguing with these walking pollutants.
Instead, let us explore the limits of their narrow definition of Self-Help - a
definition that rejects mass action.
True Self-Help
Earlier this year, Black Agenda Report and CBC Monitor
circulated a petition with a list of seven demands for presentation to the Congressional
Black Caucus. All were rooted in issues that lay at the core of the Historical
Black Political Consensus; positions around which many generations of African
Americans had coalesced. Most were related to existing legislation before
Congress.
1.
Dismantle racially selective mass incarceration.
2.
Aid and empower those dispersed and dispossessed by Katrina.
3.
End the war in Iraq now.
4.
Get the U.S. military out of Africa.
5.
Transform the cities and create millions of jobs.
6.
Establish truly universal, single payer health care.
7.
Ensure voting rights.
Not one of these righteous demands can be accomplished by
some diluted, narrow Self-Help as preached by the Cosbys of Black America, and
most are actively opposed by Black corporate "conservatives." Churches can and do
operate "prison ministries" - a worthy project - but that cannot dismantle
an "intake" mechanism that operates at every level of the criminal justice system,
from omni-surveillance of poor Black communities to the inevitable result: one
million African Americans behind bars.
"Katrina requires a
national mobilization of millions of Black people to confront Power, directly."
The crime of Katrina cannot be addressed absent
empowerment of residents to direct the spending of many tens of billions of
dollars in "reconstruction and return." This requires a national mobilization
of millions of Black people to confront Power, directly. Volunteers have
already poured in by the tens of thousands, but can only provide some
amelioration, as all admit. True Self-Help - decisive help for New
Orleans - must come from mass political action.
Local Self-Help groups can counsel limited numbers of
returning veterans of the Iraq war, or advise young people not to join the
military. But only a mass movement (or inevitable U.S. defeat) can cause the
United States to withdraw from Iraq, quit its military buildup in Africa, and
cease threatening the survival of the planet.
No amount of community-based resources can revamp urban
structures to the benefit of masses of city-dwellers; this is a nation-building
task. Black entrepreneurship is an admirable enterprise, but it does not
significantly alter relationships of power in a world ruled by
multinational corporations. Only People Power can do that, and in the process create
the jobs that will sustain the African American presence in the cities.
Community-funded neighborhood clinics save thousands of
lives, but none of them pretend to be the solution to Third World-like Black
mortality rates. Universal health care can only be won in a twilight struggle with
for-profit medical, insurance and drug corporations and their servants in
government.
The right to vote must ultimately be ensured by a mass
movement that poses a threat to Power that makes fairness at the ballot an
attractive trade-off for the current vote-suppressors. Such was the case in the
Sixties, and so it remains.
Take Back the Term: Self-Help
The right-wing theft of the term Self-Help is a sacrilege
against our heroic dead and Black history, itself. Wasn't Harriet Tubman
engaged in Self-Help when she escorted hundreds of slaves out of bondage?
Didn't the Pullman Porters exemplify Self-Help in their decades of struggle for
recognition as a union - and as men? Were not the young lunch counter
integrators involved in Self-Help, as they put their bodies in danger and their
academic careers at the mercy of handkerchief-head Black college
administrators? Was the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 something other than
Self-Help? Who would have done it but ourselves, and the allies we
enlisted? Are the youthful Black Panther Party members who aggressively
monitored police in Oakland, California, to be expelled from the Self-Help
definition? Did scores of Party members die helping other people than their
own? Is the fight for a living wage beyond the pale of Cosby and Co.'s
Self-Help parameters? Does the mass demonstration at Jena, Louisiana, qualify
as Self-Help?
How dare rascals and poseurs attempt to steal our language -
and heritage.
Frederick Douglass would be horrified at the mangling of
Black political culture, mugged directly or indirectly by Money Power's
intervention in Black affairs. Douglass, a man of many words, treasured only
two:
"Agitate, Agitate, Agitate. Organize, Organize, Organize."
That's Self-Help.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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