Robert Chrisman

Black Prisoners, White Law

The first black prisoners in America were the Africans brought to these shores in chains in 1619. Like our brothers in prison today—and like ourselves those African ancestors were victims of the political, economic and military rapacity of white America. Slave camps, reservations and concentration camps; bars, chains and leg irons; Alcatraz, Cummings and Sing Sing: these are the real monuments of America, more so than Monticello or the Statue of Liberty. They are monuments of a legal inequity which has its roots in the basic laws of the United States and which still endures. To justify and protect its oppression of blacks, white America developed an ideology of white supremacy which shaped the American state, its politics and all its interlocking cultural institutions—education, church, law. Apartheid, generally attributed to 20th century South Africa, was developed as an instrument of oppression by this country in the 1600s, and has its basis in the laws themselves, in the Constitution itself. The function of law is to establish and regulate the political and economic franchise of the citizens within a given state. The Constitution, ironically hailed as a magnificent guarantee of human equality and freedom, deliberately refused franchise to black Americans and Indians and granted it only to white Americans of means. Indeed, black people were defined as a source of white franchise, in the infamous 3/5 clause. This clause gave the slaveholder a preponderance of political power by apportioning him 3/5 constituency for every slave he possessed, in addition to his own free white constituency. The right of slaves to escape bondage was also forbidden: In Article IV, Section 2, “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Escaped slaves were to be returned to the slaveowner—by national decree. Designed by agrarian slaveholders and northern industrialists and merchants, the Constitution defined the relationship between their economic interests and their political franchise. Hence its preoccupation with finance and the divisions of power. The Bill of Rights, appended 4 years later, is an afterthought, as a concession to human rights. Black people were governed by the infamous slave codes, which forbade manumission, voting, education, civil status and personal rights and privileges. The Constitution was an apartheid document that guaranteed the continuance of slavery and racism as permanent institutions and perpetuated them as cultural realities. Despite the elimination by law of slavery and discrimination, we are still the victims of that racism sanctioned and encouraged by the Constitution.

Aspects of Pan-Africanism

(1973). Aspects of Pan-Africanism. The Black Scholar: Vol. 4, The Pan-African Debate, pp. 2-8.

The Crisis of Harold Cruse

Crusess book The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, is a remarkable achievement. Historical in approach, it traces the shape of black American cultural development for the last six years and the role of the black intellectual in that development. Documentation is thorough and extensive; many texts and sources on black experience emerge for the first time or are pleasantly renewed and the index is excellent. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual is by far the most impressive history of black intellectual development to emerge in this decade. Indeed, it has the same quality of impact on black letters and the total American sensibility that James Baldwins Notes of a Native Son and Ralph Ellisons The Invisible Man had before it. Like those

Globalization and the Media Industry

For the purposes of this discussion, globalization may be defined as a form of imperialism in which consumption and consumer values are extended, imposed upon the oppressed to fully assure identification with metropolitan values and to create the world in its own economic and cultural image. From the beginnings of European colonialism in the eighteenth century up to the decolonization movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the metropolis created a colonial elite for the commandeering of labor, minerals, foodstuffs from underdeveloped nations and regions. This elite, in turn, necessarily developed and scorned a “wretched of the earth.” Thus excluded, this group could become fully dedicated to resistance with a minimum of equivocation. But the theme under globalization is “become the ‘blessed of the earth’: buy McDonald’s, buy Nike, watch Oprah, use AT&T and go to Disneyland.” Globalization’s potential for a great coordination of human and material resources is frustrated by its imperialist dynamic, which employs fragmentation and reductionism as strategies. With respect to media, globalization has transformed the traditional role of media as a reflective force. Now media has become a generative force, an engine of the economic and political ruling class. Once the province of patriarchal capitalists and their families, the Hearsts, McClatchys, Pulitzers, and others, it has become part of huge corporate conglomerates such as General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation Ltd., AOL Time Warner, CBS Corporation. Its business now is creating both popular culture and elite culture as commodities and molding political opinion, as Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky have pointed out in their book, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) voted last December (2007) to allow companies that own television stations in the country’s twenty largest markets also to own newspapers. This overturned a thirty-two-year-ban on such multimedia ownership with three Republicans in favor and two Democrats vehemently opposed.

Black Studies, the Talented Tenth, and the Organic Intellectual

BlACK STUDIES developed in the 1960s as a result of several influences: the Brown v. Topeka, 1954 decision expanded educational horizons for blacks; civil rights workers back from the South, brought with them the model of the freedom school; the urban demographics of the 1960s were also an important factor. Post-World War 11 economics emphasized housing construction, the automobile industry, the credit card, and other aspects of consumerism. Lured by the promise of suburban living as a retreat from the crush of the cities and their social issues, whites were leaving major urban centers and, in the process, creating a fiscal and ideological vacuum. Public urban colleges, such as San Francisco State College, attempted both to cater to its privileged white population at the same time as it attempted to handle the demands of the growing black population seeking higher education as a consequence of the Civil Rights movement. Often black populations got short shrift. Ideologically, both the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power movement of 1966 on, conscionized blacks, who began to believe that struggle and self-determination were a legitimate and necessary province for blacks to achieve full equality in US society. In addition to being a race issue, Black Studies was also a class issue-an effort to incorporate poor and working-class blacks into college. But ironically, many Black Studies advocates were themselves radical petty bourgeoisie, which, as they became successful in their struggles and their careers, eventually exposed the contradiction between their own class interests and those of working-class blacks whose struggle they espoused.

The Struggle in Grenada

One of Grenada’s most important slogans during the four-and-one-half-year life of its New Jewel Movement Government was “Forward Ever, Backward Never.” More than ever, that slogan should guide us now as we attempt to comprehend the tragic and complex events of October 1983. The death of Maurice Bishop is a great loss to the Caribbean, and to the world-wide movement of Third World countries. His youth, his leadership, his political capacities, can never be recovered, and we are impoverished by his loss. And the loss of the revolutionary government in Grenada is a second blow. The savage and racist invasion of U.S. Armed Forces, the decimation of its popular institutions, the destruction of its infrastructure and the obscene recolonization of Grenada with its inevitable destruction of human dignity, are repugnant and loathsome acts, universally condemned. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that the destabilization of Grenada was an apparent consequence of events occurring within the New Jewel Movement leadership itself. Since the U.S. propaganda machine has brought its major guns to bear on the issue—anti-communism and racism—it becomes even harder to isolate the nature of the conflicts that led to the disruption of the New Jewel Movement. How could Maurice Bishop, as Prime Minister of Grenada and a founding member of NJM, be deposed by its Central Committee? How could Bernard Coard, who had not been a member of the Central Committee of the NJM since 1982, wield so much influence? And how could the actions of the Central Committee of the NJM in arresting Bishop and others of his supporters and cabinet be so much at odds with the will of the Grenadian people? It is precisely the unpopular (in every sense of the word) actions and nature of the Revolutionary Military Council headed by Coard and Hudson Austin that brought about the destabilization of Grenada and its subsequent invasion by the U.S. By disarming the militia and placing curfew upon the people of Grenada, the Revolutionary Military Council disarmed its own revolution, psychologically and materially, and with it, its capacity to effectively resist invasion. The murder of Maurice Bishop as a consequence of his arrest and the brutal suppression of the subsequent popular uprising to support him was an inevitable consequence of faulty political processes that occurred within the NJM. One cannot rule out personal, psychological and cultural factors as well, in attempting to understand the nature of the struggle in Grenada. While much is known of Maurice Bishop—his personality, ideas, values—little is known of Bernard Coard or Hudson Austin. Coard has been characterized by the U.S. media as a “hard-line Marxist,” but what Coard’s line was is not known here. Bishop was accused of “one-manism” and blamed for the economic problems of Grenada, yet Coard was responsible for economic planning in Grenada, and the brief Source: The Black Scholar, Vol. 15, No. 1, The Struggle for Grenada (January/February 1984).

The Crisis of the Non-Profit Sector

The non-profit sector of U.S. cultural and social life is facing a crisis of major proportions, as we enter the inflation-ridden 1980s and a reactionary political climate. Blacks are especially affected by the crisis in the non-profit movement. The non-profit sector is overwhelmingly composed of social welfare, educational and humanitarian organizations. The NAACP and other civil rights organizations are non-profit; the ACLU, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL and related human rights groups are non-profit, as are countless community organizations such as The National Black United Fund that focus on matters such as rent control, programs for the elderly, welfare rights, educational and tutorial programs, food and nutrition programs and legal rights. At the beginning of the 20th century, the non-profit, tax-exempt designation was intended primarily to protect the interests of enormous capitalist enterprises such as those developed by the Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Morgan and Vanderbilt families, against new tax laws and restrictions. Corporations were permitted to transfer their surplus capital into non-profit, tax exempt corporations (often bearing the same name). Thus transferred these monies could not be taxed, nor could they be used to generate profit. Instead, a portion of the endowment had to be used for philanthropic and humane activities. Finally, non-profit tax exempt organizations were banned from specific action of effect passage of particular legislation, or election of specific candidates. In exchange for this behavior, non-profit corporations were permitted lower postage rates, freedom from state and federal taxes. Donors to said organizations would receive tax exemption for their gifts. Many mainstream 20th century organizations are non-profit, such as the Boy Scouts, YMCA, United Way and charity groups. Because of their intimate linkage with the resources and values of monopoly capitalism in the U.S., their funds are not in significant peril. However, in addition to such groups, there has emerged in the last 30 years a network of non-profit activity that is devoted to various causes often imperiled by the inequalities and improprieties structured into capitalist society: minorities, women, consumers, the elderly, tenants, artists, conservation, birth control, abortion and similar groups and issues. There are two halves to the non-profit sector, one half representing and prospering from the status quo, and the other half, of a corrective nature, addressing itself to rights and issues that are too controversial and too unpopular for consideration by legislators, executives and political parties of an establishment characterized by white supremacy and male chauvinism. What has emerged is a kind of people’s democracy in which education and advoSource: The Black Scholar, Vol. 13, No. 1, The Black Elderly (January/February 1982).

A Critique of the Sexual Revolution

Within the past twenty years, a number of factors—technological, economic, psychosexual—have gone into the formation of the present phenomenon we call the sexual revolution. In the technological sphere, a new sexual ethic was ushered in with the dramatic development of “the pill” in the early 1960s. Though one is tempted to credit the pill as the key to change in sexual morality, the decision to develop and promote the pill was a key factor, and that decision came from the highest levels of the U.S. power structure, which sought to limit domestic and foreign birthrates. The Western world’s fear of the Third World populations in Asia, South America and Africa, their growing resistance to imperialism and the problems of suppressing these populations as they grew made birth control an attractive solution. In the U.S., popularizing the pill presented a problem, for the sexual ease and spontaneity it offered would loosen traditional sexual morality and offend church and conservative groups. To solve this problem, a major media campaign was unleashed to transform traditional morality. In a reversal of values, the decision was made to present the propagation of large families as being socially irresponsible. Zero population growth became the new ethic. It became the solution of white racists, white liberals and the bourgeoisie to the problems of Third World people who had to suffer and die, not because they were numerous but because they did not control their own economies. In refutation, China has shown that an enormous population can feed itself through socialist organization, in which contraception supplements rational economic development. The use of the pill gave sex itself a new dimension. Sex became a matter of consumption, as well as expression and reproduction. This emphasis correlated with the increased emphasis upon economic consumption, not production, that was being introduced into U.S. culture. The equation of sex with consumption was reinforced by the advertising industry, which sexualized its merchandising appeals: buying a convertible or a bottle of Scotch was the selection of a sexual partner, and the use of a credit card was a sexual act. Once the new ethic of limited birth was established, the exploitative use of abortion and sterilization became possible. Contraception, abortion, sterilization are now major weapons in the arsenal of the U.S.’ Agency for International Development (AID). Over 35 percent of the women in Puerto Rico have been sterilized. Massive sterilization programs have been undertaken in India and South America. In the U.S., the sterilization of black women, often teenagers, is covert policy in many welfare agencies. One must add that all people have the right to abortions, but as they so determine from their personal and familial necessities, not state coercion. Source: The Black Scholar, Vol. 9, No. 7, Blacks & the Sexual Revolution (April 1978).

THE CASE FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF PUERTO RICO

Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States—and has been ever since the U.S. government militarily invaded the island in 1898. While the U.S. government has designated Puerto Rico as a “freely associated state,” and while it is true that the Puerto Rican people elect their own governor and legislators, all aspects of Puerto Rican life are dictated and regulated by the laws and agencies of the U.S. government. For example, Puerto Rico is not represented in Congress, yet all laws passed by Congress apply to Puerto Rico and supercede any conflicting Puerto Rican laws. U.S. courts can overrule any decision of Puerto Rican courts. And Puerto Rico is not permitted to trade freely with countries other than the United States.This control particularly enriches the many U.S. corporations operating in Puerto Rico. According to a recent issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, U.S. corporations took

Ten Reasons: A Response to David Horowitz

1.67 billion in profits last year from investments in Puerto Rico. This small island provided 10% of all the overseas profi...