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Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1468
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 08:29 am: | 
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The End of the Black American Narrative
A new century calls for new stories grounded in the present, leaving behind the painful history of slavery and its consequences
By Charles Johnson
As a writer, philosopher, artist, and black American, I’ve devoted more than 40 years of my life to trying to understand and express intellectually and artistically different aspects of the black American narrative. At times during my life, especially when I was young, it was a story that engaged me emotionally and consumed my imagination. I’ve produced novels, short stories, essays, critical articles, drawings, and PBS dramas based on what we call the black American story. To a certain degree, teaching the literature of black America has been my bread and butter as a college professor. It is a very old narrative, one we all know quite well, and it is a tool we use, consciously or unconsciously, to interpret or to make sense of everything that has happened to black people in this country since the arrival of the first 20 Africans at the Jamestown colony in 1619. A good story always has a meaning (and sometimes layers of meaning); it also has an epistemological mission: namely, to show us something. It is an effort to make the best sense we can of the human experience, and I believe that we base our lives, actions, and judgments as often on the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves (even when they are less than empirically sound or verifiable) as we do on the severe rigor of reason. This unique black American narrative, which emphasizes the experience of victimization, is quietly in the background of every conversation we have about black people, even when it is not fully articulated or expressed. It is our starting point, our agreed-upon premise, our most important presupposition for dialogues about black America. We teach it in our classes, and it is the foundation for both our scholarship and our popular entertainment as they relate to black Americans. Frequently it is the way we approach each other as individuals.
Read the Entire Essay at:" http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/narrative-johnson.html |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 7243
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 11:01 am: |
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When the Jews stop bitching about 4,000 years of mistreatment (they still got a beef on with Pharoah, Nero, Torquemada et al, when the Irish stop bitching about Oliver Cromwell, when the French stop bitching about the 100 years War, when EVERYBODY else puts all that old shit behind them
AND
When white folks stop pining for slavery to return or at least Reconstruction it will be time for us to forget all that.
To do that before the time is to risk suicide
Which people like Charles Johnson would like to do.
If we forget all that, how do we explain why we are in the sorry mess we are in (and we ain't got to go back to 1865--not unitl 1965 did Negroes have the legal right to even use the same TOILET as a white person.
Not only are Negroes alive who bear the scars of that, but there are white folks alive who want to get you niggers back out of their crappers.
Self Loathing Negroes, pile on.
Too bad you ain't got the guts to go live with your mess. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12612
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 11:25 am: |
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I was intimidated when I saw how long this article was, but once I got into it, I was totally blown away by everything this man said because he articulated and intellectualized the ideas my mind has been trying to integrate into coherence.
Charles Johnson will be attacked by many in the black community who want to cling to the past and to preserve the sacred black credo that has taken mythological proportions, but I commend his forward-thinking and his courage to put truth and reality into the frame-work of words. IMO.
Thanks for posting this, Troy! |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1473
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 11:54 am: |
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I found the quote by C. S. Lewis on the characteristics of the human mind useful when think about conversations on this board:
“Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them—never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?”
Ok Chris, I'll pile on too.
Chris nowhere did Charles say "forget" the past. I'm not sure what you read in the article to give you that impression.
I took from the article that we, in the modern era, need a new paradign, a new contruct, for describing and relating to our current situation.
Of course what Charles is saying is nothing new. I did however think that he atriculated it very well. I also think if CNN approached their program on with a relavent premise, they may have had a much better program.
Where CNN failed, I think, especially after reading Johnson's piece, is that they proceeded from the presuption of victimhood from the legacy of slavery. But they failed to tie anything together in a way that made sense. So CNN shows women with multiple children from different fathers and never explained why...
The implication is 400 years of slavery, but they don't say that. The real answer may be much simplier. It could stem from well meaning legislation of the 60's that provided resoures for unwed mothers while discouraging the father from being part of the household and the mentality has propogated for generations.
People talk about drug laws being harsher for crack cocaine users and more lax for powdered cocaine. CNN does not explain this either, again the implication is the legacy of slavery...
See I remember crackheads prositituing themselves in plain day light, breaking into homes, smashing your car window to steal pocket change out of the ash tray, and the drug dealers shooting up the neighborhoods battling over turf.
Reidents demanded that the police do something - and they did; laws were passed to mete out harsher sentences for drug offenses; they began locking these menaces! Now that the neighborhoods have improved people are complaining again.
...and don't get me started on the public school system.
Slavery does not explain these conidtions anymore than it explains the success of Oprah Winfrey and Dick Parsons.
It seems to me when we were establishing institutions like Howard and Morehouse/Spelman, creating new art forms like Jazz we were, in some ways, better off then than now. Our current state does not follow they same trajectory started at the end of slavery. |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1474
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 12:21 pm: |
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Cynique I just noticed your post. So far the feedback I seen has been negative. Indeed, I learned about the article from an email I got from a Brother that had issues with Johnson's piece.
The person who emailed me said in part:
quote:...What is blaring is that Mr. Johnson contradicts himself and thus misinterprets the essence of MLK's dream speech, which has as its problematic racism: "Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of when he hoped a day would come when men and women were judged not by the color of their skin, but instead by their individual deeds and actions, and the content of their character." To say that this reality exists presently is startling outrageous.
So we have two problems in Johnson’s essay 1) over-emphasis of the meaning of the presence of a “new black middle class and 2) the dissociation of racism as the bedrock of slavery and Jim Crow and thus his claim of its naturalness. I assume Professor Johnson's essay will become the unofficial position of an Obama administration. Such a position is what many of us feared, a conservative, reactionary response to race oppression and black misery; that is, blacks are no longer victimized as a group, only as what is merited individually."
When Johnson writes, "I believe this was what King dreamed and, whether we like it or not, that moment is now." He is not saying that there is no racism. Indeed he says, in effect, that racism like crime will never end be removed from humanity.
What I believe he is saying is that it is time to move on... |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12616
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 12:26 pm: |
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Chrishayden is mired in a martydom mind-set that Johnson speaks of. And just because the Jews and white folks maintain their security blankets, do Blacks have to emulate this and take on the counter productive stance of victimization? It's time for us to snap out of the inertia of pouting and move ahead. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12617
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 12:40 pm: |
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Troy, this article takes Blacks out of their comfort zone. It attacks sacred cows and offends people who need a boogie man to attribute bad things to.
Critics of Johnson would rather re-hash familiar arguments and point fingers of blame and throw a pity party about the plight of black people, all of which solves nothing. If a strategy has been employed for 50 years and progress is stunted then it's time to try a different tack. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12618
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 01:21 pm: |
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On Tuesday, Congress passed a bill that offers a full apology to Black Amercans for the slavery and Jim Crowism that this country subjected them to for hundreds of years.
True, this is just a token gesture, but it will deflect the thrust of the black voices constantly raised in a litany of grievances about racism. |
Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 386
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 05:51 pm: |
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Okay, I gotta read the article before I can comment on it specifically, but the timing is interesting for me. Last night, a close friend and fellow writer shared the draft of her application to a prestigious fellowship program with me. One of the things she hopes to do by researching and teaching in South Africa (in conjunction with her work here in the States) is to help change American academia's fixation with apartheid-era literature about South Africa (written by South Africans and others). Apparently, Europe and Africa have moved on to embrace post-apartheid South African literature, but the American academy is still mired in the past. I wouldn't say that her efforts are intended to erase the history of apartheid or to minimize it; I think her efforts are to broaden the canon of what the academy views as "South African literature".
Maybe Johnson has similar intentions? |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12621
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 06:33 pm: |
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As I remarked, people will resist and ridicule what Johnson says and try to debunk his points because old habits die hard.
Certain Black people need scape goats and arguments to advance ideas that make them appear to be perceptive and hip to the whys and wherefores and consequences of racism. But so f u c k i n what? Their claims are old hat now.
Yes, racism In America is institutionalized, yes, Western man has exploited and colonized the world, and evil blue-eyed devils have wreaked havoc on people of color at home and abroad. Now what?
Black folks like chrishaydn are still shifting from foot-to-foot, stickin out their bottom lips, wringing their hands, woo-wooing and blah-blahing about the same-ol same-ol, attempting to relegate any black person who isn't stuck in the mental mode of being what he, himself, is: A Negro who thinks that when America collapses, he will still be standing.
Wake up and smell the coffee, folks, Nation time has come and gone - and failed. Black folks ain't got a leg to stand on. Just a bunch of tired rhetoric that tries to drown out one truth with another truth, an approach that has yet to bring about anything but divisiveness.  |
Thumper
Veteran Poster
Username: Thumper
Post Number: 575
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 12:49 am: |
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Hello All,
I love Charles Johnson's novels and short story, which is why I decided to plow through that long ass-ted article. I agree with what he said...BUT, WE, as a nation aint there yet. There is always two sides to a coin. Johnson sees our history as rooted in victimization, I see it as a strength. Just because a person gets tired of the fighting does not mean, CYNIQUE, that the fight is over! Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not out to get you!
There's a line in the song "Young Gifted and Black" where Nina Simone wrote that "this is a quest that has just begun".
So, while a portion of the problem is some black folks who constantly blame the white man as the reason why he/she is trifling, aint supporting their own kids, living at they mama's house when their silly ass girlfriend kicks him out of HER apartment; we also have those who wants to turn a blind eye and go and lightin their skin, where those blue and grey contact lenses, and talk through their damn noses because they dont want white folks to think that not all black folks are LIKE THAT but when they siddy asses gets pulled over for DRIVING WHILE BLACK, their damn feelings gets hurt. And like OJ, Michael Jackson, and the rest...they cant get black enough, fast enough in order to shout RACISM! One day we will learn to be still and just BE.
The truth is this country was based on racism, it is in every fiber of the country so wishing it away won't make it go away. Ignoring it does not mean that its not there. So instead of picking at that loose painful tooth, wouldn't it be better to just yank that puppy out, get some Orajel and know that one day the pain will stop.
Now, what got me about the article was the last part, the writing of the new role of us in this 21st century, as we are now. I dream that dream too, can anybody point me towards a book that reflects that, where the writing is solid, the grammar is good and all that stuff. And may someone can ask Johnson for me, not only who is doing this writing, but which publishing company is publishing it, who is buying it, and most importantly who is reading it!?! Because I'm looking around at the books that are surrounding me and I'm not seeing it. I see the lies and the fantasies, but nothing reflecting our lives as it is now. |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 3110
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 10:31 am: |
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I'll go back to the article at some point. But I have got to say: My first reading I found myself chuckling quite a bit. (And not in the good, ha-ha-funny sort of way.) Does Mr. Johnson somehow assume that the old "Black American narrative" is so well and so widely known? I find such an assertion comical, and downright dishonest. Beyond academic circles, most folks know very little about "Black victimhood," emblematic in American slavery. Thumbnail sketches, perhaps. The story in the broadest of strokes, yes. But I'd say ignorance is a bigger problem than rehashing when it comes to the types of narratives Johnson is talking about.
In fact: it's convenient that he could use this narrative as his own "bread and butter" and then declare now that that particular rug should be taken up so that others, with other stories to tell about it, cannot walk across it.
It is also not surprising that a preemptive critique against anyone who would speak against Johnson's views would be labeled as accused of holding onto old, comforting straws. But the idea that we need to "let go" of telling stories about slavery is also very old-hat. In fact, it is only very recently that you could find Black folks willing to talk about slavery or Jim Crow era injustices. There was a lot of shame surrounding this, which is why we have likely lost more first-hand stories than we have been able to capture about these experiences.
Again. I'll go back and read the article again more carefully. But I am highly suspicious anytime anyone claims that some stories should not longer be told. ("The End of....") There is room for the addition of different stories without having to relegate (IMO, prematurely) other stories to the trash heap. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12622
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 12:14 pm: |
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I don't think Johnson was telling anybody to forget where we came from. He was telling us that this is A NEW CENTURY, and it's time for a new approach because the other one has run its course! Yet Blacks continue to excoriate The System and then expect it to work for them, continue to chant the old "white folks do it, too" mantra. But unless there is a revolution that will overthrow the white capitalistic government, and unless black people become a race of clones who all follow a single leader, then it ain't gonna happen - except on an individual basis. But dream on, folks. That's what black folks do - dream, and sing, and march and lament. So I repeat. Now, what????
I'm sure this rift in thinking has a lot to do with the generation gap. An old lady like me wants to think outside the box, but younger folks want to press the re-run button. I do confess that maybe I have over estimated the awareness of the average black person, assuming that they were able to figure out that it's time for a change.
Anyhow, whether people agree with Johnson or not, I consider what he reminds us of is a breath of fresh air just as worthy of being heard as the same old rhetoric that has been preached for a 100 years.
Blacks can continue to pick apart each other arguments but it all boils down to a contest wherein each participant has an "Aha, I gotcha!" moment. And the beat goes on. |
Yukio
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2489
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 04:24 pm: |
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It was an interesting article to say the least. Let me say first that I don't like his term, black American. I also disagree with his premise, that the major "black American narrative" has been racial victimization.
I do get his point, as Cynique points out, that "it's time for a new approach because the other one has run its course!"
As i read, and often reread, this country's history as it concerns the darker nation, as Eddie Wesley describes us, I think of resistance, that is, struggle for freedom, a spiritual emancipation not victimization. I think of many, many successes, but hope for many, many to come out way.
I think of blues, deep blue, in the depths of pain but assured somehow, someway that you will rise above. I think if Mr. Johnson took a closer look at his native-born culture--blues, jazz, hip hop, modern dance, Baldwin, etc.. . rather than Husserl, Appiah, and others his analysis and understanding of our past would be richer.
If we return to DuBois, in the Souls of Black Folk, we can get at our experience then and now, in the post-civil rights era:
Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.
I say this, I am fortunate, educated, employed, but I feel this when I enter 7 11, and I am asked this by people not about myself...because you know I'm different, but about my people. Charles Johnson's article too claims that we are the problem, because we are telling the wrong stories, and so if we tell the right one, I wonder if that story will get more jobs for black folks, more funds in schools in black areas, convince teachers that black students are teachable, etc . . . |
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