Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
A commentary in the StarTribune today spoke to me. Titled “Do We Have A Leader? No.” this opinion piece makes a clear and important distinction often lost. Civil rights leaders in the mold of the MLK era do not speak for, to, or with the racial underclass. The peaceful protests, the calls for action, the analytics that pillory (with good reason) the policing of a largely black community by a largely white and militarized police force are beside the point for the hustlers, drug dealers, entrepreneurs and long term unemployed.
(pic: answercoalition)
This underclass is the focus of Alice Goffman’s On the Run, the book I mentioned here a week or so ago. Her closely and compassionately observed telling of life in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood reveals the twisted, gnarled relationship between young black men (and the women who love them) with the justice system. Their life resembles that of the citizenry in dystopian movies like Judge Dredd or Blade Runner. The threat of some form of summary judgment lies moments away, day or night, at home or on the street.
This split between the underclass which responds with raw rage and the older, more political civil rights leaders creates a dynamic rife with tension and exploitable by the racist public. The youth have no leader. They have only an anarchic energy expressed by rocks through windows, looting, angry confrontations with the police or the national guard or the highway patrol. These are the actions of people with no future, no present. No hope.
As these two streams within the black community flow in different directions, the legacy of enslavement continues to place its foot on the necks of African-Americans. A community with a large complement of its young men who can find no purchase in the civil society will find long term solutions difficult. This rift must be bridged if our nation, now emerging as a racially diverse people, is to fulfill its own promises.
