CRITICISMS OF NAJEE ALI REMINISCENT OF THE SIXTIES

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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CRITICISMS OF NAJEE ALI REMINISCENT OF THE SIXTIES

I recently wrote a piece urging Najee Ali to consider running for the City Council seat being vacated by Councilman Herb Wesson to run for County Supervisor, and no sooner than I hit “post” a hater popped up with criticisms of Najee Ali. That brought back to mind all the bad memories of White supremacist indoctrination and character flaws within the Black community that led to our sabotaging ourselves during the sixties.

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As a product of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties I remember all too well how Black idiots and turncoats teamed up with establishment bigots of the time to create “Cointelpro". Cointelpro was ‘a series of covert and, at times, illegal projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations’.

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Many tend not to remember it today, but during that time, bigots used the Black community’s own self-hatred and internal jealousies to break the back of the civil rights movement.  They placed Black haters within the various civil rights organizations to stir up hatred, division, and confusion. They were talking about Malcolm like a dog, and calling Martin Luther King an Uncle Tom; Maulana Ron Karenga’s “US” organization was fighting the Black Panther Party, and the Nation of Islam was upset with everybody. And now, I’m sad to say, after all these years, it's obvious that we haven’t learned a thing.

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The fact is, while we often fail to recognize it, many Black people contracted a serious mental disorder during slavery, and it's been passed down through the generations over the years. It entails an innate distrust and disdain of our own people, a lack of focus, a seeming inability to prioritize, and the tendency to be disagreeable and hostile toward anyone who challenges the status quo. That attitude makes it next to impossible for Black people to come together and organize to improve our condition - and it also serves to insure the stability of this White supremacist system.
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So the White man has done his job well. He's convinced a sizeable number

THE HAPPY NEGROES

of mindless Black people to hate their own - not all, by any measure, but more than enough to sabotage Black progress. I call them the "Happy Negroes" - they're happy to be second-class citizens, fully accept that as their place in life, and is convinced that any Black person who doesn't accept it is being "uppity". Thus, such people will hate a person like Najee Ali for no other reason than he's well known and fighting back. From their point of view, that's not a Black man's place, unless he's been pre-approved by the White man. 

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It’s hard to believe today, but even Martin Luther King was initially criticized by the Black church for causing an unnecessary disturbance to the

status quo. They told him to stop rockin' the boat and simply pray on his concerns and eventually racism and bigotry would work itself out. The mindset of Black distrust was so pronounced within the Black community that Malcolm was killed by his own people. So when it came to brainwashing the Black man, the White man had done his job well, and we still see its impact on Black attitudes today.
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As Black people we’ve got to learn that we’re not a tribe where everybody is obligated to think alike. While our mission must be aligned, independent thinkers are an asset, not a liability. We all have different talents and experiences in life, so no one man, or philosophy, corners the market on either knowledge, wisdom. or intellect. So we must both learn from, and help to educate one another. While I might be a better writer than you are, you may be able to help me out in math.
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My late wife and I learned that lesson as a young married couple. Instead of defining our respective roles in the family according to gender, we based our roles on who was best at a given task, and that served us very well. When it came to having something done around the house, my wife would take control. She would hire the contractor and supervise his work. But if later he tried to run some sort of game on her, she would say, “Wait a minute. Let me let you speak to my husband.”
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That’s how we should address our tasks in the community – we should seek to cultivate ALL of our talents, and thereafter, who’s ever best at a given task should take the lead instead of getting into self-serving spitball fights over who’s going to be the “leader” of the community. We must ALL be leaders. I don't have the talent or personality to be a community organizer so I leave that to Najee Ali, and I use whatever talent I may have to support his efforts. That's the way to move forward, not badmouthing and trying to sabotage him because he's better known than I am. That's petty and immature - it's a form of Trumpism.
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Finally, I’d like to address Najee’s statement that he’s content doing what he’s doing because it allows him to address issues in the ENTIRE community, as oppose to limiting himself to only one councilmatic district.
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In response, I’d like to say to Najee, I think you’ve anticipated and chosen not to be bothered with all of the ignorance and negativity outlined above. But I’d like to point out that having to deal with that kind of nonsense is also a part of moving the community forward. And with respect to being able to serve the entire community, simply because you assume an official position on the City Council doesn’t mean that you have to give up your activism in the community as a whole. In fact, the two activities would compliment one another.
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So, Najee, I think you should give running for office serious consideration. Opportunities often present themselves for reasons far beyond our immediate understanding, and when they do – especially if they seem to pop up out of nowhere – it’s incumbent upon us to move on them, because it may be the first step in opening a door to more than your wildest dreams. .
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We should always keep the axiom “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” in mind, and also remember how fickled life can be. Suppose you had decided to stay home and watch a football game the day you met your wife. Just that one act, deciding to leave your house that day, served to changed your entire life. Likewise, deciding to run for the Los Angeles City Council could very well have the same kind of impact your life, and also the fortunes of the Black Community.
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It is certainly not my intent to try to compare you to Dr. Martin Luther King, but we mustn't forget that at one point Dr. King didn't want to follow his destiny either. But unbeknownst to the good doctor, his name had already been written in the stars. 

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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AN ENLIGHTENED BRAIN CAN'T BE WASHED

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

AN ENLIGHTENED BRAIN CAN'T BE WASHED

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While government has a role in improving conditions in the Black community, the ROOT of our problem is a lack of education and knowledge, and we can't wait for the government to address that issue, because the GOP has dedicated their very existence to dumbing America down, and with good reason - enlightened people don't vote Republican.
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But we could turn their malevolence into our advantage if we're smart. While they're hard at work dumbing the rest of America down, we should double-down on educating ourselves and making the pursuit of knowledge a way of life. That way we can level the playing field. We could make ourselves some of the most literate people in America, because our problem is not a lack of intelligence, it's an indifference toward knowledge. We need to become knowledge junkies.
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We must also educate one another in the wisdom of an enlightened way of life, just like we currently educate one another in our current toxic way of life. I've seen it done before, in the sixties - I'm a product of that environment. When I was in elementary school they were about to place me in "Special Training."  I like to had a fit, because Special Training students were separated in their own little bungalow at the very back of the school, and they marched in formation everywhere they went - the rest of the kids used to call them the Retard Brigade. I became so distraught over the idea of being placed in Special Training that my teacher, Ms. Lady Lee, convinced the principal, Mr. DeTonto, to give her the rest of the year to work with me.
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ONE GOOD TEACHER IS WORTH A BOATLOAD
OF POLITICIANS

But in the end, all she did was teach me that you ARE what you think (that's why it's so important not to think of ourselves as victims). And then she gave me a tip: She said the key to looking, and BEING, smart was to ALWAYS stay one chapter ahead of the class (that forced me to start studying and taking my homework more seriously). I was so determined to stay out of Special Training that I made studying a way of life.  I started outlining our textbooks, and giving each point they made its own place in the outline. Within a month I had outlined all of our textbooks and knew their content backwards and forward. I suspect that's why I'm a writer today, because without knowing it, I fell in love with compositional structure in the process.
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But thereafter, Ms. Lee started asking questions in class that she knew I was the only one who could answer, and I did.  At first, my classmates were amazed, and then finally, they started treating me with a new respect (and so did my mother), and that reinforced my understanding of the value of knowledge. So at the end of the semester, instead of going into Special Training, I went into an advanced class with students who were a year ahead of me, and I've been fooling people by using Ms. Lee's tip every since - because life is not about how brilliant you are, but how knowledgeable.
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Then during the sixties, the Black community went through a similar process. We spun on a dime (or maybe I should say "they spun on a dime," because I was a little late getting on board - I was "doing time" in the Marine Corps). But the community went from being filled with street gangs and crime, to being filled with dashiki-wearing street philosophers. Former gangsters became Black Panthers and joined other organizations to help enlighten and feed the poor. We recognized that we had to do these things ourselves in order to gain the political clout to FORCE the government to change its ways - and eventually it did, and the community began to rapidly move forward. Ford, General Motors, and other major corporations began to open their doors to Black workers, giving them access to the middle class, and the government began to PAY people to be educated and trained.
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We made it cool to be knowledgeable.  If a brother wasn't enlightened, he couldn't even get a girlfriend. It became so hip to be Black that White folks were trying to nap their hair up and wear naturals, and White girls were walking around in cornrows. That's how the Rock and hippie revolution got started. Before that, White musicians were going on stage in black suits and ties singing "Rock Around the Clock," and "Venus" - so we've already demonstrated that we can influence the world.
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ALL WE NEED TO SUCCEED IS
THE DESIRE

But we tend to always allow the White establishment to think 10 years ahead of us (that's why I'm so big on making education our number one priority). They introduced acid, speed, and other drugs into the mix, and the lure of these drugs began to drag us back down. Then in the eighties Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" - one of the nation's primary educational tools, which forced network and radio stations to give equal time to opposing voices every time they tried to spew conservative propaganda - and then Reagan flooded the inner cities with crack ("Just say no!!!!?"). That devastated two generations of Black people. As a result, that severed the connection of the third generation from their Black cultural heritage, because the parents who were supposed to be teaching them about their culture were crackheads. Then the establishment used the media, with things like MTV and BET to serve as a re-education tool, which brings us to where we are today.
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Thus, it is essential that the Black community come together and re-establish our connection with our cultural roots. It's no accident that we no longer see people like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, or Ray Charles coming out of the Black community anymore. The reason for that is we now have a generation of young Black people where many are just as remote from their Black roots as many White people. Yes, they have Black skin, but thanks to the machinations of the White establishment, they aren't anything like Black people once were. They're like cardboard, imitation Blacks who are reminiscent of real Black people.
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Think about it - isn't it ironic that, with the exception of people like Janet Jackson, Tyrese, Mariah, and a handful of others, one of the closest examples of old-school Black soul currently in the public domain is being put out by Robin Thick? - and I know, because I'm a lifelong jazz musician, so I'm listening . . . and Robin sounds good!  And the same is true in jazz.  If you go to a concert where they're playing REAL jazz, it looks like a Tea Party convention, because this generation of Black people don't support, or even KNOW, their own culture. (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2012/07/relections-on-stanley-crouch-mtume.html)
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So we'd better wake up, or 50 years from now the only people who are going to have the musical skills to play Black music are gonna be White, because they're devouring our music in music schools and conservatories all over the world as we speak, while we've been seduced by the dollar to spew vulgar nursery rhymes to the beat of electronic drum machines.
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That's what I mean by addressing our cultural infrastructure. We've got to stop thinking of ourselves as victims.  The word "victim" suggests weakness, and Black people are not weak. The adversity that we've endured has made us MORE, rather than less. We simply have to recognize that fact, and be PROACTIVE  in addressing our issues instead of simply reacting to cultural assaults. The bottom line is, we've got to stop telegraphing everything that's on our minds by screaming and grabbing microphones. No one is impressed by that; it just makes us look like reckless idiots. We've got to begin to use our minds to forge innovative and thoughtful approaches to resolving our issues, and we have the resources within our community to do that, right now.  And we must always keep in mind the words of Frederick Douglass - "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."
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"THE SAME BOILING WATER THAT SOFTENS THE POTATO, HARDENS THE EGG.  SO IT'S NOT ABOUT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES, IT'S ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE MADE OF."

Eric L. Wattree 
Http://wattree.blogspot.com 
Ewattree@Gmail.com
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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