by Matt Williams
When I first read of the Million Man March, it struck me as rather odd. Hundreds of thousands of black men converging on Washington D.C. ...to atone? To who? The predominantly white elite of this country who are responsible for their continuing oppression? As I read more, I soon discovered that they had come to Washington not to speak to the politicians but because of the city's symbolic importance, as both of the heart of the nation and as the site of the 1963 Civil Rights March lead by Martin Luther King, Jr. The black men were there to atone to their women and their families with the hope that they could start anew and begin to rebuild their shattered communities.
Unfortunately, much of the mainstream media has insisted on focusing not on the goals of the March, but on its organizer and keynote speaker, the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), Louis Farrakhan. The NOI preaches a strange brand of Islam, proclaiming blacks to be God's chosen people and whites, particularly Jews, to be children of the devil. It was this racism that drew the focus of the media and particularly of the politicians. Both liberals and especially conservatives used this as a convenient chance to denounce racism. It undoubtedly helped that the racists were black and not white, as they normally are. Farrakhan's racism also gave them a convenient way of sidestepping the real issues behind the Million Man March and the significance of the social message Farrakhan was preaching. We should not focus on Farrakhan's racism, although it should be denounced, and, indeed, the vast majority of blacks would reject it. At the March, Farrakhan did not speak of racism, but of healing black communities. Farrakhan organized and spoke for those who attended the March. Many who attended may have disagreed with the specifics of his program, and even fewer would advocate it letter for letter, but its general spirit was still strong enough to attract hundreds of thousands. Even those black leaders who refused to attend the March stated that they did so not because they opposed Farrakhan's social message, but because they opposed Farrakhan as messsenger.
The social program of the Nation of Islam seems to wander all across the conventional political spectrum. It starts with a denunciation of the cuts the Republican Congress is making in welfare, threatening to leave many black families without adequate means to survive. This is a position any liberal would feel comfortable defending. It seeks to restore the integrity of the black family, to get black men to be responsible fathers and to stop the violence and drug use so prevalent in poor, black communities. It seeks to heal and restore the black community as a whole. This is a very basic program, something people from across the political spectrum can understand and support. The NOI also advocates a form of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps capitalism, a very conservative theme. Finally, there is an emphasis on black nationalism and black separatism, something apparently out of the far right. What to make of this confusing combination of political positions?
Clearly welfare is necessary for many blacks who are caught in the cycle of poverty as they are. Without it many would be even worse off. Yet, while black leaders defend it for these reasons, welfare has its drawbacks as well. Not only does it do nothing to break the poverty cycle, it is, as several sociologists and anthropologists have documented, one of the elements that contributes to it. This poverty breeds much of the despair that leads to broken families, drug use, and violence black communities are often criticized for. Further, welfare creates a situation of dependency, since the recipient relies on the government for the means with which to survive. This dependency affects not only the individual, but the community as a whole. In poor communities, where no one has sufficient funds individually, people must rely on each other for aid and thus the community becomes dependent on the welfare that a large portion of its members rely on. Nobody wants to be trapped in such a state of dependency, for it clashes with the fundamental human desire to control one's own life. The majority of liberals do not understand these problems and therefore do not act to relieve them. This is where the conservative elements that black leaders, such as Farrakhan, come in.
The important thing to understand about the black separatist version of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps that many blacks, including Farrakhan and the NOI, advocate is that the individual doesn't pull him- or herself up by the bootstraps, as conventional conservative thought would have it. Entire communities must pull themselves up by their bootstraps together. Everyone wishes to become economically prosperous and no longer be dependent on outside funds. This leads many black leaders, even those who are not outright racists and nationalists like Farrakhan, to advocate some form of black separatism. They believe that whenever possible, blacks should spend money at black-owned businesses, thus keeping the money within the community and enriching their own. The hope is that the prosperity of some members of the community will benefit the community as a whole. By this method, black communities may work their way out of poverty and dependency. At least this is what is envisioned. Despite the understandable motivations behind this agenda, it is still deeply flawed.
In addition to being economically conservative, the separatist path to black liberation is deeply socially conservative as well. Other than the speakers Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks, women were not invited to the Million Man March. Although it might be argued that this was to keep the March focused on the problems and responsibilities of black men specifically as they differ from those of women, it is still indicative of an overall attitude. Men are to take the lead. The separatist vision of a healthy family is a patriarchal one, both sexist and heterosexist (if it is not outright homophobic).
It is not that black families do not need to be healed, it is that there is no reason that they should follow the traditional nuclear model. All that is required for a healthy family is a loving and secure environment for its members. Hopefully, love is not that hard to come by, while security will remain a problem as long as poverty exists. Given the current economic structure, some member of the family will certainly need to go out and work while another stays home and cares for the children. There is, however, no reason why the man should not be at home and the woman at work; or for the family not to consist of two women; or a group of several adults living together with their children, some working, some performing child-care.
The notion of black separatism is flawed as well. There is the obvious criticism that it willy do nothing to end racism and may only worsen it. The counterargument is that the current social order is inherently racist. While I agree with this, radical changes (the nature of which I discuss below) can change this, if people simultaneously work to break down racial barriers. Besides, it is not blacks alone who suffer from poverty, but Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and, yes, whites. Blacks may suffer from the additional burden of racist stereotypes that poor whites do not have to deal with, but all poor people, regardless of race, have many of the same problems. There is no reason why should not all work together to end poverty. Poor whites may suffer from holding racist stereotypes of blacks and other minorities, but these can only be broken down by interracial interaction. Such an interracial alliance of the poor will give any anti- poverty movement, through greater numbers, more strength.
The final flaw of the separatist plan, which, unlike the others, assures its failure, is its basic capitalist assumptions. The idea that blacks can somehow create their own economy separate from the white dominated one is unworkable. The money that blacks will spend on their fellow blacks' businesses must initially come from outside the community, and black businesses will need to rely on many non-black owned ones for certain resources and basic sales goods. It may be possible to keep economic interaction with nonblacks to a minimum. But even this possibility for a parallel economy would not eliminate poverty. Capitalism by its very nature requires and creates an unequal class structure, with a class of the permanently poor at the bottom, the class in which most blacks are now stuck. At best, blacks will develop their own class structure parallel to the white one, with wealthy blacks, middle class blacks, working class blacks - and poor blacks. It is not possible to pull an entire community up by its collective bootstraps; someone has to stay on the bottom to be exploited. Economic separatism will not eliminate black poverty.
There is, however, an alternative path that could potentially bring economic self-sufficiency, independence and even prosperity to poor communities. It involves breaking with the mainstream capitalist economy within the community as much as possible and setting up an alternative, socialist one in time before market relations can be eliminated totally, even within small communities.
These experiments in creating socialism can not stand alone; other steps must be taken to rebuild families and communities. However, the two are intimately tied together, since such an economy requires a community whose members care about each other. Building on each other reciprocally, these various projects have the potential to fulfill the goals of the Million Man March, which, in spite of some flaws, was still a tremendously positive event. If nothing else, it must have been deeply empowering for all the men who were there, and a feeling of empowerment is surely a rare experience for those as severely oppressed as black men in this country. The goals of the March, such as solving the problems of violence in black communities, ensuring that mothers and children are given both economic and emotional support, and ultimately ending poverty among blacks, are all highly laudable. If the hundreds of thousands at the March are any indication, the will is certainly there; it is simply a matter of finding the way.