Dialogue on the Parable of the Black Bourgeoisie


From: Sister Ayahna Ahmen
To: Marvin X

Well said. And now for the rest of the story...

My brother,


Where are the institutions, schools, temples, newspapers, communities built and sustained by the 'conscious black' community. Where are the long-standing marriages, children following in our footsteps to carry on long after we have ceased all our polemics, diatribes, rants and ravings as such. How has the 'conscious' community proven to be superior to those that sold out for ass and class.

Why have we not chosen conscious mates and procreated that which we profess to believe. Can even two conscious people share a house, a car, a job or build an organization. Where are the conscious people who have math, science, agriculture, engineering classes and free presentations to help us get our passports, real knowledge.

Where are the conscious brothers willing to be monogamous accept a dark skinnned nappy headed intelligent sister as his co-partner for life and the cause. As Neely Fuller has said 'at the end of the day... it's still business as usua... we are still on course' docking at the next plantation, still got to ask the white supremacist what to do ' for we engage in circular dialogue ad infinitum. How have we advanced beyond what was known sense Franklin Frazier, Franz Fanon, Amos Wilson, Bobby Wright, Malcolm, Diop, Clarke, etc. etc. All the continuous blogging case in point...

Hotemp



Dear Sister Ayahna Ahmen,

Unity, Criticism, Unity

Although you have used the classical dodge on me, I will answer your question. But be aware you responded to no part of my parable on the subject of the black bourgeoisie, instead, you posed another question about the black conscious people, perhaps as a way to avoid my question. And maybe you did this because you are part of them and wish to cover for them with another question totally irrelevant to the question at hand. As per the conscious blacks:

I know of no radical black institutions, schools, colleges and/or universities. In the main, the black colleges produce negroes. In many instances the conscious independent schools produce negroes. The Muslim schools produce negroes. Is this the best we can do? Perhaps, it shall be as it is, a long process to get a product beyond the negroid personality. As my two-year old grandson said to me, "Grandpa you can't save the world. I'm gonna save the world."

No matter what class, creed or color, marriages are fragile at best. Even conscious brothers and sisters have a residue of white supremacy when they claim to have recovered from the addiction to white supremacy. Freedom is not a personal thing, so how can you be free if I ain't free?

As per long standing marriages, I wouldn't pay two cents for some of them after observing the behavior and treatment of some people I know who've been married forty and fifty years. If that's love, I don't want it!

And yet, it's all about family, since slavery was the destruction of family, freedom must be the reconstruction of family. In light of the circumstances, it's a miracle any of us stay together for five minutes. And it is indeed a shame to see conscious people mated with unconscious people. I've been blessed to have conscious women in my life--even if they must stay three thousand miles away from me! One of my rich friends begged me to stop getting those "educated" sisters, get you one like I have: ignorant and mentally ill!

Many of us do have conscious children that are two and three generations from negrocities, especially with the grand children. We do have children following our footsteps, whether they want to admit it or not, for some of our children have seen contradictions in conscious people and we have plenty, just as the bourgeoisie--no one is pure up in here, not one. Didn't God say find me one righteous man and I will save the whole town?

We will not be able to do anything together until we have detoxed our addiction to white supremacy--no organizations will be successful so long as we maintain stinking thinking and acting. In our present state of mind, we can't go around the corner together. What happened to the million men who marched? Obviously there were problems on some level, leaderships or followship. Until we process the little white man running around inside of us, who sometimes sits on our shoulder as we meet together with our family, our mates, our co-workers, our revolutionary comrades, our conscious brothers and sisters, there shall be no forward movement.

We do have conscious people doing things--and no one needs to know all that is going on. Do you ever hear of a million Chinese meeting, yet there are banks on every block in Chinatown.

At my Academy of Da Corner, we do indeed have people with various degrees in science, math, agriculture and other fields who give up knowledge for free.

As per the box mentality, a woman friend of mine (RIP) said, "You can jump out the box, just like Jack, so jump!"

Dr. Clarke said this is not a sprint but a long distance jog. Try two or three hundred years more. So love the one ya wit and be thankful fa what ya got. If you don't have a mate, try loving yourself and see if someone won't want to love you!
--Marvin X

Reply by Zahieb Mwongozi
To:Sister Ayhna Ahmen


To be "bourgeoisie" is to be "marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity". Is that not what the Sister Ayahna Ahmen seems to be concerned about when she asks Dr. M "Where are the institutions, schools, temples,communities built and sustained by the 'conscious black community'?"


To be sure, Sister Ayahna must know that these institutions exist and have existed here in Amerikkka since the Black American experience began so she must not think very highly of these institutions to treat them as though they do not exist when they obviously do, and this begs the question.


Is her lack of respect for all that the many Blacks are and have been building marked by her concern for acceptance from those who she does respect and if so who are these people? Is it that, by the very nature of the existence of such institutions within but without white Amerikka's acceptance, they do not serve the material interests of her benefactors?


Notice the half quote marks she uses around the word conscious when she uses the words conscious and black together. It is as though she mocks the fact that there is consciousness among Black people, and maybe that's the black people she knows, but we often see these Cultural Nationalist "Brothers" and "Sisters" who wear kinte cloth and dashikis and Egyptian names holding their noses and frowning down upon the "rest of the conscious people."


Marvin points out "We do have conscious people doing things--and no one needs to know all that's going on." But the kind of showy doing of things that a lot of so-called conscious people want to do or to see is just that -- loud and showy, signifying nothing. We can have a million more Million Men Marches, but as Marvin points out eloquently "Do you ever hear of a million Chinese meeting, yet there are banks on every corner in Chinatown."


I suspect that Ayahna's bitterness is mostly rooted in her inability to find a 'conscious brother willing to accept a dark skinned nappy headed intelligent sister' to be her co-partner in life' and that's the real cause and struggle she's conflicted with. Perhaps some of these sisters should be less concerned with material interests when it comes to their selection of life partners or find themselves and their own respectability when they can't find a mate of their high standards. What goes for a bourgeoisie attitude among a lot of sisters is really just an attempt to compensate for their own mediocrity.
--Zahieb Mwongozi