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[Christian Davenport]

Any World (That I'm Welcome to)...... Anti-Black Behavior, the Desire for Community & the Republic of New Africa

11/13/2015

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I always liked Steely Dan.  Strange place to start a piece concerning black nationalism but stay with me for a second.  There is just something about Steely Dan's calm melodious funk that just does the trick.  I listen to it when editing something I have written.  It doesn't get in the way like some music.  It kind of facilitates.  One song in particular has always resonated with me: Any World (That I'm Welcome to).  You probably know it:

If I had my way
I would move to another lifetime
I'd quit my job
Ride the train through the misty nighttime
I'll be ready when my feet touch ground
Wherever I come down
And if the folks will have me
Then they'll have me

Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to

Is better than the one I come from

I can hear your words
When you speak of what you are and have seen
I can see your hand
Reaching out through a shining daydream
Where the days and nights are not the same
Captured happy in a picture frame
Honey I will be there
Yes I'll be there

Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to

Is better than the one I come from

I got this thing inside me
That's got to find a place to hide me
I only know I must obey
This feeling I can't explain away
I think I'll go to the park
Watch the children playing
Perhaps I'll find in my head
What my heart is saying
A vision of a child returning
A kingdom where the sky is burning
Honey I will be there
Yes I'll be there

Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to
Any world that I'm welcome to

Is better than the one I come from


I always viewed the song as hopeful.  It suggested that if you did not currently have a home and you were not currently being embraced by some community, that it was possible that you might one day.  In some distant future, you will find your peeps, be embraced and walk right on in.

The discrimination directed against African Americans since their coming to the United States has not provided much of welcoming.  Enslavement was simply hell: beatings, torture, rape, forced labor, medical experimentation, and outright killing.  Post enslavement, things were only better in certain ways. Despite being freed from bondage, they were lynched, burnt, sent back into a version of slavery, threatened, rounded up as "vagrants" and worked in prisons, worked to the bone in factories as the lowest on the totem pole, kept out of housing, good schools, good supermarkets and rendered ever fearful that there situation could slip back into some vortex of violence reminiscent of Octavia Butler's Kindred or Haile Germ's Sankofa.  

Given this situation, it makes sense that African Americans would believe in the distant hope of democratization and democracy studied so carefully by Ralph Bunche in "The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR".  Confronted with the realities that this might not sufficiently address all of their problems, it also makes sense that blacks would try to think of some other way to be welcomed.  Indeed, this explains black interest in science fiction like that put forward by the Afrofuturists.  "Any world that I'm welcome to" - even if that world is on another planet or set in the future.  Ever see that Deep Space 9 episode where it was shown that Deep Space 9 existed in the mind of some African American set in the 1950s who
was suffering from a host of discriminatory problems. In his pain, he created the idea of Deep Space 9, which you then were led to wonder about as it was not clear if it really existed or it just existed in the mind of the oppressed black writer. "Any world that I'm welcome to".

Similarly, one could view black nationalism as an attempt to make a world, rather than wait for one to arrive and/or be handed to them.  In a version of a Tribe Called Quest lyric, black nationalists seem to have concluded that "If your state is an ass and your police force is a jerk, leave 'em both alone and create yourself a @." As I am not a rapper, I do not need to finish the line.  You get the point.  

Now, creating that place of welcoming was not an easy thing to do.  Few attempts were put forward but one that I am familiar with concerns the group called the Republic of New Africa (RNA) - the topic of my last book "How Social Movements Die".  The RNA concluded that America was not for them - indeed, they concluded that America was out to kill African Americans.  Rather than go back to Africa like Garvey and many white racists suggested, however, the RNA decided to take a different path.  They were like: we built much of the country and we still live in numerous parts of the deep south in numbers that make it look as if they were the majority. They decided that they should be given/take these states and create their own nation.  

What was this nation and what was this idea of theirs?  Steely Dan illuminates: 


I got this thing inside me
That's got to find a place to hide me

The black nation.  That was their idea.  A place where they would not no fear.  A place where all dreams hindered by the racist America could be fulfilled.  A place of peace and harmony and collective productivity.  It was "Exit" in the Albert Hirschman sense or Escaping the state in the James Scott sense.  


Perhaps I'll find in my head
What my heart is saying


​As we see the burgeoning national and international attention given to the newest version of the African American plight in the US (e.g., "Black Lives Matter") and the piecemeal efforts put forward to address them: e.g., body cameras, commissions of inquiry, talk shows and the like, it is worthwhile to look back some other efforts - ones a bit more critical and creative about both how bad the problem might be but also how dramatic the solution might need to be.  One example is that put forward by the Republic of New Africa.  Below is the government that they proposed as well as, if you read between the lines, why they proposed it.  
More soon.
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How Social Movements Die & the Republic of New Africa Archive, Part 1

4/17/2015

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One of the most interesting parts of writing my latest book (How Social Movements Die) was uncovering and exploring an untapped resource of government records. In particular, I utilized what were referred to as "Red Squad" files. These were compiled by police agencies throughout the United States from the early 1900s until the 1970s and perhaps beyond this time. The objective of these units included monitoring radical organizations as well as individuals and, when deemed necessary, constraining and/or eliminating them. The records themselves are fascinating.  One example is provided below.
As you can see, the records identify which government agency was involved, when they filed a report, when the relevant events took place, where the event took place, who was present and what they said. There is also information that is blacked out by political authorities in order to prevent identification from those that gained access to the relevant material (something I will discuss in a subsequent blog). This information becomes useful for not only understanding who did what to whom but it also provides some information about what authorities thought was useful to track (i.e., time, space, actors, organizations and action) and it also says something about the language of both resistance (from the state's perspective) as well as repression. It also provides information on how quickly governments found out what was going on.  For example, in the example provided here governments were delayed two days in reporting relevant activity. I wonder if this varied and why?
The records here concern the Republic of New Africa (RNA) - a black nationalist and secessionist organization principally based in Detroit but with consulates or chapters all throughout the United States between 1968 and 1973.  The particular records identified here were facilitated by an informant being in the organization (simply referred to as "Source") reveals that the RNA was giving speeches, planning to support members being dragged into court as well as identifying orientation meetings as well as shooting practice. Interestingly, the records noted above clearly identify that the RNA repeatedly used churches as meeting places. It is generally thought that the civil rights movement relied upon religious institutions but the connection to black nationalism/secessionism has been less consistently highlighted.


What do you see?
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    Analog - The Anti-Blog

    By "Analog" I am referring to the adjective (i.e., relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position or voltage) and not the noun (i.e., a person or thing seen as comparable to another) for I wished to give voice to my thoughts which have come to me in a more or less continuous manner but which do so in a way that is not consistent in content or form. Thus you will see short stories, brief thoughts, haikus, low-kus and even a political cartoon or two. 

    Winner of Best Blog Post for 2014 by International Studies Association

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