(editor’s note: I been tryna write this one for a while. I started on the third and finished it just now. No such thing as coincidence. All in due time, I suppose. Special shout out to Marlo. Thanks for helping me get my ideas together on this one. Sorry if I’m repeating myself.)
I quit talking about Revolution. I quit. For real. I’m serious. I gave it up. Stopped talking about it.
Not on some “niggas ain’t ready for revolution” or whack cliché-ness like “revolution puts you back to where you started,” or the even whacker “I believe in evolution,” nah. I quit talking about revolution because I honestly do not feel that a revolution, popularly conceived as a radical transformation of a politico-socio-economic system, will do much for Black people. While these systems effect the conditions of people’s lives, they do not affect them.
The popular conception of revolution is one of a Marxist persuasion. Cedric Robinson been done showed us how Marx wasn’t checkin for no Black people; how although a “radical tradition,” it was a radical tradition within a larger European tradition (think white hegemony/imperialism). As such, it was a product of its producers: Eurocentric, that is, racist. (Read the book Black Marxism)
But beyond that, my largest difficulty with this idea of revolution is its reduction of human beings to scientistic beings, calculable subjects, quantifiable units. This to me is a problem, as it fails to account for the humanity of humans: strengths, weaknesses, difficulties, passions, imaginations. In other words, it has an extremely limited conception of human existence.
I used to ask what good is freedom in the hands of a sick people? To which my mentor would respond that, sick or not, freedom should never be out of the hands of any people. And I can dig that. But my interests lie with the well-being of Black people, something that egalitarian political structures do not inherently guarantee.
For real. In Black radical discourse, revolution is viewed as the means through which to win freedom, that magical ideal that will solve all of our problems. But I ask, if the revolution came and we were to “win” our freedom tomorrow, how would things be different? How would such prevalent issues that are not overtly linked to political structures (domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness…) be dealt with? After all, these issues do not fall within the realm of politico-socio-economic structures alone. And why do we continually convince ourselves we must wait upon some illusionary freedom to begin the work we could have begun yesterday?
How will revolution improve our lives? How will it make us better people?
It just seems to me that, when it comes down to the come down, we seem to envision “revolution” as a miraculous tool that will do for us the work we are either too lazy or too scared to do for ourselves.
I love my people. This is not to be debated. But I also ain’t gonna keep making excuses for us when we ain’t doing what we should. Too often we place our capacities to affect change, to live our lives, outside of ourselves, forfeiting this the most precious of gifts to others. You feel me?
We have not yet realized, or accepted, that we are already Free, that we already have what we need to construct what we want. And all of this rests within ourselves. We don’t need no revolution for this.
We are the creators of the blue note, those whom the Western major scale cannot contain. I think that revolution is too limited a concept for what we need, what we deserve, and of what we are capable.
It is for this, that I have quit talking about revolution.
Now I just talk about life.
Does this make me counter-revolutionary?
Holler at me.
-Amari
In honor of the 4th of July, we turn to Freddy D.:
http://www.globalblacknews.com/FDouglas.html
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1 comment:
It doesn't make you counter-revolutionary... how bout "post-revolutionary"? Thanks for your insights... You've got me wondering now if we need to rethink terms like "radical" or "conscious" or "progressive" too. It's just that part of the issue is that through extended use (and co-optation) these words have been emptied of meaning. People toss the words around and their meanings are mysterious even to those who use them. Not to say I have concise defintions myself. But really just to say: instead of just using these terms willy-nilly, and everyone just nod their heads like "yeah that's some deep ish she said," we need to work harder to define these words in a practical way for our lives. Or maybe we just stop using the terms, like "revolution." Let the labels go and do the work of living as whole souls.
marlo
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