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ImaniPhillipsFirstEssay 3 - 10 May 2017 - Main.EbenMoglen
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How will black liberationist movements evolve in Trump's America?
-- By ImaniPhillips - 14 Mar 2017 | |
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< | In a society where the current President of the United States captured the support of millions of Americans by idealizing an ancient paradise in a promise to make America great gain, black Americans have yet to discover an idyllic utopia in this Country. Each era in this country's 240-year history contains a set of racial structures that work to reproduce white supremacy and maintain a social order of white mail hegemony. While wealthy white males, like Donald Trump, have benefited from the colonialist and racist founding of this country, Black Americans have spent their time in this country searching for freedom. A single vision of black freedom has never existed on the account of ethnic, economic and political diversity within the black American community and primarily on account of the fact that an ideal that doesn't exist is hard to define. While many Americans may not have the capacity to imagine a different world, black Americans have long developed and explored strategies on how to arrive at an abstract ideal of freedom. Black American freedom movements have varied on a wide spectrum from far left radical movements that call for a reconstruction of the societal status quo like the Black Panther Movement, to further right movements that take adopt a conservative reformist approach like the NAACP. These varied movements have existed both simultaneously and independently. However, in Trump's America of hate and alternative facts it is not evident that previous reformist strategies of working within our preexisting political system will prove productive. This essay explores the question of how black liberation movements may develop during Trump's America; what new strategies will they employ and what old strategies will withstand the new political era. | >
> | In a society where the current President of the United States captured the support of millions of Americans by idealizing an ancient paradise in a promise to make America great gain, black Americans have yet to discover an idyllic utopia in this Country. Each era in this country's 240-year history contains a set of racial structures that work to reproduce white supremacy and maintain a social order of white mail hegemony. While wealthy white males, like Donald Trump, have benefited from the colonialist and racist founding of this country, Black Americans have spent their time in this country searching for freedom. A single vision of black freedom has never existed on the account of ethnic, economic and political diversity within the black American community and primarily on account of the fact that an ideal that doesn't exist is hard to define. While many Americans may not have the capacity to imagine a different world, black Americans have long developed and explored strategies on how to arrive at an abstract ideal of freedom. Black American freedom movements have varied on a wide spectrum from far left radical movements that call for a reconstruction of the societal status quo like the Black Panther Movement, to further right movements that take adopt a conservative reformist approach like the NAACP. These varied movements have existed both simultaneously and independently. However, in Trump's America of hate and alternative facts it is not evident that previous reformist strategies of working within our preexisting political system will prove productive. This essay explores the question of how black liberation movements may develop during Trump's America; what new strategies will they employ and what old strategies will withstand the new political era. | | | Trump's promise to make America great again also included a promise to drain the swamp. While it appears that Trump's presidency has come with even more corruption than that of which he criticized in his campaign, Trump has maintained his pledge of packing Washington with an entirely new administration. In just two months of Trump's presidency, we have watched him attempt to overturn Obama's legacy of progressive reform with the help of the Republican House and Senate. Given the Republican Party's unchallenged institutional dominance, reformist ideologies, typically employed by lawyers and politicians who seek policy change by working with the system, will face many impediments. Consequently, radicalists movements, movements that seek to create institutional change through radical social movements will rise to the top. | | | Many other grass roots organizations like the Women's March and Washington have emphasized the importance of coalition building in their social movements during this era. The Women's March states in their mission that they stand in solidarity; recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country. They proceed to discuss how the election cycle has negatively impacted Muslim Communities, LGBTQ communities and international communities. Finally, in their mission, the Women's March on Washington pledges to work peacefully while simultaneously recognizing there is no true peace without justice and equity for all.
These two organizations joining together may be exactly what the liberation movement needs in the era of Trump. The new administration has instilled fear in all minority and marginalized communities. Seeking policy reform from within will be close to impossible and thus the burden will fall on fresh intersectional grass roots organizations to advocate for the change that we need. | |
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I'm not sure what the primary idea is that this draft wants to convey.
At the formal level, the rhetoric/substance ratio is pretty high:
shortening the sentences and removing phrases that have the "may
prove pivotal" quality of simultaneously promising intensely and
delivering only 'might matter somehow.'
Substantively, you might be saying that the rise of
"intersectionality" means that black liberationism won't be black
nationalist in the future: that the importance of coalition-building
is greater than nation-building in Black America. Certainly this
may be right, but if it is your point, I think you would make it
stronger by analyzing the question with more history, as (for
example) by considering earlier 20th-century experience, from
Garveyism to the period of National Front cooperation with the
Communist Party, to the nationalism that underlay the Black Panther
Party and the pre-Hajj thinking of Malcolm X. The history certainly
suggests that the reasons Black nationalism is so important haven't
disappeared, and that the "intersectionality" common front is likely
to be challenged by re-energized nationalism as well.
But I'm not sure that is your primary argument, and if not, it is
all the more important for the next draft to make its theme clearer.
I would start the next draft with a simple declarative statement of
your essay's primary idea, so that the reader can be perfectly sure
what she is going to be reading. Then you can develop your idea out
of its materials in the center of the draft, and conclude by
offering some further questions for the reader to follow up on her
own, with what you've given her as a point of departure.
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