OPINION & EDITORIAL
Civil rights movement needs ‘Black-In’
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Also by Gerald Cox:
- I'll take a female president, just not her (December 3, 2007)
- Religion aside, faith perseveres (November 26, 2007)
- Want Big Ten sports? Get a dish (November 19, 2007)
- Civil rights movement needs 'Black-In' (November 12, 2007)
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- Inequality looms over Wisconsin (September 16, 2005)
- A crucible of culture (February 28, 2002)
- Exploring the issues: Race - Your online responses (November 16, 2007)
- Imus' fate should depend on market, not critics (April 12, 2007)
by Gerald Cox
Monday, November 12, 2007
Whatever happened to National Black Out Day? You know, that day popular black radio talk show host Warren Ballentine proclaimed as a day of protest? A day when black Americans especially, and any who identify with their cause, were asked not to spend any money. Mr. Ballentine, a lawyer, intended the day to be a day of economic abstention in protest to racial injustice, specifically in light of recent cases of Genarlow Wilson and the Jena Six.
Chances are, you've probably never even heard of the day, much less when and why it was. I fear that National Black Out Day, and others like it, are too often becoming the norm for the dilapidated civil rights movements — sexy, ill-conceived and ineffective flashpoints that fail to address many pressing issues facing the black community. The black civil rights movement is even now trying to fight the Cold War — read, Jim Crow and institutionalized racism — when the black community's biggest threat is terrorism — read, itself.
The self-proclaimed leaders of the remnants of the civil rights movement are expending our time and energy in waters that are murky and distended with the errant misbehaviors of those we are called to defend — as exampled by the Jena Six. I fear these supposed leaders of the black community, this vanguard of the civil rights movement, are too often directing our efforts ineffectively at a foe that doesn't need fighting. I fear the methods and intentions of the civil rights movement and its leaders has become an anachronistic distraction to the issues that we ourselves can fix. I fear the movement's current emphasis on the "other" precludes an examination of the self.
So it is with a college newspaper columnist's humility that I call for a call for a National Black-In Day. As I lack the podium and national preeminence to call for such a day, and considering the abject lack of knowledge many people had of Mr. Ballentine's Black Out Day, I'd say I'm not the guy to do this. Hence, my "call for a call."
Thusly, I challenge the Sharptons, the Jesse Jacksons and men like Martin Luther King III to call for a day of black economic unity. But this must not be a day when we are unified in inaction. I call for someone to whom many ears will listen, to call for a day of spending. A day when blacks especially, and those who may sympathize with the intentions of such a day, spend their money exclusively at black businesses. A day when we invest in black neighborhoods and scholarship funds. A day of action, not inaction.
This day would be a departure from the norm of the Sharptonesque civil rights movement of today. Today's movement increasingly finds itself focusing on issues where the moral high ground is no longer a mountain, but a slight and slippery incline. We find ourselves rallying around the right of students to beat other students, and not be punished unjustly. We rally to allow for consensual and drunken oral sex between minors that is bereft of unjust punishment. Long gone are the days when we had to fight for equal access to education, a spot at the front, back, middle or side of the bus. Yet, the movement continues its march as if so.
While it is our duty to pursue and ensure justice for those among us who cannot obtain it themselves, would it not be appropriate to focus that energy and effort on the less titillative issues of black poverty, black business ownership and minority access to higher education? When you've finished freeing the Jena Six, will you take some time to invest in the United Negro College Fund?
Instead of driving to Jena, La., why not take a bus to the Allied Drive Family Center? Why not take a bus to West High School, and tutor for the PEOPLE Program? Why not condemn the stereotype-laden rhetoric of the voices of the supposed black music industry just as strongly as we condemn the ignorant rhetoric of the Bill O'Reillys and Don Imuses?
We need a new movement, and new leaders, not these skeletons from an unjust past. We need scholarships, not rallies; teachers and fathers, not protestors. We need a movement that emphasizes local involvement, not national campaigns that take us miles away from home to address an issue we may not fully understand. The civil rights movement must address and work to solve the foibles of the community it claims to represent.
The legacy of institutionalized racism vis-a-vis America's black citizens remains, and our efforts on these fronts must continue. But it is high time we ended the witch hunts. We must realize the power and necessity of our own voice raised in unity to address the issues that just aren't sexy enough to get Al Sharpton in the headlines or thousands of college students joining a group on Facebook.
And perhaps, someday, our efforts will have exhausted their use and there will be no need for such issues to be addressed. Such is the end of any civil rights movement: to no longer be needed.
Gerald Cox (gcox@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in economics.Anonymous (November 12, 2007 @ 5:59am):
Good points Gerald. What you must realize though is that both strategies are necessary. America reacts when there is choices only. If there was no Malcolm X there would have been no Dr. King. While the current civil rights leaders may do some harm they also bring attention to injustice which most likely would be swept under the rug.
Anonymous (November 12, 2007 @ 9:29am):
"Whatever happened to National Black Out Day?"
It never worked. Not spending money for a day didn't make an impact, so everyone stopped doing it.
Anonymous (November 12, 2007 @ 9:46am):
Gerald, could you possible write about anything else?!
Anonymous (November 13, 2007 @ 11:17am):
you are right on sir...well written article...there are more important issues we need to deal with than the jena 6
Anonymous (November 15, 2007 @ 12:32pm):
9:46 a.m. If Gerald doesn't write about these topics they would never get discussed. I mean you obviously wouldn't write about this "stuff" so he does.
Anonymous (November 15, 2007 @ 2:50pm):
they did have a black out day. it was a joke.
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