The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    cmaukonen's picture

    America's "House Negro"

    By cmaukonen on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 10:30am |

    Malcolm X gave a speech on The House Negro and The Field Negro.

     

     

    And The Honorable James David Manning says Obama would make a good white house negro.

     

     

    Obama in his TV speech last night let us know who was the House Negro.

    We are all Field Negroes.

    Comments

    Sad. Some might not be familiar with what the Honorable James David Manning might say about someone in residing in Harlem while possessing a pale skin color. Others might not be ware of what Manning said about Obama's mother.


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 12:31pm

    I didn't care for the terminology prior to your comment. After your comment, I did a little research and found this:

    http://nyctheblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/harlem-preacher-honorable-james-david.html

    I like it even less now.


    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 12:39pm

    The "Honorable" Manning is a racist.

    Malcolm, at one point, would have included MLK Jr as a House Negro. As Malcolm came to have a wider world view, he recognized the need for someone like King in the Civil Rights movement. Malcolm had moved on.

    Malcolm would not have supported the wars in the Middle East conducted by the US and Obama. In all likelihood Malcolm would be encouraging blacks to be entrepreneurs and not be dependent on either Democrats or Republicans.

    It would be interesting to see where Malcolm would have stood in the uprisings against the Middle East dictators. Would Malcolm have supported Gaddafi because the US was involved?


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 2:37pm

    I know you think you are being a big, tough, truth-teller, but this shit is offensive as hell, especially coming from a white male.  You really should be ashamed.  Or at least a little self-aware.


    by brewmn on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 6:59pm

    The truth is........ People believe this stuff.


    by Resistance on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 7:23pm

    Malcolm X would not have approved of his words being used in this fashion. In the link he speaks about both Liberals and Conservatives.

    http://faithinactiononline.com/2008/06/malcolm-x-on-white-liberals/


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 9:29pm

    I don't know where you're going with this.  Barack Obama is the president of the United States.  Any gripes about his handling of policies are legitimate, but calling him a House Negro is about as racist as anything I've heard.  His race has nothing to do with anything.  That video clip is disgusting.

    I'm sorry.  I really don't get the point of this post.  If you were criticizing Manning for calling the President a house negro, I might understand it, but it appears you're agreeing with him.   What Manning said about Obama's mother should be enough for anybody to expose him for the racist he is.

    If I'm misunderstanding this, I apologize.  I really do hope I'm misunderstanding it.


    by Ramona on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 10:11pm

    (Really tired of having to type comments twice) AIUI, the distinction between house and field is class not race. As I read CM, he is calling Obama house because he thinks Obama is acting like he is above the rest of us.

    To me it is obvious that Boehner is actively serving the rich in a very obvious way, so to me, he'd be the house oompa loompa. Obama is not doing as much for the rest of us as most of us would like, but he's nowhere near as house as the orange guy.


    by Donal on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 10:33pm

    If this is merely about class, are you aware of any data that suggests that poor whites, in general, are not siding with the GOP while poor blacks are siding with Obama? Bill Mahrer frequently asks why poor and middle class (whites) are voting for Republicans. Pre-Mecca Malcolm and current day Manning are very race specific.

    Malcolm was operating from a 1960s perspective. We now have blacks in leadership positions. No one would go back to the good old days. Obama is not a House Negro, he is an individual with free will. Blacks support Obama in high numbers because of the free will of individual blacks. We are not House Negroes or Field Negroes. We are independent thinkers.

    A modern day Malcolm X who used the same terms as 1960s Malcolm to label Obama and his supporters as House Negroes would face the same backlash as Cornel West. Times have changed. It's time to bury the slavery analogies.

    Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we're free at last!


    by rmrd0000 on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 11:12pm

    WAGE SLAVES?

    “Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most — that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least…….What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving and degrading wage-system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest — this is the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old party platforms has a word or even a hint about it……..Foolish and vain indeed is the workingman who makes the color of his skin the stepping-stone to his imaginary superiority. The trouble is with his head, and if he can get that right he will find that what ails him is not superiority but inferiority, and that he, as well as the Negro he despises, is the victim of wage-slavery, which robs him of what he produces and keeps both him and the Negro tied down to the dead level of ignorance and degradation…….There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.
    Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs


    by Resistance on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 5:29am

    Your wage slave analogy is a quantum leap away from Malcolm and Manning talking about the House Negro. Enslavement of blacks in the United States was a unique institution. There were lash marks and lynchings that wage slaves have never experienced.

    If you feel that Obama is a House Negro, are the Negroes who support Obama also House Negroes? If the majority of black voters are House Negroes, who will lead them out of their "delusion".

    If you are going to follow Pre-Mecca Malcolm X, you also need to confront what Malcolm said about Liberals (See the link mentioned above). Malcolm would not have trusted Eugene V Debs to lead blacks out of the wilderness. Malcolm would have called for blacks to do for self. In the current context, part of doing for self is a realization that any option that ends with more Republicans getting elected is a defeat for African-Americans.

    You can complain about the way things are, but if you have no viable alternative to the current two party system that would result in anything other than votes being taken away from Democrats and possibly electing more Republicans, don't expect large numbers of blacks to follow a political whim. Blacks do not believe that there is no difference between the two parties. The recall votes in Wisconsin suggests that other voters share this belief.

    Blacks are faced with a GOP that is actively trying to suppress votes within the African-American community. What solutions does Eugene V Debs have for this glaring political fact that would impact the 2012 election cycle? What is the plan for doing something today?


    by rmrd0000 on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 8:57am