The Counterpublic Papers vol. 3 no. 2

“U bum.”

I have to say that we’re now pretty far gone from the moment when Michael Jeffrey Jordan remarked, after being asked to support Harvey Gantt in his Senate race against Jesse Helms (and refusing), “Republicans buy shoes too.” Earlier this wseek in a tweet that bears re-reading (even though it’s barely 140 characters) LeBron James called Donald Trump a bum for uninviting Stephen Curry to the White House—this even as Curry hadn’t planned to go. (Kiese Laymon has it right—“therefore, ain’t no invite”—should be taught in essay courses across the country.) Today dozens of NFL players took some sort of political stance before the national anthem was played, with some deciding to kneel, others deciding not to come out of the locker room until the anthem was over, and owners showing support. I have no illusions that any of the owners would hire Colin Kaepernick much less take more aggressive stances, but this is something. We haven’t seen it’s like in the United States since the sixties. As Trump ramps up rhetoric, calling NFL players who protested sons of bitches. A few years ago the NBA was this close to a players strike after a spurned lover of LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling released tape recordings showing Sterling was deeply racist. Though Sterling’s deeds were far worse than his words caught on tape, the moment galvanized players across the league, building a shared sense of political purpose that undoubtedly played some role in the contemporary moment. I don’t know where this goes, but then again no one does. It’s safe to say though that once this bottle is opened it can’t be closed. I don’t think there’s a going back from this.

However, with this said it’s important to note that we’re not talking about protests against police brutality any longer—Colin Kaepernick wasn’t protesting against Trump he was protesting against police violence. I’ve seen a couple of players recognize and acknowledge this, but not enough.

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I taught Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State by Megan Ming Francis in my black politics class. It not only brilliantly captures a moment largely ignored in American history—the moment when the NAACP found its legs, and tackled racial terrorism in the form of lynching—but it does so in a way that has immediate relevance to contemporary struggles. See if we take decisions like the one the Supreme Court offered in Moore vs Dempsey (plus their decision to take the case), like the House of Representatives decision to take up and pass the Dyer Bill, and the decision of Presidents Wilson and Harding to exhibit at least some support for NAACP actions, as being something other than “natural” (thinking of it for instance as a natural consequence of shifting attitudes about racism or perhaps as a consequence of the Great War), then we open the door to considering the NAACP as an independent mover so to speak, as an entity that had some influence on political development during this period. More specifically Francis argues that we cannot consider the Supreme Court’s foray into state crime policy—into determining for example that states criminal courts could not consider evidence garnered under torture—without considering the work the NAACP performed to get Moore v. Dempsey heard in the first place. But even further we cannot consider cases like Brown vs Board and the NAACP’s general turn towards the law, without thinking about the work they performed,  during its formative years. Finally the work they performed can be thought of as a series of strategic and tactical innovations that were much more fluid and adaptable than we considered. Believing early that the biggest cause of racial terrorism were American attitudes, the NAACP began by creating an infrastructure dedicated to informing citizens about the problematic dynamics of racial terrorism, doing this through its own organ The Crisis, individual pamphlets, and well timed articles placed in major newspapers. This tactic didn’t work—people’s ideas weren’t quite as malleable perhaps as the NAACP believed they were—so the NAACP shifted to the legislative arena, believing that forcing congresspersons to vote on it could stave off lynching. Though the civil rights movement was some thirty years away, the NAACP was able to get the house of representatives to pass an anti-lynching act with dozens of votes to spare. They did this by aggressively mobilizing its members to reach out to congresspersons as well as developing the expertise needed to help draft a law that could pass constitutional muster, and finally by using personal contacts. Although again, the NAACP ended up failing—the bill couldn’t get past the Senate because of institutional rules designed to protect the (in this case racist) minority—the NAACP learned valuable lessons. They then turned to presidents wilson (who was a virulent racist) and harding (who was less so). Francis persuasively shows that contrary to popular belief—many thought Wilson unrepentantly racist and Harding deeply uninterested)—the NAACP was able to get Wilson to move in ways favorable to their interest and was also able to get Harding to make what was at the time the most radical statement of a modern sitting president on racial issues.

Now again, on one level none of these things really worked. It isn’t as if lynching stopped as a result of the Supreme Court, or as a result of public opinion or legislative behavior or presidential fiat. But the successes the NAACP was able to get years and years later, undoubtedly came from these moments.

In a time when people can argue that Black Lives Matter is perhaps too  constrained to formal black politics, while I see no such thing, it bears going back to this early moment when civil rights organizations were just being formed and were more or less winging it. And while the verdict is out on their time horizon, it’s also worth thinking about the fact that their institutional nature actually enabled them to think time- and space-wise that gave them a wide range of options even in a deeply racist time and context.

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Oh. So a few weeks ago we took down a few monuments in Baltimore. I talked about them on C-Span. Nothing like being on the air live and asked to respond to the Confederate Daughters’ suggestion that the monuments have nothing to do with white supremacy.

You read that right.

Anyway, right after the protests, a friend and I went to a local pub and sat outside. There were already a couple of white brothers there, one older (and drunk), one younger (and getting there). We started talking about the monuments—at the time we didn’t know the city would be removing the actual statues just hours later. My friend and I started talking about what should be done with them. At the time I really didn’t know. I knew they shouldn’t remain, but didn’t really have a firm opinion about what should happen. So one of the white brothers chimed in, stating that they shouldn’t be removed under any circumstance. So I asked him what they should do, and mind you I hadn’t expressed an opinion other than stating that something should be done.

“They shouldn’t be taken down!”

“Ok. So what should be done?”

“They shouldn’t be removed.”

“Ok. So…..if they shouldn’t be removed what should be done with them?”

“They shouldn’t be touched.”

So this went on for a while, until I suggested to him that I hadn’t actually said they should be taken down. He was arguing against an argument I hadn’t stated. He agreed, and kind of apologized, but then this:

“Ok. So how should we deal with this issue?”

“By moving forward.”

“We move forward. Ok. How?”

“By progressing.”

I was this close to sticking a dull knife in my eye and turning it. But being a teacher really does something for one’s resilience in moments like this.

But not so much for him.

After this particular line of questioning….he picked up his keys, and his wallet, and got up from the table and left. He came back briefly, because he’d left something else on the table. Then he was gone. He walked away without even saying “bye”. This is part of what we’re facing. I get that people are resistant to change, most kinds of change. But this is something different.

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If you’re in the Baltimore area tonight we’re hosting a discussion about Charlottesville and Baltimore tonight at the Interfaith Center. Starts at 6pm, with a 22 minute documentary about Charlottesville and a panel discussion featuring Martha Jones, Lawrence Jackson, and Robert Lieberman. Should be interesting.

Until next week. This is the Counterpublic Papers, lightly edited, and sometimes REALLY lightly edited.