Saturday, February 17, 2018

Phuk Blk Panther: SHAFT lives!

In 1971, Gordon Park's independently produced film SHAFT cost $1.125 million to make and release.

Why are Black people in the US so excited about Black Panther, a comic-book fantasy on screen? Is it because it is a box-office success? It demonstrates a new-found Black prowess in the Hollywood cesspool? In other words, we Blacks can now make Walt Disney so much richer, so he can make us that much more prouder?



HMMM. Well, I hate to snatch away your koofis and the traditional African earings you bought at Macy's,but Black Panther is a piss-poor box-office draw for investors, so far. For the Presidents' Day, 4-day weekend, Black Panther is expected to make $213 million. It cost $200 million to make, so say Brother Imhotep Disney's boys at Marvel. That is $13 million over cost.

But let us go back to July 2, 1971 and the release of the Black cult classic SHAFT. That movie cost $1.125 million to make. It earned $10.996 million over cost by December 31, 1971--5 months.That means its investors made about $8.00 back on each dollar they put into the movie. For SHAFT, a $100,000 investor made $999,592 ($6.176 million in current currency). A $100,000 investor in Panther, over the weekend, will get about $760.00 or $128.00 (adjusted for inflation by the US Labor Dept. for buying power in Dec. 1971).

But these figures are moot to the vast hordes of Black Panther freaks, since they are highly unlikely to have any stake in the MATERIAL SUCCESS of the movie whatsoever. Even at $32.00 per day in actual 1971 buying power, today's movie makers have something to show--maybe a dinner for 2 at Applebees. What do Black Americans have to show, except that they are bigger chumps for Hollywood's Black Exploitation con-game now than they were in 1971. You tell me.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Have you seen the BLACK COMMUNITY lately?

By William Pleasant


I raise this issue because I was recently asked why the "Black Community" needs leadership today.

Here is my response...Here is my provocation!

Firstly, there is no such thing as a "Black Community." There are Black neighborhoods (usually urban slums), Black churches, a few Black civil society formations, etc., but NO Black community.

The term presupposes a coherent and widely held political analysis and consequent strategy among Black people in the US. That does not exist anymore. Prior to the social reforms of the 1960s and 70s, a Black Community (civil society formations and institutions) did exist as those folks who formulated and executed What Needed To Be Done to overthrow de jure Jim Crow apartheid across the US. Once Jim Crow's harhest and most apparent facets were erased, that Black Community withered away as a singular, Black-for-Black social formation. It had no further historical raison d'etre.


Leadership? Lead whom? For what? Where? Currently, There is no Black leadership, merely contesting brand-names for brokers of discontent among the lower stratum of the Black working class and de-classed (primarily impoverished youths) elements.

Black Community is not even a BLACK term. It is a modern German term (Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft) that eventually evolved into the Frankfurt School's critical race theory, which took root among social and cultural activists-scholars who emerged from the civil rights and New Left philosophical trends of the 1960s. At that time, the Black Community was perceived as the social seed from which The Black Revolution would spring.

No revolution came, so no Black "community" was necessary, and none emerged. But the term had some lucrative non-Black applications, especially in terms of ethnic micro-marketing of goods and services. The term "Black Community" evolved into a euphemisim for an urban target population for retailing "Black" stuff. Ironically, history shows that the "Black Community" finds its most ardent proponents among white corporate America and hack Democratic Party politicians (Black Empowerment), drooling to gnaw the last dollars and votes from Black urban populations. They are, unfortunately, the ultimate beneficiaries of buying and voting "Black." in the mythical "Black Community."


In the current epoch, "Black Community" has come to mean a shared socio-cultural experience among American Negroes. On the face, this is an absurdity, given that the experience of being Black in the US varies by geographical location, social class status and even skin complexion. There is no such thing as culturally "Black" because there are many, many cultures among the Black folks who inhabit the US. Today's "Black Community" is a romantic formulation that manifests itself as, among other things, Kwanzaa, African-inspired fashion fetishes and Rootsism. But even this notion of "Black Community" is embraced among a very small sliver of the Black population in the US.

"Black Community," in the end , is a political nonsense term. It has no political applications that can even be remotely associated with the political challenges faced by the de-classed and working class elements of the US Black population.

Here is the challenge: What is the appropriate term for Black people who by necessity must confront and overturn white supremacy and the monopoly capitalistic system that socially feeds on racial oppression?

--30--