When I walk in the alleys of the neighbourhood of Bronx, a visual of stark loneliness and defeat greets me. An elderly woman is sitting on a bench, finding herself in an existential cul-de-sac. As I approach her, she summons me to sit beside her. I begin interviewing her, gently prodding her to talk about the effects of poverty and discrimination on her family.
That quiet conversation is a reminder that the inflammatory rhetoric of the black power movement, with its talk of revolution, national liberation and armed struggle, had its roots in bitter experience. And while she tells a story of defiance and pride, it is also a tale of defeat, frustration and terrible destruction. The killing of her son in the gang war, the grinding toll of the Recession, the everyday struggle to feed her family (whatever is left of it), the spread of heroin in the ghettos of northern cities: these are not chapters in a tale of triumph.
And it leaves me in a bracing state of confusion, wondering how much has changed and how the change took place. How will the America of Barack Obama, who represents a very different kind of black power, any different from that of the days of Martin Luther King or Stokey Carmichael? To what extent is it the same America? Perhaps there are some visitors from outside who can help us make sense of it all.
That quiet conversation is a reminder that the inflammatory rhetoric of the black power movement, with its talk of revolution, national liberation and armed struggle, had its roots in bitter experience. And while she tells a story of defiance and pride, it is also a tale of defeat, frustration and terrible destruction. The killing of her son in the gang war, the grinding toll of the Recession, the everyday struggle to feed her family (whatever is left of it), the spread of heroin in the ghettos of northern cities: these are not chapters in a tale of triumph.
And it leaves me in a bracing state of confusion, wondering how much has changed and how the change took place. How will the America of Barack Obama, who represents a very different kind of black power, any different from that of the days of Martin Luther King or Stokey Carmichael? To what extent is it the same America? Perhaps there are some visitors from outside who can help us make sense of it all.
