The viewlessness of norms tricks us into believing that this is “how things have always been, this is what exists naturally, objectively and logically”. However the Black Radical Tradition has taught me to investigate the mainstream because it does not just occur. There is a reason why certain ideas come into the mainstream while others are sidelined. Being aware of the politics of norms and mainstreams, allow us to see beyond them. This in turn allows us to re-imagine the world, unrestricted by the shackles of the mainstream.

Toni Morrison shows us how every piece of writing is a series of choices. Further extending this idea allows us to see that every action entails a series of choices. Consequently a series of choices supplement a certain way of thinking. If we look at the world as “readers”, uncritically accepting these choices we take the world as it is given to us. However if we view the world as “writers” we can question the legitimacy of these choices.  Furthermore we question the illegitimacy of the “ownership of history”, and thus open the subjectivity of the created narrative. We pose the questions: What creates the mainstream? Why should we follow it? Why are certain people ignored whilst others glorified? This examination allows us to question the viewlessness of norms and the mainstream.

The “Santa Clausization” of Martin Luther King and the ostracization of Malcolm X is an example of the bias of the mainstream.  Martin Luther King has been made into a reductive figure; he is used not as a means to illustrate the issues of the African American community but rather the gains that gloss over the still-continuing structural issues that plague the Black community. He has been appropriated to serve the system that still exploits African Americans and is used as a justification for the linearity of progress, i.e. it strengthens the justification of wait. Instead the fuller picture of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X is lost; the ones that demand for accountability and the transfer of rights now.  Without critically examining the concepts and reduced figures of the mainstream, fallacious justifications such as the inevitability of progress and the virtue of waiting become acceptable.

A mainstream image of Martin Luther King assures us that the Civil Rights Movement resolved most of the issues that plagued the African American community. Furthermore it convinces us that there exists a linear relationship between time and progress. The Civil Rights Movement is used to show that “things will only get better”.  Using Toni Morrison’s lens we can see that this suits the purposes of those who benefit from the current system. It allows the status quo to continue unchallenged.  It illustrates the politics of the mainstream, which claims to be objective and neutral. It is a tool used by the “owners of history” who benefit from current oppressive systems. On the other hand if we examine sidelined figures like Malcolm X or Ella Baker we can see their criticisms that naturally opposed this simplified view of Civil Rights and Martin Luther King. Whether it is Ella Bakers idea of slow organic progress or Malcolm X’s radical sweeping changes, each fight the recommendation to wait, deny the linearity of progress and therefore urge for immediate action.

These figures understood the hegemony of the mainstream and its political origins, allowing them to free themselves from its cage. They thus played the important role of re-imagining the world. The Black Radical Tradition shows us many figures that did this. Whether it is CLR James’ re-situation of the centre of revolution or Malcolm X’s re-construction of identity, these figures opened up possibilities. They showed that the way to re-imagine the world is open for all those who choose to look. There are other ways of being for those who question the way things are, and make demands for the way it should be. The Black Radical Tradition therefore showed me constriction of our knowledge, and the freedom of our unknown.

Blood on the leaves

And blood at the roots

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

This is the voice of those who were silenced, murdered, maimed, and those who were supposed to be forgotten. It is the voice of those who were never meant to be survive. The only history that they inherited was a history of violence, of murder, of abduction yet those who suffer are the only ones who can comprehend the sheer force of the gross injustice of power. They are the only ones who can show us that this is not the way things are supposed to be. They carry a burden which shouldn’t be theirs to carry; the burden of explanation should not fall on them.

The black radical tradition is the vantage point of those who suffer and those who refuse to accept the “thingification” the world imposes on them; those who refuse to be reduced to the “nigger”, those who refused to be reduced to degraded sex objects. They demand only to be recognized as human. Their’s is a history of unfathomable horror but theirs is also the history which is radical; which promises change; which envisions a new world; which rejects a Manichean, despot duality and in that sense, they are the bearers of the future.

Those who have not been given a place in the world are the ones who speak truth to power. “Death may be the meaning of life, but we do language. That maybe the measure of our lives.” Morrison challenges the belief that language may be neutral; language within itself conceals the power which forms it and that is why it must be constantly exposed and those who were robbed of their language must constantly reaffirm their narrative through taking ownership of the language at their disposal and calling it out for the kind of violence that it embodies.

The tradition, when seen through this lens makes us understand how the oppressed comes home to him or herself. Someone who is always told that they don’t deserve a space on earth for they have no history of civilization is overjoyed by all that their glorious past has to offer and that is the story of negritude. It gives them a chance to see themselves from new eyes, however, they must not remain trapped in the luring of the past for that fixation makes them blind to the reality of the present. They must not insist on their identity as natural for they will again be viewing themselves from the gaze of the oppressor.

 One can never be free if one keeps reacting to the oppressor. What sets them free, then is knowing that they may not be able to see or conceive a world that completely recognizes them and does away with all oppression but they can certainly strive towards it by speaking truth to power, for the bird, which carries the burden of the past, the toxins of the present and the hope of the future, is truly in their hands. Freedom, then, requires an acknowledgement that we can never fully comprehend the forces that shape our lives, but we refuse to accept the absoluteness of these forces for they always weren’t such and they always won’t be such. In the words of Gloria Andaluza, “so don’t give me your tenets and your laws. Don’t give me your lukewarm gods.”

The tradition, essentially, places a responsibility on all of us to bear witness to and to reject all forces of oppression, discrimination and marginalization that the lukewarm gods of those who benefit from this systematic dehumanization legitimize. The struggle, then becomes a very personal one and the moral burden is very real for those who were never meant to survive haunt us and question us: have we done our part?  

not here, not this, but something different elsewhere

It feels right to end here, at this point, as we stand at the close, hoping with a childlike wish in our hearts that it isn’t over, that somehow, this will go on. This is a feeling we all know, it is instinctual, natural, embedded in our muscle memory, and in our very essence and being. An irrational ideal, to keep moving without stopping, to never have to anticipate the end of the day, and to just continue on with what fills our hearts with content. It is a hope that the Black radical tradition was built on, a beautiful prayer for an endless trail of beginnings and no ends. Why? Because it was necessary to start from a point of possibility and not loss. To read their story as one of resilience and not abjection. To see their history as one that is not rife with despair, but alive with promise.

The Black radical tradition, to me, is a new Enlightenment, a Black Renaissance, which left behind in its wake a place for everyone. It is a movement that focused on the deconstruction and reordering of the world on different terms. On magic and enchantment, rationality and irrationality, on love but also loss, for the dead and the living. It sought to create a world that did not exist in binaries, but multiplicities; to render each, the black, the white and the grey their due. And in many ways to simply see the world very much through a child’s eyes; benign and uncorrupted by the logic of power.

It is imbibed with a certain ethic, in tune with the idea of a world that is for everyone and so speaks through a secret code, one that is unclaimed and undiscovered because it belongs to everyone and therefore, does not exist in one form. It exists for all of us. The Black radical tradition communicates in a language that does not emerge from violence, but from a place of innocence. Like a prayer, it does not have a definite form, it can be a string of consciousness that speaks exactly as it feels, unfiltered and free. It can be disjointed and eloquent both at the same time, it can defy logic and reproduce it, all on its own terms. But in each case, its form is representative of the larger project, which is not to redefine the world according to a specific structure, rather, to open the world to more than one form of expression.

So then, like when a child is born in to this world and a prayer is said for them, that the world be kind to them, and create a space for them where they can unapologetically be themselves; that world, the multi colored black world, the world of Morrison, Lorde, hooks, Fanon, Cesaire, Du Bois, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and so many more; that is the world the black radical tradition leaves behind to us. A world where you are not a problem, where you can see through the veil that seeks to blind you, where the color of your skin does not determine your destiny, where your anatomy does not limit your horizon, and where you don’t have to worry about who is better than you, but rather, worry about how you can become the best version of you. A world where you can simply just be. 

And so, as we began with a prayer, let us end with one;

I am. We are. And that is enough.

 

The black radical tradition is a story and a journey of love. 

The story begins with individuals reduced to bare lives and nothingness. It sows seeds of love with an urge to recognize their existence and redeem their oppressed pasts; it acknowledges their damage, it measures their scars. 

How deep is the scar, it asks? 

Deep. Deep and so infectious that it requires the tyrant to be cured along with the victim if it is to be truly healed. The love is truly radical, for it recognizes the humanity of the oppressed AND the oppressor, and in doing so, it seeks to heal the tyrant and tends to the wretched. 

Finally, in stretching its hold in order to accommodate previously denied ways of being, it promises an inclusive (F)uture that renders possible the existence of multiple future(s).

This love is that of Fanon, so radical that it demands a bigger, more flexible measure to hold the entire humanity in its embrace. 

Like that of Du Bois, it travels back in time to pay its respects to those who lived lonely lives and died forgotten deaths. 

Haartman’s love, that aches to belong to a place that can be called home. 

Hooks’ love, critical but never disdainful- a love that reminds us all of our collective potential to be better, to constantly do better.

Malcolm’s love, a love truly urgent but also uncompromising.

It is a love also like Ali’s. One that reminds us to claim our identity and our names.

To make them say our names.  

Say my name. 

Say my name.

Say it till they get it right.

A love like Anzaldua’s. It demands to be acknowledged, does not beg for it. 

Perhaps also like Morrison’s, for it urges us to bear witness for those who can’t bear witness for themselves.   

Audre Lorde’s love, one that teaches us that incomplete love is no love at all, for much like oppression, there can be no hierarchy of love.

MLK’s love. A love truly vulnerable. A love truly brave. A love that strives to find a home in the ‘not yet’, in perhaps the ‘never will be’ and yet still continues to strive. To live. And to fight. 

It is a love that is revolutionary, for it refuses to settle for scraps. It demands more and better from the present to ensure a better tomorrow.

But it is also kind, gentle and selfless, since it does not want to leave anyone behind. 

It is vulnerable. It recognizes the limited resources we have to redeem our fractured pasts. But it also admits that it is this limitation that necessitates our collective effort, for our humanity is all we have and as long as our humanity is not exclusionary and vengeful, it is enough.

It is exemplary love, for it urges us to lead lives that are reflective of our values, not our conditions. Of our dreams, not our pasts. 

Black radical tradition, then, is a story of a love born out of our mutual vulnerability, unifying us all in our shared humanity. And a story that lives on through the hope of our reunion, at the rendezvous of victory. 

To filter down the Black Radical Tradition (or what little I have studied of it) to the few key points I have learned would be a disservice to all those individuals who spent their entire lives in this pursuit. Nonetheless, I will venture to highlight the objectives the Black Radical Tradition has illuminated right in front of me in my particular context. Maxwele’s words, seconds before he desecrated Cecil Rhodes statue in South Africa, come to mind, “Where are our heroes and ancestors?”. What the Black Radical Tradition has offered me is the vitality of the preservation of histories, stories, works or, in other words, everything that lends force to our voice after centuries of lying crushed beneath the colonial jackboot.

The lack of Urdu books to be found online, on one count, is disturbing to say the least. The Black Radical Tradition has offered me an idea to go about changing this. Extrapolating from that idea, the preservation of material beyond books to ensure nothing is lost in the passage of time or the blood-spattered pages of history has become an objective at the conclusion of this course. The names of our heroes and our history in other words should be preserved as well as those who are yet in the making.

Moreover, the Black Radical Tradition has taught me to find beauty in the most unexpected places. There is a certain aesthetic to be found in Coltrane’s Alabama which is pleasing to the ears. While the subject of the song is grim, the chaotic nature of jazz which somehow falls into place in the holistic view of the melody is beautiful to listen to.

Conclusively, together, they provide hope. To find beauty in the unlikeliest of places and the objective of preserving our tradition serves to establish a blinding bright spot on the horizon. This is what the Black Radical Tradition has offered me: inspiration to follow or at least try to follow the footsteps of those who made the Black Radical Tradition what it is without the bitter cynicism most commonly and often stereotypically associated with those who have strived for years against oppression of all kinds but to no avail.

“What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?”

The Black Radical tradition has offered me a lot to learn in this course. It has taught me the violence of being static in a zone of non-being, of being defined by someone else, of being riddled out of history as if a certain history never existed at all. Reading about the African diaspora also taught me the tyranny of being uprooted, and then defining again what one’s home is, among many other things. But most of all, the Black Radical Tradition has taught me the importance of rising up from a silence that is somehow, in different levels, imposed upon all of us everyday. The quote by Audre Lorde above culminates in a sense my argument of what that means. It is the importance of recognition as well. The recognition of the violence of silence and language, the violence of definitions. And it has taught be that me that beyond that recognition, and even within it, lies a hope that looked to the future even beyond one’s own existence. Therefore, while I have learned of blackness as a wounded, traumatic history, I have also learned of blackness as the future.

The violence of language, the violence of naming was perhaps the biggest violence that existed in general relations of domination and subordination. Reflecting back on this, I think this idea became important even when we discussed Moscow as the new center during the time of the Communist International. In my second blog when we had to analyze some posters, I picked a one that inverted the moon laterally and that clawed into Moscow, and I said that this is what communism intended to do: it was changing the center. After having read so many more people in the course, I realize that that changing of the center was also a struggle against the preconceived naming of the West as the center. Naming something as static was the violence. And to change it was the struggle. This violence was addressed by many “prophets/prophetesses” we discussed. For CLR James, when he detailed the violence of the slave experience, he centered the history on blackness. For Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, in the struggles of violence and nonviolence – for the former, even in naming the movement “Human Rights Movement”. For black women that became heroines for me: bell hooks, Ella Baker, Toni Morrison, and so many more, by reading whom I realised the double violence of being silenced by the oppressor outside and within, i.e. the black man.

In essence, what I learned from the Black Radical Tradition was this then: that to have a space in history, a history that was not chartered by the white man, was to recognize how one came to be called what they were and to recognize the inherent hierarchy and power in that. It made me realise the importance of the phrase: There is a space for everyone at the rendezvous of victory. I did not just learn about black history then. This tradition offered me an ethic: to be more aware of the power that exists not just in actions but also in words. To see the violence in preconceived categories. To the extent of making me aware what I write, who do I write about, and why do I write that. . . In the end, therefore, it has taught me to be aware of meaning, and the power within it.