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Gmahogany777 · (#7 (**permalink**))

Quote:

Originally Posted by meknow

Behavior is learned.

The best way to change behavior is to make the consequences of said behavior pertinent.

I was jsut thinking back to the old days. Like him or not MLK was effective in changing the behavior or black people by putting shoe leather with his directions.

I am troubled at the statement "Directed radical change...". Black people have learned that after the demostrations, marches etc and the cadre has returned to their townhouses and life beyond ground zero we still have to go to work and face the circumstances.

Wouldn't, as King showed us, the cadre directing effort at their level of involvement have a greater effect and do more to spurn the masses to partake in the radical behavior change? Usually it is done down at our level and the powers that be would then contact the cadre remote from the situation and ask that a negoiated settlement be done. the cadre agrees and sips wine with the powers that be and we go back to work and behavior is not affected.

what do you think?

That's why it's important to make sure that the members of the "cadre directing involvement", are not given carte blanche, but are engaged and challenged, and held accountable to the interests of the collective. It's also why Black folks need to get rid of our need for "messianic leadersip", it's a hallmark of our immaturity and somewhat childish, collective mindset. It perpetually sets us up TO be sold out, by our so called "leaders". They are going to constantly be given the motive, means and opportunity to throw the rest of us under the bus, or at bare minimum negotiate away our interests AFTER the war has been won,lol. That has always been the area we REALLY get jobbed in. Not the battle or war itself, but the "negotitation of the peace"see our rush to integration as the be all and end all, or see South Africa as an example.

The origins of the idea of the Montogomery Bus Boycott, came from the grassroots level. From a Black women's organization called, the Black Women's Political Council(a group of Black women who worked at Alabama State College, Black women were the majority of bus riders in the city, not Black men, so it's quite logical that the idea would have come from them), led by sisters like Jo ANn Robinson. King was called into it to be a spokesperson after the train had already left the station. There is nothing wrong with that, powerless, disenfranchised people routinely feel the need to appoint someone to speak to the power structure on their behalf, or sometimes, someone is appointed/annointed by their enemy/the power structure, to speak on their behalf. The problem comes in when the best interests and desires of the group began to be defined by the best interests/desires/motivations/hang ups/self esteem issues/sexual predilections, etc, of the one leader/messiah. That person sells out, loses their mind, gets compromised in some way, or gets killed, or some combination of 2, or 3 or 4 of those things, and Negroes are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, for another 20 or 30 years looking for the "next messiah". It's inefficent, non strategic, and plain old stupid. We need to grow up, in that regard.