I'm glad that the fact that King was in love with a white woman, and wanted to marry her while he was at Crozer Seminary was mentioned. King's preoccupation with loving and getting along with white folks, at any cost, never set well with me. I'm not referring to anything tactical. I understand that we were/are outnumbered etc, etc. (Just because I recognize I may be over my head in awar with u,at the moment and make a tactical decision, does not mean I have to love u)His stance always seemed to be about more than tactics, it always struck me as him being obsessed with making white folks love us, and being hopelessly in love with them, himself. I always felt that, but never had concrete proof, until I read Parting the Waters, and read about this white woman that he was so in love with, not to mention the white affairs that came after his marriage.

I don't think that this tendency on his part, is irrelevant. I believe that it very much informed his views and his beliefs on what the focus of our struggle should be. When u look at some of the comments he made after the Birmingham,AL, sunday school bombings, that killed 4 little black girls, it puts it all into context. There were people who had been with him with non-violence all the way up to that point, but drew the line at loving people who would blowour children up in Sunday school, and wanted to retaliate, or at least strongly dislike the folks who did it,lol. His response was "If anyone's blood flows in the streets, let it be ours, not our white brothers", or something to that effect.

It's funny, because white segregationists ALWAYS said and believed that the Civil Rights movement was NOT really about Blacks wanting equal rights, but about Black men wanting to have sex with white women....hmmmmm.

My feeling is that King never treated non-violence as a tactic, meaning u do things a certain way as long as it's beneficial and appropriate to that situation. His idol, Ghandi, treated it that way. Someone mentioned that Mandela based early ANC practices on King's model, that's true, but when being non-violent didn't stop Whites from killing peaceful Blacks, like in the Sharpville masacre, the ANC ceased using those tactics and started blowing shit up,lol. Of course, Blacks are the majority in SA, but the point is, an intelligent leader should never be more wedded to a tactic than to a goal. I suspect that even if Blacks in America had been more formidable as far as our numbers, King would have STILL felt that turning the other cheek was what we should be doing, because hispsyche would have demanded it.

I said all that to say that though I respect some things about King, I never really FELT him, primarily because I got the feeling that he was more concerned about loving white folks, saving their souls, and making them love us by proving that we were worthy of their love by being: pious,peaceful, martyrlike, civilized, etc,than he was about the well being of Black people. That's not to say that I think he had no concern about Blacks at all, but it is to say that these were dueling priorities for him, which is wholly unacceptable to me in a leader. U can't be for me and for the person/people/system who are oppressing me, u cant' serve two masters, etc.

@Timeline

Ok Ill explain... (this is long tings and may seem off topic to most so skip past it if you not timeline lol)

Foundation was Asimovs final work. Early in his career he had written his robot books (which as you know are very famous and shaped how all other sci fi writers writed about robots. He invented the "3 laws of robotics". Also he wrote many other books about earth colonising the solar system and the politics involved in idependance movements and so on... When he wrote the foundation series it was set in a great galatic empire tens of thousands of years after his other stories.

It starts off with the fall of the empire through decadence and stagnation etc etc. Anyway a man called Harry Seldon invents a form of math called psychohistory with which he is able to plot the chart of future human endeavour. It is not fine enough to work with individual men but rather maps the human poplace as a whole. Using this math he sees the fall of the empire and also that there would be 30000 years of chaos and war before order would be settled again.

He sets up a foundation on the outer edge of the galaxy and setteled a bareen planet. Using psychohistory he would plan for them to start the next galactic empire and cut the interegnum period down to a mere 1000 years. He would appear to them at various points in their history with pre-recorded messages to tell them wether they were on the right track and so on.

Now. This settlement was ruled by its mayors and at various times they felt different pressures that they always overcame by seemingly ingenius methods. For example they were about to face annexation and domination by a breakaway kingdom but managed to exert control by creating a religion to control them with, then they use aggresive trading techniques and so on.

The point is, when one of those mayors had passed his particular crisis and came out of it to be proclaimed a great man by his people, he was watching Harry Seldon tell him what had happened and how he did it from a pre-recorded message hundreds of years previously.

He wondered if the result would have been the same had he done nothing? Was he really a great man, or would the pressures building up create the outcome anyway? Remember that Harry did not predict individuals but rather the patterns and change and situtaions in society...

Something you said had me thinking you had read foundation Efenjee as the thinking was very much the same as that poor old mayor lol



Sorry for the diversion everyone else.

Sorry...

I was talking to both yourself and efenjee today and am a bit sleepy!

refresh

it seems as though this thread has summarized that it is a combination of both the attributes and decisions that a man makes along with that he experiences, that can make him great.

let me now then ask

does an oppressive environment (one where access to resources is restricted or denied) limit the emergence of greatmen (in particular africans indiaspora)?


in extension, are their proportionallymore great european men than african men in social/economic fields such as politics, science, economics etc ( i think this question is rhetorical but it should provoke feedback)?

Wow, this is a great thread. I came across this scrolling the forums and i have read what people have said to what make men great.

I agree with alot of you, different factors make men great. some men areconfident and or knowlegable in different settings and situations. However for mefor a man to even call himself one, he must have theneccesities for or of being a man.

All men must be able to accept and handle responsibility.All men must be able to defend himself verbally and physically.He must be able to admit to his faults and mistakes and take action upon them. He must be able respect his family and his partner, thse are the qualities i think a man has to have to call himself one, not simply cos his gender states he is.

Then there are 'icons'. These are men who stand for something great/positive/refreshing in the presence of his friends family and the wider diaspora and community. There are many documented 'icons' and heros from the past that a couple has mentioned. My personal hero who i looked up to when i was younger andstill do although he was noself proclaim activist or leaderis Muhammed Alialias Cassius Clay.

What the guy stood for was soendearing and brilliant to me that ihumbled even when i see him on tv. I grew up wanting to BELIKE HIM for a while until i realised i am great myself without immitating. His confidence, obvious love and concern for isheritage, people and smartness was impressive to me.

Breadfruit wrote: