Note: This is my own take on chapter seven of “Democracy in Black” (2016) by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
Black Liberals (fl. 1909- ) are those Blacks in the US who believe in democracy, capitalism and the US, but want the government to step in to protect equal rights and equal opportunity.
The root of US Black political thought is the observation that the US says it is for freedom, equality and democracy, but does not practise them, at least not when it comes to Black people.
The disagreements over the causes and cures leads to the main schools of thought, here listed from the most dangerous to the least in the eyes of the US government:
- communist: Democracy is a trick. Capitalism needs to be overthrown by revolution for there to be true equality between races. Examples: Paul Robeson, the later W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Davis.
- nationalist: Blacks need their own country, or at least their own institutions, since the White US institutions cannot be counted on to be fair. Examples: Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Black Power, Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
- liberal: The US government needs to uphold its own promises of freedom, democracy and equality, mainly by upholding equal rights before the law. Change comes through voting, protest and court cases. Examples: The early Du Bois, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr, Freedom Riders, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, SNCC, NAACP, Moral Mondays, Black Lives Matter.
- conservative: US society is more or less fair. Black people need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Examples: Booker T. Washington, Thomas Sowell, Black Republicans.
- post-Black: There is little the government can do about racism, what little is left of it. Blacks need to transcend race. Examples: Barack Obama, New Blacks.
Overlap: Conservatives and nationalists are both big on self-help. Liberals and post-Blacks are big on colour-blind policies. Conservatives and post-Blacks are big on scolding poor Blacks. And so on.
Black Liberalism:
- Features: charismatic preachers, protest, court cases, voting, speeches, grandstanding. What conservatives and post-Blacks call the grievance industry.
- Flaws:
- dependent on charismatic preachers,
- dismantling the master’s house with the master’s tools,
- integrating into a burning house.
- History: Despite its civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s, Black Liberalism on the whole has narrowed over the years:
- 1946: narrows its vision to just the US. No more Pan-Africanism.
- 1976: moves to colour-blind policies.
- 1980s: sells its soul to the Democratic Party.
- 1990s: Democratic Party accepts Reagan’s ideas of limited government, thanks in part to Ron Brown. It leaves Black Liberals with little to show for their votes. Big banks and the prison-industrial complex benefit more from their votes than they do.
- 2010s: Black Spring, Black Lives Matter, the rebirth of protest, etc.
White racism: Like communism, democracy is a wonderful idea on paper. But in practice, in the US, it has been deformed by White racism (and, arguably, capitalism). Black Liberals can and have won important gains for Blacks, but they leave White racism in the main untouched.
– Abagond, 2017.
See also:
- White Liberals
- Obama retrospective
- Black Americans
- Glaude: Democracy in Black
- Ferguson
- Selma
521
Wow. I always thought my ideas and views were conservative in nature. Never woukd have thought of them as communist and nationalist.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Sharina
And here I’ve been wondering this whole time why you seemed to consider yourself a conservative…
I mean, yes, you may very well have some conservative beliefs in some other areas of life. Not going to question that. Not going to call you a liberal, either.
But you’ve always expressed some very radical ideas about race and social justice.
LikeLike
Whether Afro Americans are liberals, Conservatists, Nationalists or just positionless, one of the hardest truth is that every Black American should never forget that him or her being alive in America or just have existence in the US is a product of ultimate of sacrifices of his/ her great grand parents who braved the shores and cold waters of the Atlantic from the Kingdom of the Kongo, via Zanzibar, Casamance, Gold Coasts wherein the women who gave birth were trampled down and unlocked thrown into the merciless waters and Caravan Waters, the Weaker or occasionally sick Males simply codly killed. It pains to see Black Americans for a bigger parts in Shelters and the newer generations looking at Insanity, perversion and sexual promiscuity promoted through Hip Hop as the new form of guidance. Ultimate materialism had in effect the Unity that used to be the DNA of the Black Nation in the US yet, completely leaving the Black Youths into selling dope for survival at the entrance of the Gates of Prisons where more Blacks are found than they could ever be at any US Universities.
LikeLike
“communist: Democracy is a trick. Capitalism needs to be overthrown by revolution for there to be true equality between races. Examples: Paul Robeson, the later W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Davis.
nationalist: Blacks need their own country, or at least their own institutions, since the White US institutions cannot be counted on to be fair. Examples: Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Black Power, Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, Ta-Nehisi Coates.”
This is not a serious post. Communists were the first to have advocated national self-determination and the creation of a Black Nation in the Black Belt states. “The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was the first to suggest that African Americans in the Black Belt constituted an oppressed nation, and that they should be allowed to vote on self-determination, as had populations following World War I under rules of the League of Nations. After fierce debate in the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1928, the CPUSA officially adopted a plan for self-determination for an African-American nation in the Black Belt.[1]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_self-determination. That concept was part of what was known as the Third period when insurrection was allegedly the order of the day everywhere on earth! That policy led to disasters and the rise of Hitler in Germany without a shot being fired! The policy that followed was to cozy up to every liberal political formation worldwide, to stop Fascism! The form it took in the USA was, among other things, support for Civil Rights organizations and struggles, the Scottsboro Boys case being the most famous. Democracy, far from being a trick, was declared the source of all good things, the struggle to maintain it was the order of the day! Attempts were made to create an alliance with the Democracies to keep Hitler’s Germany down. We all know how well that policy worked. Abagond is trying to claim some kind of static essence where you can clearly distinguish liberals, communists, etc., reality is a lot messier. Liberals turn into Communists who morph into advocates of Black Nationalism! The good Dr. Du Bois is a poster child for such protean politics. The problem with the Abagondian worldview is this neglect of history.
LikeLike
@ gro jo
I called them schools of thought, not rigid, isolated ideologies. I pointed out that they overlap and that Du Bois himself changed over time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Solitaire
At first thought I saw it as simply my faulty idea of being conservative. When people talk to me they automatically point out how conservative my views are, but thinking back on those conversations they never scratched the surface to discuss my real views.
Another thing is my views have greatly changed over time of being on this blog and expanding to others. I grew up seeing blacks as able to do anything and racism was not a big deal. That there was those few racist out there.
LikeLike
@gro jo
hear, hear!
‘static essence’ hits the nail on the head. this whole blog is predated on the idea of there existing a static essence.
One that places entire groups into carefully delineated subdivisions and commandeers that they must behave in a specified way…
why?
because it hath been decided that they belonged to such a group!!!
reality is far messier.
who is this gro jo? the only one on this blog so far to have commanded my respect.
well done.
LikeLike
apportune, Thank you for your kind words. I’ve one question for you, are you sure you mean “predated” i.e. comes before, instead of “predicated” i.e. is based on?
LikeLike
” Black Liberals can and have won important gains for Blacks, but they leave White racism in the main untouched.”
I think that is because many Black Liberals thought of integration as the holy grail. Only too late did they come to realize that efforts at racial inclusion were based on delusion.
The current moment features large sectors of White folks showing their dirty underwear (or worse) to Black people and blaming Black folk for everything from the 2008 financial collapse to “hate crimes”. Black Liberals were big on respectability politics. They thought that White Americans would be swayed by efforts at assimilation and “proper” behavior. They were wrong.
From the mid-1970s to the present, the White majority have been in backlash mode. Nearly all of those “important gains for Blacks” have been eroded. We are effectively back at another racial nadir (low point). Only this go round, Black people don’t even have the leverage of being a cheap labor source. We are viewed as a “surplus” population with no reason for being——and that makes this moment particularly dangerous.
Many times I wish Black people had prioritized strengthening our segregated communities with privately owned Black schools, Black-owned sports teams and Black businesses that built on the foundations laid during the period of the last nadir.
We integrated into a burning house and got blamed for bringing gasoline by the people holding blazing torches.
LikeLiked by 4 people
predicated*
LikeLike
@LOM
If you thought he was an intelligent writer then that says a lot about you.
LikeLiked by 3 people
LOM said: “I think that Solitaire and Afrofem are intelligent people; I don’t really like Sharina, Herneith, or Taotesan. But whatever they are, it’s horrible to insult them like that.
I have a few questions for you LOM or in the alternative, An Scribhneoir, how does not liking someone, simultaneously preclude them from being intelligent? By who or what standard deems them to be unintelligent; which I seriously doubt they are?
Are you the authority on the matters of intelligence? How did you become so heavily endowed with the skill to discern who is and who isn’t? Are you inerrant? Are you the standard bearer regarding this subject?
To passively suggest that someone is perhaps unintelligent, merely due to you not approving of them, unequivocally brings into question your own level of intelligence.
Sharina, Herneith and Taotesan are all intelligent!
@@@@@
@ALL TROLLS,
“There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Statesman and Writer
Now, move along and take care of that acute case of priapism!
LikeLiked by 3 people
“I think that Solitaire and Afrofem are intelligent people; I don’t really like Sharina, Herneith, or Taotesan..”
.
You like the above two because they freely permit you to suck milk from,them. Otherwise you would have no use for them either. User!!
The other person you SUCK UP to is this site’s owner because he allows you to remain here despite your despicable and foul stench.
Surely you realize that the majority of folks here don’t “like” you either!
And yet you keep leaving your own blog to stink up this space! That makes a very unflattering statement about your crusty thinking.
At least you’re as much consistent as you are dim – and unoriginal.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ah, gro Jo, you’ve finally found some one to circkejerk with,! Good for you and apportune!
LikeLiked by 3 people
So, how about a Black Any ideas anyone?
Belt redout and using the Caribbean as a pivot to Southern and West Africa?
LikeLike
Phone messed up earlier posts.
Done right.
So, how about a Black Belt redout, with the Caribbean as a pivot to West and southern Africa?
Ideas anyone?
LikeLike
Some of those old buildings in Places like Baltimore, you Just have to pay the balance on the taxes to own them.
And you have the greatest Black Panther, Elaine Brown, over in Oakland paying PEOPLE 14 dollars an hour in their supermarket. She’s also setting up returning convicts with work, and trying to get control of Oaklands port.
Anyone interested in real life meetups, like what they do over at Slate Star Codex?
LikeLike
@satanforce BAL has had $1 homes since the 70s or 80s. If you want to pay more than the property value for some deadbeat’s tax debt for a shell of a house on a block of similar bandos in a neighborhood you wouldn’t bring your kids to or park your car in? Go ahead
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think in detroit it’s 50 cents now. Again, a house with no fixtures or pipes (copper).
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve always wanted a real-life adventure in a post-apocalyptic setting. I’ll use Detroit to level up for Flint.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well Habib and Soo-yun have no problem doing that when they set up their cheque cashing businesses, so I say give it a try.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The (stereotypical) store owner of a hood shop will not typically live where they work, although a lot of family owned stores (do bodegas fit your theoretical model. Satanforce?) around here will have living quarters upstairs.
LikeLike
@ LOM/ASG-M
Go back to the White Liberals thread and check out your initial reaction to apportune.
When did it change? Over on the Jacqueline Craig thread.
Why? Le France.
As I pointed out to you at the time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is not a bilingual blog. English is the language of record. Going forward I am deleting all comments with gratuitous French.
If you want to quote, say, Voltaire and there are issues about how he is translated into English, that is one thing. But what is going on here is a moderation mess waiting to happen.
LikeLike
@ ASG-M
Hey, don’t tell apportune but he’s said a couple things that I kind of partially agree with (e.g., U.S. secondary education sucks). Doesn’t matter; he’s been obviously trolling ever since he got here. Did he not talk smack about the Gaelic to you?
The other side of the coin is that you got very rightfully called out for implying that three frequent posters you don’t like are unintelligent. Excuse me, have you seen some of the six-syllable words Taotesan trots out casually that make me go scrambling for the dictionary? And English isn’t her first language.
Give some respect where respect is due.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Abagond,
Why did you delete my recent comment?
It had nothing to do with writing in French.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Black people don’t even have the leverage of being a cheap labor source.
They will when they build the ‘Wall’. They can also use the prisoners when ‘law and order’ are enforced. I’m only half-joking, by the way.
We integrated into a burning house and got blamed for bringing gasoline by the people holding blazing torches.
An excellent analogy!
do you seriously presume to have a modicum of actual intelligence?
Why would we? We’re just lowly ‘culluds’. The same could be asked of you goof.
no one actually cares about you, are you aware of that…???
You obviously do or you wouldn’t be here hurling invective around.
Like seriously. you could die tomorrow and no one would give a toss.
And? Where’s the ‘logic’ in this except for petulance because no one is really reading your bull turd or taking you seriously. Not obsequious enough to your ‘whiteness’?
please join my coterie of wives.
I wouldn’t marry or date a white supremacist such as yourself. That’s cognitive dissonance at its’ best.
I don’t really like Sharina, Herneith, or Taotesan. But whatever they are, it’s horrible to insult them like that.
Put it to music and play it on the violin! Coming from a white supremacist as yourself is complimentary if nothing else.
Are you the authority on the matters of intelligence?
He’s a white man isn’t that enough? It seems to be for them.
And you have the greatest Black Panther, Elaine Brown, over in Oakland paying PEOPLE 14 dollars an hour in their supermarket.
15$ minimum wage is a good start, plus income enhancement. Free daycare, prescriptions. Free university and college education.
Purchasing up derelict or paying the difference owed on houses, renovating them and either renting them to low-income people or selling at extremely low prices. There are endless things that can be done. This is already happening in Detroit with those ‘artists’ colonies. They have their own little enclaves. My prediction? you will see an influx of white back to Detroit who will buy up these homes, and renovate them. They will push out the residents who may have been there for several generations.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think in detroit it’s 50 cents now. Again, a house with no fixtures or pipes (copper).
The purchaser could probably renovate these home from top th bottom for 50 grand minimum. It would still be cheaper than buying a house on the regular market.
. And I think France has some stuff to teach the U.S. about how to bury race ten feet under.
France has fa to teach the US about race. Subsuming a problem will not make it go away, that is what France does under the cloak of logic no less. Just ask your bum buddy apportune.
LikeLike
@LOM
You basically are reading what you want in his comments. He did not say resources was the all-important struggle. He said the reason or justification for why non-whites are treated the way they are is because of resources and not racism.
In other words…conservative or better yet post-black views to stay on topic.
LikeLike
@Herneith
On point as usual.
“They can also use the prisoners when ‘law and order’ are enforced. I’m only half-joking, by the way.”
Yes, “law and order” in the US are code words for “beat Black people down”. Trump still has not apologized for slandering the Central Park Five.
LikeLike
Sacrifice Detroit and Cali. Detroit has too many low-skilled people to build an industrial base. Most Cali sectors are going to see major outflow due to cost of living. Hell, black L.A. is right by one of the largest urban oilfields in America. Leave it alone. Just leave it alone
Main goal – a base of like-minded (not all our kinfolk are our skinfolk) that can turn the Black Belt into an area as rich as the state of California in 50 years. To be used in interim as a spearhead for like minded AND/OR like-skinned groups. Main issue will be the inevitable end of U.S. Dollar as reserve currency. Black diaspora will operate on Overseas Chinese model.
Black Americans will make alliances with diaspora blacks from high growth, low income African countries. Caribbean countries will be used as spearheads to Africa and Latin America (screw Brazil, costs too much.) Initally , goods and services will be directed towards poor Africans and diaspora blacks. Links need to be made with like-minded financiers, like Syncom.
Poor blacks in America will be used as a testbed for products. Services like Kickstarter will be used both for SWPL propaganda and donation purposes. Products will include cheap broadband via microwave or high altitude platform (many poor blacks still have dial-up, or poor quality internet) and 20 dollar cellphones that have Android’s functionality, without the bloat (example Inferno Operating system) etc…..
Screw Liberalism. The Calculus of Integration will only divide and conquer us all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Clarification: I’m not trying to say Reagan screwed us as badly as he did black communities. Just that he screwed us.
Oh, how I hate that man.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
I accidentally posted the comment above to the wrong thread. You can delete it (and this one too) if you want to tidy things up.
LikeLike
Oh, how I hate that man.
A fantastic actor! His presidency showed us this!
LikeLike
“A fantastic actor! His presidency showed us this!”
He became more like a fantastic (talking) mannequin!
His alzheimer’s disease began somewhere around the beginning of his second term.
His support personnel became the real actors, directors, producers, writers as he became noticeably worse.
If a decent acting career and looking presidential is a required prerequisite for an iconic presidency, I nominate Denzel, Samuel L and Roundtree (Shaft).
LikeLiked by 1 person
@An Scríbhneoir Gael-Mheiricéanach
Reagan was certainly the architect of this era. No doubt about it. Neocons and Neolibs. Was hoping the pendulum would begin to swing the other way with Obama. Nope Obama continued the forced march to austerity.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“I would say that Reagan is the worst and most harmful president we’ve had in the last 100 years..”
.
Maybe, maybe not. Even so, I would still much prefer his company over your own racist buffoonish presence!
LikeLiked by 1 person
@An Scríbhneoir Gael-Mheiricéanach
So Reagan’s the worst. I can see that. Heck, he started this whole mess; his banner carried on admirably by Clinton, the Bushes and Obama. Though I have to say, the presidents do seem to be getting progressively worse. I guess it’s a cumulative effect of each building on the obscenity of the president preceding him. Determining who is the worse president is a subjective thing. I remember telling my mother, during the Bush2 administration that he was the worst president ever. She said no it was Hoover. Since she experienced both, I defer to her. Now I think it’s Obama. Definitely now. I thought he was as bad as Bush during his first term. And he just kept getting worse and worse. I think he far surpasses Bush now. Like I say, it don’t get no worse than trying to start WW3. For purely gratuitously political reasons. So how do you rate Obama ? On a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being unbelievably awful.
https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.Mf2840bd332e1bc38c616fcd946454b5ao0&pid=Api
They’ve been pretty bad since Reagan. It’s almost like we’ve had a series of tag team mini-Hitlers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Abagond
On the other hand, you may want to leave that duplicate comment here after all, since it’s sparked some discussion.
LikeLike
Maybe, maybe not. Even so, I would still much prefer his company over your own racist buffoonish presence!
Come on, there’s worse!!!! Hahahahaha!!
LikeLike
Troll.
Is that your best come back?
@Fan:
Pay no attention to that white supremacist. He is clueless.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I generallly consider Reagan to be the worst in my lifetime, because he began this whole mess, because he seemed bound and determined to start WW III and it felt like we only narrowly escaped, because he lied freely and often and the media reported it as truth, because he was an oily poisonous snake who fooled so many people into thinking he was a genial grandpa while he destroyed their lives and the future of their children.
But it does seem like each successive president causes me to lower the bar. I didn’t think anyone could make W look like an intelligent statesman, but lo and behold, Trump hadn’t been in office a week before I was thinking I’d prefer to have W back.
I don’t have a clear enough memory of Nixon. Watergate was a very confusing thing to me; I thought it was a dam on a river. But I do remember lots of people thought he was worse than Reagan.
I also believe Reagan was showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s before he ever took office. He clearly wasn’t competent to be president by the second term, but maybe not before that, either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@v8
No no Bodega. NO!!! I admit, I was wrong to rely on stereotypes of American immigrants to base my model. I’m sorry. You’re right. Renovating poor communities for low profits is just charity work- not appropriate for a business idea.
It’s better to make and sell things that people can use. In fact, a lot of these “starving africsn” products coming out of Silicon Valley would be more useful to poor (and soon middle class) people in the first world.
LikeLike
No. The Minister of Finance is the hand that guides the throne.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/paul-volcker-ronald-reagan-fed-shock-inflation-unions/
LikeLiked by 1 person
@satanforce ok that comment i think i originally put in the china thread, i guess abagond moved it.
You mean like solar powered or hand cranked chromebooks?
LikeLike
@V8driver
Yes. And No.
Those Africa devices are made to capture eyeballs in areas with limited infrastructure. Facebook and them want to create new products in poor countries because in Web 2.0, the user is the product. They want to use those devices as Walled Gardens, and give them Walled Garden Internet with high altitude platforms and Geo-stationary Satellites. The Indian governmebt say through this play, and told them what to go do with themselves.
The main issue,I feel, is that there is no real lo-end for many consumer goods, and as a result, the capabilities of many devices have overshot consumer needs and wants, espeially in poor and middle income countries. The power requirements of those devices are toohigh, ad their specifications are too bloated. And by doing away with Android 2.3 Butterfly, cell phine companies have basically ceded a 1 billion man market.
I went to the store the other day to buy a new cell phone. Not only where the specifications twice that of my old Windows XP box, the version of Android was slower than Windows from 2001. Looking at the parts list, other than the screen, I really felt that a fast OS with a yesteryear OMAP Ti could not only beat that phone , but sell for a quarter of the price. Never mind battery life savings by using a a smaller nanometer manufacturing process.
Basically, I feel that several high capital industries are ripe for disruption in the low end, and that can start by making decives that sell to middle incom countries and poor people in the U.S. And if you think that’s crazy, wait till you see my ideas for cheap high speed Internetworking.
LikeLiked by 2 people
@satanforce
What do you think of the Linux OS? I have talked to a few people who are totally disgusted with both Windows and Apple OS.
I wonder if the next generation devices for middle and low income countries/individuals would go the Linux OS route?
LikeLike
“Afrofem on Sun 29 Jan 2017 at 16:46:15
@satanforce
What do you think of the Linux OS? I have talked to a few people who are totally disgusted with both Windows and Apple OS.”
I have a andriod tablet and several andriod OS phones which I use for internet acess and content downloading.
I at first was very enthuaistaic when I first purchwsed my tablet however I immediately begin to notice serious OS user interface inadequcies compare to windows Which I have been using scince windows 3.1
And while not perfect Windows xp/7/8 or 10(what I am currently using) are far superior as in user interface – multple windows,copy/paste etc as well as the vast array of software titles and types available.
Thus I rarely use my tablet or phones for any serious work.
LikeLike
Think something like the Nintendo Switch, except the CPU is in the tablet part and does tablet level stuff, and the base has not only expansion ports, but GPU, allowing GPGPU functions, and takes over stuff that the processor SIMD/Vector might be weak on.
LikeLike
CORRECTING ABOVE
@Afrofem
Been tried with the original netbooks. Failed miserably, because its not 2000 anymore and Windows has gotten itself together. No more Blue Screen of Death, or any more crap like that. Microsoft has also had an reasonable to excellent series of Programming Interfaces, documentation , standards, software , source code control and the like, while with Linux, its not so simple… Some guy updates the kernel to make his workplace database faster, and now your laptop doesn’t wake up from sleep.
Stuff like that led me to smaller , more flexible OSes like KolibriOS and Inferno. Its just to build the necessary parts, programming interfaces and third-party software to make it all work.
Windows programs like Microtorrent, foobar2000, Irfanview and the like, that can be up for weekswithout raping memory or crashing repeated are what I have in mind. Programs in the 100s of KB to a few 10s of MB in mind. Oh God, just thinking about making a proper browser liek teh previous programs makes me wnat to cry tears for my ancestors.
I try not to. Laptop keyboard won’t work aftr waking from sleep. Numerous driver issues. Updates getting stuck. Updates wrecking computer.Numerous re-installs. This was back in 2009. Goy a lighter version than the one I using called Crunchbang, but they stopped working on that. I either use a version of BSD (like what is used , in part to make OSX), but in a virtual machine.
@mbeti
Using a big finger on a phone/tablet screen with the same resolution as a 27 inch monitor to move pixels is always going to be implossible. The necesseray per-pixel movement and data entry need for media creation, coding or just documents is not possible on a phone/tablet without a physical keyboard or something. Maybe that’s why these big Silicon Vaalley companies wants every Africanto get a smartphone. Not only does the continent do more money payment transactions (three times as much) as the entire USA, but they can use them as just consumers, instead of aspiring to middle income producers.
My main things for a system are these:
Low power, between 5 to 60 watts. Think Nintendo Wii, just more powerful. I think the Wii is 40 watts, the original PS3 is 190 watts, and a mid level laptop is 60 watts
Low fat programs. Computers are moving slower compare to 2001. More i5 laptops open programs slower than my Pentium 4. Not cool. People would still be using XP if it weren’t for securoty and lack of updates.
Think something like the Nintendo Switch, except the CPU is in the tablet part and does tablet level stuff, and teh base has not only expansion ports, but GPU, allowing GPGPU functions, and takes over stuff that the processor SIMD/Vector might be weak on.
LikeLike
Not only android but ios (apple not cisco) are commercial distributions or customized versions of linux. Kde and gnome are usable desktop environments (gui’s) but there is a learning curve to switch from windows to linux. Everything works, printer, browsing, vlc etc etc.
LikeLike
“Maybe that’s why these big Silicon Vaalley companies wants every Africanto get a smartphone. Not only does the continent do more money payment transactions (three times as much) as the entire USA, but they can use them as just consumers, instead of aspiring to middle income producers.”
This part as well as additional reasons you stated – its to perpetuate dependency ,but it seems to me the hegamony continues due to deeply ingrained pychological processes proably the result of our centuries of captivity ,also a very controlled media – I only just found that africa has a African Union comparable to europes which I only found by visiting african news sources:
Allafrican.com and africannews.com
however all things change and evolve and a era we may never live to see – A african and africans(blacks) producing and controling all thier resoures may yet come to past.
LikeLike
LikeLike
@ Satanforce
Thanks for the insight about Linux. It seems all of the operating systems are far from flawless. I guess I will just swallow some of my frustrations with ios (Mac) and make do until there is a breakthrough.
LikeLike
@Mbeti
Good point about smartphones in Africa and dependency. However, I wouldn’t count the Africans out just yet. The Nigerians and Kenyans I encounter on business and tech forums are serious and focused. One thing they need to get to the next level is national support in the form of technical institutes and tech incubators similar to what the Indian government has done over the past 30 years.
@ Satanforce
“Can happen, just need a few people to get off their asses. Like American black liber[als]”
So. Very. True.
LikeLike
“AU cannot compare to EU due to infighting, lack of common currency, lack of tradable energy, via power transmission system etc. Very good defense structure though.”
The EU has infighting and members wanting to leave.
lack of common currency: prehaps soon to be developed?
lack of tradable energy, via power transmission system etc
Obvious infrastructual inadequices that may be addressed over time.
“Very good defense structure though.”
Again correlated to overall infrastrucal development which is also related to the social and technological evolution of our species.
“Can happen, just need a few people to get off their asses. Like American black liber”
I question the assumption that the black african population much less the even larger global black population needs or should look to black liberals specifically american and european black liberals for leadership and guidence in the devrlopment and advancement of thier socities – it seems elitist , paternalistic as well as racist in promoting a hiearchy of dependency of the very socities and groups that intiatied many of the problems africans and black socities face.
“a few people to get off their asses”
A rather smiplistic assesment of motivation and activity even though I am sure you where not completely serious or specific.
And apologies for the numerous spelling errors as my current browser OS (Andriod 5.1.1 UC browser ver something) does not appear to have built in spelling and grammar checking and/or I have yet to effectly implement it.
LikeLike
@Mbeti
True, but the topic of this post is Black Liberals.
In the context of the topic, I meant the various black, sorry, buppie owned hedge and money funds that are the exemplars of conservative investment. International capital markets make them irrelevant.
@Afrofem
That whole late 19th century German based educational model is something that black majority nations seem to not iimplement properly because they are using the early 21st century American model. So we think we are making the African version of Massachussets Institute of Technology, when we’re actually making University of Phoenix 2 year online type schools for drilling out people to go work for a phone company. We just ape the American schools, along with their huge administration burden and outdated curricula. All that is needed is to go back to first principles. Like what the Germans did.
LikeLike
@satanforce
I will have to read and learn about the 19th century German based educational model. I’m aware of their current educational model that tracks and trains the bulk of the German population into useful skills, as well as, providing a superior academic education for those so inclined.
The early 21st century American educational model is the result of massive and intentional disinvestment in education at all levels (K-12 and University level). The top 1-10 percent of the population wanted a public so dumbed down that they would not present a challenge to neoliberal policies and practices.
That disinvestment became more urgent once Black students were not barred from attending state universities that their family’s tax dollars supported. Another impetus was rebellious White students and awakened Asians, Native Americans and Latinos on campuses in the 1960s and 1970s.
Eventually, the profit motive became paramount and education was seen as a potential revenue center for billionaires instead of a public good. That seems to be where we are now in the States.
LikeLiked by 1 person