The Black Misleadership Class Needs Unmasking

by Danny Haiphong

“George Bush could never tell his advisors that he was ‘good at killing people’ without demonstrations, documentaries, and criticisms following soon after.”

Halloween came and past but the nightmare of American imperial decay is much more horrifying than any haunted house or horror film. The American ruling class is gearing up to slash Social Security and Medicare. A study this year reported that four of five people in the U.S. are struggling to meet their basic needs. Black America is living in an endless apartheid prison. Black people face the threat of death from law enforcement every 28 hours. The finance capitalist class is actively seeking to privatize public education, de-unionize the public sector, and turn over pensions, benefits, and non-military government services for profit. At the same time, the guardians of empire in DC are building up the national security surveillance state. Facebook and local police are partnering up to monitor demonstrations. The new un-Affordable Care Act website is contracted out to the CIA venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. American imperial decay has brought upon us the complete erosion of civil liberties and endless global plunder.

What allows these nightmarish conditions to continue? The corporate media, police state repression, racism, and the sheer weight of American capitalist oppression definitely play a large role in maintaining the current order of things. However, many on the left leave out an important historical development. Black Agenda Report is one of the few leftist organizations that weekly expose the growing influence of the Black misleadership class. This class of Black collaborators and scoundrels that operate in all sectors of society and keep fascism alive and well.

“The city boasts of the benefits of having an influx of wealthy, young white college students occupying what used to be the residencies of the working class.”

Corporate consultants and academicians see the rise of the Black misleadership class as “diversity.” I grew up in Cambridge, MA where “diversity” and tax-revenue generation for the city’s public services are equated with living in a “people’s republic.” Yet, just this year, despite having numerous Black public officials in municipal government, a city ordinance agreement was ratified allowing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to expand to the point where the college purchased sections of the Newtown Court public housing unit, a residence primarily occupied by the Black community. For most of my youth, the city denied the existence of white encroachment (gentrification) by boasting of its safety net system for the poor. Now, the city boasts of the benefits of having an influx of wealthy, young white college students occupying what used to be the residencies of working class Cambridge. Poor people of color are being displaced and “diversity” has done nothing to stop it.

The Black misleadership class's existence is justified by the paradigm of "diversity." This paradigm places sharp emphasis on integrating Black and brown people into leadership roles within the institutions that oppress them. The Black misleadership class uses the spoils of empire to protect the ruling class responsible for the misery of US sponsored imperialism. Black FBI leaders, corporate managers, police authorities, Senators, Congressmen, Presidential advisors, and morally bankrupt celebrities like Jay-Z are given handsome salaries and positions to help manage the exploitation of the Black masses. Earlier in the year, the FBI used a Black person to call for the head of Black liberation heroine Assata Shakur. And of course, none other than Barack Obama has proven to be the most powerful of Black misleaders, wielding the resources of the financial capitalist class to pursue policies that would be impossible to achieve under a white commander-in chief without a mass response. George Bush could never tell his advisors that he was "good at killing people" without demonstrations, documentaries, and criticisms following soon after. When Obama says it, however, the coast is clear.

“The FBI used a Black person to call for the head of Black liberation heroine Assata Shakur.

In order to shift the paradigm of the US political landscape, the Black misleadership class and the concept of "diversity" it embodies needs to be placed within the proper political context of US imperialism. The Black misleadership class has risen to prestige and power at the expense of the vast majority of Black people in the US and abroad. Malcolm X called American imperialism a living nightmare. The only way to end a nightmare is to wake up and distinguish fiction from reality. The biggest fiction we are told is that the Black misleadership class represents progress made from the great struggles of the Black movement. The reality is that the liberation of Black people and all people from the exploitation of American capitalist empire cannot move forward until the Black misleadership class is properly dealt with.

“Danny is an activist and recently graduated student from Skidmore College. He is founder of the college’s social justice organization, the United Minds. He is currently a social worker in Malden, MA working with homeless individuals. Danny can be reached at d-revolution@riseup.net

More Stories