Demise of the African American Unity in the 1980s

African-American Culture in the 1980s

An article in the peer-reviewed journal Progressive deals with the political and social culture of the African-American community in the 1980s. It was a peer-reviewed article that reported that "…large numbers of African-American elites were elevated…" into corporate executive position, into the "federal judiciary" and also were elected to state legislatures across America (Marable, 1991). However, the 1980s were also a time when AIDs was becoming a major medical scourge and many African-Americans believed that AIDs was a conspiracy in order to "systematically destroy" the black culture (Marable, 18).

The thesis of this article by Manning Marable -- the late professor of public affairs, African-American studies and history at Columbia University in New York City -- is that there was a "crisis in the black political culture" and a belief that AIDs was a "white supremacist medical conspiracy." Moreover, his thesis was that there was overt anti-Semitism within the black community and there was a "fraying of the bonds among virtually all African-Americans" (Marable, 18).

Marable's method of approaching the issues related to his thesis was to present data, statistics, and instances of conspiratorial beliefs by the black community he recalled from the 1980s. For example, a New York Times / CBS News survey asked the question: "Was AIDs deliberately created in a laboratory in order to infect black people" (Marable, 19). Only 1% of Caucasians believed that to be true and another 4% believed "it could possibly be true"; but ten percent of African-Americans believed it was a valid statement and "…another 19%" agreed it "could be possible" (Marable, 19).

As to the tensions between the black community and the Jewish community, Marable quotes from Professor Leonard Jeffries who said publically that blacks "…were victims of a conspiracy planned and plotted and programmed out of Hollywood" by people with Jewish names ("Greenberg" and "Weisberg") (19).

Having illustrated just two of the conspiracies that were launched in the 1980s Marable gets to his main point: the old assumptions and beliefs (upward mobility for blacks would continue -- i.e., the "Promised Land" Dr. King spoke about) could not be sustained. Young African-Americans were angry, and many Caucasian commentators and others failed in the 1980s to see the origins of anger among African-Americans. Other reasons for the demise of black hopes included: a) the loud opposition to affirmative action (notably by the Jewish community); b) Jesse Jackson's failure to make "The Rainbow Coalition" truly inclusive, and he seemed to be all about himself as he ran for president twice; c) segregation brought blacks together as a bonded community fighting for justice with "a collective will to resist" (22), but in the 1980s blacks were "polarized" because some made it financially but female heads of households averaged "less than $9,600 annually"; and d) many black leaders believed that "white liberals have turned their backs against us" (Marable, 22-23).

What are Marable's conclusions: He believed in 1991 that first, because many blacks are forced to live in the "urban abyss of poverty, drugs, and black-against-black violence" the African-American community must put aside difference and work together for change. And due to the fracturing of the black community he concluded that "…the black freedom movement must revive itself" and put aside the "parochial chains of chauvinism and isolation" (23).