IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

Ok so I was liming wid my boi at da weekend and we started talking and basically to cut a long story short. He said that black people neither want, or need a strong black leader like Dr. Martin Luther King. Because, one we don't need a voice as badly as we needed then, and two because of the culture of today's youth's we wouldn't follow a leader anyway.

So I was wondering what others thought about this?

I think the youth of today would rather look up to an entertainer than a political leader for aspirations!

Got to disagree. I think if a good enough speaker comes along then he will be able to unite black people. Back in the days men like Martin Luther King , Malcolm X were good speakers so they were able to get the attention of the people.

I definitely agree with you Flo, for the simple fact that flashiness is what seems to attract the youth these days. You could be talkin about the most disrespectful, stereotypical subject in the world, but as long as you have the cars, jewelry and half naked chicks, you will command respect. I would probably have more faith in todays youth, because of course I know not every young person is like that, but majority rules out the minority.

I’m with CaribNVA on this one. We need to set some goals. The rioting youths of France are the most recent examples of what happens when the politics from below are ignored and that political base asserts itself. They didn’t have a single or singular leader.

I have always argued that the problem with having single, charismatic leaders is that movements that develop around them have a tendency to become alienated from those very leaders. The charismatic figures and their inner circle often end up becoming elitist and should they become killed, jailed or compromised, the whole movement suffers.

The single, charismatic political figure – the Maximum Leader as Lloyd Best used to say – had his time. During the period of enslavement and colonisation/Jim Crow when the vast majority of African and Indian people were unschooled, uneducated and politically illiterate, and state-sponsored violence was more entrenched (than it is now), we needed to have such a figure, hence the Malcolm X, the Dr King, the TUB Butler, Kwame Ture, Kwame Nkrumah, and so on. But the avenues that were closed to them – or limited to them – are now available to a wider base. It’s just that we are not exploiting them.

I think the youth of today would rather look up to an entertainer than a political leader for aspirations!

You may be correct, but who’s to say one can’t be both? Anyone remember Paul Robeson? He was an actor, athlete, and singer who was also very political, vocal about civil rights and was openly defiant about his communist leanings in the era when it was professional suicide to do so. In Trinidad Calypsonian Raymond Quevedo (Atilla the Hun) went even further and stood for political office (which he won) and still sang kaiso. He used his political influence to attack legislation that attempted to muzzle political commentary.

We have other examples from around the world where entertainers, artists and poets have been killed, jailed, expelled or muzzled because they used their skills to draw attention to social conditions affecting their people (Boukman Experianz, Fela Ransom Kuti). We never recognised the weapon we have in rap/hip-hop, reggae and soca. Hip-hop in particular has been identified with by white North American youths as the expression of rebellion for their generation and we failed to capitalise on that; we did not see the long term effects (I’m speaking especially to those of my generation who were teenagers during the 80s and saw the music grow during the 90s). Why do you think the big corporate owned record labels capitalised on it? They saw and knew what it could become and they had to exploit it before it ended up having the influence the music of the 60s had on the middle-class youths of that generation.

To think that we don’t “need” a voice as badly as we needed it then is dangerous and naïve; in the US alone one can see right now the gradual erosion and attempts to reverse the gains made by the crumbs our parents and grandparents fought for in the 50s and 60s. The new mutation of racism and religious bigotry has meant a new form of economic assault on Lesser Developed Countries that will spell disaster and social unrest in the coming years unless it is halted. No, we need that voice, but this time the voices must come from the base.

Ah doh need to 'black leader' when ah have an Almighty one...