Interview: Legendary scholar, activist, and author Lloyd Hogan turns 90 (1/23/13 - )

Dear friends,

It is with great honor and pride that I am having the opportunity to present an interview with a man who has been one of the most important teachers in my life, Professor Lloyd Hogan. Moreover, on today, his 90^th birthday, and considering all of the turmoil that still afflicts African American people, we are fortunate to still have his fresh, original thinking at hand Cheers!

Djatajabs: Hey Lloyd…Its been well over 30 years since my brother Eshu introduced us, after several years of him telling me that he had a professor who had become a close friend, at his alma mater, Hampshire College, with whom I would be certain to enjoy sharing ideas while, simultaneously, learning a great deal. To be sure, meeting you back then, and to this very day, has been one of the best things to ever happen, for me. Nevertheless, having been born in 1923, and considering your over 70 years in academia, from student scholar to professor, activist, and author, have there been changes for African American academicians, in both colleges and universities, generally, that have, correspondingly, benefited our people?

Lloyd: During the last 70 years much has changed for the better for African Americans in the institutions of higher learning (academia). In 1943, there were approximately 4 or 5 African American professors teaching in the "white" institutions. Academia had, perhaps, the most white segregated institutions in the U.S. It was so bad that in cities of the South where  African American colleges were located a stone's throw from their white counterparts, the white professors within the same fields kept theirdistance from their black colleagues.

Black students in the white institutions were the most deprived of scholarly camaraderie with their professors and fellow students. They were made to feel that they should be happy to be rubbing elbows with their superior consorts. At the same time, of course, the curricula were steeped in racially distorted nonsense which passed for substantiated knowledge. In short, white academia was subsisting in an atmosphere of distorted scholarship and social stagnation.

It is true that some institutions had exceedingly large black student

enrollments. Institutions like U of Chicago, Columbia U., and New York U. had black enrollments that surpassed most of the southern black colleges.

Closer scrutiny of these institutions revealed that these bloated enrollments were mostly of graduate students in the field of education. These were the southern professors and educational administrators from the black colleges who were studying towards graduate degrees, a condition which they could not pursue within southern institutions due to strictly enforced segregation laws.

Following World War II, with the passage of the GI Bill of Rights, an

increased number of blacks gained admission to the northern white institutions. The largest gains were in the State-supported colleges and universities of the Midwest and Western States. But these enrollments did not result in a corresponding increase in graduation. At the same time a

smattering of institutions employed a relatively few Black professors.

It wasn't until the middle 1960's, when both black and white students began to demonstrate against the corrupted educational system that real progress ensued. As a consequence of black student demands, black studies departments or programs sprang up in a number of white colleges across the land. In many cases, it was a "copy-catting" response to which these institutions paid tribute. Once Harvard had set up a Department of Afro American Studies, the lesser institutions began to follow in lock-step imitation. This led to the employment of a good number of blacks and to the enrollment of significant number of blacks in PhD programs in black history and other black impacted fields of study. So that today it is no longer unusual to see a good number of black students and professors on the campuses of the former segregated white institutions of both north and south. Out of these advances have emerged some important scholarly works by black professors which have influenced the thought processes of people throughout the nation.

But it is time to call for caution. Having been trained by former segregated-minded white scholars it is to be expected that it will take time before there will come into being a truly independent, scholarly, and truthful black intelligentsia. Time and effort are the promoters.

There is a lesson here for current and future African American college and university students. For those who need college degrees as credentials for employment at higher than usual wages, go for it and try

to complete your studies to actual graduation. The degree is your ticket of assurance that you can be a trusted and loyal servant of the capitalists who are your potential employers. They can trust you to count their money, to protect their assets, and to participate with them in exercising control over their work force.

For the relatively few African Americans who want to remain in the knowledge production fields, be aware that much of what goes for knowledge is merely rationalizations of the efficacy and necessity for the existing capitalist social order in which you are now functioning.

The existing knowledge base is flawed and critically fractured. It needs radical revision from its basic formulations up through its fundamental study methodologies. You have important work to do to bring about a change in the approach to the creation of new knowledge. You are truth pioneers. If you don't accept this responsibility you will emerge from these institutions as petty cadets of your intellectual master purveyors of contrived understanding of real world phenomena. Go for it.

Djatajabs: We’ve just experienced the inauguration, for the second time, of Barack Obama, as the President of the United States of America…How do you feel about that, regarding the progress of African American people?

Lloyd: Obama's presidency has been a historical advance in the history of the United States. It certainly has given African Americans an invaluable public relations position. The first time, Obama could not have been elected without the votes of a substantial number of whites. These brave souls went to the polls in revolt against the incompetence of a president who was taking the country to economic and military demise. They were ecstatic about their accomplishment and showed up in person and in television parlors in the millions to witness his inauguration.

A few days later reality set in and they awoke from the dream state. It was as if they said to themselves "what were we thinking..." We should all have known that the President of the United States is the chief executive of the capitalist ruling class. As head functionary of  the capitalist political state his major task is to oversee the promulgation and enforcement of the rules of the capitalist game.

First and foremost among these rules is to insure the continuity of the system...and this means the urgency of preservation of private property rights of capitalists in the ownership of the wage worker's ability to work, which was purchased in market relations; preservation of the property rights of capitalists in the products of wage workers labor, which result from the capitalists use of his private property; preservation of capitalist property rights in the profits derived fromthe sale of his products; and finally preservation of the right of capitalists to reinvest their profits in such a manner as to repeat the process of capitalist activity over and over again without end. There is no way in which African American issues could have been brought to the forefront of Obama's administration in the face of the reality of his major task. As such, it wasn't too long into his tenure that Tea Party and other organizations began to oppose his every action within a posture of concealed and at times overt racist diatribes. Meantime, African Americans and other allies looked on in dismay to witness what appeared to be an administration incapable of any progressive accomplishment. The man is circumscribed by an exploitative political economic system. It is sufficient if he can survive and end his tenure with accomplishments such as a termination of two destructive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a semblance of a health care insurance plan, and with some growth in employment. He should be commended if he can pull off these modest goals.

Djatajabs: Now, apart from education and politics, I always remember, from years back, how important it was to you to have a fairly large garden, during the warm weather, but also, even today, you still have a small porch garden, at your home. What is the role of food for any population group, as it seeks to reproduce itself as a people, through

time?

Lloyd: It is true that I have always tried, whenever possible, to plant a kitchen garden. It is a conscious attempt to keep in touch with the reality of human existence. In my book, Principles of Black Political Economy, I argued that food production and consumption lie at the foundation of every conceivable political economy that has been known throughout the history of humankind. Since then I have been working on development of a theory of human population. A fundamental postulate of that theory is that in every human society two material crops must be produced to form its core. These are an annual crop of food and a corresponding annual crop of human babies. The annual crop of food constitutes the life-time supply for the corresponding annual crop of babies. I can't go into implications of this postulate in this discussion. However, suffice it to say that different social orders are distinguished by the specific way in which the food is made available to the babies over the course of their lifetimes.

That food is essential should be obvious. No person can exist

without ingesting into his/her person a daily dosage of food (including potable water and breathable air). Food is the elixir of human life. Although people consume many other things, food, nonetheless, must also be

an essential part of their consumption bundle.

In exploitative  societies, it is the robbery of the food from the mouth of babies that reduce the potential longevity of the average population member. It is no wonder that death among the poverty stricken comes easy; while death among the material well-off comes hard. The bread is snatched from the mouth of the poor and death easily prevails.

It is no wonder then that I always try to plant a garden. In these days, I am confined to a few planters on my apartment terrace where I concentrate on the standard herbs--thyme, rosemary. basil, oregano, sage, etc. I also work with peppers such as bhut jaloki, trinidad scorpion, habanero, scotch bonnet, etc. I engage in friendly struggle with Earth-mother.

Djatajabs: Is there a reason to for us to continue the African American experience in a so-called “post-racial” society? I mean, exactly what conditions must exist, in order for a group to become a distinct body for generations, and when is it favorable for them to do so?

Lloyd: I must state at the outset that "race" is a corrupt and corruptible concept. It immediately involves a superiorityinferiority configuration. It was invented by slave hunters and slave

masters to justify to their gods and their evil consciences the wanton control of other human beings as their private property.

"Post-racial" is a related term which has no essential meaning, but provides talking points for charlatans, television commentators, and the unthinking

layman.

African Americans are a distinctive population by dint of their long historical period of reproducing among themselves to the exclusion of all other people.

No individual African American consciously made the decision to be a member of this distinct population. The social and

political economic circumstances under which these people existed in North America are the decisive factors. Black slavery, black

sharecropping in a Jim Crow environment, and late coming to the wage labor class are the historical groundings which cemented African Americans as an identifiable sub-population within the larger U.S. population. As such, it will be an extremely long time in the future before these people will be physically and socially integrated into the larger U.S. population. One shouldn't make plans for this event any time soon.

I must also remind you that African Americans have been physically integrated with a segment of the white population for quite a long time, in the past. If one observes these people closely it becomes, at once, obvious that they have shed a decisive identifying African attribute.

Blackness as a color that is characteristic of African people has almost disappeared from African Americans. They span all colors of the rainbow. Their blood has been tainted with the venom of the vermin slave masters who forcibly injected their polluted seeds into black slave women's wombs. The rape of black womanhood now appears visibly in the panorama of colors among black people. But the power of blackness is such that one droplet of black blood still marks the offspring as black.

The message to African Americans is to savor that history and the cultural entanglements which surround it. There is no escape. After all, it is out of the struggles of African Americans for liberation from all the restrictions they faced throughout their history which made the important democratic advances in the U.S. at large. The nation owes these people a great debt of gratitude for whatever semblance of democracy now prevails. African American struggle and developing U.S. democracy are synonymous events.

Djatajabs: What relationships do you think need to exist between African American men and women for the prospects of our future growth as a people?

Lloyd: I have no substantive knowledge of interpersonal relationships. My only advice to any African American in this regard is to remember that

people are highly specialized and exotic formations of the Earth's

surface. As such they have an obligation far beyond themselves to preserve and improve the species of which they are an essential part.

Be good to each other...love the other better than you love yourself...never do to the other what you would not want done to you, while at the same time always defending the right of the other to do whatever he/she proposes to do. But since the Earth-mother is the source of our being, then preservation and improvement of her is a number 1 activity. That is

all I have to contribute to this most important topic.

Djatajabs: Thanks for sharing your wisdom today, as you have been doing for three generations, Lloyd…and Happy 90^th!...Much Love!

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Excerpts from Lloyd Hogan and Adam Smith on Political Economy and Government

"As an institution it (government) must function in compliance with the will of human agents. Its primary function is to protect the property rights of members of the population in the ownership of the material elements of society...Since it (government) is the main instrument for insuring the continued reproduction of wealth in its characteristic form, it may be viewed as wealth personified. Put another way those who control this institution, as distinct from those who function within it, are the personifications of wealth." - (Hogan, The Principles of Black Political Economy)

 "...To carry out its mission it must organize and use resources...But it must function within the very rules it establishes, while at the same time standing above these rules as final arbiter in matters under dispute...Its power is absolute over all the members of the population. It garners unto itself a monopoly of force and violence to be used as its own dictates demand." (Hogan, ibid.)

If Professor Hogan is correct about the potential for violence that governments possess, why is such force necessary? It would seem that the answer to that question lies in the need for the wealth accumulators to protect their rights to disproportionately own materials that provide the "necessaries and conveniences" of human life. And so, pioneering political economist Adam Smith wrote, "Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor...The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property - can sleep a single night in security." (Wealth of Nations, Book V, by Adam Smith)
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Slavery in North America was for both the "Black" AND "White"

“Both Indian and Negro, besides white servants were bound out to a master for a term of years and received no wages. Of these there were a few in the Pilgrim group.” Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Vol.1

Dear friends,

The Puritans of New England found no problem with human enslavement. After all, Massachusetts Bay Colony was the first British colonial settlement in North America to legalize slavery. That happened approximately 21 years or slightly less than a generation after the landing of the famous Pilgrim group.

Remember, that the whole purpose of the North American venture by the British ruling class was to extract as much wealth - precious metals or whatever, as they could, both human and non-human, for the good of their class - not their so-called "race". As Professor Lloyd Hogan explains, "It must be emphasized that Wealth Accumulation is not done in the abstract. Indeed, it must be carried out by the exercise of the conscious will of people acting in the role of wealth accumulators. These wealth owners have the onus of preserving the form of their wealth while, at the same time, striving to increase its magnitude. Just as important, is the necessity for continuous control over the Wealth Accumulation Process by the wealth owners”. (The Principles of Black Political Economy by Lloyd Hogan)

Due to the "tax benefits" of illegally trafficking in captive workers (so-called slaves), it is impossible for anyone to determine how many Africans were brought here. Although the numbers of captive workers who actually lived in New England were not as numerous as the Southern states, there was an enormous slave-dealing business in this region - particularly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island - with other British North American colonies, as well as the motherland - England herself. (A succession of British laws, over generations, prohibited the colonies to trade with other countries.)

The wealth created by the mostly free labor from all of these Black folks in North American colonies helped serve as the basis for the development of businesses and real estate and, therefore, political power, in early America. But Africans who later became African Americans were not the only people to give their labor freely. That is, since the native peoples in the Americas, for the most part, were unwilling to "cooperate" with their attackers, then the rulers had to "de-people" North America, by the murder of Early American Native peoples or so-called Indians, in order to "re-people" with poor and desperate Europeans, especially those fro England, Germany, Spain, and France.

As a result, during the colonial period of North American history, that is, prior to the War of Independence, English citizens were coaxed, tricked, coerced, and even kidnapped in order to provide the necessary (human) bodies of labor to increase the wealth of the British ruling class. As well, many miscreants were shipped here (the U.S.) for the benefit of the British ruling class to have additional labor available.

About British settlements like Massachusetts Bay Colony, Charlotte M. Waters wrote, "The colonies were used too as dumping ground for prisoners and undesirables generally, in spite of protests from the colonists. Criminals, prisoners of war, and inconvenient Irish were thus got rid of. Royalist prisoners after Worcester shared the fate with 2,000 Irish girls and boys deported by order of the Government. Kidnapping was not uncommon. Such emigrants were sold by auction..." (Waters, An Economic History of England).

Indentured servitude is the name applied to Europeans, particularly the early British settlers, who traded both their human and civil rights to British merchants, usually for a term of four years, in order to gain access, that is, barter their labor ability in exchange for passage, to North America. These indentured servants were unable to feed themselves in their European homelands. For instance, in the Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Vol.1 it is pointed out about early New Englanders, including the famous "Pilgrim" group, that landed at Cape Cod (Plymouth Rock), that there was a small servile population. The official document reads: “Both Indian and Negro, besides white servants were bound out to a master for a term of years and received no wages. Of these there were a few in the Pilgrim group.”

Now, since there was nobody here from England already when the Pilgrims came, then that means that the slave owners were on board with their captive workers or so-called slaves. Yet, school history books, under the guise of “No child left behind”, continue to pitch the lie that the Pilgrims came here for religious freedom.

The following passage was written by a priest who wanted to see for himself exactly what European peoples had to go through on the ships that transported them to British North America. This particular six-months voyage took place around 1750 or 26 years before the start of the War of Independence. "...during the voyage on these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably. Add to this want of provisions, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, want, afflictions and lamentations, together with other trouble, as c.v. the lice abound so frightfully, especially on sick people, that they can be scraped off the body...Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water." (English Historical Documents, Vol. 9, edited by Merrill Jensen)

In an essay called "Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the U.S.A.", Barbara Jeanne Fields indicates, "...the rationale that the English developed for suppressing the 'barbarous' Irish later served nearly word for word as a rationale for suppressing Africans and indigenous American Indians." In other words, slavery in America was not invented for Africans. Rather, it was already a practice that went on between Europeans themselves.

The preceding information has been pointed out because, based upon the illusion that they are "white", many North Americans suffer from an identity crisis. That is, under their fantasies or illusions that they are "white", most European Americans disregard their true identities by pretending to share some kind of common heritage, based upon skin color. Regrettably, the majority of people who live in America today hide behind their whiteness - like Ku Klux Klanners in white bed sheets - concealing their true cultural pasts (which invariably are not in North America but someplace in what we now know as Europe). Even worse, the few that have genuine history in this country, going back before the North American Civil War, are themselves the descendants of slaves, albeit temporary ones or indentured servants. Please stay tuned for more on this topic. Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

What is anAmerican?

Dear friends,

Far too many European Americans show that they don't respect African Americans...Other than being a paid day from work for them, Dr. King's birthday means nothing to them, because they have no history here other than the lies that their mothers and grandmothers have told them about having relatives on the Mayflower...Besides, what is an "American"?

In a book written two generations ago called The Study of Man, author Ralph Linton summed it up best when addressing the question, "What is an American?" He wrote:

"Our solid American citizen awakens in a bed built
on a pattern which originated in the Near East...throws
back the covers made from cotton, domesticated in India...goes to the bathroom, whose fixtures are a mixture of European and American inventions, both of recent date...washes with soap invented by the ancient Gauls...Returning to the bedroom - puts on garments
whose form originally derived from the skin clothing
of the nomads of the Asiatic steppes, puts on shoes
made from skins tanned by a process invented in ancient
Egypt...Before going out for breakfast - glances
Through the window, made of glass invented in
Egypt...stops to buy a paper, paying for it with coins,
an ancient Lydian invention...At the restaurant - (the)
plate is made of a form of pottery invented in
China...has coffee, an Abyssinian plant, with cream and
sugar. Both the domestication of cows and the idea of
milking them originated in the Near East, while sugar
was first made in India...finished eating - settles
back to smoke, an American Indian habit...while smoking
- reads the news of the day, imprinted in characters
- invented in Germany...and, if - a good conservative
citizen ,gives thanks to a Hebrew deity, in an Indo-European language, for being 100 percent American."

 

G. Djata Bumpus

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Meeting Dr. King, as a "militant" youngster (originally sent, as is, to the Boston Herald in Jan. 2008)

"If only we could learn to love - ourselves, based upon our love for other people like our spouses, our families - and things - like our work, our communities, our ability to create and produce (instead of worrying about how much we possess)..."

Dear friends,

About what was Martin Luther King really? Love.

Unfortunately, far too often, the emphasis, by the media and others, of Dr.King's vision rests more upon his call for non-violence as a passive response to injustice, than it (i.e., non-violence) does when it is used as a pro-active measure that citizens employ to share in community growth, democratically. After all, the quintessence of democracy is non-violent conflict resolution. Therefore, it is not only a contradiction in terms, but an enormous lie, for one sovereign nation to invade another such self-governing land, under the pretense that it is introducing "democracy" to the latter.

At any rate, back in 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. returned to Boston for the first time since he'd graduated from BU (Boston University) almost ten years earlier. His main purpose for doing so was because the legendary singer and activist Harry Belafonte was giving Dr. King, who had already received the Nobel Peace Prize, a benefit concert at the historically-famous, Boston Gardens, in order to raise some funds for "the Movement", as it were.

As my Mom, Rhoda Vivian Olufemi Bumpus was one of many pioneers of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement, in Boston - and around the nation, she was given two tickets to the aformentioned program, not knowing that she would be seated with Dr. King. As fate would have it, and although I was next to the youngest of her six sons (no daughters), she took me along with her that night.

I was an incredibly precocious (very young but extremely vocal) , up-and-coming Black militant. Consequently, in spite of his constant attempts to strike up a conversation with me that night, over the next few hours, Dr. King was only able to recognize the anger and disgust of so many Black youth at the time. Yet, he had seen it before (the scoffs and scowls), as he revealed in his manifesto, the classic essay called "Letter from a Birmingham Jail".

If only we could learn to love - ourselves, based upon our love for other people like our spouses, our families - and things - like our work, our communities, our ability to create and produce (instead of worrying about how much we possess), we may realize what Dr. King talked about, but was unable to fully articulate at his point in history. For, ultimately, that was his message, as I now - some 43 (now 48) years after meeting him - understand.

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post