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!