Customer Reviews

The Head Negro in Charge Syndrome: The Dead End of Black Politics

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This an awesomely clear and well written book. I give it six stars.

In his effort to shed some light on a difficult problem, the so-called "black problem," Mr. Kelley has used his well-honed craft as a journalist, deftly. He deserves credit for shinning the spotlight in many of the dark places in black culture (and on some of its most sacred of "sacred cows") where it is sorely needed-especially on the moribund black church, lack of an overall cultural strategy, and by picking holes in all of the past half-baked tactics. He correctly demonstrates that even when blacks win, they eventually lose.

However, importantly, he fails to give us the answer to the most perplexing question of all, why this is always the case?

By exposing the nakedness of the HNIC, the last Emperor of an otherwise dying black culture, he all but puts the last nail in a coffin that surely appears to need being shut forever. Instead of nearing the finish line of the last mile of freedom, Kelly demonstrates (whether he intended to or not) that black cultural chaos and self-destruction is all that there is as far out into the future as the eye can see.

There is a minor problem however with Mr. Kelly's astutely crafted analysis. How is it that while walking very slowly down the path to their last mile of freedom, the great minds of black intellectual culture have all made the same wrong turn in the fork in the road? Why have they all turned down the well-lighted path of collective cultural self-destruction?

Mr. Kelly's analysis does not ask or answer this question.

How easy it is to beat a dead (black) horse, which is also what Mr. Kelly, accuses the "Black Conservatives" of doing. How easy it is to fall back into one's own comfort zone of orthodoxy (and become a part of HNIC royalty oneself)-which is what he accuses the black liberals of doing. How easy it is to see all of the flaws when cultural sausage is being made without a recipe...

It seems that Mr. Kelly's analysis itself has committed the same error that he has accused the other great minds of having committed: He has failed to recognize when a paradigm shift is needed.

The paradigm shift that is needed has to do with the inadvertent missing link in Mr. Kelly's analysis. It turns out to be the only controlling variable that remains unaccounted for: It is called white racism. Yes, I know one has to be careful in using this variable. Black orthodoxy dictates that overuse makes one either an irrelevant cultural nationalist rebel or an impotent excuse-maker or rationalizer. Under-use, on the other hand, makes one either a "soft," or a "hard" Uncle Tom, an appeaser, a compromiser with evil.

But correct use makes for sound analysis.

In the face of all evidence to the contrary, Mr. Kelly would have us believe that by treating only one half of America's race problem (the black half), the "elusive effective most efficacious black strategy" does in fact exist and will in fact be found. His candidate is the old familiar composite-better organizational and programmatic planning, more strategic thinking--and by all means and without further delay more black forays into economic independence and internal self-development.

Mr. Kelly's book proves simply that at times even great minds can become fuzzy when they refuse to look at the simple truths facing them head on. Following Mr. Kelly's well-worn paradigm to black success, one would think that with Oprah, professional basketball, the Johnson publishing and Jackson music and BET broadcasting empires, the black economy would be well on its way to democratic and racial acceptance and thus to victory. That is, that the last mile of freedom should already have been accomplished. QED, amen.

Here is a mind game that Mr. Kelly evidently did not think to play. It is the same mind game that Howard Griffin played in his famous book "Black Like Me." Supposed Bill Gates, and Andrew Carnegie were black (or pick your own rich white tycoons, young or old, dead or live)? What difference would it have on the black masses?

Almost none is the correct, but not the exact answer. The exact answer is not only would it have little or no no effect on black culture as a whole, but the lives of these men would themselves be unalterably changed.

That is the exact answer.

The effects of white racism are global, systemic. There is no way to hide from it--no safe haven from it; it cannot be finessed or seduced-either analytically or existentially. Attempts to do so, just makes the analyst a part of the problem-that is a part of white collective denial about the collection of closed white superiority myths.

We cannot solve the problem of black culture without including America's own existential crisis with the issue of race in the analysis. Race is not an exogenous variable it is an endogenous one--an American problem. White racism is an American problem that blacks must help solve just as black self-development is a black problem that whites must help solve. We must stop running from the obvious and began to work within our American family and help our white brothers help themselves and in turn they will help us. There is no other solution, analytically or existentially.

Surely the author does not supposed for a moment that a well-educated, economically vibrant, culturally coherent black race is going to be welcomed with open arms into the larger economically competitive racist American family, does he? Anyone who thinks that has missed the real lessons of Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa and American Southern Reconstruction. These are the blacks who will be the most threatening to a weak white self-concept. As in Nazi Germany, the successful ones will be the ones most detested. We cannot forget, that white fantasy no matter how powerful and dominant is still not reality.

Just as there was no "Jewish problem" in Nazi Germany there is no "black problem" in America. There is only a white problem. Once that problem is solved, we will all be free.

The snake in America's bosom-white racism--must be confronted and slain, otherwise nothing that is not blonde and blue-eyed is safe. White racism is the gravity that holds a flawed white identity together; it is the glue that holds together a dying and corrupt system; it cannot be appeased by either good or bad black strategies because it remains unaffected by them. It must be confronted, and then confronted some more. Amen.

This book deserves six stars! It is awesome.

While not as conservative as Jesse Peterson, Star Parker, or Kin Hamblin (but closer to that of John McWhorter), this is a necessary and accurate critique of current Black "leadership" that avoids conservative dogma and sticks to the facts.

Having met and experienced some of the "Black leadership" of which Mr. Kelley discusses, I can vouch for what he says about Modern "leadership" amounting to a charasmatic road show of sound and fury signifying nothing, but fear of white supremacist backlash keeps the Black masses (especially those of the Jim Crow generation)afraid to openly dismiss some of these people for the frauds that some of them are.

Mr. Kelley will be criticized for this, but since he does not appear to be a supporter of ultraconservative reactionaries as is the case of Star Parker, Jesse Peterson, Ward Connerly, or Ken Hamblin, that might blunt the sting of any criticism he may receive.

Norman Kelley has taken on black leadership in America and attempted to expose its delicate underbelly. He accuses them of missing the point when it comes to what the black populace needs in order to succeed in this country. Kelley feels especially hostile toward those he labels the "niggerati" (a term coined by Zora Neal Hurston) who are the black intellectuals. Cornell West, Michael Eric Dyson, bell hooks, and Henry Lewis Gates all take something of a beating at his capable hands. He states that they are able to "dazzle the white world with their mixture of "street" analysis and postmodern argot." I get the distinct impression he thinks that dealing with the hip hop generation is merely a way for them to keep their names in the news while not really saying or doing anything helpful.

While many of his comments are on the mark, he doesn't explain just what black leadership should do to effectively help the common people. He doesn't discuss the issues that the black leaders themselves face in that they are not welcome at the American table - either as politicians or as leaders of a people the white American leadership would prefer to ignore. I feel that he omitted the many roadblocks that have faced black leaders from DuBois to Sharpton. It's almost as if he's suggesting that if black leaders did x, y, or z differently, then the problems would be solved, while totally leaving out the racism that caused them in the first place. (RAW Rating: 3.5)

Reviewed by alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

The author is very sharp. I especially relished his evisceration of 'market intellectuals'. Politically he is a more popular version of Adolph Reed, Jr., his major contemporary influence. His intellectual heroes of earlier times are Du Bois and Harold Cruse, which I think is symptomatic of his boundaries. What concerns him most about today's black intellectuals is not just the bankruptcy of their ideas but the question of their connection to the creation of effective political power.

While I have no quarrel with him on overt political matters, on a more subtle philosophical level I think differently, and this is where the intellectual qua intellectual divides from practical politics. Another way of saying this is that there's a limit that his political thinking reaches which is also the limit of his intellectual thinking, beyond which an unspoken new dynamic must open up, which involves the precarious role of the creative thinker at a time when all of society is organized against him or her.

There's also a deeper question of the conception of ethnic identity for the 21st century, which I don't think he delves into as deeply as he should.

The next question is: what is the relationship between creative intellectual work and the practical political situation? This is the toughest question of all, one that challenges the imagination in an era of the imaginatively-challenged. I addressed this issue when I had the opportunity to meet Kelley. His response was that intellectuals are irrelevant. He admits to being a member of the tiny reading class, but he says that people who read books are irrelevant. This is why he is directing his attention to the political economy of black music.

This is the juncture at which I part company with Kelley, but as his frame of reference is the quest for efficacious political organization, he is an important person to learn from.

Norman Kelley has written one of the great intellectual books of the begining of the 21st century, The HNIC Syndrome is a perfect companion to Harold Cruse crisis of the Negro Intellectual. Kelley spares no one in this book from the almost lethargic black left (who used to deliver) to the whiny do-nothing right (who are intellectuals in name only) and the black masses who are being used by both sides looking for real leadership. His greatest blows are against the so-called black intelligensia who has neither offered any ideals or are just prime time intellectuals from Cornel West, Micheal Eric Dyson and Bell Hooks (he calls them frauds ) and right-wingers like Sowell, Loury, Walter Williams, John Mc Worther, and Steele are just thrid -rate thinkers with huge white conservative money. My favorite part of the book are the solutions that the average brotha and sista can do to combat the modern black elite from withholding your vote because "It is better to be feared than liked" to the establishment of leadership schools. It may not be a large book but you will find yourself agreeing with Kelley's points from the leadership vaccum since King and Malcolm X died to the failure of African- American leadership to develop an independent think tanks. Get this book now, It will make you think.

Now I can certainly enjoy fights between intellectuals. The recent best being the scuffle between former Nation writer Christopher Hitchens and the remaining Nation crew including Katha Pollitt and Alexander Cockburn. The arguments tend to be well-argued and well-written from a particular point of view. So when I saw that Nation books published this work by Norman Kelley I thought it would be a compelling and interesting read.

Mr. Kelley's main argument is that so called black leaders (the likes of Cornel West, Russell Simmons, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Tavis Smiley) have abandoned the WEB DuBois Talented Tenth model of black intellectualism. Mr. Kelley's criticisms of course offer a certain amount of truth: black intellectualism is at a low point and black leaders (as named by Kelley) offer very few solutions to their fiery statements of social injustice. This argument is an old one, however, like the counterparts he criticizes, Mr. Kelley himself offers very little, solution wise, to this problem. Instead, he focuses on the public intellectualism of Cornel West whom he believes has sold his PhD for fame and money.

Kelley also finds fault with other blacks in their motivation for joining the spotlight at all, believing they are in it for fortune, fame, the occasional book deal and multiple guest spots on CNN talk shows. Criticism of this nature is fine, but what is the point of this book? To publicly flay West and the others or to offer some sort of response to the age old question of where have all the black leaders gone? Rather than offering alternatives Mr. Kelley gives us the unfortunate debacle of an intellectual rather distatefully make personal attack against his counterparts. The unfortunate part is not the attack, but rather the method. A carefully honed and crafted argument wins against cable network news style criticism anyday. Distract with personal attacks and no one will realize that your arguments offer very little other than a tired retread.

Besides an interesting chapter about James Brown, there is very little to recommend about this book. However, I would suggest a read to anyone who wants to understand (through Kelley's unfortunate example) why black leadership has gone astray. Too much infighting for the top spot, very little community action. Mr. Kelley's 2nd edition of this book may need to include a chapter about himself.

THE BOOK EXPLAINS WHAT MOST OF US KNOW AND CALL THE DOMINOE EFFECT.WE ALL FALL DOWN WHEN THINGS FALL APART.

I expected a lot more from this book, but in all this book lacked much substance and failed to analyze in depth the many other HNIC such as Russell Simmons and other modern "so-called" "black activists." I expected the book to deal with a wider number of these activist but it failed to do so. Overall the author did do intense research on topics that were true to his heart and interest, but i expected more.

Although Kelley makes valid points about the general ineffectiveness of black political leadership today, his argument is, unfortunately, premised wholly on an indictment of the motivation of the leadership. Kelley ignores any and all structural or systemic causes that would prevent even the best-intentioned leaders from creating meaningful change in national policy towards urban areas and black America.

Instead of proposing alternatives, or laying out the means of accomplishing the change in education and employment policy that he claims to want, Kelley succeeds only in writing a screed against black political leaders and especially black "public intellectuals." Cornel West especially takes enormous amounts of abuse in this book. Indeed, Kelley seems almost obsessed with tearing down West, whose primary sins (as far as I can glean from the book) are being well-known, counseling Al Sharpton, and writing books about race that the average people might be able to understand, rather then dense theoretical work that will be published only in obscure academic journals. While intellectual assualts on West are welcome (and have been launched, notably by Adolph Reed, who is plugged again and again in Kelley's book), there are none of them here. Instead, like the entire book, there are only personal attacks on the supposed power- and celebrity-hungry character of the most notable blacks in public affairs circles.

How unfortunate that such a gifted writer and journalist would squander his talent on such a simple-minded and personally vicious "critique" of the politics of American life. If you're actually interested in black political leadership, I would highly recommend "We Have No Leaders" by Ron Walters, which is far more insightful.