Aside from the axiom that there is a thin line between creativity and insanity, we experienced a plethora of artists with psycho-social disabilities before, during and after the height of the Black Arts Movement. It seems that Mother Nature realized those with sanity and purity could not save us, therefore Mother sent her motley crew of psychopathic artists/activists to participate in the Black liberation Movement of the 60s. Of course it has been known since ancient times that artists and the insane are often one and the same! History has also taught us the politicos can suffer psychopathology as well. For sure, psychopathic behavior was perhaps the chief internal flaw in BAM and BLM. When Harold Cruse presented his classic Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, certainly he was suggesting a mental crisis along with the aesthetic dilemma, i.e., what is black, what is beautiful. Why do we think James Baldwin is ugly until we put him face to face with that Benin statue, and suddenly, especially for me, he was beautiful. Of course our aesthetics originated in our mental paralysis or addiction to white supremacy!
So BAM and the BLM suffered primal jealousy and envy, complicated by the need to dominate and exercise power over those we felt beneath us, especially in intelligence. When we, Black Dialogue Magazine staff, were invited by Eldridge Cleaver to the Soledad Prison Culture Club, 1966, chaired by himself and Alprentis Bunchy Carter, my mind immediately told me EC was and would be a most dangerous so-called Negro when released. After all, he was a well read seasoned killer whose behavior was certainly not modified by the California or Department of Corrections. If the CDC had taught him anything that would become detrimental to the BLM, it was to save his ass at all costs. Shall we call this a prisoner's matra? Shall we call it the mantra of those natural born opportunists and psychopaths who have no scruples about immoral behavior to satisfy their lust for power and satisfaction.
For sure, I knew he was no match for Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, my comrades from Merritt College. They may have had their psychopathics but on the scale of mild, moderate and severe, they were mild compared to My Friend the Devil!
But I saw my friend challenge and debate the greatest minds of political America, e.g., Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, mentally overwhelm the Christian Born Again masters with his testimony of seeing Jesus in the Moon, which I transcribed and entitled The Golden Shower, at his request since I was his chief of staff, secretary, bodyguard, photographer and organizer of his ministry The Eldridge Cleaver Crusades.
We see here that the psychosis extended beyond the BAM and BLM, yes, into the now! Alas, think of what James Baldwin told me in my interview with him at his cold, New York apartment, December, 1968: "It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!" He also said that this Xmas season, "How can America celebrate the Prince of Peace while we bomb the hell out of Vietnam!"
Imagine, our mental condition has now become severe to the point our people exclaim, "Man, I can't ready yo paper cause I am overwhelmed with shit in my life!"
Tis true, today we face conundrums that do indeed overwhelm our mental capacities. Yet the supreme irony is that all the knowledge in the universe is on our cell phone as we babble endlessly about where you at, where you at, where you at? The Book tells us the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge.
A dear sister gave me a quote, "They have knowledge of that which they know not!"
As a result of isms and schisms, we are indeed overwhelmed while claiming "I'm Woke!" while sleep walking in fear, terror and dread. My daughter calls many of her generation "The pseudo-conscious!"
You got "dread dead," i.e., brothers with dreads but still dead, entwined in the blood hair of Babylon woman.
As per solution, we have advocated a recovery process based on my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. Those surviving members of the BAM and BLA and our children of the Hip Hop generation and our grandchildren, yet have a chance as Dr. Hare said, "To sit down together and get our heads together!"