Derrick Bell’s Afrolantica, Part 10: Apocalyptic Prophet of Racial War?

From page 33, Derrick Bell in dialogue with his idealized version of himself, the female civil rights lawyer Geneva Crenshaw, now elevated to a prophetic goddess with supernatural powers:

“The power of prophesy does not guarantee conversion.”

At some level Bell knew that his ideas had more in common with religion than legal scholarship. He saw himself as a prophet laying the blueprints for the ideal society. The 28-year-old law students who opened their hearts and minds to him did so with the same mentality as the converts at a Billy Graham crusade, feeling an emotional, religious satisfaction they had never known in a secular household.

And now today we see faith in action; the viewers of MSNBC can articulate a more in-depth understanding of the Trayvon Martin shooting than those who witnessed it.

With the racial tensions rising in Florida while antisemitic demagogues feed the flames, note how political activism and religious devotion merge. The hoodie has now become an object to aid in worship, assisting the adherent in identifying with the new martyr of the permanent-victim class, the proletariat:

In an interview last week with Ion Mihai Pacepa by Madeleine Simon:

The Communists went to great lengths to make Marxism the only religion in every country where they seized political power. One of the first things I did on that memorable day of July 28, 1978, when I became a free man, was to fall to my knees and pray out loud, for the first time in more than a quarter of a century. It took me a while. It was not easy to find the right words to express my great joy and thanks to the good Lord.

From Weasel Zippers, via Donald Douglas at American Power, the New Black Panther Party’s call for mob violence: