Demise of the African American Unity in the 1980s Essay

African-American Culture in the 1980s

An article in the peer-reviewed journal Progressive deals with the political and social culture of the African-American community in the 1980s. It was a peer-reviewed article that reported that "…large numbers of African-American elites were elevated…" into corporate executive position, into the "federal judiciary" and also were elected to state legislatures across America (Marable, 1991). However, the 1980s were also a time when AIDs was becoming a major medical scourge and many African-Americans believed that AIDs was a conspiracy in order to "systematically destroy" the black culture (Marable, 18).

The thesis of this article by Manning Marable -- the late professor of public affairs, African-American studies and history at Columbia University in New York City -- is that there was a "crisis in the black political culture" and a belief that AIDs was a "white supremacist medical conspiracy." Moreover, his thesis was that there was overt anti-Semitism within the black community and there was a "fraying of the bonds among virtually all African-Americans" (Marable, 18).

Marable's method of approaching the issues related to his thesis was to present data, statistics, and instances of conspiratorial beliefs by the black community he recalled from the 1980s.For example, a New York Times / CBS News survey asked the question: "Was AIDs deliberately created in a laboratory in order to infect black people" (Marable, 19). Only 1% of Caucasians believed that to be true and another 4% believed "it could possibly be true"; but ten percent of African-Americans believed it was a valid statement and "…another 19%" agreed it "could be possible" (Marable, 19).

As to the tensions between the black community and the Jewish community, Marable quotes from Professor Leonard Jeffries who said publically that blacks "…were victims of a conspiracy planned and plotted and programmed out of Hollywood" by people with Jewish names ("Greenberg" and "Weisberg") (19).

Having illustrated just two of the conspiracies that were launched in the 1980s Marable gets to his main point: the old assumptions and beliefs (upward mobility for blacks would continue -- i.e., the "Promised Land" Dr.….....