Black Power and the Third World: A Common Struggle Against White Imperialism, Study notes of History

Download Black Power and the Third World: A Common Struggle Against White Imperialism and more Study notes History in PDF only on Docsity! BLACK POWER and the THIRD WORLD Stokely Carmichael Havana, Cuba August, 1967 Published by the Third World Information Service , 35 Johnson Ave., Thornhill Ontario (Address to the Organization of Latin American Solidarity) BLACK POWER and the THIRD WORLD We greet you as comrades because it becomes increasingly clear to us each day that we share with you a common struggle ; we have,a common enemy . Our enemy is white Western imperialist society . (Note that we use the term white Western society as opposed to white Western civilization . The West has never been civilized . It has no right to speak of itself as a civilization .) Our struggle is to overthrow this system which feeds itself and expands itself through the economic and cultural exploitation of nonwhite, non-Western peoples - the THIRD WORLD . We share with you also a common vision of the establishment of humanistic societies in the place of those now existing . We seek with you to change the power bases of the world, where mankind will share the resources of their nations, instead of having to give them up to foreign plunderers where civil- izations can retain their cultural sovereignty instead of being forced to submit to foreign rulers who impose their own corrupt cultures on those civil- izations they would dominate . Anglo society has been nearly successful in keeping all of us - 'the oppressed of the Third World -- separated and fragmented . They do this for 'their survival, because if we felt our unity we would know our strenth . Especially here on this continent, where the Anglo is in the minority, he has for hundreds of years succeeded in keeping all of us who are oppressed from realizing our common plight . But the call of Che Guevara for a continental struggle against a common enemy would seem to ameliorate this fragmentation among those who would resist Western imperialism . We speak with you, comrades, because we wish to make clear that we understand that our destinies are intertwined . Our world can only be the Third World ; our only struggle, for the Third World ; our only vision, of the Third World . Until recently, most African-Americans thought that the best way 'to alleviate their oppression was through attempts at integration into the society . If we could enjoy public accommodations in the United States (motels, hotels, restaur- ants, etc .) our condition would be alleviated, many of us believed . This attitude was characteristic of the "civil rights movement" and clearly points up the bourgeois character of that "movement" . Only the bourgeoisie are in a position to be concerned about public accommodations . The African-American masses, on the other hand, do not have any jobs, any housing worthy of the name decent, nor the money to enjoy restaurants, hotels, motels, etc . The "civil rights movement" did not actively involve the masses, because it did not speak to the needs of the masses .. Nonetheless, the "civil rights movement" was a beginning and because its aims met resistance throughout the U .S .A ., depths of racism heretofore unrecognized were laid bare . It had been thought that the aims' of the "civil rights movement" would be easily realizable, because the United States constitution supported them . But thousands of African-Americans were jailed, intimidated, beaten, and some murdered for agitating for those rights guaranteed by the Constitution, but only available to whites . The capitalist system gave birth to these black enclaves and formally articulated the terms of their colonial and dependent status as was done, for example, by the apartheid government of Azania (South Africa), which the U .S . keeps alive by its support: . The struggle for black power in this country is the struggle to free these colon- ies from external domination . But we do not seek to create communities where, in place of white rulers, black rulers control the lives of black masses and where black money goes into -:;he pockets of a few blacks : we want to see it go into the communal pocket . The society we seek to build among black people is not an oppress- ive capitalist society - 'for capitalism by its very nature cannot create struct- ures free from exploitation . We are fighting for the redistribution of wealth and for the end of private property inside the United States . The question that may be asked is how does the struggle to free these internal colonies relate to your struggle to destroy imperialism . We realistically survey our numbers and know that it is not possible for black people to take over the entire country militar ly and hold large areas of land . In a highly industrialized nation the struggle is different . The heart of product- ion and the heart of commercial trade is in the cities . We are in the cities . With our rebellions we have become a disruptive force in the flow of services, goods and capital . Since 1966, the cry of the rebellions has been "Black Power" . In this cry, there was an ideology implied which the masses understood instinctively . It is because we are powerless that we are oppressed and it is only with power that we can make the decisions governing our, lives and our communities . Those who have power have everything ; those who are without power have nothing . Without power we have to beg for what is rightfully ours . With power we will take our birthright, because it was with power that our, birthright was taken from us . Black power is more than a slogan ; it is a way of looking at our problems and the beginning of a solution to them . It attacks racism and exploitation, the horns of the bull that seek to gore us . The United States is a racist country . From its very beginning it has built itself upon the subjugation o ,~,~' colored people . The Europeans who settled the United States systematically stole the land and destroyed the native population, the Indians forcing them eventually onto reservations where they live today, a mere 0 .3% of the total population . At the same time the United States was waging genocide against the Indians, i t was raping the African continent of its natives and bringing them to the Americas to work : as slaves . To enslave another human being, one needs a justification and the United States has always found this ;xustification in proclaiming the superiority of whites and the inferiority of nonv,`hites  We are called "niggers" ; Spanish-speaking people are called "spicks" ; the Chinese "chinks" ; the Vietnamese "gooks" . By dehumanizing us and all others of color, It therefore becomes just, in the mind of the white man that we should be enslaved, exploited and oppressed . However, it becomes even easier to keep a man a slave when he himself can be convinced that he is infer-ior . How much easier it is to keep a man in chains by making him believe his own inferiority! As long as he does, he will keep himself in chains . As long as a slave allows himself to be defined as a slave by the master, he will be a slave, even if the master dies . This technique has been successfully practiced not only against us, but wherever people have been enslaved, oppressed and exploited, We can see it happening today in the schools of large U .S,, cities where Puerto Rican and Mexican children are not allowed to speak Spanish and are taught nothing of their country and their history . It is apparent in many African countries, where one is not considered educated unless he has studied in France and speaks French  Black power attacks this brainwashing .by saying,,  WE WILL DEFINE OURSELVES . We will no longer accept the white man's definition of ourselves as ugly, ignorant and uncultured . Wp will recognize our own beauty and our own culture and will no longer be ashamed of ourselves, for a people ashamed of itself cannot be free . Because our color has been used as a weapon to oppress us, we must use our color as a weapon of liberation . This is the same as other people using their nation- ality as a weapon for their liberation . This, coming together around our race was an inevitable part of our struggle . We recognize, however, that this is not the totality, only the necessary beginning . Black power recognizes that while we are made to feel inferior, this is only so that we may be more easily exploited ., Even if we destroy racism, we would not necessarily destroy exploitation . Thus, we must constantly launch a two-pronged attack ; we must constantly keep our eyes on both of the bull's horns . Color and culture were and are key in our oppression . Therefore our analysis of history and our economic analysis are rooted in these concepts . Our historical analysis, for example, views the United States as being conceived in racism . Although the first settlers themselves were escaping from oppression, and although their armed uprising against their mother country was around the aggravations of colonialism -- "taxation without representation," etc . -- the white European settlers could not extend their lofty theories of democracy to the Indian, whom they systematically exterminated as they expanded into the interior of the country . Indeed, in that same town where the settlers set up their model of government based on the theory of representative democracy -- -in that same town the first slaves were brought from Africa . In our economic analysis our interpretation of Marx comes not only from his writ- ings, but from how we see capitalism's relationships to people of color . The labor movement in the United States, While in the beginning containing some great leaders in the struggle against the absolute control of the economy by the industrial lords, essentially fought only for more money . Those few who had the vision of extending the fight for workers control of production, never succeeded in transmitting their entire vision to the rank and file . This labor found itself asking the industrial lords not to give up their control but merely to pass out a few more of the fruits of this control, Unlike us, they do not raise questions of redistributing the wealth inside the U .S . Thereby did the United States anticipate the prophecy of Marx and avoid the inevitable class struggle within the country, by expanding into the Third World and exploiting the resources and slave labor of people of color . U .S . capitalists never cut down on their domestic profits to share with the workers . Instead they expanded internationally and threw the bones of their profits to the American working class . The American working class enjoys the fruits of the labors of the Third World workers . The proletariat has become the Third World ; the bourgeoisie is white Western society ., The true potential revolutionaries 'in this country are the black youths of the ghettos ; those who have developed insurgence in the cities are African-American and Latin communities where past rebellions have taught important lessons in dealing with the government's armed reaction to our uprisings . These rebellions should not be taken lightly. In the past three years, there have been over one hundred uprisings in the internal colonies of the United States . These are no doubt reported to you as "minor disturbances initiated by a few malcontents" . These are major rebellions with numbers of participants who are developing . a consciousness of resistance . It is with increasing concern that we see the United States will by any means necessary attempt to prevent the liberation struggles sweeping across the Third World . But in particular we know that the United States fears most the liberation struggle on this continent . In order to secure itself geographically, the United States must have Latin America, both economically, politically and culturally . It will not do for the Anglos to be isolated on a continent of hostiles . Black power not only addresses itself to exploitation, but to the problems of cultural integrity . Wherever imperialism has gone, she has imposed her culture by force on other peoples, forcing them -to adopt her language,and way of life . When African slaves were brought to this country, the Anglo saw that if he took away the language of the African, he broke one of the bonds which kept them united and struggling . Africans were forbidden to speak to each other in their own language . If they were found doing so, they were savagely beaten into silence . Western imperialism has always understood the importance of lan-g,u,age,_to a people's cultural consciousness and integrity . When it moved into the Third,World, it has moved to impose its own language .. In Puerto Rico, where Yankee cultural imposition is at its height, English is taught -in all high schools for three years, while Spanish is taught for two years . Anglo society learned other valuable lessons from the enslavement of Africans in this country . When you separate a man's family, as was done to the slaves, you again weaken his resistance . But carry the separation further . Take a few of the weaker slaves and then treat them as house pets -- the lighter skinned slaves (offspring of the master's rape of the African woman) was preferred . Give him the crumbs off the master's table and cast-off clothing and soon he will fear to lose these small comforts . Then use his fears by getting him to report on the activities of the bad slaves, report the impending revolts and uprisings . Distrust and dissent is created among the Africans, and thus they will fight among themselves instead of uniting to fight their oppressors, Todays descendants of ,African slaves brought to America have been separated from their cultural and national roots . Black children are riot taught of the glory of African civilization in the history of mankind ; they are instead taught about Africa . the dark continent inhabited by man-eating savages . They are not taught of the thousands of black martyrs who died resisting the white slave masters . They are not taught of the numerous uprisings