The Black Power Phrase - Essay Example

Module Black Power June 16th 1966, Carmichael put his mark on American history with a phrase, “The only way we’ gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we’ gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!” With that, the Black Power phrase was born, which would later grow to become a movement for black people of the United States. The phrase was literally a battle line already drawn. On one side was the whites while on the other side were the blacks. It was not much of a physical war where arms would be used; this was a war of ideas and dominancein, among other fields, the political and the economic fields. This declaration by Stokely Carmichael was sparked by the massive differences that existed between the black community and the white community of America. In the opinion of the Black Power Movement followers, the white community was so much dominant in the political, economic and social fields among other fields. This had been achieved by the whites by craftily putting in place structures that would ensure that whites were always superior while blacks were the subjects. In their book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, Carmichael and Hamilton are categorical by stating; We cannot see how the black people, who are massively insecure both politically and economically, can coalesce with those whose position is secure - particularly when the latter's security is based on the perpetuation of the existing political and economic structure (75). This paper will underscore the truth of the statement in light with the prevailing political and economic conditions of the time of the statement. That will be achieved by highlighting the political differences of the time, followed by the economic differences and finally integrating them to show the massive gaps between the two races, and at the same time, to show that the white race was by far and unfairly dominant over the black community. Political Differences. The prevailing political temperatures and structures were pre-determined and organized by whites (Carmichael and Hamilton). This is best expressed in their book when they say that blacks need to get themselves some political structures as a blue print to acquiring some adequate political ground as compared to that of the whites. From this point of view, it becomes evident that the whites had all the policies and framework allowing only whites to have the giant share of political dominance. Furthermore, the blacks had no representation that would ensure that their political views and opinions were taken into consideration. This is evident from the opinion of Carmichael and Hamilton that the young black male had no channel for expressing their political views and frustrations. As a result of this lack of representation, the government did not have the interests of the black community in its agenda. From the perspective of the blacks, there was no government ear for a black person. It was only set up to listen to the white population and fully represent the interests of the whites at the expense of the blacks. For that reason, there was no adequate political representation that would ensure that young black males got a forum for exchanging political views, and at the same time have leadership role models. The only types of models that existed were radicals and leaders of movements who were political activists. In such a position, no black politician had the opportunity to make any political difference from the status quo set by the whites. The status quo, in itself, was one of the key bothers to the black community. It allowed political dominance and decision making to fall on the white community only. The whites were pleased with the status quo since it gave them an upper hand as compared to the minor blacks (Carmichael and Hamilton). The whites were willing to work with the status quo regardless of whether it was oppressive to the black community or not. This status quo was achieved regardless of the fake democratic practice of voting. The voting process was simply a formality that was used to blind the black community into thinking they had a voice in determining who becomes their leaders. In the real sense no matter how much the black united to vote for a candidate, the whites always remained in influential political positions, leaving blacks as subjects (Carmichael and Hamilton). This is best expressed in the book as a process where blacksvoted and on reaching their houses heard the same names holding the same political positions. Therefore, the blacks felt like they were not involved in the whole practice of democracy. This is a status that was achieved using a rigid political setup where only two dominant political parties existed; the Democratic and the Republican parties. These two parties were so powerful and determined who won which political position in an election. The bigger picture of the whole setup was to deny entry of any other form of political influence into the political arena, and it was achieved by ensuring that only the white population had the most influential posts of the parties. A situation was created such that even the unity of blacks could not outdo the strength and influence of the two dominant parties. This ensured that leadership only came from the white community. This was one of the main points of interest for the Black Power followers. They wanted equal political representation and not oppression for blacks. With the realization of the influence of the Black Power across the nations, the white leaders bowed down to some pressure and introduced a program which was termed ‘integration’. This was meant to create a somewhat equal environment for the blacks and whites through assimilation of the two races (Carmichael and Hamilton). In itself, this was an admission by the white society that the blacks have been alienated, and not only in the political field but as well as the economic field. Economic Differences. As evidenced by the foregoing, the integration program was in itself an admission by the white society that the black society was alienated. The program was designed in such a way that selected blacks could freely mingle and live with the middle class of the white population (Carmichael and Hamilton). From the book, with was a further degradation of the blacks. It suggests that the other way round would have painted a better picture of the situation; that would be the whites having to move and live with the blacks in their residences rather that blacks having to move to the residences of the whites. Automatically, only an individual of lower class ranking would be uplifted to a higher class ranking, and not he other way round. Therefore, the whole integration exercise was a wordless way of showing that black people existed in a lower economic classthan their white counterparts. However, even with the attempts of assimilating blacks with whites, not all blacks were to be considered for the integration. Only the acceptable blacks who were fairly on a higher economic ranking than the rest would get the chance. On the other side of the coin, not all whites would be integrated with the blacks. Only the middle class of the white population was to practice assimilation. This meant that even with the efforts to practice assimilation, there were limits as to how far the two races would integrate. These limits were defined by the economic level of an individual. This is termed as ‘siphon off “acceptable” black people into the middle class white community’ by Carmichael and Hamilton. This exercise was meant to send some black students to white schools which were unaffordable to them. The fact that Carmichael and Hamilton show clearly the difference in education access between the two races is a key indicator of the magnitude of the economic difference between them. It means that there was a type and level of education that blacks could not afford and which was exclusive to the white community. This meant that black people existed in a lower economic level while their white counterparts were on a much higher one. Even in the implementation of the same programs, they were designed in a way that the white people get to make the critical decisions while the black people only followed the directions given. This was a bother to many blacks according to Carmichael and Hamilton. This is mainly because of the fact that blacks were not involved in the real projects that were in practice meant for them, they ended up feeling detached from the whole project, and it was considered a thing for the whites. Therefore, a number of them felt much inferior to the whites and did not participate in the programs. Carmichael specifically terms the ideas of the whites as attempts to exploit blacks economically. He describes the Black Power as a struggle for class rather than a struggle for race. Even though the blacks had acknowledgement for their blackness, they felt inferior in the eyes of the whites, and, therefore, would bend to any requisitions made by the whites due to economic inferiority. CONCLUSION Evidently, there were more gaps and points of differences between the black and white societies. This denied the black society an opportunity to feel politically and economically able to be on the same level with the white community. For this reason, the Black Power was formed to boost the esteem of the blacks in an effort to make them equal to the whites. However, the initial problem was how the black community found itself inferior to the white community, and evidently, all blame went to the white community. Therefore, the insecurity of the blacks economically and politically can be fully justified from the way they found themselves in the situation and from how the white community handled the situation. Work Cited Carmichael, Stokely and Hamilton Charles. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Random House, 1967. Print. Read More