Talk:Black Power

Should black liberation movements today avoid coalitions with other organizations that may not have the same end goals? Is Carmichael's theory on the impossibility of an equal alliance between blacks and whites still relevant and true today?

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Re: black power question

Carmichael's emphasis on black movements is still a useful one for today, but it is stilla difficult one to accomplish. There is some truth in arguing that power will not be yielded by those who posess it and that, rather it must be taken. Whites may indeed be more usefully engaged in not furthering systems of opression, but it is very difficult fro someone benefiting from unfair advantage to realize all of the ways in which they help to enforce mechanisms that cause inequality. A movement created from indigenous resources can be more powerful becasue it does not ask participants to tear down the walls that hold them up, only those that keep them down. The United Farm Workers movement, in its earliest phases, relied almost entirely on the resources, energies, and work of California Chicanos, and this is hwo it rose to national prominence.

All that being said, putting pressure on power, requires the threatening of the system as it stands. Often blacks are so far outside the mainstream system, partially becasue of the way this system was designed, that their redirection of their own resources or energies does not create the necessary momentum to force change. The power of a slave revolt is that it cuts off the labor supply for the established class, a group that suffers from massive underemployment does not hold this power. A boycott is effective if it is orchestrated by those with purchasing power, it is more difficult if those who do not fit in with the market's concept of a consumers stop spending money. Even armed revolt is difficult for an all-black movement, too much of the military adn security forces would overwhelm such a movement. White involvement is probably necessary to supply some pressure to the powers that be, though I believe this can be done without compromising black leadership of these movements and while increasing the critical consciousness of willing whites (though focusing strictly on this goal is probably a waste of time).

In today's society, there are so many cross-cutting issues that one cannot simply ally himself with a "black" ideology or "white" ideology. In fact, it's a bit unrealistic to think there is one black ideology or one white ideology. Each person is made up of a number of variables and belong to a number of social groups: race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, education, occupation, socioeconomic class, geographic location, etc. It's hard to believe that a working class homosexual African American from California would relate more to a conservative upperclass African American from Massachusetts than a fellow working class homosexual white person. That said, I do not believe that blacks should ignore issues of the African American community. I just think they should not assume that these issues must be the same for all African Americans.

Therefore, I do not think it makes sense for groups to isolate themselves from other groups, especially if it is simply by race, because in today's society, there are so many issues that bridge different groups together, depending on the context.

Scurlock 19:37, 12 Jan 2006 (EST)