BLACK POWER
35
The confusion has been compounded by the press, which has
frequently distorted the words of SNCC and CORE representatives,
harping on every connotation of violence and racism, minimizing the
central call for ethnic unity.
For all these reasons, it is still not clear whether "Black Power"
is to be taken as a short-term tactical device or a long-range goal–
that is, a postponement or a rejection of integration; whether it has
been adapted as a lever for intimidating whites or organizing blacks,
for instilling race hate or race pride; whether it necessitates, permits
or encourages violence; whether it is a symptom of Negro despair or
of Negro determination, a reaction to the lack of improvement in the
daily lives of Negro-Americans or a sign that improved conditions
are creating additional expectations and demands. Whether Black
Power, furthermore, becomes a constructive psychological and poli–
tical tactic or a destructive summons to separatism, violence and re–
verse racism will depend at least as much on developments outside
the control of its advocates (like the war in Vietnam) as on their
conscious determination. For all these reasons, it is too early for final
evaluations; only time, and perhaps not even that, will provide them.
At most, certain limited, and tentative, observations are possible.
If
Black Power means only that Negroes should organize poli–
tically and economically in order to develop self-regard and to exert
maximum pressure, then the new philosophy would be difficult to
fault, for it would be based on the truism that minorities must argue
regard Lamer quotes a speech by Carmichael to the students of Morgan
State College, as transcribed in
The Movement,
June, 1967:
Now then we come to the question of definitions ... it is very, very
important because I believe that p eople who can define are masters.
I want to read a quote. It is one of my favorite quotes.
It
comes from
Alice In Wonderland,
Lewis Carroll. ...
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,
"I mean just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." "The
question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many
different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "who is to
be master."
That is all. That is all. Understand that ... the first need of a free
people is to define their own terms.
As Larner comments, "Mr. Carmichael, unlike Mr. Carroll, identifies with
Humpty Dumpty."
