Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

cal exercise, but is intended as a
working paper for all Black people
interested in that ideological struggle
to understand more fully the
correct direction toward liberation.
We are mainly concerned with
four basic questions : (1) What are
the ideological bases of conflict
concerning the liberation struggle
for Black people? (2)What-How-
Why are certain institutions playing
significant roles in the development
of the concept of the Black University?
( 3 ) What are some of the
dangers of Neo-colonial racist pacification?
and (4) What is the correct
ideological basis of our Black
struggle toward liberation? After
providing a working definition of
each ideological position, the
meaning of each will be examined
through the workings of five institutional
contexts related to the
concept of the Black University .
By examining several major trends,
based on the two opposite positions
we hope to clarify certain dangers
to our struggle and also we hope to
begin to underscore guidelines for
our liberation struggle .
l. The Ideological Bases of Racial
Conflict in the United States
Most previous formulations of
the ideological bases of racial conflict
in the United States suffer from
liberal assumptions-illusions . Black
people were to be dealt with as
either a topic of intergroup (human)
relations or of minority
group relations. This was somehow
related to the white man's
message that everything would be
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cool anyway since we all live in
a melting pot . Also, the only acceptable
(responsible) approach
to change was limited to the dictates
of the system, obviously the
same system responsible for our
oppression . Strange forms of racist
social darwinisms lurk through this
society and haunt us as we will to
be free . This type of formulation
is inadequate (surprise, surprise)
because it is simply a function of
this society and its white owners,
and has little to do with where
Black people are and where we
want to go .
But Black Nationalism has never
been legitimate in the United
States since legitimacy was also a
function of white nationalism serving
to support white supremacy .
So, a major illusion was to propagate
integration as the only legitimate
goal for Black people . The
integrationists (used to-still) say
that the problem is that some white
people, who are from the old
school, will learn in time and will
support what is right . Every major
alternative pointed essentially to
the "white-is-right" theory, while
much of our Black reality was
either suppressed or ignored . Black
Nationalism is an idea whose time
has come, and with it has come the
obvious need to reformulate the
structure of our ideological struggle
.
Struggle throughout the Third
World has helped free us from the
American integration myth . We
have come to know of colonial-
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST