Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

ism, and we are becoming aware
that we are a colonized people living
in the very bowels of the
monster . Our presence in this
country is the result of an illegitimate
political process whose most
damaging contemporary effect is
to convince us of our birthright to
citizenship (ha! ), to call us to be
patriotic, and to put us eagerly to
work to uphold this system . Many
of us have merely been made to
internalize the overseer's whip and
thus to control ourselves . Indeed,
we are a colonized people .
The key problem, then, is to isolate
the major ideological forces
which undergird the system and
those opposing it, our ideological
forces . Today we know the American
system for what it is, neocolonial
racism functioning to pacify
Black people and to influence
Black affairs with revisionary subversion
. The system is racist because
"white is still right," and
Black people have never been dealt
with as people;slavery has not
been paid for, which means that we
are interpreted as either just becoming
white enough to be considered
people, or that we are
merely being tolerated until someone
figures out what to do with us
(or does it! ) . A siriple example of
neo-colonialism is when a "Negro"
is sent to manage and control Black
people in place of a white cat,
though the basic job assignment is
the same for either .
The most progressive Black
ideological forces constitute Revo-
NEGRO DIGEST Mareh 1969
lutionary Pan-African Nationalism .
Nationalism is beliefs/emotions of
racial solidarity and pride . Pan-
African Nationalism emphasizes
two important points for our identity
and struggle : (1) All Black
people are African, wherever they
are . We are Africans colonized in
the Americas . (2) All Africans
must unite against our common
enemy (and join Third World liberation
struggles) . Our ideology
must be revolutionary as we fight
a colonialist system . Our goal is to
destroy it and to replace it with a
system that speaks to our needs .
To quote a brother : "We don't believe
that what we want is better
than what others have, we just believe
it has got to be better for us."
And if two aren't possible, we'll
fight to the death for ours since
death of a kind is our fate in any
case .
So the ideological conflict is between
forces designed to keep us
loyal to the system oppressing us,
or to make sure that we cannot get
ourselves together to do something
about it, and the forces of liberation
designed to reunite a separated
people, to mobilize the will of a
people to liberate itself from racist
colonial bondage with giant steps
toward New Africa .
2 . Role of Institutions
The ideological conflict is best
understood by examining the role
of certain institutions (and not the
role of particular people, as we are
so often tricked into believing) .
This is particularly true when we're
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