Source: Fraser, C. (1998). "Ebony and Ivory
—the Paradox and the Promise." In Revolution, She Wrote (pp. 136-138). Seattle, WA: Red Letter Press.
First Published: Freedom Socialist, July 1993
Transcription/Markup: Philip Davis and Glenn Kirkindall
Copyleft: Internet Archive (marxists.org)
2015. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Whoopi Goldberg was interviewing a rising Black actor, and they were comparing experiences in Africa.
Goldberg was deeply troubled. She had expected to undergo a dramatic rapport with her roots, she said, but instead she felt like an outsider.
Her guest laughed sympathetically and replied, in effect, “We all feel like that when we visit Africa! Let’s face it, we ’re Americans now — we changed the damn country and it changed us.”
“African”-Americans are treated as colonized enemies in their own land. Even so, the vast majority do not want to go back to Africa. What they do want is fair play in the country whose politics, economics and culture were changed radically by their very presence here.
So why are many Blacks nationalists?
They cite a profound sense of shared origin and destiny. “Nationalism” is their operative word to connote militancy, pride of color, disgust with the status quo, and connectedness to one another and to a movement. And it expresses desire for the liberty to choose when to relax with the sisters and brothers and when to mingle with “the others” and suffer the stresses of interaction and the stings of prejudice.
Black nationalism, then, functions as a code word for racial affinity, self-esteem and social protest. Militants who have no intention of trying to establish a Black state, who would never dream of moving to Africa, and who fight like hell for justice in the USA, still think of themselves as nationalists.
Nationalism can be the outgrowth of a despairing belief that separation may be the only answer. Nationalism can stem from the fear of losing identity in the assimilationist melting pot. It can result from the lure of the siren song of “Self-Determination” — an extension of the right of nations to secession to a racial group that is not a nation.
But whatever else it’s attributable to, the impulse toward nationalism often conceals a revolutionary ideology. Blacks joke that it ’s hard enough to be Black, so why be Red too? The nationalist tag is easier to live with than the M-word — Marxist.
And therein lies the rub, because Blackness cannot overcome without being Red. A society based on private ownership is never going to surrender the enormously profitable, and hence institutionalized, practice of racism.
Like all other near-radicals, Blacks grapple with the dilemma of endorsing a depraved and depriving system or embracing a political philosophy that will thrust them out of the mainstream and impede their chances for decent work and community acceptance. The nationalist posture sidesteps the conflict by being fiery yet unthreatening to the ruling class.
But sometimes the shortest route to winning majority support for a cause is exactly to move to the nether regions of unpopularity. The shock effect of a woman or man of color who stands tall and confident and insists on fundamental change is especially galvanizing, to self and to the world.
Black fighters lead the way for whites. Yes, most Blacks are weary of teaching and helping whites, but most whites can’t help themselves. Whites are screwy (perhaps you’ve noticed); overburdened by guilt and denial and uncertainty, they won’t mobilize for progress on their own behalf — but they will for others. If Blacks demand that non-Blacks demand revolution, it will come to pass.
Whites of good will don’t want a white nation. Most Blacks don’t really want a Black nation. Good god, who really wants any more nations? Any more of the religious and ethnic mania gone berserk in the Balkans, the Middle East and the fractured Soviet Union?!
No, the tormented world cries out for internationhood, for co-existence in a harmony of diversity and mutual aid, for an end to self-segregation along secondary or superficial or downright imbecilic lines. We can’t go home again — the places of origin have changed, history has moved on, and our new homeland is called Earth. The continents are now suburbs of each other, and pan-cultural solidarity is the tie that binds.
So let us know build a global revolutionary party of Blacks and the otherwise-hued, women and the otherwise-chromosomed, workers and the otherwise-employed, gays and the otherwise-oriented and all the malcontents ready to challenge the ruling sadists. And let the savvy Blacks of North America stay here, dig in, and guide us all out of the wilderness and into new life paths where beings of multiple colors and talents can balance and integrate our diversity and our oneness.
The world looks to America for strength. U.S. frontrunners — U.S. Blacks — will again come to recognize and respect their own power as leaders of the human race.
Bill Cosby, Black actor/producer extraordinaire, says that Americans hate each other — but the real problem is that nobody wants to leave. Right on.