King on Black Power – Part 2
Thomas Allen
According to King, Black Power has many positive aspects compatible with the civil rights movement. However, he believes that its negative value prevents “it from having the substance and program to become the basic strategy for the civil rights movement in the days ahead.” (P. 45.) Further, “Black Power is a nihilistic philosophy born out of the conviction that the Negro can’t win. It is, at bottom, the view that American society is so hopelessly corrupt and enmeshed in evil that there is no possibility of salvation from within.” (P. 45.) (Regardless of Black Power, the Negro did win. Yet, now, many Negroes still believe, and many Whites agree, that American society is hopelessly corrupt and enmeshed in the evil of racism, whatever that means, and White supremacy, even though that died decades ago.)
After commenting on the hostile reaction that he received from the Black Power folks in Chicago, King concluded that they had lost patience because all the benefits that the civil rights movement promised had not come to fruition. (Within a decade, they not only received the benefits that King promised and advocated, but they also received much more. Now, they can even become doctors, engineers, executives of major corporations, high-ranking government bureaucrats, etc. with their race being their primary qualification and often their only qualification. One of the few high-paying occupations that they have earned by merits instead of race is athletics.)
King criticizes the Black Power movement because “it rejects the one thing that keeps the fire of revolutions burning: the ever-present flame of hope. . . . The Negro cannot entrust his destiny to a philosophy nourished solely on despair, to a slogan that they cannot implement into a program.” (P. 47.)
Next, King comments on the Negro’s disappointments and frustrations. (The Negro may have been disappointed in King’s day. However, today, he should have none, for he has far more privileges and benefits than King ever demanded. Yet, the Negro is still not satisfied and demands more — even the genocide of the White race. His insatiable greed and the kowtowing of Whites keep him from ever being satisfied.)
Continuing, King writes, “We Negroes, who have dreamed for so long of freedom, are still confined in a prison of segregation and discrimination.” (P. 47.). (Whatever discrimination that Negroes face today is the result of merit and not of race, which is why Negroes want advancements and rewards to be based on race. Today, the White race is the only race discriminated against. If Negroes are still not free, it is because their demands have destroyed freedom for everyone.)
Comparing Black Power to Garvey’s Back to Africa movement, King writes, “The Black Power movement of today, like the Garvey ‘Back to Africa’ movement of the 1920s, represents a dashing of hope, a conviction of the inability of the Negro to win and a belief in the infinitude of the ghetto.” (Pp. 48-49.) (Although the Negro won, his connate traits still keep many in the infinitude of the ghetto. However, refusing to accept responsibility for his failure to escape the ghetto mentality, the Negro still blames nonexistent White supremacy. Moreover, if Garvey had succeeded, most of the race problems of the United States would not exist.)
King remarks, “Black Power is an implicit and often explicit belief in black separatism.” (P. 49.) King adamantly opposed Black separation. He preferred a society where all races are amalgamated and homogenized into indistinguishable mongrels. Such amalgamation is the objective of the oligarchs. Moreover, Black separation preserves the Negro and his uniqueness, which the policies that King promoted destroy. While King expressed a desire for Negro unity and Black identity, his integrationist policies destroy instead of preserving them. Moreover, under Black separation, Negroes would govern themselves.)
Further, King declares, “that effective political power for Negroes cannot come through separatism.” (P. 49.) (So, Negroes governing themselves do not give them effective political power. Apparently, King thought that Negroes needed to integrate with Whites to govern themselves effectively. Thus, King implies that Negroes cannot effectively govern themselves without the assistance of Whites.)
Some Black Power adherents and King thought small — gaining control of and governing counties and cities. King’s small thinking is one reason that he opposed Black Power — controlling a few counties would give the Negro little influence in State politics. Instead, he preferred focusing on getting Negroes elected to Congress (where they could push the federal government to bully the States into surrendering unconditionally to King. If King had thought big, he would have advocated Negroes having an independent country ruled by Negroes.) While many Black Power adherents wanted the Negro to be independent of Whites, King did not.
Continuing, King writes that “the Negroes’ problem cannot be solved unless the whole of American society takes a new turn toward greater economic justice.” (P. 51.) The federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to create new jobs, low-cost housing, quality integrated education, etc. for the benefit of the Negro. Also, State and local governments have spent many billions of dollars more for the benefit of the Negro. (Thus, for King, the solution to the Negro’s problem is looting Whites for the benefit of Negroes.)
In condemning Black Power, King remarks that “the weakness of Black Power is its failure to see that the black man needs the white man and the white man needs the black man.” (P. 54.) (Whites are not dependent on Negroes. However, if Negroes want to live in a technologically advanced society, they are dependent on Whites.)
King declares, “Negroes should never want all power because they would deprive others of their freedom.” (P. 55.) (Negroes have not gained all power — White oligarchs prevent that — but in alliance with progressive Whites, they have deprived Whites of their freedom. For example, no White can refuse to hire or serve a Negro because of his race, which makes him a slave of the Negro.)
Continuing his attack against Black Power, King asserts, “Probably the most destructive feature of Black Power is its unconscious and often conscious call for retaliatory violence.” (P. 56.) Nevertheless, King admitted many people in the Black Power movement were not advocates of violence. Yet, others believed that only violence would bring liberation.
Another reason that King opposed the violence of Black Power was that it would not work. (However, over time, riots and the threats of riots earned more booty for Negroes that did peaceful demonstrations.)
King notes that “power and morality must go together, implementing, fulfilling and ennobling each other.” (P. 61.) (Unfortunately, he errs. With rare exception, those who wield political power lack morality.)
About segregation, King writes, “Racial segregation is buttressed by such irrational fears as loss of preferred economic privilege, altered social status, intermarriage and adjustment to new situations.” (P. 61.) (Irrational or not, these fears have come to pass. Not only have Whites lost economic privileges, but they have also lost economic neutrality. Whites have to give Negroes preferential treatment in hiring [affirmative action and quotas]. Interracial marriages have soared since the late 1960s. No longer can Whites have any kind of public social activity without allowing Negroes to participate.) According to King, Whites should free themselves of these fears (and surrender unconditionally and genocide themselves along with genociding the Negro via integration and the resulting miscegenation. Of course, this genocide would be in the name of love.)
King states that the Negro will not “be totally liberated from the crushing weight of poor education, squalid housing and economic strangulation until he is integrated, with power, into every level of American life.” (P. 64.) (Now, Negroes are so thoroughly integrated that many of them desire segregation. Moreover, Negroes have more power, especially political power, than Whites except for the White oligarchs. Yet, integration and power have not liberated many of them from poor education, squalid housing, and economic strangulation. Although the welfare state has alleviated much of his economic strangulation, he still lags behind Whites educationally even as academic standards have been lowered to his level. His poor education is the result of his innate genetic lack of intelligence and intellectual capabilities. Again, King preaches the wrong solution to the Negro’s problems.)
Another flaw that King sees in ”the Black Power movement is that it talks unceasingly about not imitating the values of white society, but in advocating violence it is imitating the worst, the most brutal and the most uncivilized value of American life.” (P. 66.) Also, he condemned Negroes perpetrating violence against other Negroes.
King blames the Negro’s desperation for the rise of Black Power. If it were not for White supremacy and segregation, the Black Power movement would never have happened.
A major reason that King rejected the Black Power movement was that it competed with his Freedom Now movement and diverted resources and people from King’s movement. Moreover, in some respects, the Black Power movement accomplished more for Negroes than did King’s Freedom Now movement. Unlike King’s integration movement, which ultimately leads to the genocide of the American Negro, the Black Power separation movement seeks to preserve the American Negro.
Carmichael had a higher opinion of the common Negro than did King. While Carmichael believed that Negroes could advance independently of Whites, King believed that Negroes were dependent on Whites for their advancement. While history shows that the Jim Crow Era proved Carmichael right, the history of the Civil Rights Era has proven King right.
For King and most other Negroes, the Negro has no responsibility for his problems — either in causing them or in solving them. Whites, especially Southerners, are the cause of all the Negro’s problems. Therefore, Whites should solve the Negro’s problem by giving Negroes special privileges and benefits and all their wealth; in short, Whites need to enslave themselves to the Negro until their genocide is completed.
Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Allen.
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