48
MARTI
N DU
BERMAN
fear in the nation at large, the announcement that General Motors'
1965 sales totaled 21 billion dollars - exceeding the GNP of all but
nine countries in the world - produced barely a tremor of apprehen–
sion. The unspoken assumption can only be something like this:
It
is
less dangerous for a few whites to control the whole nation than for
a local majority of Negroes to control their own community. The
Kafkaesque dimension of life in America continues to grow.
Black Power is both a product of our society and a repudiation
of it. Confronted with the continuing indifference of the majority
of whites to the Negro'S plight, SNCC and CORE have lost faith in
conscience and time, and have shifted to a position which the white
majority finds infuriating. The nation as a whole - as in the case
of the Abolitionists over a hundred years ago - has created the
climate in which earlier tactics no longer seem relevant, in which new
directions become mandatory if frustration is to be met and hope
maintained. And if the new turn proves a wrong one,
if
Black Power
forecloses rather than animates further debate on the Negro's condi–
tion, if it destroys previous alliances without opening up promising
new options, it is the nation as a whole that must bear the responsi–
bility. There seems little likelihood that the American majority will
admit to that responsibility. Let us at least hope it will not fail to
recognize the rage which Black Power represents, to hear the mes–
sage at the movement's core:
Sweethearts, the script has changed ..
And with it the stage directions which advise
Lowered voices, genteel asides,
And the white hand slowly turning the dark page.
14
14. Kay Boyle, "On Black Power,"
Liberation,
J anuary, 1967.
