BLACK POWER
201
the past and suggest a more meaningful perspective for the future.
Negroes in search of power are urged to follow in the path of
the Irish, Italian, Slavic, etc., political machines. At worst, the ethnic
clubhouses provided social mobility and egress from the slums for those
at the top and turkeys for those at the bottom. At best, they provided
some power and marginal, although at the time significant, socioeco–
nomic benefits for the ethnic communities they sometimes served. But
these gains fell far short of what is offered to the deprived by the present
grossly inadequate welfare institutions and programs.
There is much to be learned from the Boston-Irish and Tammany
machines about political organization, but it is already
~nown
by Negro
politicians. The Democratic Party organizations of Carl Stokes in Cleve–
land and Richard Hatcher in Gary are a significant advance over the
Dawson machine's plantation politics. They provide a real measure of
democratic political power for the Negro community. But the slogan
"black power" is either irrelevant or positively harmful in such situa–
tions. This was why both Stokes and Hatcher made it unmistakably
clear to Carmichael and other firebrands to stay away. Their appear–
ance would have totally polarized the racial situation, making it impos–
sible for these candidates to
win
the necessary margin of white votes.
Mayors Stokes and Hatcher now face the enormous problems of
urban neglect and decay. To solve them requires an input of economic
resources that can only be acquired through Negro coalescence with
other groups and social forces on the local and national level. All ethnic
political machines were tied to national political parties using the lever–
age of their voting power to acquire goods and services from them.
"Black power" ideologues have nothing to offer Stokes and Hatcher
except bad advice about forming a Black Party. This would have lost
them the election and, if followed now, would lock them out of effective
political life. More fundamentally, racial posturing exacerbates divisions
between groups with similar economic interests. A classic example of this
occurred recently in New York City. While some Negro community
groups under the banner of "black power" and some Puerto Rican
groups under the banner of "brown power" were locked in a bitter
conflict over control of a local poverty program, Congress was slashing
anti-poverty funds.
Great deficiencies exist in many of the models of economic organi–
zation being urged for Negro uplift. Black Power's Right Wing has
taken the Jewish businessman as a prototype for emulation as well as
dislike. He, they say (and many Jewish businessmen will agree), pulled
himself up by his own bootstraps and in the process uplifted his people
