NER Washington forum; Race relations in the United States

Justice it was not in Detroit is not the end even though in a big way it was. And they may be quelled today tomorrow. But then later on the rise again if people do not do anything to correct the situation the voice you just heard was that of Dr Nathan hare a negro sociologist. Our guest this week on the end of your Washington forum a weekly program concerned with the significant issues before us as a nation. This week an examination of the nation's civil disorders and their implications for the future. This program was produced for national educational radio through the facilities of W. WM-You FM American University Radio in Washington DC. I'm in our public affairs director Bill Green-Wood. Our guest this week is a former assistant professor of sociology at Washington D.C. used predominantly negro Howard University. He is perhaps the nation's leading theorist and researcher of the contemporary black power movement. He has been called upon as an expert

in the field of racial and civil disorders by numerous organizations publications and individuals. Dr. Nathan hare there are probably few persons so keenly involved in the research of racial problems as are you. Can you briefly explain why we're having such an increase in violence civil disorders in this country. Well first I want to say that we prefer not to call ourselves and to be called blacks and negroes and that we also have some misgiving about my being the leading nations expert. I have to answer your question. I would say that it is because people have come to believe that nonviolent means who are not getting them anywhere. This is not new with me. It has been said even in American dilemma back gonna Murdoch back and about 44 and it's been said many times since I read it and articles back and 62 and 61 and 3 myself. You have to. So long as people feel that they

can get there get themselves rights to the legitimate routine means of doing so. They do not act outside of that structure. But when they come to feel that this is a farce and that they will not get rights by the gentleman by so-called legitimate or non-violent means and they have to seek other means for. Redressing the wrongs they feel. So many persons point to the civil rights legislation that has been passed throughout the last few years saying that the government is trying its best to satisfy these demands. You sound like you disagree with that. Jones Yes I disagree very much in fact it's quite ludicrous to read where Romney criticizes Josten Homfray criticizes Romney and Mansfield criticizes Romney for criticizing Josten to be pretty ludicrous. And I think that this is what he's going to solve the problem. I believe they're trying to create deliberate this sort of pretense that they are not to gather there and to try to make people to feel that this is a sort of. Thing which is not

deliberate that there's oppression of black persons. And this of course works. The trouble with this country and the people in the area is that they have always felt that violence as somebody said could could solve problems Malva they feel that they are invincible when it comes to Wheeling Vallence they either believe that they have always won an award and that they always will. And so therefore they always resort to force to put down these things. And of course this is not always true hasn't been true in other countries history who will not always be true in this context history. So if a group of persons who are potential us believe I want to come out. Equal or at least are willing to play a and the rules of game then you you do you put down or you can at least sort of stamp their protest by mixing up mixing them up with criticizing one another. But whenever they have come to feel that there is no hope

and working with you then there is the other way around. You need to appear to be together. So the government as another. They get that their ideas from so-called experts such as myself and they think that they said at this point that they are not together and this is not what's going to do. In fact this is likely to intensify and because it causes people to lose to become hysterical to lose any kind of awareness of what is going to happen. We don't know what they're going to do. Now the writers are saying they're going to put us in concentration camps are they going to believe on the other they want to kill us out and exterminate us. Now the doctors are saying this and the. Is that as many as piecemealing and tennis fans. So this is very kind of situation the context of which hysterical beliefs develop which And that's just one of the things that's guaranteed to produce rights. When you talk of potential riot or as a sociologist What do you feel are the the ingredients of such an individual.

They tend to be persons so wise I can see looking back to read the past and then history. They tend to be persons who have been recently shaken from their old traditional. Integration noms and bought him two new ones. But to an extent that they haven't really been incorporated they're sketches mag immigrants low income persons who have a hope of better things to come which didn't weren't fulfill all sides of the poverty program so-called war on poverty which they launched in impressing families who had been in a war on wealth instead of poverty. This kind of thing these kinds of persons saw. That as a fan a lot of persons making that transition phase and the transition from childhood teenage to adulthood. And while there are presidents who have not been incorporated in the system and of course this would include why there would be black prisons and low income blacks because they would not have not been incorporated. They've come to the city in droves and have not been allowed to find their salvation which they expect to bear. And these would be the

personal now. All right this potential add in the sense of a deliberate effort to add one thing but person to have to participate made the person drawn in you could be standing on the side when that happens. A lot of people get caught body on whether they want to or not you can take a vote. You don't take a poll on RAT Testament's whether you want you don't ask people why do you want a point right. No not now and not in the Bronx and so many many more person take part who would not have agreed if you would ask them to take part by polling that might be well to have another definition at this point. Doctor here you mentioned that the first of the program that the negroes today prefer to be called blacks rather than Negro African-Americans something else. Is this a general trend which is also increasing. So much so that I have come to feel it and I was just reading an article which I wrote a few years ago on which I was using negro whereas now I would tend to use black except when I want to be derogatory toward some black person I would call him a negro some

black person that I know who is white in spirit I would call him a Negro but this term you see was came to us from the colony. These slavery the enslavement of enslavement of Africans and it in the beginning Hey Spanish and Portuguese back and the end of days. A black person who is free was color black. Are you a free person of color in all of these things but then persons who are slaves were called Negroes. Eventually all black presidents were called Negroes they are now even calling Africans negroes and they call and this is a derogatory thing which people are trying to get away from. I'm ambivalent about that because I know that I once wrote an article on the subject of that name negro bag and takes it to but I feel that if we do not change our status and the public's impression of us that the same whatever term they give us will eventually acquire a derogatory kind of patient.

So I think that whereas naming is good for symbolic purposes we can get hooked on that as some movements do as a sort of expressive thing and neglected changes to the status and respect of the group which could by whatever name it is called would be a good thing. This is quite an interesting area right here. Doctor we we have so long learned that. At least the white community has felt that the black individual preferred to be called Negro. Are you saying that this term now is becoming synonymous with the bad connotations which are other terms and have acquired such as the term nigger. Yes this is a respectable way of saying they're going to. In other words these two words only in the eyes of the black people are now synonymous with some president especially those in the south they may not mean any harm but they don't you can't quite tell a difference sometimes between those two words anyway. Now that

question is that in and white graduate classes you university of Congo and her white person's orgasm. Why do we prefer to be called Negro. I call it. And now color is something ludicrous you call a person when you want to be funny. But anyway even though it is sort of biggest because many persons who are put on the label of Negro are not black and color. So it's mainly a thing which is a person who would be regarded as a public man as comprising as being a descendant of Africans would have a fightback would be called a black person even though it may not be black and actual color has this change in terminology been an outgrowth of the so called black power movement. Well it has been stepped up by that. But that was the gun that was committed to present the truth about the name negro back in a book was written on that subject back in the 50s but most Negroes and most whites never come across any of the publications that not only books but magazines which the

true black militant and which toolbag well and tries of Watts's sentiments they read the more acceptable ones. And it's quite appalling too. No know and then they they find that viewpoints on all of that and of course as a belief that the the whole language of prejudice is built into the system where you have a quietness and purity and black anything evil black person out of a group and the 8 ball pool is painted black here in a black mood. People talk about a person being bright who is intelligent. They do all kinds of things. He lives on an all black cat crosses the trail and has bad luck. The worship of God which they always paint white. And this sort of association of whiteness with everything good and black and undesirable thing is undesirable things seems to be built into the white man's

language. But with this being the case as you suggest why then would the negro want to be called black because he wanted a dignified black and black man on the other hand as regarded as the most dignified thing. It was the color of the clothes you wear to solemn dignified occasions as the color of your Bible. And it's it again have connotations is certainly a mystery and even power and intrigue and these things and there's an effort to dignify the word black since we are black. Black must come to have a connotation of good and prestige equal to the kind of nation which whiteness has at the present time. Dr. Harry you have been very involved in the black power movement and many people do not understand this movement. Could you give us an explanation of what it's all about. Well that would depend on which wing how the black power movement the same as Democrats. What do the Democrats in Georgia or Mississippi

have the same goals as a Democrat and New Hampshire. Maybe they do but not publicly and certainly not to the same degree. So the same thing or a black problem where when you have the conference there which backfired on the moderates they were planning to make the term Black Power acceptable respectable which itself is an undesirable thing would cause you to not make yourself acceptable to the enemy group to some extent enemies who play by rules even in war. But in a way they announced an effort and it was in the papers even and I knew it even before that's why didn't you know I was able to speak up that was one of the reasons I didn't attend is because I knew they were trying to take over the concept of black power and make it into a moderate white wash we could say thing. You know White has some bad connotations too. So we've got to get on more. So white Why do we want to fight with the Black Power concept. And so I didn't think I want take part.

I didn't know that the militants were going to take it over and have a conference and do come out in a way in which it should be. But it seems to me that cut across all black power groups ranging from one extreme to the other all in between. It would be a desire to affirm the black pride and to get justice for them. Same as the civil rights movement profess to do in the past. It's an opposition I would say in short to white power the evils of white power anyway by whatever means seem available to whomever is trying to execute this bring about this change. Doctor here there has been a great deal of controversy over the actual slogan blunt power itself many say that it is a provocative title for such a movement. Do you agree with that. Well it seems to be it now what I've got off the ground. If they had not if it had not been made up of term everybody pretended to be defining it

and they'd still do that in person. Potente don't know what it means you know what black means you know what power means. Which is the ability to influence another person's behavior even against his will if necessary. And black of course would be exit's as a power on behalf of blacks equally on behalf of a black person is a term which us so far as I can. Discover as a tad of a book by Richard Wright back in about Pichot three. Richard I wrote a book called Black Power and then Stokely made it famous on the murderous March. Gray has flown in 1963 an organization of black power. But he could not get it off the ground so now because Stokely announced it and called it in America March it became famous everybody became frightened by the thing and made it into a evocative term. But of course it needs to be a time for provocation and when one is getting off the fence which Saddy on and does have trouble now we have been at least many blacks feel that we have been tricked by the moderates and

to sort of sham hope which has not been fulfilled in all these decades except in a very token kind of way. And so this is the problem you speak about tricks. What would actually do the blacks want that they're not getting. Now they want an equal chance to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And of course not just the pursuit but the chance to catch up with it as where this is they want a white person I want except that and as much as you did not give it to them they are increasing they feel that they don't want what you want. They don't want the materialism out of materialism. They don't want the kind of thing which. Freaks was also the where all and this toxin or that type. They don't want the emptiness and the kind of alienation of which a developed society and elderly

mechanized is at it. I don't think it is sad and actually that is actually a make an ass. But we have taken a an approach of progress in the technological sphere why would plaintive tradition and conventional standards and norms in the social sphere. So that what this is produced tens of ad a quarter the lag between the two discrepancy between the two. So it is not a cat or a leg but a causal drag. But people cling to tradition with one and one in one area of life and push ahead in the technological era of life. This is what produces the problem so we don't fight with this idea that we don't want that anymore and we're going to just had a lot of Americans that has worked integrating into. And increasingly people are coming to feel that it is not. You mentioned the fact that it may be too late for integration and just in reviewing the results of the black power conference it would seem to me this movement favors separation rather than integration. We are to separate it. But you mean going off

into a new territory right. More so. And yes I have always felt it was a symbolic. Aspiration even with Garvey. He had some ships even that got to the point of getting some ships but they didn't seem to be serious. Not even certain as to why they were going so I was not Terman just where they wanted to land in Africa and I don't know. Why the person who call us Arab states now I really want them to separate towns in Oklahoma already. All negro towns all called. And also in North Carolina and Georgia. But I went to college and one in Oklahoma and that could be some migration there. You know these towns are crumbling with integration panic. But I feel at the present this is a symbolic effort to psychologically get independence from the whites. Now this these these symbols have a way of becoming real so that a vigilant now. I think some presidents would accept many presidents would accept some sovereign territory even though I myself am

ambivalent since I feel that once we get out there the whites will drop an atom bomb on us. So I had rather stand where I work and work with them. In fact let's go over some of the recommendations. This black power conference sleeve caused quite a bit of concern especially on the part of the white community and perhaps you could explain it a little better than has been done before. One of the top recommendations was that of massive efforts by Negroes blacks if you will to disrupt the nation's economy. Do you feel this is a real threat and will be done. I don't I can't I'm not a prophet but I do feel that when one mode of gaining justice fails people are natural and have in all times sought other means. The other recommendations generally board on my request for recognition of a separate status for the blacks such as black national holidays black education

facilities a boycott of certain products even some people saying let's call the White House the Black House. Do you. Do you think that this is going to be a growing trend or is this a movement which is just shut in as a result of the times and perhaps the repercussions of the summer. It is both a growing trend even before the Cylons have a conscience and also is a movement. I think that this represents expressive behavior and well people cannot get justice within the structure in which they work of a situation in which they work the strains that tend to produce expressive and symbolic aspirations of religion I think grew out of this kind of thing in its. Initial development and new religions grew out of this kind of thing. People seeking some express way for something they can't care for right now. You try to get some. Generalized belief and some future being

even. Even if it means that some charities are going to come down from the sky and carry out of your misery. We have Africans and society in places. Expect them that American Negroes of example are going to come and get them just as awesome cargo ships and their persons who have all kinds of messianic hopes how these types of these symbols will request in order to fight the white ness of things such as even making the house white the White House that would have to. That was naturally develop these efforts to try to combat this kind of thing. So I will call. There is an effort which is not restricted to how to change the names of colleges from. The khatam. So Dr. Thomas just to the. And the White missionaries and also Murdo's in the case of Howard who is a general to the names commemorating dead black heroes rather

than the other type so that with be increase in this effort to get some. Respect for blackness and race and some equality. Do you think these efforts are going to bring respect or perhaps separate races even further. Well the races are separate. This is another thing you see when when. And it also produces more riots if the races do get separated as seems to be the case even here in the elevator of some white person making remarks for my benefit because I'm a negro on that black question on there with say 15 of them. But they made these remarks and threatened the people. And I think this is going to stop things. And in the past it may have but this on in terms of as it saw that if the races do get separated more as a result of this is gonna lead to more of the same and worse. So it will do no good to to further try to create this animosity between

the premise and the black power people who I regard as not being supremest at all because it only increased the same thing that people try and claim to be trying to solve. There's no way to solve things by intensifying the emotions. In fact the rule is always pick out some coverage some scapegoats such as Rob Brown St. Michael's somebody has persons who are doing this in order to try to get attention or to try to make person angry with him to try to bring them in line. But a person who is going to start a riot does not stand up and tell you so and so therefore Rob Brown somebody of that nature does not start a thread because if he did he went stand and say so. At the same time Dr. Henry you have been quoted in previous months as saying the growing animosity between whites and blacks may result in a civil war of sorts in the United

States. I wonder if you'd elaborate on that. Well increasingly black prisons are not going to accept the things that they're suffering in the past. And of course the next generation will be intensely more so than this fascism will not solve that nor will it repression for long anyway and not permanently. And when it breaks out again it will only tens of at a loss of faith on the part of Black Africans in the White society as well as to get them justice so that this will develop. And I've got letters from White Russians which show me that they just don't have any concept at all they just don't want to do right and don't intend to do right. And this I also got when I was in the army briefly when I was listening to them both in conversation and also when they didn't know I was around and they were talking among themselves. And I could see that it was sort of in their blood. I had been indoctrinated from the ground up and the whole society breeds this white supremacy. And also the MVR to other blacks who put in ghettos at

a low capacity and shied away from from cauterizing herself or into that into middle class norms which are the most acceptable. And this is sad and this convinces me that whites don't want to give justice and the blacks don't want to accept injustice anymore so I guess a person can figure it out for themselves. So the idea is that if this continues in your opinion the riots will just intensify. I don't want to go into how to stop redheads and not say much that could be used to stop them because as they were said in a book the police the only way in which the hero which I interviewed reviewed recently if I was the only way in which the law class black person can communicate to the White power structure just to rioting and pillaging he cannot get

access to microphones when they bring up persons to speak for him who has never been close to them when the rioting broke out. And I did try to boss around Congressman Conyers to try to stop them and they burned his building and later and now they set up this commission with some of the books on it and the and says Of course according to Time magazine was white and we are just we decided we're going to give them back the other four. But then here comes another group. Hops on and so forth in Washington recently who advocates some alternatives and they go one step better. But the same thing by advocating kindness and others like him to be on the commission I don't think that persons who really know about these things are going to serve on any commission. What you're saying then really is that this problem is nearly insoluble. No it's not. It's not that way. Rats go out of some sort of

structural training situation such as that. You don't. People feel that they do not have justice. And then they also kind of feel that they can get it from this is that by law a lawful routine means then there has to be in addition to that some sort of hysterical belief that his room was operating that some something has got a dog and told me that person out of work and so forth. And of course then the precipitating factor. And you have these Negro leaders who go around saying that policemen started riots whereas policemen do not start riots they start them in a way that they provide the facilitating event but they themselves are had and also they could not. And cannot be started by a policeman's shooting or another. Shooting a black person unlawfully and justly unless that was the kind of structural strain existing there. And as a fellow

Smeltzer has written a book called collective behavior who says he thinks represent a value added process. Just as a car is made from an. But you have to first Muldaur and then put the. Motor and then the gas and then sell it. Well the same thing with Iraq you have all these factors present. And so one way you can either stop at in a general stance is to remove the structural strain remove the situation where you do not allow low income persons to communicate with the power structure. And before that even the fact that it do not have equal chance to this all life liberty and pursuit of happiness. Dr. Herr I wish we had more time. All right. Our drawing room. That was doctor Nathan Herr former assistant professor of sociology at Washington D.C. predominantly negro Howard University. Doctor here is a leading researcher of the contemporary black power movement and was our guest this week on

the NPR Washington forum. This program was produced for the national educational radio network through the facilities of WM-You FM American University Radio in Washington D.C.. I'm Bill Green-Wood inviting you to listen in again next week for another edition of YOUR Washington forum a weekly program concerned with the significant issues before us as one nation. This is the national educational radio network