Credo of the Black PressThe Black Press believes that America can best lead the world away from racialand natural antagonisms when it accords to every person, regardless of race,color or creed, full human rights. Hating no person, fearing no person in thefirm belief that all are hurt as long as anyone is held back.WhatTs In A Name?It was about a year ago thatNAACP members began writing,calling and e-mailing the dictionarypublisher about their definition forthe word onigger.�The definition in question camefrom WebsterTs New Collegiate Dic-tionary. Striving as it always does tobe as concise as possible in that short~~ publication, the definition said, sim-ply, oa black person.�Merriam-Webster professedamazement and confusion at all theruckus. After all, they said, theyhadnTt invented or used the word,they just reported"accurately"onits meaning.The dictionaryTs job, they said,wasnTt to pass judgment on whetherwords were good or bad, just to listthem for people who were unsure oftheir meaning, usage or spelling.The NAACP"and the myriadother grassroots groups that wereincensed at the listing said thatwasnTt the point. .They werenTt telling Merriam-Webster to take the word out, theywere just suggesting that the defini-tion was inadequate and even mis-leading, given the wordTs chargedsignificance in race relations.The protesters felt that the defini-tion should indicate that it was a vul-gar and offensive term, used to de-grade, belittle or demean a people (ifsaid about them) or to start a fight (ifsaid to them).Or, to record a rap song.Yes, the definition could beshorter than all that, but it needed toconvey some of that feeling, theNAACP pointed out.Just last week, Merriam-Websterrelented, saying that it would olookvery hard� at modifying all of itsdefinitions which dealt with racial orethnic slurs.But that still leaves a few naggingquestions. Quite a few folks weTveChangingThose who have waited to seewhat effect the chill in official atti-tude to affirmative action will haveon everyday living may have gottena clue in recent advertisements.Classified ads for public projects,especially federal governmentprojects like airport construction andthe like, used to have quite a longonon-discrimination clause.�They would go on at great lengthon how companies which wanted tobe awarded this particular contracthad to make a serious, concerted ef-fort to involve minority- or woman-owned subcontractors and suppliers.They had to demonstrate, in fact,that they had subcontracted at leasta certain percentage of their busi-nesses to such firms.There was a form to fill out listingthe companies and what they weredoing for them, with the dollaramount. There was also a provisionthat, if none of their business was go-ing to such firms, they had to explainwhy.You will see none of that in thenewer ads for these entities, how-ever. The part about onon-discrimina-tion� is short and sweet. It says, sim-ply, that the owner has a policy ofnot discriminating and that ittalked to donTt think the word hasany place in the dictionary to beginwith.It is a woftl, they say, that is usedas a weapon, to hurt, to impugn, tosmear, not just one person but an en-tire people.-It isnTt used for communication.WouldnTt it be better to just take itout of the dictionary as a first step totaking it out of the language?That sounds good. But what aboutthose rap songs?And donTt just stop there. We allknow (white people, donTt read this;youTre not supposed to know) thatthe on-word,� as we have come tocall it in polite conversation, can beheard any time of the day or night inthe black community.Pass a couple of young (or not-so-young) folks greeting each other andyou stand a good chance of hearing acouple of oYo, NiggaTs� being ex-changed.And before we get too holier-than-thou, when was the last time we lis-tened to some brother or sister spin-ning an outrageous rap and rolledour eyes heavenward with a oNig-ger, please!�Yes, itTs different. We know that.But we canTt get other people to stopusing pistols against us if we our-selves keep them around to crackwalnuts. .The point is, folks outside the com-munity donTt see how itTs any differ-ent for us to use them. And maybethere are tools we could use thatwould be more appropriate to thejob.The best way to deal with the on-word� is to see to it that it disap-pears from the language.That absolutely will not happenunless we stop using it ourselves"for any purpose.If we do that, it will disappearfrom the dictionary"all by itself.The Rulesawards contracts without regard torace, color, religion, etc.No more silly filling out forms toactually prove that you arenTt dis-criminating. A firm doesnTt even, ap-parently, have to say that they triedto hire a ominority� firm.That isnTt the remarkable part,though. The clause goes on to statethat the owner will not require anycontractor to buy materials or sub-contract with minority firms who areonot qualified.�In fact, this assurance"that theydonTt actually have to do businesswith black firms"takes up morethan half of the oanti-discrimination�clause. The message is unmistakable.Wanna bet how many oqualified�minority subcontractors or suppliersmost large contractors are going tobe able to find, now?This drastic turnabout in require-ments isnTt the fault of the govern-ment agencies or those who write ortake out the ads.They are just doing what theythink their legislators want them todo. And theyTre right.You wanted to know what differ-ence doing away with affirmativewould make?Many of us will be feeling it"verysoon, This is just the beginning.SupportBlack Press!Pera |aly I., i | i TELLING THE REAL STORY ABOUT AMERICANRACE RELATIONSBy Kwame AnsahSpecial to the NNPAoNothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.�[Albert Camus: Notebooks 1935-1942 m. 153]. Many blackstruly fear knowing or telling the truth about the history ofrace-relations in America because it so deeply distorts whatthey want to believe. But, ready or not, this is a story thatneeds to be told, over and over again, until we respect our-selves and our ancestors.It is stupid to allow our children to believe that Africansdid not seek or fight for their freedom until Abraham Lin-coln said it was okay in 1863! White historians gleefullyproclaim that 5,000 of our ancestors fought for the Americancause during the rebellion of 1776 to 1783. They do not tellus that 20 times that number sought their own liberty fromslave-owners like George Washington.The background to this uprising begins with Great Bnit-ain and France, who had been competing with each other forpower and wealth in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Car-ibbean. The French had vested power in its massive army,while the British poured their resources into establishingcolonies and building navies to dominate the seas.War became inevitable in 1754 when Lieutenant ColonelGeorge Washington, a Virginia colonial militia officer, ofiredthe shot heard around the world,� ambushing and killing aFrench Lieutenant named Jumonville, not far from Pitts-burgh. The blood bath that followed nearly bankrupted En-gland, and drove the French out of Canada and the OhioValley territories desired by land hungry, slave-owning colo-nists like Washington.British Prime Minister William Pitt was forced to resignbecause of the great deficits incurred in the war. Successiveprime ministers embarked upon a scheme to hire soldiersfrom Prince William of Hesse to post in the colonies. To payoff war debts and invoices from GeorgeTs German allies, theydecided to tax the colonists via tariffs on imports such asstamps and tea, but mainly slaves from Africa.To avoid more war with the Native Americans, the Brit-ish classified territories taken from the French as crownlands not available for colonization. This greatly angeredVirginians and land speculators in places like Massachu-setts.Then came the legal decision in 1772 by the British Su-preme Court that finally set the course toward rebellion.Lord Chief Justice Mansfield announced that slavery wasillegal under British law, and slaves had to be set free. Slaveowners, breeders, traders, shippers, insurers, lawyers andall the others in the international industry were furious.Great men like Professor Adam Smith applauded the de-cision and called for the emancipation of not only the 15,000African slaves in England, but also the nearly 600,000 in thecolonies of America and the Caribbean. The committee ofcorrespondents in America led by Patrick Henry, John Ad-ams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madisonand hundreds of other rich colonials viewed the rising tide ofanti-slavery rhetoric as a threat to the economy of America.The course of rebellion was set.When war did come in 1776, fully one-fifth of the Africanslaves in America actively supported the British cause dur-ing which Lord Dunsmore, British governor of Virginia,promised them freedom. And, the overwhelming majority ofthe others (elderly slaves, mothers and children) were neu-tral, but definitely sympathetic to the side that offered thegreatest possibilities of liberation. African-British historianEllen Gibson Wilson gives us an excellent scholarly accountin a book entitled The Loyal Blacks, first published in 1976,and ignored by American scholars who want to believe other-wise.Blacks breed disrespect for themselves and their ances-tors by pointing with pride to the 5,000 misguided men likeCrispus Attucks who joined and served the American causein a war that was being fought in large measure to keepAfricans in bondage. The facts are that when the war endedwith the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British proceeded toevacuate approximately 100,000 Africans, to Canada, Ja-maica and England as free men and women for their service.George Washington and hundreds of others screamed forthe British to return their alleged private property, but to noavail. General Carlton, the British commander in New York,met with General Washington to hear his protest and thencontinued in earnest to evacuate Africans, including thosefrom Mount Vernon who had escaped slavery during thewar, Among the most notable evacuees were Rev. DavidGeorge who in 1773 had founded the first black church inAmerica, the Silver Bluff Baptist Church near Augusta, Ga.and, Mother Mary Perth, who established numerous congre-gations in the Norfolk, Va. area.Teaching children that black men fought to help Americawin its liberty to increase slavery, which it vastly did, is anaffront to our ancestors who died fighting to set us free.WOHGNICOTINEPARespect begins with knowledge. We should not fear to tell orprint the whole truth.Kwame Ansah is a retired military officer and pro-ponent of Pan-Africanism. Replies are welcome via e-mail to: ansahl @juno.comVANTAGEPOINTArticles and Essays by Ron DanielsIN DEFENSE OF BLACK NATIONALISMAs noted scholars Manning Marable, Abdul Alkalimatand Cornel West prepare to convene A Black Radical Con-gress in June in Chicago to adopt a Black Liberation Agendafor the 21st Century (an idea which I support), some notableoblack radicals� like Dr. Conrad Worrill, Haki Madhubuti,Johnita Obadele, Dr. Charshee McIntyre, Maulana Karenga, Dr. Ronald Walters and Dr. James Turner are not on the listof endorses and have not been substantially involved in theplanning. What all of these radicals have in common is thatthey are Nationalists and apparently not considered to be ingood standing by the black left, many of whom see BlackNationalism as oreactionary.�Throughout the history of Africans on these hostileAmerican shores, however, Black Nationalism has been asignificant school of thought in black America. From MartinR. Delany to Alexander Crumell, Bishop Henry McNealTurner to the Honorable Marcus Garvey andT Malcolm X,Black Nationalism has been a powerful force in the politicallife of Africans in the U.S. In its simplest form Black Nation-alism is a recognition of cultural and racial commonality anda call to racial solidarity. Black Nationalism deals with theproposition that an oppressed people must first ocherish afriendly union� with themselves, that ocharity begins athome and spreads abroad.� The political objectives of BlackNationalism can range from MalcolmTs admonition thatblack people must control the politics and economics of ourcommunities to the creation of a separate Black Nation inNorth America to repatriation to our African homeland.What many Black Nationalists in the U.S. share in com-mon is a orace analysis,� the view that racism and whitesupremacy are the principal barriers to black liberation andracial progress. Many Nationalists also share the view, aspropounded by Dr. Maulana Karenga, that the okey crisis inblack life is the cultural crisis,� that a people who do not firstaffirm their own history, culture and identity are destined tobe dominated and exploited by others. Indeed, I am aware ofno struggle for liberation against colonial domination or ra-cial oppression/exploitation which did not begin with the op-pressed affirming their own history, culture and identity.Because of the devastating impact of cultural aggression, theeffort to destroy the culture and identity of African peoplewho were enslaved and brought to North America, BlackNationalism has been an essential ingredient in the processof restoring the race and rebuilding community among Afri-cans in America.To the extent that Nationalism has depended exclusivelyon a orace analysis,� however, it has some inherent limita-tions. Black left thinkers and theoreticians, many of whomembrace Marxist Leninism as a ideological frame of refer-ence, have correctly criticized some forms of Nationalism fornot adequately taking into account issues of gender andclass in the overall analysis of the condition of Africans inthe U.S. Indeed, the failure to incorporate these issues hasled some Nationalists to uncritically adopt black capitalisteconomic schemes, to defend male dominance and patriarchyin terms of male-female relations and to support someoblack� leaders on the basis of skin color rather the sub-stance and content of their politics.On the other hand, black left theoreticians, by emphasiz-ing class to the exclusion of race or class over race in theiranalysis, have been susceptible to downplaying the aspira-tions of black people in the interest of building oworkingclass unity.� And historically, association with the owhiteleft� has sometimes led to multi-racial, predominately whiteformations having undue influence over the black liberationmovement via black leftists whose primary allegiance maybe to organizations external to the black community. Thislatter tendency has led some Nationalists to be suspicious ofblack leftists and to adamantly reject the idea of buildingworking political relations with owhite progressives.�In my view, what has been required is a meaningful syn-thesis of race.and class analysis within the Nationalistmovement. This need has been filled by the evolution of opro-gressive� or orevolutionary� Nationalism, a form of National-ism which sees the liberation of black people as its primaryobjective, views racism and white supremacy as a principalbarrier to black liberation and understands the integral link/relationship between white supremacyT and capitalism asforces exploiting/oppressing black people and poor and work-ing people of all races and ethnicities. Progressive National-ists believe that the goal of black liberation and the creationof a new society must involve a struggle against racism,sexism, homophobia and capitalism.