Cultural Nationalist example essay topic

541 words
Even though the pluralists and the nationalists set up their goal for ^aEURoecommunity control, ^aEUR they perceived and defined it in different ways. Both pluralists and nationalists seek to gain community control by strengthening political and economical power of black community. They differ in where they bring it to for the next step. Pluralists, purpose of obtaining community control was to be equally incorporated into the American society; meanwhile nationalists aim to bring community control to the next level. Pluralists were making their efforts to assimilate or adjust their environment in order to be accepted by the majority of society. Organizations such as the National Economic Growth and Reconstruction Organization made a prototype of community control.

Though, due to the pluralists, attempt to assimilate to get under the empire of America, society created new terms such ^aEUR~black capitalist, to again take control over what they were striving to achieve. Once the government came up with the definition of whatever minorities were trying to implement or accomplish and put it in the system or paper, pluralists were satisfied and eventually failed to maintain their power over community. They did not realize that they had to be somehow independent on their own, especially in the decision-making. They forgot that whites are always ready to occupy the space and exploit from it. Nationalists are categorized into three groups: territorial, revolutionary, and cultural.

Of those three, territorial nationalists were looking carefully at community control. Among those, Gai di and Imari Abubakari Ob adele,'s Republic of New Africa (RNA), for example, came up with the idea of creating a new nation in the Southern Five States. Within the new nation, they would create a society based on African tradition and principle. Such proposals made by nationalists were either ignored by the government or considered impossible by majority.

Territorial nationalists continued to evolve with pan-African ism. Revolutionary nationalists believed that they had to gain control of land and political power by national liberation and create a socialist society. Late 60,'s, the Black Panther Party (BPP) became the most famous revolutionary nationalist group. Some people were afraid of BPP because they armed for self-defense and media depicted them in negative ways. They contributed to community control throughout many programs such as clothe drive and voter registration. At the same time, BPP made connections with other revolutionary political organizations such as Young Lords and Red Guards.

These revolutionary nationalists were sometimes engaged in guerrilla activities. Overall, this group of nationalists left whites a prejudiced impression ^aEUR" confusion of violence and self-defense. Cultural nationalist viewed black culture as the key to achieve Black Power. Maulana Karenga and his organization US were the most significant figures in cultural nationalism. Karenga came up with the Kawai da theory, emphasizing the necessity of cultural revolution. Also, there was Amiri Baraka who was active in Newark.

Although pluralists make effort to include African culture in American education, their purpose was just to make it a part of education. On the other hand, cultural nationalists put the knowledge of African culture in the first place of education.