Viewing page 115 of 132

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

STRUGGLE==EDUCATION     CAMPBELL

questions this historical period raises in the schools and in the classroom. Therein is the dilemma of the teacher today.

the organization called the United States

First we must be able to see objectively and in political terms what we refer to as the United Stated of America. We can then see clearer and understand better our operational, functional, political relationship to it. This will in turn help us, not onlu to interpret correctly the political implications of that relationship, but also to act accordingly in a political manner. Historically, when referring to the organization called America, we have used vague apolitical terms such as "the man," "boss," "the system," "the folks downtown," "whitey," "charlie," "cracker," "hunkie," "the country," among others. We generally think in terms of "the country." What we refer to as "the country" is a political organization. It is a political organization called the state; a national state. The people who are in that type of political organization, who belong and who function in that state organization with all of the rights and privileges of their membership are called citizens. There are no degrees of citizenship. Either you are a citizen or you are not. In their relationship to the state organization all the people have definite political relationships. Those political relationships determine how one functions in relationship to that state, to that organization. The basic political relationship one has to the state is that of citizen. Another political relationship to the state organization is that of slave. The person who is in slavery operates out of that condition in his political relationship to the state. Other political relationships to the state organization are colonial subjects, sharecroppers, etc.

If there are restrictions or limits on your basic relationship to the state organization, you are not a citizen. Citizens do not have membership problems. These limits or restrictions are political and they place you in a qualitatively different political relationship to the state. One has a political relationship, under those conditions, other than that of citizen.

I submit that the state organization called the United States is an unique political organization and its historical operation as a single political entity, as one state, as a central body, can only be understood in terms of the Afro-American's historical struggle against it.

State racism as one of the main ideological props of the state capitalism had served as a unifying national factor for a major segment of

409

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-14 12:08:28