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Ann Arbor, MI48106 DECOLONIZATION, DEMOCRACY AND AFRICAJ.l\J AMERICAN LIBERATION: A CALL FOR NATIONALIST POLITICS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIl IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE DECEMBER 1994 By Akinlabi Dia Bayette Dissertation Committee: Farideh Farhi, Chairperson Miles M. Jackson Kathy E. Ferguson Oliver W. Lee Kathryn W. B. Takara © Copyright 1994 By Akinlabi Dia Bayette iii Abstract Fifty years ago Dr. DuBois, on the urgings of the U.S. Federal government, participated in several cultural and scholarly conferences in Haiti where he gave a series of four speeches on the topic of colonies and peace. In a speech entitled Colonialism. Democracy. and Peace After the War, given in the summer of 1944, DuBois extended the definition of colonialism to include those nations, or groups of people, who would have most, if not all of the structural features of classical colonialism, but because ofspecial circumstances, could not be defined as colonies in the 'pure' sense of the term as it was understood and used then. DuBois would use the term semi-colonialism, i.e., semi-colonies to describe this 'special relationship. ' In this speech, DuBois would include the African American people. In doing so, DuBois would repeat a charge that had been previously made by Gov. Arnall of Georgia, who described the structural relationship between African and Euroamericans as a colonial arrangement. It would be another eighteen years before the 'internal colonialism' paradigm would appear in another scholarly work to describe the African American experience. This time Dr. Harold Cruse would make the reference in an article entitled, "Revolutionary Nationlism and the Afro-American." IV Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s many African Americans and other American scholars would use this paradigm to explain the African American 'condition;' (J.H. O'Dell, Robert Staples, Robert Blauner, William K. Tabb, Tom Hayden, C.l. Munford, lames Turner). But in the 1980s, with the exception of Dr. Robert Allen's book, Black Awakening in Capitalist America, this model would 'disappear' from the scholarly scene without being fully developed or its interpretative potential being fully exploited. During its academic 'heyday' this hermeneutical paradigm would be utilized to explain various aspects of the African American 'condition.' While it was widely used by many scholars, it was narrowly applied. Most, if not all, of the early domestic colonial theorists concentrated on the limited structural aspects of the model and, therefore, over simplified its paradigmatic appropriateness to the detriment of African American emancipation. I will extend the limited works of early 'internal colonialist' theorists and, by utilizing the classical colonialism analogy methodology, will seek to establish and prove that there are other endemic areas of correlation between African Americans and other colonized people; thereby, justifying the use of this model and the claim that African Americans are a colonized people. My thesis is a simple one. If African Americans are colonized, then one should find a correlation between 'classical' colonial theory and the African American condition. I will expect to find corollaries between the African v American condition and other colonial situations such as segregated housing, language discrimination, the use of the military/police as dehumanizers, intimidators; structural racism as a component of the social makeup, socioeconomics as a negative determinate of African American psychology, the rise of African American nationalism, etc. If I find evidence of these and other corollaries, then I will attempt to develop a strategy of dcolonization applicable to our 'condition' within the context of the American liberal democratic colonial society. Thus, the title of my dissertation, Decolonization, Democracy and African American Liberation: A Call for Nationalist Politics. VI Table Of Contents Abstract .iv Preface " vii Chapterl: Foundations: A Quest For Direction and Meaning I Black Power: A Search for Definition and Meaning 1 Black Power, The Student Movement, Black Studies and Academic Crisis 5 Eurocentric Social Science, The Sociology of Knowledge and Oppression 8 Toward Establishing and Defining an Afrocentric Social Science: 14 Crisis, Confidence, And the Development of a Revolutionary Paradigm..18 Afrocentricity, Crisis and Confidence: Seeing the World Differently 22 Language, Liberation, Cosomology and Political Science: The ConflictModel: 30 The Political Science Discipline and African American Liberation 34 Value Free Social Science and African American Racism .43 Breaking Intellectual Ties and Forming New Vistas For Liberation .46 Concluding Remarks 48 Chapter 2: Internal Colonialism and Who We Are .50 Internal Colonialism: Its Paradigmatic beginnings, Its Academic Usage and Confusion 50 Colonialism is a Process ans is not Restricted to Time or Space .56 Internal Colonialism and Culturally Distinct Groups; ReoccuringThemes 59 The African American Condition and The Classic Colonial Analogy Methodology 70 Internal Colonialism and the Formation of Intraethnic Class Divisions 74 Violence as a Structural Component of Internal Colonial Policy and Practice 77 Colonialism, Crime, and Punishment: A case of Legal Discrimination 85 Internal Colonialism, African American Revolts & Deco!onization 89 Classical & Internal Colonialism and Police Behavior: An Analogy 92 Internal Colonialism: The Case of Structural Racism ll1 Internal Colonialism and African American Deculturation 116 Internal Colonialism, Language discrimination and African Americans: The Case of Ebonies 118 Segregated Housing and Internal Colonialism: The African American Case 126' Internal Colonialism and the Political Consequences 134 .. Vl1 Chapter 3: Decolonizing America: A Point of Reference 137 Liberation Discourse; in Search of a Paradigm 137 Is There a Systemic Process to Decolonization?. 138 The Tabula Rasa of Decolonization and The African American Liberation Struggle 144 Violence, Colonialism, Decolonization and African Americans 148 Non-Violence and Decolonization 152 Compromise as a Strategy of Decolonization 159 Decolonization: Breaking the Chains of Dependency 165 Breaking the Cultural Dependency of Colonialism 168 Language: an Essential Tool in the Decolonization Process 179 Resistance, African American Ethos and Emerging Nationalism l84 The Role of the Intellectual in the Decolonization Struggle 188 Ideology, Theory & Practice and Decolonization 192 Decolonization and Decompartmentalizing the Worldview of the Colonized ,. 198 Between Struggle and Liberation: Neo-Colonialism 202 Neo-Colonialism and The Politics of Decolonization 207 Successful Decolonization and National Consciousness 213 Chapter 4: Colonialism, Underdevelopment and Reparations 219 Reparations and Nationalist Politics 219 Internal Colonialism and African American Economic Underdevelopment 224 What We Mean by Reparations and What We Want to Accomplish 234 Underdevelopment, Employment Discrimination and Reparations 237 Welfarism and National Autonomy 244 Domestic Colonialism and the Welfare Capitalist State 250 Welfarism and The Debt Owed To African Americans 255 Development not Welfarism is What We Need 258 Economic Development and National Sovereignty 265 The Hunger for Land and Reparation Payments: The Struggle for the Ghettoes 268 Land Ownership and Ghettoization 271 Reparations, Development and Social Parity 274 Reparations owed: Some Numbers 277 Considerations for the Future 283 Chapter 5: Legal Gradualism as a Decolonization Strategy 286 Legal Gradualism as a Decolonization Strategy 286 Legal Formalism and the Individualist Tradition 292 Social Equality, Social Justice and Colonialism