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I would like to make a few comments concerning the difference
between the black revolution and the Negro revolution. There’s a difference. Are they both the same? And if
they’re not, what is the difference? What is the difference between a black revolution and
a Negro revolution? First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I’m inclined to believe that
many of our people are using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking
careful consideration [of] what this word actually means, and what its historic
characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a
revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods
used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program. You may change
your goal and you may change your mind.

Look at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for
what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed.
Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only way they could
get it was bloodshed. The French Revolution —— what was it based on? The land—less against
the landlord. What was it for? Land. How did they get it? Bloodshed. Was no love lost; was
no compromise; was no negotiation. I’m telling you, you don’t know what a revolution is.
’Cause when you find out what it is, you’ll get back in the alley; you’ll get out of the
way. The Russian Revolution —— what was it based on? Land. The land—less
against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven’t got a revolution
that doesn’t involve bloodshed. And you’re afraid to bleed. I said, you’re afraid to
bleed.

[As] long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to
Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled. You
bleed for white people. But when it comes time to seeing your own churches being bombed and
little black girls be murdered, you haven’t got no blood. You bleed when the white man says
bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and you bark when the white man says bark. I
hate to say this about us, but it’s true. How are you going to be nonviolent in
Mississippi, as violent as you were in Korea? How can you justify being nonviolent in
Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches are being bombed, and your
little girls are
being murdered, and at the same time you’re going to violent with Hitler, and Tojo,
and somebody else that you don’t even know?

If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it’s
wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black
men, then it’s wrong for America to draft us and make us violent abroad in defense of
her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense
of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own
people right here in this country.

So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show
you —— you don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn—the—other—cheek
revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. [The] only kind of revolution
that’s nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution based on loving
your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is a
desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a
desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. That’s
no revolution. Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is
the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.

The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the black
revolution is world—wide in scope and in nature. The black revolution is sweeping Asia,
sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. The Cuban Revolution —— that’s a
revolution. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia. Revolution is in Africa.
And the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you
think he’ll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don’t know what a
revolution is. If you did, you wouldn’t use that word.

A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no
compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way.
And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I’m going to love
these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever
heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing
"We Shall Overcome"? Just tell me. You don’t do that in a revolution. You don’t do any
singing; you’re too busy swinging. It’s based on land. A revolutionary wants land so he
can set up his own nation, an independent nation. These Negroes aren’t asking for
no
nation. They’re trying to crawl back on the plantation.

When you want a nation, that’s called nationalism. When the white
man became involved in a revolution in this country against England, what was it for? He
wanted this land so he could set up another white nation. That’s white nationalism. The
American Revolution was white nationalism. The French Revolution was white nationalism.
The Russian Revolution too —— yes, it was —— white nationalism. You don’t think so? Why
[do]
you think Khrushchev and Mao can’t get their heads together? White nationalism. All the
revolutions that’s going on in Asia and Africa today are based on what? Black
nationalism. A revolutionary is a black nationalist. He wants a nation. I was
reading some beautiful words by Reverend Cleage, pointing out why he couldn’t get together with someone
else here in the city because all of them were afraid of being identified with black
nationalism. If you’re afraid of black nationalism, you’re afraid of revolution. And if
you love revolution, you love black nationalism.

To understand this, you have to go back to what [the]
young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro —— back
during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the
field Negro. The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master, they
dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his
food —— what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the
master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give
their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house
Negro, if the master said,
"We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good
house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we." That’s
how you can tell a house Negro.

If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight
harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro
would say, "What’s the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself
with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the
house Negro and said, "Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate," the house
Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is
there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat
better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a
"house nigger." And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some
house niggers running around here.

Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house
Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has
Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep
you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and
nonviolent. That’s Tom making you nonviolent. It’s like when you go to the
dentist, and the man’s going to take your tooth. You’re going to fight him when
he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to
make you think they’re not doing anything to you. So you sit there and ’cause
you’ve got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood
running all down your jaw, and you don’t know what’s happening. ’Cause someone has
taught you to suffer —— peacefully.

The white man do the same thing to you in the street, when he
want [sic] to put knots on your head and take advantage of you and don’t have to be afraid of
your fighting back. To keep you from fighting back, he gets these old religious Uncle Toms
to teach you and me, just like novocaine, suffer peacefully. Don’t stop suffering
——
just suffer peacefully. As Reverend Cleage pointed out, "Let your blood
flow In the streets." This is a shame. And you know he’s a Christian preacher. If it’s a shame
to him, you know what it is to me.

This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him.
He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then
brag about "I’m the only Negro out here." "I’m the only one on my
job." "I’m the only one in this school." You’re nothing but a house Negro.
And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let’s separate," you say the
same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate?
From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get
here?" I mean, this is what you say. "I ain’t left nothing in Africa,"
that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.

On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field
Negro —— those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than
there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the
house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was
left of the insides of the hog. They call ’em "chitt’lin’" nowadays. In those
days they called them what they were: guts. That’s what you were —— a gut—eater. And some
of you all still gut—eaters.

There’s nothing in our book, the Quran —— you call it "Ko—ran"
—— that teaches us to suffer
peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the
law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
That’s a good religion. In fact, that’s that old—time religion. That’s the one that Ma and
Pa used to talk about: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head,
and a life for a life: That’s a good religion. And doesn’t nobody resent that kind of religion
being taught but a wolf, who intends to make you his meal.

This is the way it is with the white man in America. He’s a wolf and
you’re sheep. Any time a shepherd, a pastor, teach [sic] you and me not to run from the white
man and, at the same time, teach [sic] us not to fight the white man, he’s a traitor to you
and me. Don’t lay down our life all by itself. No, preserve your life. it’s the best thing
you got. And if you got to give it up, let it be even—steven.

DEFENSIVE ARMS VINDICATED

A Moderate Whig

[Stephen Case?]

• [NEW-MARLBOROUGH]

1783

Stephen Case (1746–1794). Neither the author nor the place of publication of Defensive Arms Vindicated (1783) has been determined with certainty. It is signed “A Moderate Whig,” dated June 17, 1782 at New-Marlborough, and dedicated to George Washington. In the text the author indicates that the piece was actually written in 1779. Scholars believe that a Stephen Case was the author because his name is written in manuscript on some extant copies of the pamphlet. This may be the Captain Stephen Case born in Orange County, New York, in 1746, who served in Colonel Jonathan Hasbrouck’s regiment of the Ulster County militia during the Revolution, and who died in Marlborough, Ulster County, New York, in 1794. In the Preface to the Reader the author addresses “my dear brother soldiers,” which bears out the identification to some extent.

THE SNARE BROKEN

Jonathan Mayhew

• BOSTON

1766

Jonathan Mayhew (1720–1766). One of the celebrated names associated with early American opposition to British tyranny, Mayhew graduated from Harvard College in 1744 and received an S.T.D. from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1749. He was pastor of Boston’s West Church from 1747, a position he retained for the remainder of his short life. According to Frederick L. Weis, Mayhew was regarded by some as the best preacher in the New England of his day (The Colonial Clergy and the Colonial Churches of New England [1936]).

Our soul is escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped.

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Psalm CXXIV. 7, 8.

The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

II Samuel, xxiii. 3.

SCRIPTURAL INSTRUCTIONS TO CIVIL RULERS

Samuel Sherwood

• NEW-HAVEN

1774

Samuel Sherwood (1730–1783). A 1749 graduate of Yale, Sherwood took his second degree there also and was later awarded an A.M. by the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where he tutored and where his uncle, Aaron Burr, Sr., was president. In 1757 he settled in Weston, Connecticut, as the first pastor of a church consisting of twelve members. There he remained for the rest of his relatively short life.

The general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity.

Whatever that is. The problem is that "dignity" is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. The bioethicist Ruth Macklin, who had been fed up with loose talk about dignity intended to squelch research and therapy, threw down the gauntlet in a 2003 editorial, "Dignity Is a Useless Concept." Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy--the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another. This is why informed consent serves as the bedrock of ethical research and practice, and it clearly rules out the kinds of abuses that led to the birth of bioethics in the first place, such as Mengele's sadistic pseudoexperiments in Nazi Germany and the withholding of treatment to indigent black patients in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. Once you recognize the principle of autonomy, Macklin argued, "dignity" adds nothing.

Kass has a problem not just with longevity and health but with the modern conception of freedom. There is a "mortal danger," he writes, in the notion "that a person has a right over his body, a right that allows him to do whatever he wants to do with it." He is troubled by cosmetic surgery, by gender reassignment, and by women who postpone motherhood or choose to remain single in their twenties. Sometimes his fixation on dignity takes him right off the deep end:

Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone--a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. ... Eating on the street--even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat--displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. ... Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. ... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.

First, dignity is relative. One doesn't have to be a scientific or moral relativist to notice that ascriptions of dignity vary radically with the time, place, and beholder. In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. We chuckle at the photographs of Victorians in starched collars and wool suits hiking in the woods on a sweltering day, or at the Brahmins and patriarchs of countless societies who consider it beneath their dignity to pick up a dish or play with a child. Thorstein Veblen wrote of a French king who considered it beneath his dignity to move his throne back from the fireplace, and one night roasted to death when his attendant failed to show up. Kass finds other people licking an ice-cream cone to be shamefully undignified; I have no problem with it.

Second, dignity is fungible. The Council and Vatican treat dignity as a sacred value, never to be compromised. In fact, every one of us voluntarily and repeatedly relinquishes dignity for other goods in life. Getting out of a small car is undignified. Having sex is undignified. Doffing your belt and spread- eagling to allow a security guard to slide a wand up your crotch is undignified. Most pointedly, modern medicine is a gantlet of indignities. Most readers of this article have undergone a pelvic or rectal examination, and many have had the pleasure of a colonoscopy as well. We repeatedly vote with our feet (and other body parts) that dignity is a trivial value, well worth trading off for life, health, and safety.

Third, dignity can be harmful. In her comments on the Dignity volume, Jean Bethke Elshtain rhetorically asked, "Has anything good ever come from denying or constricting human dignity?" The answer is an emphatic "yes." Every sashed and be-medaled despot reviewing his troops from a lofty platform seeks to command respect through ostentatious displays of dignity. Political and religious repressions are often rationalized as a defense of the dignity of a state, leader, or creed: Just think of the Salman Rushdie fatwa, the Danish cartoon riots, or the British schoolteacher in Sudan who faced flogging and a lynch mob because her class named a teddy bear Mohammed. Indeed, totalitarianism is often the imposition of a leader's conception of dignity on a population, such as the identical uniforms in Maoist China or the burqas of the Taliban.

The perception of dignity in turn elicits a response in the perceiver. Just as the smell of baking bread triggers a desire to eat it, and the sight of a baby's face triggers a desire to protect it, the appearance of dignity triggers a desire to esteem and respect the dignified person.

This explains why dignity is morally significant: We should not ignore a phenomenon that causes one person to respect the rights and interests of another. But it also explains why dignity is relative, fungible, and often harmful. Dignity is skin-deep: it's the sizzle, not the steak; the cover, not the book. What ultimately matters is respect for the person, not the perceptual signals that typically trigger it. Indeed, the gap between perception and reality makes us vulnerable to dignity illusions. We may be impressed by signs of dignity without underlying merit, as in the tin-pot dictator, and fail to recognize merit in a person who has been stripped of the signs of dignity, such as a pauper or refugee.

In case you didn't get what was behind that exchange, Mrs. Clinton spent this week making it clear. In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? "Even Richard Nixon didn't say white," an Obama supporter said, "even with the Southern strategy."

If John McCain said, "I got the white vote, baby!" his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.