Black Power

After reading Black Power, I learned about some things that we have not discussed in class so far. Ture and Hamilton speak about the injustices of the black community in many different aspects. One example talking about politics. They say that "these black politicians do not exercise effective power. they cannot be relied upon to make forceful demands in behalf of their black constituents, and they become more like puppets" (pg. 10). This just proves that racism exists in pretty much every aspect of our culture. They also say that "These black "leaders" are, then, only as powerful as their white kingmakers will permit them to be" (pg. 11). Another thing that stood out to me is when Professor Kenneth Clark describes the dark ghetto. He states that Even though the whites community has tried to keep the negro confined in ghetto pockets, the white business men have not stayed out of the ghetto[...] In Harlem there is only one large department store and that is owned by whites" (pg. 18). To me, this proves that African Americans obviously do not have an equal opportunity to succeed, even in their own communities. They also say that most of the other businesses are owned by whites in the outer communities that take their profits home. The last thing in the first 3 chapters of the book that stood out to me, were the statistics on unemployment and employment rates from the past between white people and African Americans. "In the ten year period from 1955 to 1965, total employment for youth between the ages of fourteen and nineteen increased from 2,642,000 to 3,612,000. Non-white youths got only 36,000 of those 970,000 new jobs" (pg. 19). This is yet another example of how injustice is in every aspect of life. This book taught me facts that I have never seen or heard of, and it just proves that African Americans are still not treated with equal rights as whites, and that is why racism is still a major problem in the United States.

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