ar. However, it will. Black rage is not gone. In his 1993 book, Race Matters, Cornell West explains,The emergence of strong black-nationalist sentiments among blacks . . . is a revolt against [the] sense of having to fit in. The variety of black nationalist ideologies, from . . . Thomas . . . to Farrakhan . . . rest upon a fundamental truth: white America has been historically weak-willed in ensuring racial justice and has continued to resist fully accepting the humanity of blacks. (7)Likewise, middle-class blacks, who have fled from the ghetto into corporate America, realize they too are still oppressed by the master. Cose writes,America is filled with attitudes, assumptions, stereotypes, and behaviors that make it virtually impossible for blacks to believe that the nation is serious about its promise of equality -- even (perhaps especially) for those who have been blessed with material success. (5)Yes, these sources are from the 90s. Blacks still have rage -- rage that has not subsided since slavery was abolished; rage that has not been abolished since integration was made the law of the land; rage that has not subsided since civil rights legislation proclaimed equality in the land of the free and the home of the brave.Where do we go from here? Can a state of equality ever be obtained between blacks and whites in America? Whitney Young foretells well todays current state of race relations in America in his 1970 address to the Annual Convention of the National Urban League. He explains, It is a fact of life that there is developing a national standoff between those of us who are fighting for justice [blacks] and those who want to maintain the status quo [whites] (408-9). While blacks continue to press upward, whites continue to press downward. This is an impasse that leads nowhere, proclaims Young, unless it be to further polarization, further division, further bitterness (408-9). It is clearly seen and understood from hi...
