“Imperialism is a system where a country goes to [abuse] and exploit another country by taking out the resources of that country, making those resources come to the motherland (the exploiting country), that country there will now manufacture goods; sell back the same goods to the country at a higher price. Let me give you an example. When the great son of Africa Kwame Nkrumah was president of Ghana, coco was the base. The British used to take the coco out at a very low price, make chocolate, sell chocolate at high prices all over the world, even sell it back in Ghana at high prices, and there was nothing that they could do about it. So this is what imperialism is. It takes the resources out, it robs them, it exploits the exploited and the labor of the people, getting them out, and then high prices. Of course the best example is Azania, South Africa with our diamonds. It's our diamonds. We go into the ground. We die to pull those diamonds out, and when we pull them out, they go through Israel, and then are sold on 42 street, on Brussels, everywhere else and we get absolutely nothing; it's our diamonds. Imperialism will be destroyed.”
—Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael)
Answer to question: Some people may not understand what you mean when you discuss American Imperialism. Could you describe to them what you are talking about?
“Some people think traitors are those who do something against the movement. You can betray the movement by not doing something for the movement. Hitler said: "Tell a lie a million times and the people will come to think it's the truth." Revolutionaries say: "Tell the truth a couple of times, you will smash a million lies." And that's exactly what the million and more march did. If you would look at the lies of the capitalist media you would think all we're concerned about is drug addicts shooting each other, crime, raping each other, ripping off each other; October 16th one day put all those lies in the garbage can forever. What have we done? We must heighten our organizations. Kwame Nkrumah said, "Unity presupposes organization." Many brothers and sisters think they are in unity with the people but they don't belong to any organization at all. All the time. Unity presupposes organization. If you're not in an organization, you're not united with your brothers and sisters. History will not be denied. You can either be part of the historical process, come to take the serious task of organizing your people on a day to day basis, or you can come every Wednesday night, clap, feel good, jump up, say you were there, and go back, and wait until next Tuesday night. Our people are looking for direction and the conscious must provide that direction. The people are looking for unity, let's give them unity. the people are looking for power, let's give them organization. The masses want unity, let's move from mass mobilization, to mass organization.”
—Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)
The unconscious and the conscious and mobilization vs. organization.
