Persuasive Speech On White America

America is a child asleep. Peaceful, she draws her comforter over her welted, damaged body. The cotton comforter made from the labor of black hands soothes America, so she may enjoy the dream. America is a child enthralled with the dream. America dreams to avoid the state of her body. The dream convinces the child that it is at peace. That it is great, that it is the one, god sanctioned nation. The dream manipulates the mind, the dream convinces the child that it is grown, that it can move outside of its borders, that it can share its own thoughts. And as a child dreams peacefully, it lays on the soft backs of black and brown bodies. Tossing and turning, whipping its arms across their already bloodied backs. Do not disturb the dream-- or the

Black power fundamentally changed the peaceful mentality of the black person. Retaliation was necessary. Mutual respect must be mutual. The respect of the black body must be immediate for the safety of the white body. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A black body for a white body. White America despised this. To White America, the retaliation of those it had so long oppressed was unfathomable. To White America, the retaliation of those it had so long oppressed was a defiance of the natural order. The Black Power movement was an affront to the white moderate, a disruption of daily life, and a rallying cry for black people across the nation. The Black Power movement hardened, re-educated and educated new and old generations, hardening black people, turning the American Child’s soft bed of bodies into a bed of granite. And certainly, the nation could not sleep on granite. The exchanges and encounters between the zealous Black Power leaders and the white populace was both physical and ideological-- each followed by the further exploration of Black Power, and in a counter movement, the further exploration of more urgent and violent methods by the agents of white