The time has come for a realistic political dialogue between the American national minorities and the dominant Anglo-American ethny. The problematic that arises in what American presidents Clinton and Obama have repeatedly called a “one-nation one-state†political system is: how will the state assure and protect the unique needs and interests of its minorities, particularly its historically oppressed national minorities? All black officials in the United States government are in the same position as the president; they are required to represent first of all the majority’s interests. For a national minority to be able to fully address its special needs (when it can find no specific representation in the majority-dominated platform of either political party or the policy agenda of government), it must seek to enjoy the full range of human and civil rights, particularly the right to self-determination. Hajji Malik Al-Shabazz understood that the African Americans were still in the grip of American domestic colonialism. He feared that the majority ethny would prefer to commit the violation of forced assimilation leading possibly to ethnocide rather than to negotiate collective equal-status integration with the African American national minority. As the presidency of Barack Obama is demonstrating, electing a Black president who is required to address the state’s interest as a whole is not the answer for improving the well being of African Americans.
The time has come for a realistic political dialogue between the American national minorities and the dominant Anglo-American ethny. The problematic that arises in what American presidents Clinton and Obama have repeatedly called a “one-nation one-state†political system is: how will the state assure and protect the unique needs and interests of its minorities, particularly its historically oppressed national minorities? All black officials in the United States government are in the same position as the president; they are required to represent first of all the majority’s interests. For a national minority to be able to fully address its special needs (when it can find no specific representation in the majority-dominated platform of either political party or the policy agenda of government), it must seek to enjoy the full range of human and civil rights, particularly the right to self-determination. Hajji Malik Al-Shabazz understood that the African Americans were still in the grip of American domestic colonialism. He feared that the majority ethny would prefer to commit the violation of forced assimilation leading possibly to ethnocide rather than to negotiate collective equal-status integration with the African American national minority. As the presidency of Barack Obama is demonstrating, electing a Black president who is required to address the state’s interest as a whole is not the answer for improving the well being of African Americans.