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Eldridge Cleaver on America: (Lockwood 59-60)
LOCKWOOD: In your book Soul On Ice, you wrote: "From my prison cell I had watched America slowly coming awake. It is not fully awake yet but there is a soul in the air and everywhere I see beauty." And in many other instances you have spoken about the United States in a way that indicates that you take a certain pride in being an American. Even though you've been informed that you are no longer a United States citizen, do you still feel that you are an American?
CLEAVER: Well, I would not like this to be like my definative statement on that subject, because that obviously requires a lot of thought. But just off the top of my head: yes, I would like to say that I am an American. I'm an Afro-American, but I know that I share the experiences and the history of the American people. I feel patriotic. I feel that I am a super-patriot, but not to the America I left.
You see, I believe that there are two Americas. There is the America of the American dream, and there is the America of the American nightmare. I feel that I am a citizen of the American dream, and that the revolutinary struggle of which I am a part is a struggle against the American nightmare, which is the present reality. It is the struggle to do away with this nightmare and to replace it with the American dream whcih should be the reality. I have always said that the basic problem in America is the confusion. I know I am an American; I am also Afro-American, which means that I'm Afro and I'm also American. I know the American people, and I know the idealsthat are instilled in one. I know how they are embedded in the heart, you see. You have to look at the process of the formation of the American character structure, look at the children in American grammar schools and high schools and look at the ideals that are implanted in them there.
The children of America are the ones I consider to be citizens of the American dream. First this foundation, all these ideals -- the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the Rights of Man, the Lord's Prayer, all of these things that no one can really attack, these things that have imspired people everywhere -- are implanted in the hearts and the minds of the children of America. This is the foundation of the American character. But here is where the trick comes in. Later on, these ideals are twisted to function in behalf of a vicious economic and political and social system. My quarrel is against what is done with this foundation that has been instilled in people and this is a very important distinction to make. Because what happens to people in the United States is that they are given these dreams and then they are put through a very subtle process of twisting and deformation and brainwashing, and they really have no defenses against this process because it's done by a very elaborate structure. And the dream is very subtly transformed into a nightmare.
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