“We Are One Power Conference 2009”
November 20th
Beaumont, Texas
Speech Outline & Draft
o Define “Culture” (Dictionary & Ideological)
o Karenga’s two (2) types of culture (‘popular’ and “national’)
o Lisa’s third (3rd) type of culture (traditional)
o “Adaptive vitality” vs adapting to the dominant culture
o Typical societies have Upper, Middle, and Lower classes
o Roles played by each class
o Absence of a correspondent to the ‘Middle’ class among Nationalist Blacks
o Compare to a football metaphor
o Karenga’s premise re: the Key crisis in Black life being the Cultural crisis
o Explain “crisis in views and values”
o Amos Wilson on Culture
Webster’s 7th New Collegiate Dictionary Definition: “The act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially
by education; expert care and training; enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic
training; a particular stage of advancement in civilization; the characteristic features of such a stage or state; behavior
typical of group or class.”
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia Definition: “An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends
on the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning; the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that
characterizes an institution, organization, or group.”
“Fulfillment of national aspirations or ideals; encompassing all human phenomena that are not purely results of human
genetics; the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols and to act imaginatively and
creatively; the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world classified and represented their
experiences, and acted creatively.”
Karenga’s Kawaida Theory Definition: “…all the thought and activity of a given people or society; places stress on the
ideological – i.e.; the view and value dimension of social life which informs social practice.” .....
