Professor Osman
November 18, 2013
The Effect of Black Power on the Emergence of Yellow Power
African-Americans were not alone in the shift to “ethnic power.” Other minority groups also shifted from the fight for integration and began to adopt the rhetoric of ethnic power and pride in the late 1960’s. By the late 1960’s, a host of other groups began to adopt the rhetoric of “power”: Red Power, Grey Power, Pink Power, Brown Power, etc. What were the similarities and differences between the rhetoric of Chicano Power, Yellow Power and Black Power?
The 1960s in America brought a host of movements that pushed for equality, power, and change. Each movement helped to shape and effect the other movements happening at the time. Each of these movements emerged due to dissatisfaction with the social constructs in American society. The Black Power Movement, a radical movement of the late 1960s, developed out of the Civil Rights Movement. The Black Power Movement consisted of radicals of the Civil Rights Movement who pushed the boundaries of the movement for black equality and aimed to use more radical approaches to achieve their goals. Asian Americans began to feel the same pressures for change as the blacks at the end of the 1960s and began what was known as the Yellow Power Movement. Another smaller movement emerged out of these two movements called the Chicano Power Movement, which consisted of Mexican Americans who felt that they were losing their culture in the American society. Both the Yellow and Chicano Power Movements emerged because of the Black Power Movement, developing the rhetoric and ideals that the Black Power Movement embodied. The Black Power movement radically pushed for change and power for the black community, which in turn influenced other minorities in America to find their place and create their voice in a nation run by white men. Both the Chicano and the Yellow Power Movements emerged because of the
Citations: Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines. "Culture and the Counterculture." "Takin ' It to the Streets": A Sixties Reader. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. 225-45. Print.