"By linking American activists and Vietnamese rebels, Potter spoke to the New Left’s internationalism. The system, conceived most expansively, was a global capitalist order that above all served U.S. interests. Fighting their country’s power, American activists assumed a place in an international movement. Likening domestic racism to U.S. aggression in Vietnam, Potter also conveyed the centrality of race in the New Left’s worldview. Through the black struggle, whites learned about the worst abuses of American society and the connection between racism domestically and abroad. Some blacks described black America as an “internal colony,” rendering the black movement one of “national liberation,” akin to struggles in the Third World. Finally, Potter spoke with a sense of romantic desperation. He declared a condition of moral emergency whose ultimate stakes were life and death and that demanded that leftists actively fight the system in order to “overcome” it."