Parallel tracks of US government policy against the Black working class in the US and on the African continent expose much more than incidental similarity but a concerted fatal conspiracy.
For the US, African people globally have no economic value short of being unwitting consumers whose labor-use has expired, and whose resistance to social injustice must be repressed at all costs. This conflict of interests reveals a natural contradiction between North American versus African or Black identities. African-American on many levels is an oxymoron.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of U.S. Africa Command – AFRICOM, created on October 1, 2008. AFRICOM is the re-colonization of Africa by the U.S. and constitutes the new scramble for Africa equivalent to when, in the 1800s, the colonial powers fought over which of them would dominate which parts of the resource-rich continent.
Pre-dating AFRICOM by 10 years is its domestic counterpart, the “National Defense Authorization Act of 1997” signed into law by Bill Clinton and more commonly known as the 1033 Program. The 1033 Program facilitates the transfer of excess U.S. Department of Defense supplies and equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies, which are invariably used against Black and Brown communities in the US. The Program has allowed police departments to acquire vehicles (land, air, and sea), weapons, computer equipment, fingerprint equipment, night vision equipment, radios and televisions, first aid equipment, tents and sleeping bags, photographic equipment and more. There is no more glaring proof that the US has been waging war against both Black people within its borders and those in Africa than a cursory examination of the responses by the US National security state to Black movements for decolonization and self-determination inside the US and on the continent. A parallel history in form and essence unfolds when comparing what took place from the 1950s to the 70s in the US Black Power, Civil Rights movements with the independence, anti-colonial movement in Africa.
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