The Betrayal of #AfricanAmericansForHillary
by: Son of Africa
When the hashtag #AfricanAmericansForHillary surfaced on Twitter, I felt my rage bubble up and compel me to pen this piece in order to deal with this recurrent betrayal of the political class with the Black masses. What is mind-boggling to me is the seeming lack of basic political analysis on the part of those who support Hillary Clinton’s bid for presidency. It’s important to note that some of the biggest early donors to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns were private prison corporations who are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses against Black people who are incarcerated. These private prison corporations were the beneficiaries of Bill Clinton’s tough-on-crime and Three-Strikes laws, and made billions in profit by making it their mission to push for laws that increase and worsen sentencing; policies that disproportionately affected Black and immigrant communities in this country. These are the same laws Hillary Clinton herself, as a first lady, supported and advocated for vigorously. The symbiotic relationship between these private prison corporations and the Clinton’s is apparent. Thus, it is abundantly obvious that private prison corporations are clear enemies of Black people. This is not a questionable fact because their very existence, and their business model, RELIES on the incarceration of Black and immigrant communities in this country. Therefore, we should be very clear that these private prison corporations are the ENEMIES of our people.
This begs to question then, if the enemies of our people were some of the EARLY funders and fundraisers for the Clinton campaign, what is the logic behind supporting a candidate funded by the enemies of our people? Why would our enemies bankroll someone who intends to do good for us and put THEM out of business? Obviously these corporations are not idiots who are throwing away their money in their quest to retire their profitable business of inhumanely warehousing Black people. Therefore, the call of #AfricanAmericansForHillary can only be understood for what it is, the political betrayal of the Black petit-bourgeois in its effort to court favors and a measly seat on the table with the enemies of our Black masses; a table inside a house that can only stand when Black people are subjugated, incarcerated, and getting killed every 28 hours. The fact that the Clinton campaign pledged to no longer receive funds from private prisons and donate the already donated money to charities, AFTER massive pressure from Black Lives Matter and immigrant rights activists, is of course a political move and typical trickery of American establishment politics. The Clintons have been in this game of bourgeois politics long enough to realize what they need to say and, do for the time being, in order to gain the support of the petit-bourgeois elements within our communities. The unfortunate part is that the petit-bourgeois elements among us have been making the same political blunder of trading Black liberation for the comfort and prestige of a seat at the table, a role if you will, at the white bourgeois politics of America.
Perhaps the betrayal of this element is foreshadowed in the very way they identified themselves, #AFRICANAMERICANSforHillary. It is beyond my capacity to understand how any Black person in this country can identify in any way with America. We must dump this nonsense of African American, and begin identifying as African people! As Black people! This will then lead us to think Black and talk BLACK politics! We were not put under slavery because we are American; we were enslaved because we are AFRICANS! Because we are BLACK! We were not put under gratuitous white terrorism during Jim Crow because we were American; we were subjected to that oppression because we are AFRICANS! Because we are BLACK! We were not confined to the ghettos and had crack cocaine dumped in our neighborhoods by the CIA because we are American! America committed this crime against humanity against us BECAUSE WE ARE AFRICANS! Because we are BLACK! We are not put in prisons en masse, denied a right to gainful employment and our hard fought right to vote in this country because we are American! This is happening to us because we are AFRICANS! Because we are BLACK! The American police and vigilantes are not systematically killing us because we are American! We are getting killed, in broad daylight, and in front of the whole world, because we are AFRICANS! Because we are BLACK! Kwame Ture used to say one cannot be an African American because one cannot be two opposite things at once, that when America bombs AFRICA, he asked, “which one are you? The one who BOMBED or the one who GOT bombed?“
Therefore we must dump this nonsense of African American, and begin identifying as African people! As Black people! This will then lead us to think Black and talk BLACK politics! And Black politics mandates us to be principled and uncompromising when it comes to the question of Black liberation. And Black liberation requires us to have the cultural and political mind to clearly identify our enemies, i.e Western civilization and its attendant bourgeois politics, and not align ourselves with it. The Black radical tradition offers us plenty of examples on how to strategically deploy our collective powers in electoral politics without betraying our masses. For as Malcolm X put it, “anytime you are dumb enough to continue identifying yourself with a party that can’t keep its promise to you, you are not only a CHUMP but you are a traitor to your race!” And when we must engage with electoral politics, the emerging Black Lives Matter movement, and those of us working on the ground for it, must develop a clear and uncompromising set of demands starting with land and financial reparations for Black people.
All Power to the People!
Son of Africa
