guest contributor Race Ethnicity & Culture

From Here to Equality: William Darity, A. Kirstin Mullen, and ADOS Deception by Misdirection

By Michael K. Fisher

From Here to Equality: William Darity, A. Kirstin Mullen, and ADOS Deception by Misdirection

Reparations for American Slavery It Isn’t…

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William “Sandy” Darity, Jr. is a professor of Public Policy, Economics, African and African American Studies at Duke University. Together with his wife, Andrea Kirstin Mullen, a folklorist, Prof. Darity recently published a 500 page tome titled “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century”.

The book provides the academic underpinning for an on-line advocacy that purports to rename the African-American community as “ADOS” — an acronym for American Descendants of Slavery.

“Reparations are a program of acknowledgment, redress and closure for a grievous injustice. Where African-Americans are concerned, the grievous injustices that make the case for reparations include slavery, legal segregation (Jim Crow), and ongoing discrimination and stigmatization”, say Darity and Mullen.

They continue: “Closure involves mutual reconciliation between African Americans and the beneficiaries of slavery, legal segregation and ongoing discrimination against blacks.” Further, “Once the reparations program is executed and racial inequality eliminated, African Americans would make no further claims for race-specific policies on their behalf from the American government — on the assumption that no new race-specific injustices are inflicted on them”.

Lastly, while acknowledging that the enslavement of Africans in North America persisted at least from 1619 until 1865, Darity and Mullen advocate slavery reparations for African-Americans solely for the eighty-nine year period from 1776 to 1865.

Curiously, throughout the book the authors fail to specifically define the economic wealth-creating engine of slavery. Instead, by implication, they default to unpaid forced labor. It is this unpaid forced labor the authors seek to redress, demanding what amounts to back pay with interest in sufficient quantity to close the wealth gap that exists between the African-American community and the European-American community. Upon payment of this retroactive compensation, African-Americans will, so their promise, close their case for redress — all will be good.

Darity and Mullen are mistaken. Unpaid forced labor was not the engine that drove the enslavers’ wealth-creation. Unpaid forced labor was merely a feature of chattel slavery wealth creation. The engine was the systematic rape of enslaved black females.

How’s that? Well, not unlike today’s real estate industry, wealth-creation under chattel slavery was about expanding ownership of potentially income-producing assets that, rising in value, could be mortgaged to acquire more income-producing assets. That’s wealth creation.

The income produced by these assets had to be sufficient only to pay the recurring interest on the mortgages, some of the principal and miscellaneous expenses while the value of the assets rose in time. These assets, under chattel slavery, were the very bodies of enslaved black folk.

Houses can be built from brick, mortar, cement, wood and steel. Human beings can not.

The imperatives of biology required the breeding of black females for black babies. That breeding, a controlled and manipulative process, by definition, took all the reproductive choice from the enslaved woman. It could only be obtained by rape. That rapist not only more likely than not being the white male enslaver, his son or an overseer, but also male “stud” slaves assigned by the enslaver to the task. The rapes universally began when the victims reached their menstrual cycles at about age 12.

No less a luminary than Thomas Jefferson — as “owner” of more than 600 human beings during his life-time certainly an expert on the subject of chattel slavery — explained the centrality of “breeding” that is, rape, to the creation of his wealth.

In a letter to Joel Yancey dated January 17, 1819 Jefferson explained “I consider the labor of a breeding woman as no object, and that a child raised every 2. years is of more profit than the crop of the best laboring man. [I]t is not their labor, but their increase which is the first consideration with us.”

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Thomas Jefferson letter to Joel Yancey 1819

Elaborated Jefferson in a letter to John Wayles Eppes dated June 30, 1820: “I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. What she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption”.

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Thomas Jefferson Letter to John Wayles 1820

Imagine the daily terror of every enslaved black woman knowing that she was subject to inevitable multiple rapes at every minute of every day from childhood to late womanhood without recourse. Rape that was not just a matter of choice, but an economic necessity for the creation of the enslaver’s wealth.

There existed another systematic raping of black women that could only be conducted by white men. It is here where today’s fascination with light-skinned black women originates — namely the creation, through selective breeding, of “fancy girls”.

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These were black females bred to resemble white females as closely as possible and sold, usually as children as young as 9, for the sole purpose of satisfying the sexual gratification (“fancy”) of white men, including white pedophiles. Their value was often three to five times that of the average field hand. The closer they resembled a white female, the higher their value. It is a valuation of black females by color that has been carried on to and infected today’s society.

How do Darity and Mullen address the rape of black women and girls as the indispensable engine of chattel slavery’s wealth creation? They don’t.

To the extent to which they address the rape of black women and girls at all, they trivialize this horrendous crime. In fact, they intimate that the enslaving rapists were merely “promiscuous” and at most engaged in “forced or mutually consensual liaisons with enslaved women”.

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Mutually consensual? A slave? Even if such a thing were possible (it is not) what is a “forced liaison”?

Darity and Mullen’s “reparation” quite literally is the equivalent of demanding payment owed from a John that skipped out on such payment for his use of a child, that is, the rape of a child, forced into prostitution.

The pair does that, unless they are thoroughly incompetent as historians and economists, deliberately: by side-stepping the actual engine that, by the economic necessity of the chattel slavery system, drove the wealth-creation process.

Again: That engine was the deliberate, systematic, daily and hourly rape of black women. Without the million-fold rape of black women, the whole slavery wealth-creation system would have broken down.

Most every African-American family had to endure the systematic rape of their mothers, sisters and daughters. That certainly includes my family.

While I am happy to accept overdue payment for forced labor, that acceptance must not and can not result in the “closure” of the issues that have to be dealt with — central to which is the million-fold daily systematic centuries-long rape of millions of black women. Those women deserve recompense.

The claims resulting from these rapes have been passed down to the succeeding generations of African-American girls and women.

The claims need to be honored.

_______________

Literature:

Darity, William and Mullen, A. Kirstin, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the 21st Century, 2020

DuBois, William Edward Burghardt, Black Reconstruction, 1935

Smithers, Gregory, Slave Breeding, 2012

Sublette, Ned and Constance, The American Slave Coast, 2016

_______________

Michael K. Fisher is the great-great grandchild of African-American women who were enslaved and raped in South Carolina.

JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

The Dangers of ADOS: How ADOS Movement Promotes anti-Blackness, Online Violence & Voter Suppression

This video is a replay of the Danger of ADOS webinar, hosted by The Pan African Congress, North American Delegation. It features Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor, writer, publisher, and communications specialist. In this webinar, J.A.M. Aiwuyor gives an in-depth overview of how the ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) movement is harmful to the Black community by promoting divisive anti-Black rhetoric, white supremacy, online violence against the Black community, and voter suppression.

JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

It’s Time to Stop Being Surprised by Police Violence

Every day some where in America, Black communities are terrorized by police violence. Some well-known examples are: Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Abery, Mike Brown, Aiyana Jones, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Botham Jean, and Natasha McKenna. But the list goes on.

In the video above, I discuss why it’s time for us to stop being surprised by police violence and focus on steadfast, long term strategies that will lead towards defunding police and redirecting resources back to our communities. This includes exploring and reading abolitionist writings for a historical understanding of how the carceral state is inherently anti-Black and must be dismantled.

JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

The Truth About Reparations: Powerful Conversation with Minister Ari Merretazon

In this powerful interview, Minister Ari Merretazon (N’COBRA’s Northeast Region Representative and Philadelphia chapter member) explains to author Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor, the nuances of reparations activism, strategies, and laws. Minister Merretazon also emphasizes the importance of understanding African identity and culture as the basis for peoplehood and explains why reparationists use the term Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States (DAEUS).

More about Minister Ari Merretazon:

Ari Merretazon is a Reparationist.

He is a 1989 graduate of the Graduate School of Community Economic Development, Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, New Hampshire, and a certified Legal Technician from Antioch School of Law, now known as the University of Washington D.C Law School. 

Minister Merretazon is a member of the N’COBRA Philadelphia Chapter and the Northeast Region Representative of N’COBRA. He is one of the leading thought leaders about reparations for Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States (DAEUS).

In the late 80’s he was an active member of the National Black Independent Political Party and served as a co-chair for National Security.

He is a Decorated, Honorably Discharged, Vietnam War Veteran, Headquarters Recon, 3rd Brigade, 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions, U.S. Army. 

He is one of  The “Bloods of Vietnam.” He was the Technical Consultant for “Dead Presidents” – The Motion Picture. Larenz Tate, the lead actor, played his character. He is also an Oral Historian. His war history is Chapter 7 of “Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War By Black Veterans,” by Wallace Terry, published by Random House, Ballantine Books, New York.

JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

Why “Rape” Must Be Emphasized in Articles About Slavery and DNA

The New York Times recently published great a article about new research by 23andMe, that traces genetic data stemming from the transatlantic slave trade. The research is described as “one of the most comprehensive investigations of the transatlantic slave trade ever done.”

I’m glad this research is being shared and made available to the general public.

It’s about European men committing mass rape for centuries. It’s about them raping enslaved African women on slave ships and multiple continents. Yet the words “rape” or “raped” appear sparingly.

This excerpt is particularly damning, “European men contributed three times more to the modern-day gene pool of people of African descent than European women did. In the British Caribbean, they contributed 25 times more.”

However, we need to be clear about what we’re discussing.

This research is saying that European men raped a lot. They raped enslaved African women (some men too) every day and the evidence of their rape is widespread. So why avoid the term rape? Why lessen its usage?

This is the kind of stuff that gets my ancestral rage rising. Avoiding the term “rape” implies something dangerous. It opens the doorway for harmful narratives that imply “consent” or “enjoyment.” It must be clearly stated that this was centuries of mass rape and mass murder. I stress using the term “rape” for a number of key reasons. One of them is the Jezebel stereotype continuously used to hypersexualize and dehumanize Black women in order to justify the rape and sexual violence we’ve endured.

In grad school, a white classmate tried to argue with me about the rape of Black women. When the life of Sally Hemmings was raised, she brushed it off and claimed that it was only a “rumor”. When other classmates verified that Sally Hemmings had given birth to the children of Thomas Jefferson, she then exclaimed, “Well, we don’t know the nature of their relationship.”

I told her, “The nature of their relationship was that Sally Hemmings was a young enslaved Black girl and he was a slave owner. If our professor (a Black man) owned you and wanted to have sex with you, would you call that consent or rape?”

She was silent. She refused to call it rape. She refused to acknowledge that Thomas Jefferson was a rapist. Sadly, she is not alone. American school systems have done a fine job of deifying “founding fathers” and vilifying their victims. This leads to gross miseducation among the general public that prevents full acknowledgment and understanding about how our society functions and how systemic oppression is historically rooted in American history.

Another important reason to emphasize the term “rape” in these articles about DNA and the transatlantic slave trade is that it helps us better conceptualize: Transgenerational Trauma, Trans-Generational Epigenetic Injury, and the Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome that continue to affect our lives.

I deeply appreciate the scope of the work by 23andMe researchers and will continue to share it. And I’m glad that the New York Times covered it. However, in order to fully grasp what happened to enslaved Africans and how it affects their descendants, we need language that repeatedly clarifies what they endured in no uncertain terms.

This is about mass rape. Let us never forget.


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JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

It’s Time To Deport Confederates

A few months ago, I was leaving a store when I noticed a truck plastered with Confederate flag bumper stickers. One of the stickers stated, “DEPORT ILLEGALS.” I was immediately struck by the irony of the statement. Considering the fact that Confederates were traitors, they should be what we refer to as illegal. 

I know that removing Confederate statues, flags and monuments won’t end structural racism. I know that removing Confederate flags won’t end police brutality. I know that the broken statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis won’t heal the wounds of oppression. 

But I still want to watch them fall. 

I want to see them crumble in bits. I want to see them flung into the water. I want the heads knocked off and graffiti to cover their names.

The point that many are missing, is that the existence of these statues and monuments is an act of terrorism itself. 

I grew up in Milledgeville, GA, a small town that at one point was the capital of Georgia. I grew up surrounded by Confederate flags, it was normalized. White students would wear their Confederate flag shirts to school with no issue, while Black students were reprimanded for wearing FUBU. In the 6th grade, I attended Georgia Military College Preparatory School, located at the Old Capitol Building where Georgian politicians voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. I attended school on those grounds.

After school, many of us would go to the Mary Vinson Memorial Library to study. The library is named after the wife of Congressman Carl Vinson, a segregationist that signed onto The Southern Manifesto. The manifesto was drafted and signed by southern politicians who were angry with the Supreme Court’s Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka ruling that racially segregating schools was unconstitutional. Across the street, from the library was a statue dedicated to Confederate soldiers. According to the Union Recorder, Milledgeville’s local newspaper, the monument was “constructed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s (UDC) Robert E. Lee Chapter and first unveiled in 1912.” 

Surrounding the statue was a small plot of cotton that grew in the spring and summer. Yes, they had a plot of cotton growing around a Confederate monument when I was 12 years old.

The UDC chapter still exists. A few years ago the monument was hit by a car and instead of removing the memorial, the chapter was excited for the opportunity to rebuild it. 

Inside the Mary Vinson Memorial Library was a glass encasement of Confederate memorabilia. I used to stand underneath the light where the uniform medals shone. Here I was,  a little Black girl from Georgia, my surroundings at odds with my existence. For the sake of history, as some would say.

A few years earlier, my grandmother told me the story of how my family escaped from sharecropping when she was a small child. My great-grandparents Flossie and George Wilder fled with their children until they reached Augusta, GA where they lived the rest of their days. It seems like a long time ago, except that Flossie and George were still alive when I was born. In fact, I have fond memories of great-granddaddy teaching me about money and great-grandmama chewing her snuff, despite his disapproval. 

George died when I was a little girl but Flossie lived until I was a sophomore in college. My mother remembers my great-grandfather still being paranoid, of white men potentially capturing him, when she was a child.

He lived with a reality that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren had often misunderstood. We weren’t just surrounded by flags and monuments. The world around George and Flossie served as a constant threat and reminder of the terror of slavery and sharecropping. The world around them celebrated terrorists. Years had passed, yet still, the world around me did the same. 

I don’t want that for my daughters. 

Protestors against police brutality and systemic racism have every right to knock these monuments down if local municipalities and the federal government refuse to do so.

It’s time for America to deport Confederates, send them back to the land of defeat. Remember them as they were, terrorists, enslavers, traitors, and losers. It’s long been time to watch them crumble.

Neo-slavery, neo-colonialism, wage slavery, systemic anti-Black racism, and oppression – I’m looking forward to all of those crumbling too.

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JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

Black Americans NEED Pan Africanism

There seems to be some confusion about Pan Africanism and how it relates to Black American identity. The purpose of grounding the Black identity in an understanding of ourselves as African people is not just for us to have an over-romanticized vision or perspective of ourselves. 

The purpose is for us to center ourselves in who we are. Understanding our position in the world, on the global stage helps us to understand our condition better and strategize better to improve it. “Dr. John Henrik Clarke reminded us that Black tells you what you look like, but it doesn’t tell you who you are.”

This is why every serious Pan Africanist understands that locally, nationally, and globally speaking – African peoples gain better insight, perspectives, and strategies when confronting oppression through a collaborative effort. That is why Malcolm X told us, “You can’t understand what is going on in Mississippi if you don’t understand what is going on in the Congo. And you can’t really be interested in what’s going on in Mississippi if you’re not also interested in what’s going on in the Congo. They’re both the same. The same interests are at stake. The same sides are drawn up, the same schemes are at work in the Congo that are at work in Mississippi..”

The most recent example of this is the coronavirus COVID-19 global pandemic. The western medical industry has historically implemented forced medical testing on people of African descent. Recently, French doctors openly suggested that vaccines and medications be tested on African populations first. 

Meanwhile, in the U.S., The Trump Administration is starting medical testing in Detroit, a city with a majority Black population. This is not a coincidence. It’s another example of how no matter where we live, Black bodies are considered as testing grounds for medical experimentation – often forced, painful, or deadly.

Globally, African people and people of African descent experience this harm as a collective. Thus, it is within our best interest to counter them collectively.

These collaborative efforts don’t mean that everything will be easy, and there will be no issues. And I think that’s where most of the confusion comes in. Some people believe that by advocating for Pan Africanism, we’re saying that instantly everything is going to be all sunshine and roses. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying that globally, African people share common bonds, struggles, and cultural linkages. We also share common threats that are connected to global systems of oppression so much so that it is highly beneficial to combine our efforts and work with each other in some capacity. 

This is a much better strategy than isolationism or xenophobia. In essence, all of these things have been tried before, and none of it has helped the masses of any African nation or community of African descendants throughout the Diaspora. 

Anti-Black xenophobia or isolationism has only made things worse.

Additionally, a grounding in Black identity with an understanding of ourselves as African people helps us to better tap into cultural awareness that centers our worldview. It helps to uplift African self-determination and provides the wisdom that guides effective strategies and tools that come from within our communities and cultural understandings. And still a recognition of African identity as Black Americans or wherever you are as an African descendant on the planet – is not an attempt to erase our cultural differences. Yes, Pan Africanism emphasizes similarities, but it also celebrates our differences because we’re able to build from various viewpoints and perspectives to strategize to make our collective conditions better. 

That’s not erasure, that’s just called being smart. That is why when we look at the forefathers and foremothers of Pan Africanism, we see Trinidadians, Haitians, Jamaicans, African Americans, continental Africans, Puerto Ricans, the list goes on – eagerly learning from each other, inspiring each other, building liberation movements, and engaging in mutual aid. They worked in support of Pan African freedom, respect, and unity across the world. 

Pan African unity is why Martin Luther King Jr. went to Ghana, met with Kwame Nkrumah, attended the Ghanian Independence ceremonies, and returned to the United States with a refreshed perspective on civil rights and Black freedom that was directly inspired by African movements for independence. 

Pan African unity is why Malcolm X met with African leaders, pushed for African Americans to reconnect with our African heritage, advocated for Pan Africanism, and actively organized to connect African Americans with African communities. (Please read his 1964 speech at the University of Ghana for additional context.)

Pan African unity is why the mother of the reparations movement – Audley “Queen Mother” Moore was a member of the UNIA (founded by Marcus Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey). She went on to found the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women, the Committee for Reparations for Descendants of U.S. Slaves, and the Republic of New Afrika.

And it’s saddening that there are currently some people claiming to advocate for reparations, using the work of Queen Mother Moore, while also seeking to disconnect us from our African heritage. This anti-African sentiment is a direct contradiction to Queen Mother Moore’s life’s work. 

She advocated for reparations AND Pan Africanism. She viewed herself, a Black American woman, as an African in America.

When asked about her work, she said,” I have done everything I could to promote the cause of African freedom and to keep alive the teaching of Garvey and the work of the UNIA.“

Our ancestors, that have been doing the work to keep us alive and create a better future, knew who they were – Africans in America.

There are so many examples to pull from, but I’ll keep it short for now.

There is also a false narrative floating around that Pan Africanism is an old ideology that came, went, and withered away – when nothing could be further from the truth.

Pan Africanism is alive and well. It is my firm belief that as long as Black people are alive on this planet, Pan Africanism will endure because it has to.

The only people that believe this false narrative of the death of Pan Africanism are people that are not themselves involved in Pan Africanist movements. I’m reminded by an Ashanti proverb that states, “By the time the fool has learned the game, the players have dispersed.” 

They don’t know what they are talking about because they are not involved in the process. In 2015, Africans and African descendants from across the continent and Diaspora gathered for the 8th Pan African Congress in Ghana. I was there along with my colleagues from the North American delegation. The Pan African Congress is part of the Global Pan African Movement that consists of activists, scholars, artists, and organizations locally and internationally across many different fields working in coalition with each other to improve the lives of African and African descendants across the world. 

Also, Pan Africanism is why the Global Reparations Movement continues to move forward. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) has advocated for reparations for people of African descent in America since 1987 with national and international supporters. Then, Caribbean activists and leaders created the CARICOM Reparations Commission, which directly inspired the creation of the National African American Reparations Commission and European Reparations Commission. These initiatives consist of Pan Africanists from around the world that work in coalition with each other. 

So, this false narrative of the death of Pan Africanism derives from not only ignorance, but also laziness, and anti-Blackness from a myopic worldview that would only put our communities further behind. 

We can have and should encourage various perspectives on how to best uplift our communities.

But what we can’t do is allow ourselves to become so downtrodden and short-sighted that we succumb to anti-Black ideologies that continuously promote divisions instead of unity.

In the same speech I referenced earlier by Malcolm X, he emphasized our need for Pan African Unity. He stated,“When you see that the African nations at the international level comprise the largest representative body and the largest force of any continent, why, you and I would be out of our minds not to identify with that power bloc. We would be out of our minds, we would actually be traitors to ourselves, to be reluctant or fearful to identify with people with whom we have so much in common.”

Malcolm’s statements remind me of a Nigerian proverb, “In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges, and the foolish build dams.”

And right now, there are far too many of us advocating foolishness.

At this point in our journey, none of us can afford isolationism and unnecessary divisiveness. For Black Americans, we need to remember that we are still Africans connected to the global Pan African world. It is perfectly fine for us to advocate for ourselves, but we should never lose sight of working in coalition with the Pan African world. We should always remember the importance of Pan African unity. 

Because Pan Africanism is how we have survived and will continue to survive. 

Any ideology that says otherwise is to our detriment. 

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Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor

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SOURCES

Mothers of Pan-Africanism: Audley Moore and Dara Abubakari by Ashley D. Farmer

Audley Moore (1898-1997) BlackPast.org by Dwayne Mack

Audley Moore and the Modern Reparations Movement by Ashley Farmer

Audley Moore, Black Women’s Activism, and Nationalist Politics by Keisha N. Blain

The African Roots of MLK’s Vision by Mohammed Elnaiem

National Coalition of Black for Reparations in America
NCOBRAOnline.org

CARICOM Reparations Commission
Caricomreparations.org

Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom

Dr. John Henrick Clarke vs Cornell West: “Debate” on Afrikan Nationalism

Pence announces hydroxychloroquine trial in Detroit hospital – Nikki Robertson

Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile & Collector by Elinor Des Verney Sinnette

Coronavirus: France racism row over doctors’ Africa testing comments

JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

What the Coronavirus Means for Black America

There’s an old African American proverb that says, “When America has a cold, Black America gets the flu.” So, what do we get during a global pandemic? The U.S. government had ample time to prepare and take preventative measures for the coronavirus. But instead, the Trump Administration chose to ignore the seriousness of COVID-19, allowing the virus to spread across America, sending the country into a tailspin. 

Couple the Trump Administration’s indifference and incompetence with an inadequate or nearly non-existent social safety net and we’ve got a disaster on our hands. Most of Black America will feel the negative effects of the coronavirus. We often endure racism, healthcare discrimination, and disparities in treatment.

The biased belief that Black people are either faking illnesses or not experiencing the same level of pain as whites is unfortunately still common. There is also the issue of Black patients rejected for lack of insurance and in some cases, even insurance isn’t enough. With the predicted surge of coronavirus cases, in a healthcare system already not adequately equipped for a pandemic, lack of COVID-19 testing availability and long wait periods for patients are more of a certainty than a probability.  

Healthcare leaders and officials must make sure that Black Americans seeking treatment for COVID-19 have their concerns taken seriously and that all the appropriate measures are taken to protect their health and wellbeing. Coronavirus tests and treatment must be completely free and remain free. It’s scary to see that California Rep. Katie Porter had to corner CDC Director Robert Redfield into committing to making testing free for all Americans. The U.S. government should have made free testing for coronavirus a default instead of having to be pressured into it.

Additionally, some Black immigrants and other immigrants of color may be too fearful of authorities to seek testing and treatment. Trump’s public charge rule has created an atmosphere of fear, making immigrants afraid to use healthcare assistance like Medicaid. Undocumented immigrants may avoid seeking treatment in order to steer clear of attention concerning their citizenship status. There are also other social and societal barriers connected to “cultural competence” among healthcare workers that prevent immigrants from accessing healthcare. 

In terms of economics, the coronavirus could be a major issue of financial instability for Black America. Decreased hours with short-term employment, low-wage, or hourly jobs would result in a substantially reduced income, causing a financial crisis likely to hit Black Americans the most. With 60% of Americans lacking $500 in savings the abrupt shutdown of major events, buildings, and various places of employment will strike a major blow to Black American livelihoods. Due to structural barriers and historical discrimination, for much of Black America, it’s already a struggle to pay for bills, housing, healthcare, and student loans. 

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, promising options for additional paid leave, is a good start. However, it still leaves behind potentially 80% of America’s workers. If the goal is to save most Americans from financial ruin, this won’t be accomplished. The most effective legislation would include a paid sick leave plan for all workers. If the federal government does not take steps to ensure a universal economic safety net for the nation, the economic impact may be crushing for Black Americans. This Act is helpful but we need more.

As both federal and local governments scramble to address needs. Black communities can take our own protective measures during this crisis. 

For example, churches, mosques, and other religious temples can limit the attendance of large crowds and focus on providing resources and assistance. Local communities can push for school districts to continue providing meals for school-aged children during school closings. We can put pressure on our governors and state lawmakers to pass emergency legislation covering food assistance for low-income families and paid sick leave for hourly employees. Local politicians, activists, non-profit advocates, and religious leaders can work with utility companies to prevent utility shutoffs during this pandemic. We can also advocate for a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures by the housing industry. Most of all, we must put pressure on all local municipalities, the federal government, and corporations to put people-over-profits.

This assessment is not meant to be bleak but to serve as a warning. Yes, Black America has survived the worst in our society. Yes, we will survive the coronavirus too. But we must emphasize the need to protect Black lives during this pandemic. This is not the time to be complacent or undermine the severity of COVID-19 and its health and financial effects on Black Americans. Steps must be taken towards a people-centered economic bailout for all of America along with universal health care to ensure that Black America does not bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. 

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JAM Aiwuyor Race Ethnicity & Culture

Slavery is not our lineage

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey

On January 2, 2020, I published the report Understanding ADOS: The Movement to Hijack Black Identity and Fracture Black Unity in America. Since publication, the report has been read and downloaded by over 40,000 people from across the African Diaspora; an indication that this discussion was long overdue. The report was about the ADOS movement and their attempts to rename the Black American/African American community, “American Descendants of Slavery.”

In follow up discussions I’ve realized that we need to revisit how problematic it is to refer to ourselves as “descendants of slavery.” To be clear, no we do not and can not descend from “slavery.” This line of thinking is problematic, dehumanizing, and anti-Black for a number of reasons.

“But JAM, we need the term ‘ADOS’ for our justice claim!” say people missing the point.

And my reply is, you’re in luck! Yes, we have a specific claim, and we also have specific terms that predate “ADOS.” The term to address this need is “Descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States” (DAEUS). This term has been used by African American activists, scholars, and reparations advocates for years. DAEUS is extremely useful because it brings both a historical and cultural context to African American lives, while also addressing the condition of slavery and its impact on our collective being.

No matter how anyone tries to frame it, slavery and enslavement are not lineages. For African Americans, many of our ancestors were indeed enslaved. However, slavery is a condition. It’s not a bloodline. The idea of embracing enslavement as bloodline or lineage-based actually reinforces the racist lies told by proponents of eugenics that tried to use racial hierarchies, religion, and pseudoscience to justify the enslavement of our ancestors. 

In the 1858 book, “The Testimony of Modern Science in the Unity of Mankind,” James Lawrence Cabell argued that people of African descent were genetically inferior, thereby excusing and rationalizing slavery. 

Additionally, ADOS terminology buys into the Hamitic myth, the racist religious ideology used by European enslavers, colonizers, scientists, and religious institutions to justify the enslavement of African people. The Hamitic myth stated that Black people were cursed by God for being descendants of Ham (the son of Noah). Proponents of the Hamitic mythic thereby sought to permanently align Black identity with slavery through religion.

ADOS is essentially uplifting the racist ideology of eugenics and the Hamitic myth by getting African Americans to adopt internalized anti-Blackness, through having us call ourselves “descendants of slavery” in the name of a “justice claim.” Thus, it’s not surprising that ADOS leadership seeks to distance themselves from African identity or question whether or not African Americans have a culture.

But for argument’s sake, let’s discuss another condition.

Let’s say, for example, you had a grandmother that, at one time in her life, went to prison. Would you then proclaim yourself to be a “descendant of prison?” Absolutely not, because you understand that prison is a place of confinement and imprisonment is the condition of being confined. Rightfully so, you’d tell people that your grandmother was imprisoned, but you would never say “prison is my lineage.“

You would never wear t-shirts calling yourself a “descendant of prison.” Perhaps the closest thing you could call yourself to that is “descendant of prison laborers,” and even that term would never be sufficient because it still doesn’t tell you anything about your history, culture, bloodline, or heritage.

Thus, you still wouldn’t proclaim the “prison” or “imprisonment” itself as your lineage. It would sound ridiculous. It would be confusing. And most of all, that statement would be incredibly dehumanizing.

Because prison is not an ethnicity, it’s not a culture, and it’s not a bloodline. 

Neither is slavery. 

“But JAM, why are you being so difficult? It’s not that serious!” says another person missing the point.

My response is: Our collective fight for human rights starts internally. It starts with who we are.

Attempts to reduce African American lineage and heritage to enslavement (justice claim or not) is an attack on African American humanity. The root word of “reparations” is “repair.” If we were to use ADOS terminology, not only would we NOT REPAIR, we would cause further self-destruction and harm. Because a people can not be repaired or healed without a full acknowledgment of their history, humanity, experiences, and existence. 

Since the past often influences the future, an erasure of our identity as African people before enslavement would only lead to more slavery, be it mental, spiritual, or physical. This is because we would then have no true framework or starting point for an identity that would continually demand freedom and liberation.

As Dr. Carter G. Woodson stated, “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” Dr. Woodson recognized how dangerous erasure was to our mentality concerning Black identity. This is precisely why he founded Negro History Week, which later evolved into Black History Month, and this is why he wrote “The Miseducation of the Negro.”

Erasure is not repairing. Erasure is death.

Using slavery as a lineage is also a blatant insult to our ancestors and their lives. My ancestors were more than the confines of “slavery” and the descriptor of “slave.” They were human beings. They were mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. They were scientists, farmers, artisans, preachers, etc.

They were Africans, both enslaved and free, with their own religions, customs, languages, and beliefs.

It is for this reason that we must never disconnect ourselves from our ancestors’ origins. With most of our ancestors originating from various cultures in Africa, we have to look at them in the context of where they came from to understand who they were. Because who they were and the lineage they’ve passed down to us is who WE are.

We are not the descendants of a downtrodden condition – land-less, culture-less, language-less. We are the descendants of enslaved and free Africans in the Americas – survivors, cultivators, innovators, visionaries, and revolutionaries – with a rich cultural heritage. Our cultural heritage is grounded in the merger of multiple African cultures – to create a blended Pan African identity that we now refer to as Black American or African American.

Thus, reducing our ancestors’ total identity to enslavement is a horrific erasure of who we are, where we came from, and the potential of our future generations.

We should never lose sight of this fact, or we will lose sight of ourselves. We have been born the descendants of a Pan-African collective in America that battled in the belly of the beast and survived to tell the story.

Slavery is one condition, among many that our ancestors born on the continent of Africa and in the Americas fought and defeated. They are our lineage, freedom is our birthright, and the struggle continues.

For additional context, listen to my recent interview on Class, Culture, and Consciousness with Jen Marie Pollard.

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Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor

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Beware of the ADOS Movement: A Threat to Social Justice and Black Collective Activism — The Christian Recorder

Beware of the ADOS Movement: A Threat to Social Justice and Black Collective Activism By Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor, 2nd Episcopal District The year 2020 is pivotal for the Black community. 845 more words

Beware of the ADOS Movement: A Threat to Social Justice and Black Collective Activism — The Christian Recorder