CAPITALISM REQUIRES RACISM AND INEQUALITY

A recent comment by Black community activist 19 Keys (@19_keys on Instagram) sparked an interesting debate online. He argued: ‘Black Excellence replaced Black Power, but it’s nothing more than an illusion. We’ve been tricked into celebrating individual accolades while neglecting collective empowerment.’

His comments could also be applied to advocates for Black capitalism who don’t have an issue with placing profit margins over the needs of the people.

Sadly, as Dr Ruth Wilson Gilmore explains, capitalism requires inequality to function, and racism enshrines that inequality. Or, as the great Pan-Africanist Malcolm X (1925-65) put it, ‘You can’t have capitalism without racism.’ Therefore, Black capitalists in the imperial cores of the United States, France, the UK and Canada will always end up exploiting Black people who look just like them, much like we see throughout our continent with African elites.

Continued……. In this clip from a talk last year, Gilmore, a scholar at @GC_CUNY, who has been studying the relationship between racism, capitalism, and the US prison system for over 30 years, explained that capitalism needs to keep people divided into categories to continue exploiting them. If nothing separates us, one can imagine the dangers a united working class might pose to the capitalist system.

Capitalists divide workers, with early exploiters deploying racism to develop the initial capital used to create their now global system. Thus came chattel slavery in the Americas, g*nocide across multiple continents, and colonial theft around the world.

In the words of assassinated Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara (1949-87), ‘It is our blood that nourished the rise of capitalism, that made possible our present condition of dependence and consolidated our underdevelopment. But we cannot hide the truth anymore; it cannot be ignored. The figures cannot be simply haggled away. For every Black man who came to the plantations, five died or were crippled.’

Video credit: The Action Lab Communications

Sources

https://communist.red/capitalism-and-racism-a-marxist-introduction

https://www.marxists.org/archive/sankara/1984/october/04.htm

https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2023/02/07/ruthie-wilson-gilmore-abolition-geography

https://globalsocialtheory.org/topics/racial-capitalism

https://www.instagram.com/19_keys/reel/DH9ha67hRT-

https://x.com/19keys_/status/1901834683425702148

NOT YET UHURU: WHY AFRICA’S TRUE LIBERATION IS PSYCHOLOGICAL

In this clip, anthropologist Dr Marimba Ani states a bold and uncompromising truth: the most excellent tool of colonialism has been the conquest of the African mind. European dominance persisted not through violence alone but because Africans had learned to see themselves through the eyes of their conquerors, a perspective that unfortunately persisted for many.

She argues that some Africans today still subjugate themselves mentally and unconsciously. The colonial venture was so successful that true liberation now needs not only political treaties or military might but the intellectual determination to demolish the myth of European superiority, aka white supremacy. Indeed, if we could eradicate this, then their influence would crumble.

Continued…….. Her comments resonate with the revolutionary insight of pan-African titans such as Kwame Nkrumah and Walter Rodney: imperialism extends beyond blatant external control; it becomes internalised, often unrecognised, subtly inserted into educational systems, languages, religions and economic structures, all historically designed to secure African subjugation. African liberation will not be achieved through integration into neocolonial structures or the assumption of European norms of 'civilisation'; instead, it demands the deconstruction of the colonial mentality. It calls for us to reclaim our history and values.

Video Credit: Kentah Gwanjez via X

Sources

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339064635_Mental_Decolonization_A_Pathway_to_Sustainable_Development_in_Africa

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308773706_Frantz_Fanon_Internalized_Oppression_and_the_Decolonization_of_Education

https://tristangraham300.medium.com/a-historical-analysis-of-imperialism-neo-colonialism-africa-4d86a54ce46a

https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/7/3/64

https://youtu.be/dNhrX3IR0H8?si=fjahqP8taZMXi4bj

https://davidmarceloarevalo.substack.com/p/fanon-postcolonial-thought-as-liberation?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

https://iep.utm.edu/neocolon/

https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/10/decolonising-education/

https://ajbsr.net/data/uploads/74691.pdf

https://www.leftvoice.org/the-thought-of-walter-rodney-how-europe-underdeveloped-africa/

file:///C:/Users/Administrator/Downloads/1578-Article%20Text-4036-4911-10-20231218%20(1).pdf

https://www.pagesofhackney.co.uk/webshop/product/rhodes-must-fall-the-struggle-to-decolonise-the-racist-heart-of-empire-na/?srsltid=AfmBOoqa7M1697mv6U5A2ObVjB6WQ0fkkV5prqf1n6L6higCJUqOX88F

MALEMA: AMERICA HAS NEVER HELPED ANYONE

Trump’s White House has been increasingly hostile towards South Africa - making false accusations that the country’s White population is under attack. It’s a familiar tactic in the playbook of racialised fear-mongering. In this video, Julius Malema - the leader of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party - reminds us that it’s never a good sign when Washington starts paying you ‘attention’ in this way. He warns that history teaches us that this is a prelude to major US destabilisation efforts - citing the examples of Libya, Iraq (and its supposed WMDs) and Afghanistan.

Look also at the ongoing propaganda war against Burkina Faso. AFRICOM’s top commander insinuated that President Ibrahim Traoré is ‘misusing’ his country’s gold to fund private protection, echoing the same destabilising logic used against leaders who dare to defy the Western order.

Continued……Is Malema's warning one we can afford to ignore or one we’ve heard too many times, too late?

Video credit: Economic Freedom Fighters

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

SHOPPING WHILE BLACK? H&M STORE BOOTS GIRLS

Another case of shopping while Black?

Swedish fashion retailer H&M reportedly announced recently that it apologised for a store employee kicking two young Black women out of a store in Coronado Center, a shopping mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The incident, captured on video and widely reposted online, is the latest in a long pattern of what activists have long described as surveillance capitalism.

One of the women, Noela (@yoitsnoela on TikTok and @noelamamuya on IG), stated on her TikTok profile that her attorney advised her not to comment publicly.

While we can no longer see the original February 2024 video on Noela’s profile, online users had re-posted it, eventually coming to the company’s attention.

Continued……News outlet The Root (@the.root on IG) said H&M had posted a comment on its Instagram page (@hm on IG), which appears to be deleted: ‘We take the incident from February of last year at our Albuquerque store very seriously. Following the incident, we immediately acted according to our strict guidelines. The employee in question is no longer employed by H&M. We extend a sincere apology to the affected customers.’

This isn’t H&M’s first brush with anti-Blackness. In 2018, the company sparked global outrage for using an image on its online store of a Black boy in a hoodie labelled, ‘Coolest Monkey in the Jungle.’ Apologies followed. Again.

Video credit: @yoitsnoela (TikTok)

Sources

https://www.tiktok.com/@yoitsnoela/video/7490095369389395243

https://www.theroot.com/h-m-under-fire-for-viral-video-of-manager-karen-kicking-1851775594

https://balleralert.com/profiles/blogs/hm-faces-racial-profiling-accusations

https://www.tiktok.com/@yoitsnoela

Today marks 47 years since the brutal assault by apartheid South African forces on a refugee camp in southern Angola, where hundreds—primarily women and children—lost their lives. 

This tragic event, known as the Cassinga massacre, is remembered every 4 May in Namibia. 

The camp had sheltered around 11,000 to 12,000 Namibians fleeing the violence of apartheid and the armed struggle for freedom that the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) took up against apartheid forces. 

At dawn on 4 May 1978, fighter jets unleashed their fury, followed by nearly 400 South African paratroopers descending under 'Operation Reindeer.' In just five hours, South African troops left behind a scene of devastation, claiming the lives of nearly 800 Namibians and injuring over 1,000, marking one of the darkest days in the struggle against apartheid. 

Continued….. Even though the apartheid regime claimed the camp was a military base, the world was horrified as reports from journalists and UN representatives confirmed the tragic reality: Innocent refugees were slaughtered. 

Today, we remember the lives lost and honour the courage of the SWAPO fighters, whose courage and determination liberated Namibia from the South African apartheid regime on 21 March 1990.

Sources

https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-african-defence-force-sadf-attacks-namibian-refugee-camp-cassinga-angola

https://www.observer24.com.na/bloody-massacre-remembered-on-cassinga-day/

https://www.namibian.com.na/the-legacy-of-cassinga/

https://neweralive.na/cassinga-horrors-remembered/

AFRICA: ‘SUNNY HORROR’ OR ‘GARDEN OF PARADISE’?

Every tool in the box has been used to subjugate the African mind, including language - in particular, the name used for our homeland. The word ‘Africa’ is a mix of Greek and Latin - and the meaning, when you unpack it, isn’t great: sunny horror! Yes, we do get a lot of sun, and some days the sun feels intense, but there’s a much better name for our lands that our ancestors used: ‘Alkebulan.’ It means garden of Eden or mother of mankind. African Stream’s Erick Gavala asks, ‘What’s in a name?’

Sources

https://www.awaytoafrica.com/know-african-roots/