My critiques of Coates are coming from an anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist worldview that seeks the revolutionary dismantling of U.S. colonial empire. The arguments about “spiritual renewal” or “healing of America” are frankly liberal and idealist. They are not only vague, but they implicitly normalize the continued existence of the United States settler-imperial project. White supremacy and anti-blackness will not disappear through spiritual renewals but through the creation of a revolutionary movement of people committed to transforming the concrete and material political, economic, and social arrangements under which Black people suffer. If one recognizes that the United States and its democracy were founded upon and still operate along the logics of slavery and anti-blackness (as well as settler colonialism and indigenous genocide), then “spiritual renewal” should not be the goal. Instead, the dismantling and unsettling of the United States is the goal. The goal of reparations and black liberation is not to improve American consciousness or to be included in the U.S. nation-state. Nor is the goal of reparations to redistribute resources and wealth to African Americans within the context of U.S. capitalist-colonial formation. Restitution for the centuries of unpaid labor is foundational, but a related and crucial goal of reparations and the revolutionary black freedom struggle has been the abolition of the entire anti-black-colonial-capitalist-imperialist entity that is the United States. Black self-determination and reparations are inseparable from each other. We not only want full repayment of the debt owed to us, but we also — as the Black Panther Party argued — want “to able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.” We want freedom free from the anti-Black U.S. colonial empire. I am also reminded here of Malcolm X who, like Coastes, recognized that white supremacy and anti-black racism were fundamental to America. However, Malcolm X never articulated a desire to improve the American psyche. In fact, he argued against the very identification with ‘America’ when he stated: “I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver—no, not I. I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.” Decades later, Malcolm X’s words still ring true. American democracy is predicated upon the violent exclusion of African Americans and thus must be opposed, not redeemed. jamilahmartin.wordpress/2014/05/26/on-reparations-resisting-inclusion-and-co-optation/
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 21:53:31 +0000
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