Something had not been sitting right with my spirit from #KOT and other Africans on the protests in America. Somehow folks have forgotten that less that 60 years ago we were in the same position on the African continent and Civil Rights leaders joined us in war.
It was on the basis that; you are a Black person in the US as much as you are a Black person in Africa. Here our oppression was colonialism. To the world then and now, it was racism. You were considered incapable then as you are now.
The fatigue you see in America today is the fatigue your forefathers felt deeply 60 years ago. What little political, economic and social freedom we have scrapped together today is the result of a global movement against Black oppression.
This global movement is founded on the ideals of PanAfricanism. Decolonisation then inspired the Civil Rights Movement and in turn CRM supported decolonisation. In both places people had their internal problems but they fought against the oppression of Black people. Together.
Why would it be my business to #BlackLivesMatter because as long as you are Black it does not matter where you come from. When a gun is pointed at you by a policeman, he won't bother to ask you if you are Kenyan. You are Black and that's all that matters.
When you get unfair trade deals. It will be because you are not expected to ask for more. Because you are Black and your leaders can't argue against a united rascist heritage that continues to plunder your resources.
When Malcolm X talks about the Black Revolution he talks about all Blacks around the world. And P.S. he references Kenya often:
I feel strongly that solidarity means that no matter what problems we are facing here in our country, we should also be standing with our brothers and sisters in America.
Kwame Nkrumah said that Ghana's independence was meaningless without the independence of Africa. Your freedom as a Black person on the African continent is meaningless without the freedom of Black people in the rest of the world.
Panafricanism got you your freedom because Kenya was surely not going to do it by itself. The Negritude movement brought together philosophies that pushed for decolonisation on the continent as well as inspiring the Civil Rights Movement.
As Africans, we did not do it alone. That's how we ended up with Che Guevara in Angola and Algeria. How we end up with weapons for warfare from Russia and America. And how we had money and military training from the African diaspora (including Black people in America).
As a Black person, to look at what is happening in America today and to choose not to engage is to choose to ignore a history of oppression that knows no boundaries.
What is happening in America today is a physcial manifestation of the undercurrent of our oppressive relationship with the rest of the world; a chunk of which that seeks to exploit the African continent.
Do not be fooled by distance. Do not be fooled by geography. Do not be conned into division that seeks to make you think that you are different from a Black person in the rest of the world.
