When I reflect on Colin Powell's death, I have to think about how American imperialism can use any person to exact it aims. Powell, a principled Black man, was key in propagating the lie that Iraq had WMDs and a threat to the U.S. We have we learned from this?
We should rethink how we as POC are deployed in service of the state. Powell's UN speech was a Black face on American White Supremacy. But it wasn't just Powell's race. He was a real political power in the 1990s.
I'm old enough to remember Bill Clinton fearing a 1996 GOP challenge from Powell. I remember Powell speaking on MTV, which was the cool place to get young folks back in the 1990s and early 2000s, about the need for affirmative action--even when Bush Jr. And Condi Rice disagreed.
Here is a sentiment will agree with:
Colin Powell's decisions on Iraq, as one example, aren't complicated. He was wrong and that cost lots of lives.
The uncomfortable convo I am having with myself is how I feel about his influence on my life as a Black person.
I hold anti-imperialist views and consider myself pretty far left when it comes to my politics. I will write about this soon, but I think it is constructive to discuss how I balance my far left views on the military with Powell's influence on Black youth in the 1990s.
I do think we can talk about how his decisions helped to harm brown bodies abroad, yet brown bodies at home generally revere him. There is some very complex nuance there that I want to unpack.
Anyway, check out my full thoughts in Foreign Policy magazine this week.
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People are dragging Acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey about her comments comparing vaccine mandates to freedom papers. She could have worded it better, but I think she makes a lot of good points people are dismissing. My latest: theroot.com/acting-boston-…
In case y'all are wondering: I am fully vaccinated.
I have not really opened up much about vaccines because this is such a divisive subject--especially on Twitter--but NYC, for example, has rampant profiling issues connected to the pandemic that impact Black people.
As I outline in my piece, NYC, which is the 1st city to mandate vaccine proof for indoor activities, has had issues with enforcing mandates on Black and Brown folks while ignoring white residents. Janey isn't wrong about that the inequities, valid points which her critics ignore.
One thing that many of us are missing about Stephen A. Smith's comments about Shohei Ohtani is that Americans are generally very monolingual and insular people. We don't prioritize 2nd language learning in schools and any effort to push Spanish is met with GOP-lead xenophobia.
Here in Ukraine, most folk can speak Russian and Ukrainian. In Europe, it is common for people to speak English and several others. For America, speaking in a second tongue is seen as a threat.
Black people aren't excluded from such xenophobia because they are Black.
How often do you hear people, regardless of race, in a nail salon or store scream SPEAK ENGLISH to folk talking in another language. Our lack of 2nd language skills makes every non-English communication a threat.
Eric Adams won for many complex reasons, but the notion that his victory is a blow to the "defund the police" movement is intellectually lazy.
I will be writing about this in a week or so, but neither mainstream media nor politicians rarely discuss safety outside of the law enforcement or carceral paradigm.
The system of policing is violent. I wrote nearly SIX YEARS AGO why community policing, for example, makes police brutality worse. Just more cops who aren't accotable to the public. washingtonpost.com/posteverything…
Sending good vibes and solidarity to my Armenian peoples out there as they fight for their self-determination and their success in getting the Armenia Genocide recognized by the U.S.
Armenians don't need their fight for recognition of their suffering met with whataboutisms from anyone--especially privileged white men. Sometimes it's good to shut the fuck up and center indigenous voices in their own liberation struggles, promote THEIR works and be silent.
The Armenian Genocide may be an academic exercise for the think tank world, but real lives were impacted by this. There is no need to All Lives Matter this movement. Anyway, Armenians and Black folks have one common enemy: white supremacy.