At this
current stage of history in the African (Black) Liberation Movement, it is
important that key concepts be revisited and re-discussed in our continued efforts
to seek clarity on certain ideas that are fundamental to the white supremacy
foundation of America.
First, there is the idea and concept of the “Maafa.” When
we discuss genocide against African People in America, we must also discuss the
Maafa, because it was this Maafa that has historically created the on-going
genocidal conditions inflicted against African People in America.
When we use the term “Maafa” we are talking about an
African term used to describe tremendous suffering, indescribable atrocities,
disaster, calamity, catastrophe, or injustice. This term is used to refer to
the protracted suffering of African people and culture as a consequence of the
Transatlantic Slave Trade System. As the African Maafa researcher Michael Scott
explains— “No African was waiting as a slave to be traded to the Europeans. In
all regions of Africa, from which Africans were transported, the African was
involved in a brutal war declared by the European aggressor, interested in
exploiting the human and natural resources of the richest continent on the earth.”
Further, Brother Scott reveals, “These Africans who
became prisoners of war were placed in detention camps and then transported to
the Americas to be enslaved by the benefactors of their captors. No African
began his or her ordeal as a slave. Africans were reduced to slavery by
conquest.”
It is important for African People to understand and
internalize these brief historical facts. Just as the Jews, or any other group
of people in the world, internalize their holocaust, and act on it, African
People must come to the collective reality of our Maafa and act on it also.
Finally, Brother Scott instructs us that, “Our
foreparents were innocent victims of these heinous system of forced labor. They
were never able to comprehend being seized in early morning attacks on their
villages by vicious raiding parties. They were never able to understand why
they were being sold by the avaricious middle men. They could never fathom why
they were being marched in fetters and chains to the coast where they were
bartered for European merchandise especially rum and guns. They could never
appreciate 'why they were being warehoused in hell-like dungeons in Elmina or
Goree.”
So now that we have some insight into the idea and
concept of the Maafa, it should make it easier to understand the idea and
concept of genocide. In Olumenji’s book, White Genocide, Black Obsolescence,
The Question of Black Survival In White America, he
defines genocide very succinctly. He says genocide is the “deliberate and
systematic destruction of Black people by white American socio-economic and
cultural forces.”
According to Brother Olumenji, America has created an
ideology that justifies the annihilation of African people in this country.
This is the function of genocide by those who inflict it on a mass of people.
That is, they create a rationale for the annihilation and then try to explain
that it does not exist.
This was the case in the CIA involvement in cocaine
distribution in Los Angeles in which the profits were used to finance the CIA
backed Contra army in Nicaragua. This involvement of the CIA caused a
proliferation of the distribution and sale of crack cocaine across the African
Communities of America, causing serious devastation to our communities. The
United States Government tried to downplay the CIA's involvement in this
incident by saying that this is an isolated situation and in fact this is not
true.
As a result of the Maafa and the genocide against African
People in America, we must step up the demand for Reparations as the National
Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, N'COBRA, is advocating as are
many other African organizations throughout the world.
Reparations simply means repair for injuries, harm and
damages. As it has been pointed out, over and over again, we were made chattel
and worked for more than three-hundred years without pay or other compensation
for the value of our labor. The white man and white woman stole and criminally
appropriated the services and the value of three-hundred years of labor and
then passed it on through inheritance to their children. This process helped
create the United States of America and this is fundamental to our demands for
Reparations.
We must continue to discuss these ideas in our efforts to
dismantle our mental shackles. Every race and every ethnic group in the world
protect their interests and African People should and must do no less.
Conrad Worrill
National Chairman
National Black United Front (NBUF)
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