Inglewood_B
Active Member
Not saying I agree. When I first saw the title My first thought was “Preposterous!!!”
But after reading, this made me think for a bit...
But after reading, this made me think for a bit...
In real life, in the foreseeable future, are the ideas and tactics promoted by #ADOS leaders going to produce reparations for Black people, or are they going to produce increased white influence over the US government — including an increased ability to deny reparations?
There are three things the ADOS movement does that strengthen white power. 1) It offers false or petty criticisms of other Black people 2) It opposes non-white immigration to the US; and 3) It discourages Black people from voting.
Outside of these three negative elements, the ADOS identity is a useless but harmless preference. It personally benefits its leaders even if reparations are never achieved and the larger Black community’s suffering increases.
To get substantial payments to compensate US descendants of enslaved people for the injustices done on their ancestors, a reparations movement will need the support of at least half of the members of the US Congress. The ADOS movement does not have US Congressional support, nor does it have any realistic or plausible plan to get the congressional support reparations require.
The ADOS movement, under the leadership of Yvette Carnell, Antonio Moore and others, has no potential to ever deliver the support of half of the US Congress. Over 70% of US voters are white and most whites are comfortable with the primary legacy of slavery in the US — the condition that whites generally control more resources than Black people. ADOS leaders do not solve, address or even consider the key obstacle to reparations, which is that whites are a majority of US voters and around 90% of whites oppose paying substantial reparations to Black people.
ADOS justice claims have no value without congressional votes which ADOS leaders have no ability to produce. While the ADOS movement does not have even an outside hope of delivering reparations, it is guaranteed to deliver something else: increased white power that enables whites to deny reparations even longer.
Three pro-white elements of the ADOS movement are: 1) criticisms of Black people who are not descended from US slaves to refute the idea that Black people’s interests are widely aligned; 2) opposition to immigration and support for right-wing white measures to limit non-white immigration; and 3) calls for Black people to boycott voting sometimes expressed as a vague demand for “tangibles”. None of these three elements offers potential to gain sufficient congressional support for reparations. All of these elements entrench the white voting majority that prevents reparations.
Criticisms of other Black people
There is an historically false white-serving narrative presented by the main ADOS leaders and some supporters that Africans were equal partners with whites in the industry of capturing Black people in Africa and transporting them to the Americas. The reality is that usually militarily overmatched Black people were played against each other to cooperate with whites. There have been single families where some members were captured to become ancestors of Black people in the US and others were not captured and are ancestors of Black people in Africa.
As one example, some Mende people captured some Temne people in territory now called Sierra Leone. Some Temne people also sold some Mende captives to whites. Some Temne and Mende people escaped capture while their parents, siblings or children didn’t. Both sides were impoverished by their interactions with whites. Descendants of both tribes exist in Africa and in the United States. In no practical sense were there ever two distinct groups where one sold the other to whites.
The biggest mistake the Mende, Temne and all Black people have made historically until now has been to cooperate with whites. Ironically ADOS leaders refuse to prioritize the Black and human conflict with whites over their differences with other groups of Black people. Yvette Carnell, Antonio Moore and other ADOS leaders likely would have been willing and eager traders of other African groups if they had lived in Africa in 1619.
Other criticisms made by ADOS leaders and supporters of other Black people are far more petty and even silly. Complaints about immigrants getting scholarships, film roles playing Black people from the US or even individuals supposedly looking down on Black people from the US are trivial compared to several centuries of massive transfers of wealth from Black people to whites.
Whites have taken wealth from Black people inside and outside of the US, during and after slavery. Whites are the only group that has established global racial supremacy, the condition that Black people control fewer resources than whites. Contributing to or escalating conflict between different groups of Black people is an accommodation to white supremacy.
Immigration by Non-white People
The proportion of white US voters decreased between 1992 and 2008 from 84% to 74%. The electorate of 1992 would not have selected Barack Obama or any candidate who would not promise whites to punish Black people by being tough on crime. By 2008 a candidate could be elected against the will of most whites who believed and said mass incarceration had gone too far as well as that all people’s healthcare should be paid for by government if necessary.
In 2008, whites voted against Barack Obama by about 55%-45%, Hispanic voters favored Obama by over 65%-35%. Telling Black people to HYON (hold your own nuts) or stop assisting Hispanics or any other non-whites in conflicts with whites is not being neutral, it is actively providing assistance to whites.
Whites have real strategic reasons to oppose non-white immigration. Non-white immigration makes it more difficult for whites put their favored candidates into office. Black people who join whites to oppose non-white immigration are working against the interests of Black people as well as against reparations.
Voting boycotts
The conflict between all Black people and whites is much bigger, older and more important than conflict against the minority of whites who support the least anti-Black of the two viable US political parties. When Black people don’t vote, whites can and do just put the most anti-Black candidate into office.
ADOS leaders ask for “tangibles” without saying what tangibles they want because they don’t have specific practical or realistic demands. If they had proposals they wouldn’t ask for tangibles, they would ask politicians to respond to their specific proposals. Tangibles is a vague and unserious request designed help whites by manipulating Black people into not voting for the viable candidate least harmful to the Black community.
Allowing whites to choose the president in 2016 had real consequences of Black people serving longer sentences, losing healthcare and voting rights. There are Black people in prison today who would be with their families if a small number of Black people didn’t surrender their vote in 2016. ADOS leaders are preparing to build on their success at increasing the amount of Black people in prison by supporting the candidate most popular with whites in 2020. This is a weak and craven betrayal of the Black community.
The impulse to become or remain divided in smaller groups that are easier for whites to dominate is not new or unique to ADOS. Accepting division from other Black people and being willing to stand by or even assist whites in conflict with other Black people is a centuries-long historical mistake Black people have been making that in fact allowed white supremacy to be established in the first place.
The ADOS movement reflects a desire based on love for and fear of whites to redirect the pain of living in a society where whites control more resources into anger at other Black people. It’s a safe but self-destructive outlet for widespread Black anger at the current political situation. ADOS is a dysfunctional response to feelings of powerlessness emerging from living under white supremacy. ADOS is, usually unwittingly, a tool for increasing white power.
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