What does it mean to defend our Americas? For the Black Alliance for Peace, defending our Americas begins with a re-drawing of the map of the Americas. No longer can the United States stand at the center of the hemisphere, upholding an eternal whiteness while imposing a suffocating capitalism. Instead, for BAP, Haiti is the center of the Americas. Solidarity with Haiti is key to the defense of the Americas. Haiti endures the original territory of Black emancipation from slavery, of Black independence from colonialism, and Black resistance to racism and global capitalism. Yet Haiti has also become the region’s . . .
Haiti
Witnessing History: 2022 Elections in Colombia
From May 26 to May 31, I was in Cali, Colombia serving as an election observer with an international delegation of mostly Black women. This is a preliminary report. On May 26th, in my capacity as the co-coordinator of the Haiti/Americas Team for the Black Alliance for Peace, I traveled with a delegation to Colombia to serve as an official observer of its presidential elections. The elections were historic: not only was a leftist presidential ticket leading in the polls, but the vice presidential candidate on that ticket was Francia Márquez, a popular and well known Afro-Colombian feminist activist. As . . .
The Empire’s “Front Yard” and the Monroe Doctrine
We used to talk about, when I was a kid in college, about “America’s backyard.” It’s not America’s backyard. Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard. And we’re equal people. We don’t dictate what happens in any other part of that — of this continent or the South American continent. We have to work very hard on it. But the trouble is: we’re having great difficulty making up for the mistakes that were made the last four years, and it’s going to take some time. Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference JANUARY 19, 2022 The claims . . .
Imperialism and the Weaponization of Empathy
Empathy’s endurance among us says that a better and more just way of living is possible despite our current conditions and that the (re)building of that way of living is within our capacity. However, empathy, like almost every aspect of the psyche when we are disorganized and unconscious, can be weaponized and manipulated by that same genocidal global system. We are witnessing this today on a grand scale. . . .
The House Is Burning
As the African bourgeoisie gains more access to comforts and western privileges, the African masses continue to see a decline in their living standards. But Africa is a land that is ripe for revolution even when it can’t be immediately seen. . . .
Women in the Haitian Revolution
The 1791 slave uprising of Saint-Domingue was the largest and most successful slave revolt in modern history. It transformed one of the wealthiest colonies in the world into a new nation led by the black leaders of the Revolution. Because Saint-Domingue was a French colony, the French Revolution was inextricably linked to the Revolution in Saint-Domingue, however, the two Revolutions functioned in largely separate spheres not least because of the ocean that separated them. The struggle for liberation took on a particularly bloody and brutal shape on the island of Saint-Domingue. Along with other French Caribbean colonies (such as Martinique . . .
Haiti and The US “Responsibility to Protect”
While the images of what appears to be thousands of Haitians stuck in the border city may be shocking, this can not be observed separately from Western imperialism and it’s allied nations that are responsible for the trajectory of this crisis. . . .
The African World is on Fire
When the people flood the streets of Lagos, Bamako, Dakar, or Pretoria to denounce Africom, SARS and Israeli trained police forces, it does not make the nightly news. Each day there are literally 10,000 meetings in churches, basements, classrooms, and open fields to discuss our fight to live free and defeat our enemies. We even stopped hearing about Black Lives Matter when the People in the street called for the dismantling of terrorist police forces. . . .