Freedom Rider: Susan Rice and American Evil

In the latest Black Agenda Report we find a great comment that I'd like to share:

Walter Rodney was a Black intellectual and the author of a classic book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1942, he was the victim of a political assassination there in 1980....

But earlier in the book Rodney said something that turned out to be so incorrect that it is difficult to believe:

"Can the American state simply bring its armed forces to bear on the African continent without causing an explosion of the already developing anti-imperialist sentiments of the black people of this country? Can they get away with it by playing up racism and hoping to have the white sector of the population going with them? My feeling is that it is going to be extremely difficult, for it becomes more difficult as time goes on for the U.S. to manipulate. Cambodia and Laos were places that seemed rather far away and, as Lt. Calley said at one time, there weren't people there, only communists, things that you could kill. But now communists are assuming this human form and they are coming closer and closer to home. They have defeated imperialism in one area. When it crops up in Africa, I think the first major stumbling block will be the black population in this country. I don't care whether there are black congressmen, or whether there are black mayors, or whether they're supposed to be conservative or not. I really cannot see any black person in this country with any viability outside of a mental institution who could actually support the United States sending troops to intervene in Africa. And that is going to be a major contradiction. I know they won't come out and say that. And if there is some black mayor or congressman going into South Africa, I believe he would put his life in physical jeopardy from some other brothers around. I don't think it's a simple task at all for the U.S. to just go and jump into Africa."

This point is so dead on. In the past 4 years I have been utterly shocked and amazed by the change in attitudes from a number of persons I thought were on principle opposed to imperialism. No sooner had Obama got into office did these persons fall silent to actions that would have had them writing multivolume works. It was indeed disheartening. I won't even get into the folks who prior to Obama had nothing to say on anything remotely political who suddenly "found their voice" and weren't shy about expounding on the politics of the day as if they have decades of experience and study behind them.

But this fatally wrong belief about what black people will or will not do is something that many of us with an interest in the future of black folk need to keep in mind. Don't put anything off the table when it comes to people under a racist system. It has always been the case that those under oppression will spawn a majority population that will ape their oppressors in order to move up economically, socially and politically. It was the 2 "brothers" that put the bullets into Malcolm's body. No matter their issues with Malcolm they knew full well that he was acting in their general long term interest. But their short term personal wants overrode their sense of justice and decency. It's far easier to do and doesn't require doing anything illegal.

Anyway. Good point by Mark E. Smith