Take This Exit: Viewing George Floyd and Black Liberation Uprisings from the African Diaspora

History has crash-landed into our everyday lives. Streams of information on past governments, laws, wars, and rebellions are forcing us to grapple with the contradictions of civilisation even before our morning coffee. Typically, we work to minimise the ethical contradictions of public life, so we can approach something that feels normal. But the unprecedented global pandemic has everyone questioning their realities. And just as the world was ready to ease lockdown restrictions and reopen, race rebellions began in the US and have sparked protests across the globe. While this moment belongs to Black lives across the world, initiated by those in the US, it has a chance to disrupt and transform the colonial legacies that haunt the planet and also address pertinent global issues—from climate change to gender violence to labour unrest to Brexit to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the citizenship crisis for Muslims in India. We can now see past the horizon of global apocalypse and, perhaps, begin to build a new world.

Black Americans have both peacefully protested and rioted throughout the 20th century on similar issues of police brutality. Each time the goal was the same—to be recognised as humans who do more than survive; human beings who, if given the opportunity, can thrive in their communities. Yet, American freedom is not infinite as suggested by our constitution. Especially when this freedom means wealth and financial security that comes from the corpses and labour of marginalised communities and with carefully crafted treaties, legislation, and policies that confuse the government’s responsibility to citizens.

The US government’s strength has been to neutralise and deflect its role in the injustices of its citizens by controlling the narrative of racial justice. The government often suggests that the problem of racism stems from the natural evolution of racial difference and, therefore, to fix racism, affected communities must look within themselves and adapt to the laws of the land. However, the reality is that fights for racial justice and equality have forced Black Americans to hold the government accountable and ensure that it is doing its job as outlined in the social contract it created. Perhaps, instead of having to protest for social and racial justice, every generation of Black Americans could have occupied themselves with the work and art of building inspirational communities that could have truly transformed society. Imagine if the US government had taken full social responsibility and institutional accountability for slavery and all iterations of racism after the Civil War, after Reconstruction, after the Great Depression, after World War II, after the Civil Rights Movement, after 9-11, and after Katrina. How would America be different? How would the world be different? Instead, Black Americans continue to protest against police brutality.

“Black Americans have both peacefully protested and rioted throughout the 20th century on similar issues of police brutality. Each time the goal was the same—to be recognised as humans who do more than survive; human beings who, if given the opportunity, can thrive in their communities. ”

Perhaps the reason people are taking the threat of this moment seriously is that we have been watching the mechanics of the American propaganda machine since mid-March. Despite being told that all the resources were being mobilised to address the pandemic and that all citizens should practice care with each other, incidents of anti-Black policing (by citizens and police forces) continued and, in some cases, even increased. As people debated on how to manage the lockdown, anti-lockdown protests that began in Michigan included a significant number of protesters with machine guns during peaks of the pandemic. The contradictions of American society were too obvious to ignore. And then came the murder of George Floyd. This murder was not unprecedented, sadly all too familiar to the Black community. But this time we had an audience. An audience who understood a small fraction of what it meant for the government to fail them. And this is when the government’s propaganda machine went into overdrive.

One of the more poignant moments of government manipulation began during the first weekend of protests when T***p was inspecting (hiding in) the White House’s bunker. When he finally emerged to lead the country, one of his first actions was to visit St. John’s Episcopal Church (across from the White House) and take a picture with a bible. Of course, this picture required him to clear protesters from the area with tear gas. In the early days of the protest, he also made clear that he was willing to use the federal military to “tame” the protests. He then claimed on Twitter that his “admin had done more for the Black Community than any President since Abraham Lincoln . . . and the best [was] yet to come.” So, when it came time to honour his predecessor, troops from the National Guard (a military force designed to protect individual states) were sent to the Lincoln Memorial. While many see it as a memorial to the Great Emancipator—as the President responsible for ending slavery—I have always seen the Lincoln Memorial as an amphitheatre where the tragedy of American racism plays out. Dr Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was delivered at this memorial on August 28, 1963. Dr King was taking the baton from Lincoln to continue the struggle for freedom and to bring an end to the trauma of American racism. But when soldiers in combat gear, not their service uniform, were sent to protect marble instead of citizens, the full power of this government was on display. This government can traumatise our lives while standing still.

The government, embodied by the troops, were placing their knee on Dr King’s neck—on his dream. This image is the post-modern equivalent of Christian churches built over indigenous sites of worship or European monarchies activating their counter-revolutions. While one interpretation could be the protection of our national heritage, we should remember that while Lincoln emancipated slaves he did not necessarily envision them as equal with White Americans. He might have been a hero for my ancestors, but for me, he is another contradiction my generation has been forced to resolve, much like T***p. The contradiction of whether all men are created equal, and just what that equality means. And this is the madness of American racism and anti-Blackness, the utter confusion that comes when you are unclear whether the government is there to protect you or stab you in the back. Whether it will protect us now only to subjugate our descendants. Whether it will give me freedom while taking it from my neighbour. This madness is further compounded when the American public, especially White Americans, are unwilling—or more likely unable—to do the work of interrogating their own lives and understanding what constitutes their privilege. Every post-World War II and post-1995 generation grapples with questions of why and how the Jewish holocaust and Rwandan genocide occurred, especially given all the evidence that something destructive was happening within their communities. But the real problem is never a lack of evidence. The problem is with those who remain silent and silence others; those who are surprised by such events after the fact and scream the loudest for change, yet fail to do play their part to ensure everyone lives in dignity.

“there is only one explanation that resonates—race is an integral part of American capitalism and, for anti-black practices to end, it is imperative to transform this system.”

It is unlikely that Black Americans today will be subjected to a holocaust warranting a T***p-Hitler comparison. Sadly, we do not have a concise term for the Middle Passage, slavery, segregation, racism, intergenerational trauma, financial disenfranchisement, and degraded psyches. Perhaps in the distant future, when humanity has gained clarity, a word will emerge that will fully capture all of these distinct actions and practices. But for now, there is only one explanation that resonates—race is an integral part of American capitalism and, for anti-Black practices to end, it is imperative to transform this system. This is a global system of economic, political, and social organisation that exploits bodies labelled different in two ways: first, by demanding their labour and, second, by constructing images and myths that abuse their bodies, exhaust their psyches, and ultimately deny their humanity in order to ensure their labour. Black Americans, as the angry (former) slave, were simply the first test subjects in this modern experiment of a multi-racial capitalist democracy; test subjects that now include the Arab terrorist, the model Asian, the sorrowful Indigenous American, the desperate Latin migrant, and the oversexed queer. Each construction defines the contours of America by disciplining communities and ensuring their obedience to the American dream while undermining their everyday lives. If history repeats itself, then in a couple of decades or centuries it will be #(insertnamehere)livesmatter that sparks a revolution.

But there is a way out; there is an exit from the cycle of this historical trajectory, and it begins with the African Diaspora. I look to the diaspora for Black America’s future rather than seek redemption in the US. As America’s morality play continues, the Democratic Party came on the stage when senior Congressional leaders took a knee for George Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while wearing kente cloth—Ghana’s iconic traditional cloth that has become a ritual garment for Black Americans graduating from high school and university. This moment of silence was at an event announcing police reform. I suppose it was meant as an act of solidarity, just in time for the Republicans and media to question the party’s track record on funding police programs and its build-up of immigration enforcement. Again more confusion. Again more holding leaders accountable for things they claim they want to do. Since the Democratic Party is expected to win the next presidential election, after this (and countless others in recent memory) I am not confident about America’s future. This event signals that the Black American community is a prize to be won; an object to fetishise; a block of consumers to be satisfied. But we are not docile consumers. We are communities that have created the means to survive. It is the spirit of that creation that we share with the entire diaspora.

Just as we are watching the American propaganda machine in action across digital platforms and traditional media outlets, we are also witnessing protests across the globe—acts that began in solidarity to challenge this global superpower, and now are beginning to challenge anti-Black and other forms of racism in different societies and countries. The diaspora is a space where Black lives can create a sense of self that transcends the borders of the nation-state and its sadomasochistic tendencies. It is a space that is created by the shared experiences of our humanity being denied, and sustained by how we transform that denial into knowledge, new social practices, and objects/cultural artefacts. While we have primarily understood the diaspora as a social and cultural space, this moment can accelerate its political and economic power to shape all Black lives in the world and all lives on the continent. Last year, the African Union announced plans to issue a continent-wide passport, and Ghana further developed its right of return and celebrated the Year of Return. This moment will likely encourage more travel across the diaspora. And as the African diaspora grows, other marginalised communities will also enhance their diasporas, creating a chain reaction that can help protect the lives of all members, regardless of their location.

“there is an exit from the repetition of this historical trajectory, and it begins with the African Diaspora. I look to the diaspora for Black America’s future rather than finding redemption in the US. ”

Finally, colonialism and capitalism are deeply intertwined with the Enlightenment—that era of intense intellectual development when European thinkers challenged the authority of religious doctrines to transform how their communities were organised and to create communities that reflected how they lived. This was also a chance to explore the depths of man’s intellectual capacity and ability to make the world in his image. Even though the nation-state is often presented as a logical consequence of global history, it should be recalled that it is a consequence of European history and this discourse was crafted over centuries. The social, political, and economic reorientation that could come from this moment can spark a similar intellectual revolution that continues the quest for human freedom by looking at the experiences of those who were denied freedom in the European world—a quest for freedom that is grounded in the experience of slavery and transformation.

About the Author

Jennifer is a Black American writer. She has a PhD in Politics from The New School, and her research is based on women’s land rights in rural South Africa. She has lived in New York, South Africa, and Egypt, and currently lives in El Paso, Texas.