Stop Kony 2012 poster. Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Within a matter of days, the film “Kony 2012”, put out by the NGO Invisible Children (IC), went viral. In the beginning, the film highlights the brutality of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian militia group in Uganda led by a man named Joseph Kony. The LRA is known for committing massive human rights violations, such as using child soldiers, murder, mutilation, abduction, and sexual enslavement of women and children. Most of the film, though, focuses on IC’s efforts to bring Kony to justice and encourages viewers to take part in the campaign. What IC explicitly advocates is U.S. military intervention in Uganda to apprehend Joseph Kony.
I could not help but cringe as I watched this film. For one, it reeked of a disturbing white savior undertone. Ugandans were not portrayed as agents of their own liberation. Rather, they (particularly the young boy Jacob) were portrayed as helpless victims in need of Western do-gooders to save them with charity rather than solidarity and empowerment. As an African-American, I could not help but be offended by this. Many Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Africa, AFRICOM, Barack Obama, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, imperialism, Invisible Children, Kony, Kony 2012, militarism, Obama, Rwanda, Uganda
Another piece of mine that appeared in Turnstyle News.
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In this election, like most election years, the voices of third party candidates are rarely heard. Most of the attention is focused on the two major parties running. However, considering the public’s deep dissatisfaction with the political system and Obama’s continuation of corporatist policies, third party candidates need to be heard. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2012 election, 2012 presidential election, Green Party, Justice Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Peta Lindsay, Rocky Anderson, Roseanne Barr, third parties
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Wall Street is a highly influential financial district but its history is rarely talked about. In order to understand the largesse of Wall Street and the system of global capitalism, it is crucial to know Wall Street’s history. Wall Street was founded on slavery and, to this day, it remains a key pillar in upholding racial inequality and economic oppression.
New York City was a Dutch settlement known as New Amsterdam in the Dutch colonial province called New Netherland during much of the 17th century. Through the Dutch West India Company, the Dutch utilized labor of enslaved Africans who were first brought to the colony around 1627. The African slaves built the wall that gives Wall Street its name, forming the northern boundary of the colony and warded off resisting natives who wanted their land back. In addition, the slaves cleared the forests, built roads and buildings, and turned up the soil for farming. Slavery was not a phenomenon limited to the southern American colonies. Northern colonies, such as Boston and New York, participated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Africa, African-American, African-American history, anti-capitalism, black, capitalism, economic injustice, economic justice, global economic crisis, goldman sachs, Occupy Wall Street, OWS, racial segregation, racism, slavery, trans-Atlantic slave trade, unemployment, Wall Street
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
It has been three months since the Occupy Wall Street movement began on September 17, 2011. For the first few days, the movement was largely ignored by the mainstream media. Now it has gotten to the point where it cannot be ignored. The movement has spread to over one thousand cities across the United States and around the world. Occupy Wall Street does not have a clear set of demands nor is there an easily identifiable leadership. Yet, it is united by the economic suffering shared by millions of people. The movement’s lack of clear demands is the most persistent criticism people (both detractors and supporters) make against Occupy Wall Street. While demands are important, this criticism misses what the movement is really about. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: anti-capitalism, capitalism, corporate greed, economic injustice, economic justice, global economic crisis, Inequality, Occupy Wall Street, oligarchy, OWS, social movement, Wall Street
Photo source: Wikipedia
Lately, former Vice President Dick Cheney has been doing a massive publicity tour for his memoir. The book focuses on his long career in politics, including the infamous decisions he made (i.e., war crimes committed) during his time in the Bush administration. Throughout his media tour, he has been defending his vice presidency and the decisions he made. In an interview on NBC News Dateline, Cheney defended “enhanced interrogation” (a political euphemism for torture), waterboarding (a torture technique), wiretapping, and using secret prisons. However, it is important to remind ourselves of the Bush administration’s sheer criminality and Cheney’s participation in it.
The most egregious crime committed by the Bush administration is aggressive war. The United States, under the Bush administration, waged aggressive war against two countries — Iraq and Afghanistan. International law restricts the use of force in international relations but allows it in only two situations, namely self-defense or authorization from the United Nations Security Council. Otherwise, the act is an illegal war of aggression, which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over. As the Nuremberg Tribunal states, aggressive war is the “supreme international crime”. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: activism, Afghanistan, Dick Cheney, Human Rights, International Law, Iraq, Middle East & North Africa, social change, social movement, Torture, War, war crimes
After months of political theater coming across as partisan bickering over raising the debt
ceiling limit to avoid default, the U.S. Congress passed a debt deal that President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday. The deal passed the House 269 to 161 and the Senate 74 to 26.
For weeks, politicians and the media said that the United States was in a massive debt crisis. The narrative started from Republican politicians and became accepted as dogma by the Democrats, particularly Barack Obama. Republicans claimed that the budget deficit was the most urgent problem to deal with. The cause for this deficit was too much government spending. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2011 debt crisis, 2011 debt deal, austerity, economic injustice, economic justice, economy, global economic crisis, unemployment
My latest article in PolicyMic.com was published this past Monday. You can read it
here or below.
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Depending on which side you are on, May 15th can either be a day for celebration or mourning. For Israelis, it is the joyous day when Israel became an independent nation-state. For Palestinians, it means something completely different: Nakba Day. “Nakba,” in Arabic, means “catastrophe”. Understanding this interpretation, and the present-day suffering, is important to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Palestinian graffiti reads “The separation will fall”. A sign of optimism among Palestinians.
Israel’s independence in 1948 resulted in the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. Although some left by choice, the majority were forcibly expelled. This expulsion was a systematic policy orchestrated by Zionist political and military leaders, called Plan Dalet (or “Plan D”). The policy’s goal was to create a Jewish-only state in territory that belonged to the native Palestinians for thousands of years. Since the Palestinian Arabs were obviously unwilling to give up their land, Israeli militias forced them out. The refugees then fled to neighboring countries, such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and other parts of the world, including the United States and Great Britain. This is the catastrophe that Palestinians mourn on Nakba Day. Read the rest of this entry »
Blues African 