The Call
On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States to the obvious joy of millions of African people in the U.S. and around the world, especially in Africa.
Other peoples of the world also welcomed the election of Obama, partially because of relief at the end of the hated Bush regime. Many believed that Obama’s election represented a drastic change for the better in the conditions existence of African people in the U.S. and an end to the United States’ predatory relationship towards most of the world.
However, it has become dramatically clear to many that the formal change of complexion at the head of the U.S. government has done nothing to change the nature of the government and little if anything to change U.S. policies toward African people in the U.S. or in the world.
The continuing brutal U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the expansion of war into Pakistan represent an escalation of the foreign policy objectives of the Bush regime. The placement of U.S. military forces–including the euphemistically- characterized “private contractors”–in Columbia, are a direct threat to the security of the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and to the democratic governments and movements emerging throughout South America.
Obama has carried out his campaign promises to go beyond traditional U.S. support for Israeli white settler colonial aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people. He continues the Bush government’s efforts to undermine the Hamas leadership elected by the Palestinian people.
In addition, under Obama there has been an escalation of the attempt to establish the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), a comprehensive military presence on African soil, to defend the impoverished status quo in Africa against efforts of African liberation and imperialist competitors.
Moreover, Obama has continued the proxy wars in Africa that have already cost millions of African lives in places like Somalia and Congo. He continues to promote U.S. foreign policy objectives that require the permanent subjugation of Africa for ongoing imperialist success.
While Obama has opposed the demand for reparations for African people in the U.S. for the history of slavery, exploitation and terror, he has handed over trillions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to the banking elite. Meanwhile millions of African people have lost their homes after being targeted by these same bankers for subprime mortgages that have resulted in the loss of billions of dollars of African community wealth in the form of the mass home foreclosures.
While more than a quarter million jobs are being lost in the U.S. monthly, African people face 15.9 percent official unemployment. African teenagers with 38.9 percent unemployment are jobless at four times the overall U.S. unemployment rate.
In the U.S., where Barack Obama also told us that racial exploitation and oppression are no longer factors in life, the black-white health gap costs the lives of more than 83,000 African people each year. Additionally, African men in the U.S. are incarcerated at rates 8 times higher than white men and one out of three African males in his 30s has a prison record. One out of eight African men in his 20s is now in prison or jail on any given day.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the conditions of existence for African people, most of whom are workers, in the U.S. Clearly the election of Obama is not a sign that things are better for African people. Nor has Obama initiated any policy or made any statements that recognize the dire conditions of existence for African people in the U.S.
In fact, it has been just the other way around. Obama has gone out of his way to appease the most reactionary sectors of the U.S. population by absolving the U.S. government or the capitalist social system of any responsibility for our oppression and exploitation, both in the U.S and in Africa. Continued