Anti-Americanism among African Americans
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Anti-Americanism has been a recurring theme among several influential African American political organizations and activists due to racism against African Americans domestically,[1] and against other non-white people internationally.[2] African-American anti-Americanism can be contrasted with African-American patriotism, although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive antonyms.
History
[edit]The African-American community is unique compared to Afro-Caribbean or Afro-Brazilian peoples in that "unique natural population growth resulted in a slave population that was already about four-fifths American-born by the late 18th century; after the end of the slave trade in 1808 the number of African-born slaves in the South faded to statistical insignificance."[3]: 587 Revolutionary Anti-Americanism, as manifested by politically active African-American elites, was rare in the 19th and earliest 20th century, in part because African-Americans of the era were educated at institutions that manifested the paternalistic and elite worldviews of the high-caste WASPs who contributed to their establishment.[4]: 26 Some early African-American nationalism was integrated with the idea of the African diaspora and the concept of pan-Africanism, developed by Alexander Crummell, Martin R. Delany, and Henry McNeil Turner, among others.[5]: 186
Political organizations
[edit]Several African-American radical and underground movement organizations professed anti-Americanism.
Black Panther Party
[edit]The Black Panther Party's founder Huey P. Newton criticized American nationalism.[7] Furthermore, the party believed that the destruction of the United States was a prerequisite for a world revolution.[8]
Revolutionary Action Movement
[edit]In 1966, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) published a document titled "World Black Revolution", in which the organisation advocates for the destruction of the United States, along with Europe and the Soviet Union, which they considered equally as imperialistic and white supremacist as the United States.[9]
Black Guerrilla Family
[edit]The Black Guerrilla Family rejected patriotism for the United States[10] and called for the overthrow of the American government.[11]
Literature
[edit]Blood in My Eye
[edit]In Blood in My Eye (1972), George Jackson calls for the destruction of the United States,[12] stating[13]
"We must accept the eventuality of bringing the U.S.A. to its knees; accept the closing off of critical sections of the city with barbed wire, armored pig carriers crisscrossing the streets, soldiers everywhere, tommy guns pointed at stomach level, smoke curling black against the daylight sky, the smell of cordite, house-to-house searches, doors being kicked in, the commonness of death."
Research
[edit]Johnson (2018)
[edit]Studying patriotism towards the United States among African Americans, Micah E. Johnson identified a subset of the African American population which he termed "subverters".[1] Johnson describes subverters as African Americans who reject patriotism for the United States, due to the racial inequality present in the country.[1]
During the study, one subverter expressed[1]
"American patriotism glorifies a world that doesn’t exist. The idea is that all Americans benefit from their rights to liberty, life, and justice for all, but this is a false ideal because everyone isn’t allotted to those rights in America. I’m not patriotic because I don’t feel there is anything to love about this country that globalizes imperialism and capitalism crippling every nation it comes across."
YouGov (2022)
[edit]In a 2022 survey of 1,000 American adults by YouGov, 12% of African American respondents described themselves as "not very patriotic", while 9% of African American respondents described themselves as "not patriotic at all".[14]
See also
[edit]- African-American culture
- African-American history
- Afrophobia – Fear or hatred of African people
- Black genocide in the United States – Characterization of the past and present treatment of African Americans
- Discrimination based on skin color#United States – Form of prejudice or discrimination
- Discrimination in the United States
- Negrophobia – Fear, hatred or extreme aversion to Black people and Black culture
- Racism against African Americans
- Racism in the United States
- Hoteps – Afrocentrist group of African Americans
- Slavery in the United States
- Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States
- Double consciousness – Internal conflict of society's oppressed
- Black Consciousness Movement – South African anti-apartheid movement, 1960s
- Black is beautiful – Cultural movement started in the 1960s by African Americans
- Black Lives Matter – Social movement originating in the US
- Black nationalism – Ideology that seeks to develop a Black national identity
- Black power – Political and social movement, slogan, and ideology
- Black Power movement – African-American social, political & cultural movement in the United States
- Black Panther Party – US political organization (1966–1982)
- Black separatism – Movement for separate institutions
- Black supremacy – Belief in superiority of black people
- Afrocentrism – African ethnocentrism
- Anti-racism – Beliefs, actions, movements, and policies adopted or developed to oppose racism
- Critical race theory – Intellectual movement and framework
- Woke – Political slang term
- African Americans in France
- African diaspora – People descending from indigenous Africans living outside Africa
- Back-to-Africa movement – Political movement in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries
- American Colonization Society – 19th-century group in the United States
- The Black Jacobins – 1938 book by C. L. R. James
- Jihad vs. McWorld – 1995 book by Benjamin Barber
- American exceptionalism – Idea of the United States as unique nation
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Johnson, Micah E. (2018-09-02). "The paradox of black patriotism: double consciousness". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 41 (11): 1971–1989. doi:10.1080/01419870.2017.1332378. ISSN 0141-9870. PMC 8681865. PMID 34924643.
- ^ Mullen, Bill V. (1 February 2018). "Marx, Du Bois, and the Black Underclass: RAM's World Black Revolution". Viewpoint Magazine. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
- ^ Kolchin, Peter (1983). "Reevaluating the Antebellum Slave Community: A Comparative Perspective". The Journal of American History. 70 (3): 579–601. doi:10.2307/1903484. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 1903484.
- ^ Allen, Ernest (2003). "Du Boisian Double Consciousness: The Unsustainable Argument". The Black Scholar. 33 (2): 25–43. doi:10.1080/00064246.2003.11413214. ISSN 0006-4246. JSTOR 41069024. S2CID 146343168.
- ^ Gomez, Michael A. (2004). "Of Du Bois and Diaspora: The Challenge of African American Studies". Journal of Black Studies. 35 (2): 175–194. doi:10.1177/0021934704266716. ISSN 0021-9347. JSTOR 4129300. S2CID 145071588.
- ^ "World Black Revolution". Viewpoint Magazine. 29 December 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2024.
- ^ Malloy, Sean L. (2017). Out of Oakland: Black Panther Party internationalism during the Cold War. The United States in the world (First published ed.). Ithaca London: Cornell University Press. pp. 161, 172–186. ISBN 978-1-5017-1342-2.
- ^ Newton, Huey P.; Erikson, Erik H. (1 October 1973). In Search of Common Ground: Conversations with Erik H. Erikson and Huey P. Newton (New ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
- ^ Stanford, Maxwell C. (May 1986). "Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM): A Case Study of an Urban Revolutionary Movement In Western Capitalist Society" (PDF). Freedom Archives. p. 148. Retrieved 19 January 2024.
- ^ Security, United States Congress House Committee on Internal (1974). Terrorism: Hearings Before the Committee on Internal Security, House of Representatives, Ninety-third Congress, Second Session ... U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 4074.
We are not motivated by patriotism of any form
- ^ Burton-Rose, Daniel (2010). Creating a Movement with Teeth: A Documentary History of the George Jackson Brigade. PM Press. ISBN 9781604864618.
- ^ Malott, Curry; Scott, Randall; Bailey, Elgin (1 February 2022). "George Jackson's "Blood in my eye:" A critical appraisal". Liberation School. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
One of the contributions of Blood in My Eye is its theoretical conceptualization of guerilla warfare depicting its battle ground in the U.S.
- ^ Sawyer, Kevin D. (6 August 2021). "George Jackson, 50 years later". San Francisco Bay View. Retrieved 20 January 2024.
- ^ "YouGov Survey: Americans' Views on Patriotism" (PDF). YouGov. 15–17 June 2022. Retrieved 20 January 2024.