EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of two articles published this past week (June 17 and 18) by Justice Initiative, a human-rights advocacy organization founded by Heather Gray.  We occasionally share commentaries and articles from Ms. Gray as she consistently comments on issues of the day.  With the current wave of protests in Cuba and the right-wing commentaries being offered by the mainstream press, we wish to share the following seven video clips from Ms. Gray’s June 2014 visit to Cuba, to provide some of the human side of Cuban life, as well as the Afrikan influence on much of Cuba’s culture.

by Heather Gray
Justice Initiative
July 17, 2021

In 2014 I was fortunate to visit Cuba, thanks to the leadership of Prexy Nesbitt in Chicago. While there, under the guidance of “Making the Road,” we focused on the African culture in Cuba which, of course, is profound.  Given the recent attention on Cuba, I decided to yet again send out my videos of the trip. They are below. Enjoy!!!

(1) Visiting Cuba in June 2014 – Part I

(2)  “Learning from Sara Daisy” – Part II 

(3)  “Art & Religion” Part III

(4) Cuban Ambassadors on Cuba’s Assistance to African Liberation – Part IV

(5)  Sara dancing – Part V

(6) Havana Farmer’s Market – June 2014 – Part VI

(7) Making the Road – African Dancing in Cuba – Part VII

BY BRANKO MARCETIC
Jacobin
July 17, 2021

Richard Nixon, then Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president, met with Cuba’s Fidel Castro on April 19, 1959, in Washington, DC.

For sixty years, the United States has aimed to strangle Cuba’s economy and inflict misery on the Cuban people. Blockades are methods of war – and it’s time for the war on Cuba to end.

“They always blame the United States,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said on the Senate floor this week. “The embargo, the first thing they blame, it’s the embargo. ‘The embargo is causing all this.'”

Not long after the UN General Assembly voted for the twenty-ninth straight year to condemn the six-decade-long US embargo on Cuba – a 184-2 vote that pitted only the US and Israeli governments against the rest of the entire world – the country has erupted in massive protests over widespread food and medicine shortages. A chorus of voices, ranging from Bernie Sanders and other congressional progressives to former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have blamed the conditions on the long-standing US policy, and called for it to be finally lifted.

Regime-change advocates like Rubio have pushed back against this. For them, the embargo is irrelevant to what’s now happening in the country, which they claim instead is a product of “six decades of suffering under totalitarian socialism and communism.” Predictably, their preferred response to the current protests doesn’t involve ending the policy.

But the reality is that the US “embargo” – or blockade, more accurately – was designed to exacerbate scarcity and encourage social unrest in Cuba. For decades, the blockade has strangled the country’s economy and deprived Cubans of access to essentials like medical supplies, its success at creating misery only intensifying with the fall of the Soviet Union, the coronavirus pandemic, and four years of “maximum pressure” under President Trump.

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The US blockade was designed to exacerbate scarcity and encourage social unrest in Cuba.
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As eighty House Democrats told Joe Biden at the start of this year, “with the stroke of a pen,” he could undo Trump’s actions and “assist struggling Cuban families and promote a more constructive approach by promptly returning to the Obama-Biden administration policy of engagement and normalization of relations.” But this obvious course of action is the very least Washington should do. The US blockade has been a generations-long undeclared economic war on Cuba, one that has consistently failed even on its own terms while inflicting enormous pain on ordinary Cubans.

The Undeclared War

The US blockade on Cuba has been a key part of Washington’s long-standing war on the country, launched shortly after Fidel Castro led a revolution overthrowing the country’s US-backed military dictatorship in 1959.

Things didn’t start out entirely hostile. The Eisenhower administration publicly took a cagey wait-and-see attitude toward the new government. Meeting with Castro for three and a half hours, then-vice president Richard Nixon advised him, according to a post-meeting memo, “that it was the responsibility of a leader not always to follow public opinion but to help to direct it in proper channels, not to give the people what they think they want at a time of emotional stress but to make them want what they ought to have.” With a tinge of regret, Nixon recounted that Castro’s “primary concern was with developing programs for economic progress.”

By September that year, as Castro restricted private ownership of agricultural land and prepared to nationalize foreign-owned industry, the US ambassador to the country expressed “our serious concern at the treatment being given American private interests in Cuba.” The next month, president Dwight Eisenhower approved a program backing anti-Castro elements – including Cuban exiles launching raids on the country and, later, US-supplied sabotage and bombing campaigns – in the hopes that it would topple Castro and make him appear to have caused his own undoing.

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The US blockade has been a generations-long undeclared economic war on Cuba, one that has consistently failed even on its own terms while inflicting enormous pain on ordinary Cubans.
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By December, a CIA division head would advise that “thorough consideration be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro.”

The Cold War gave this US mission extra urgency. Eisenhower warned the Soviets in 1960 that his administration wouldn’t tolerate “the establishment of a regime dominated by international communism in the Western hemisphere,” in line with long-standing Washington doctrine that the US government would intervene in countries in the hemisphere if they ran counter to US interests.

Hoping to stop the spread of “Castroism” and end it in Cuba, Washington pressured other Latin American countries to cut off diplomatic ties, travel, and arms shipments to the country, threatening to suspend military aid and other penalties to those who didn’t comply, eventually twisting enough arms to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States. After successfully pressuring European and Canadian banks to cancel and refuse loans to the Cuban government, what was termed a US “quarantine” of the country began in October 1960, barring all exports to Cuba, aside from food and medical supplies, and over the next few years adding all trade, imports, and even goods from third-party countries containing Cuban materials. By 1963, under John F. Kennedy, the blockade as we know it today was fully in place.

This was no small thing. A blockade – distinct from an embargo, by including imports and trying to coerce third-party countries – is a method of war that, under international law, is meant to only take place during armed conflict. It’s not for nothing that legal scholars have argued that the blockade of Cuba is a serious violation of international law, not least for the fact that it’s aimed explicitly at forcing a change in government. Even the US government’s own legal advisors determined in 1962 that it “could be regarded by Cuba and other Soviet bloc nations as an act of war.”

Just as Nixon would respond to the 1973 election of a socialist government in Chile by ordering the CIA to “make the economy scream,” US policymakers openly hoped impoverishing and starving the Cuban people would lead them to overthrow Castro. “Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba,” one State Department official wrote in 1960, in order “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” Eisenhower said it more plainly: “If they (the Cuban people) are hungry, they will throw Castro out.”

Tightening the Screws

As Cuba’s largest and closest trading partner, the United States produced an immediate impact on its economy when it ended trade. The share of Cuban exports going stateside plummeted from the more than 60 percent it stood at through the 1950s to less than 5 percent by 1961, while the roughly 70 percent of imports that entered the country from the United States by the end of the 1950s cratered at less than 4 percent. By 2018, a UN agency estimated the embargo had cost Cuba more than $130 billion over six decades, significant for a country whose average annual GDP is a mere fraction of that sum.

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Eisenhower said it more plainly: ‘If they (the Cuban people) are hungry, they will throw Castro out.’
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It was the Soviet bloc that kept Cuba’s economy afloat for decades, both through billions of annual subsidies and by filling the trade vacuum left by the United States, becoming responsible for 79 to 90 percent of Cuba’s overseas trade. From fuel, machinery, and parts, to fertilizers, pesticides, and even the fats used to make soaps, the resources that allowed life and the economy in Cuba to function normally flowed because of Cuba’s integration into a broader Communist camp.

The Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991 was the biggest of several shocks that hit the Cuban economy that decade, leaving it more vulnerable than ever to the US blockade. GDP nose-dived by 35 percent, while agricultural output and manufacturing capacity collapsed by 47 and 90 percent, respectively. Construction and passenger transportation plunged by more than 70 percent each, while food queues, hours of no running water, and blackouts became a regular part of life. With soap suddenly needing rationing, Cubans had to make do with four measly bars a year.

Smelling blood, US lawmakers moved in for the kill. When Cuban trade with US corporate subsidiaries sharply rose in the wake of the Soviet crack-up, US congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act the following year to bar the practice, over the objections of the European Community and other allies, leading to the cancellation of dozens of trade deals with the country. On top of this, the law banned the sale of food for the first time (later repealed, sort of) and created a licensing regime for medicine and medical equipment so onerous that it functionally served to end medical commerce with the country. US lawmakers, it seemed, had no problem with heavy-handed government interference in the private sector, so long as it was at the service of overthrowing a government they didn’t like.

The EU similarly objected to the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which took authority for the blockade away from the president and gave it to Congress, all but cementing it into place. Besides making revolution a prerequisite for lifting it, it further discouraged foreign investment into Cuba by, for instance, denying US visas to representatives of firms doing business with confiscated US property. This, even though a year later US military and intelligence agencies determined that “Cuba does not pose a significant security threat to the United States or other countries in the region,” and the Pentagon concluded the same thing a year after that.

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The American Association for World Health concluded in 1997 that the blockade had ‘dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens’ and ’caused a significant rise in suffering – and even deaths – in Cuba.’
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The results, as you might imagine, were brutal. After a yearlong investigation, the American Association for World Health concluded in 1997 that the blockade had “dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens” and “caused a significant rise in suffering – and even deaths – in Cuba” through “critical shortages of even the most basic medicines and medical hardware.”

The report painted a chaotic picture: increased disease as a result of more untreated water and less soap; ambulances, other emergency services, and health care facilities unable to function properly thanks to power outages and a lack of resources like fuel; high rates of anemia, iron deficiency, and undernourishment, the latter of which affected 22 percent of the population at one point; and hundreds of medicines out of reach or only sometimes available, made all the worse by pharmaceutical megamergers. Little surprise that 1994 saw similar civil unrest in Cuba as we’re seeing now.

These conditions were celebrated by the right-wing Heritage Foundation that year. Describing with relish reports of mothers turning to sex work, families subsisting on one meal a day, and the return of diseases like malaria, it urged the US government to keep the blockade in place until Castro’s government collapsed and to deny him a “much-needed safety valve” by turning away Cuban refugees. It casually noted the policy would likely lead to more repression for the Cuban people and possibly end in “bloodshed, armed conflict, and chaos,” before concluding, with no trace of irony, that “the United States must not abandon the Cuban people by relaxing or lifting the trade embargo.”

So, when Marco Rubio says today that “food, medicine and gas shortages are sadly nothing new in Cuba,” he’s right: modern history’s longest blockade has ensured these problems have been going on for a long time.

Economic Sabotage

That Cuba weathered all this is a testament to the benefits of what’s possible with a government that takes an active role during crises and seeks to guarantee economic security. With belt-tightening inevitable, the government launched a program of “humanistic austerity,” with major cuts to the state sector but increased health care and social spending, and food, clothing, and other goods rationed to prioritize vulnerable groups like pregnant women and the elderly.

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The Heritage Foundation noted US policy would likely lead to more repression for the Cuban people and possibly end in ‘bloodshed, armed conflict, and chaos.’
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Yet such temporary measures have their limits, as we’re seeing now. While Cuba’s economy is certainly plagued by serious issues separate from US policy, the ills being felt most acutely are overwhelmingly driven by two factors: the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy and the pandemic.

Over his four years in office, Trump signed more than two hundred directives aimed at making Cuba’s economy scream. He sharply restricted remittances (to one family member at a maximum of $1,000 per quarter) before effectively banning them outright. He also barred US travelers from carrying out any transactions with entities tied to the military and intelligence and security services, in practice an attack on both Cuba’s ability to draw foreign investment and its crucial tourism industry, given the heavy involvement of the military’s business conglomerate in, by one estimate, 60 percent of the economy. And he put sanctions on shipping companies and vessels transporting oil to Cuba from Venezuela, on top of an existing embargo on the country, which subsidized and supplied a third of Cuba’s oil consumption in 2019.

The impact was swift and clear. The targeting of Venezuela’s oil exports has led to more rationing of energy, shortages of personal hygiene products the government can’t afford while it buys fuel on the open market, and oxen replacing tractors on farms. Trump’s attacks on remittances led to the eventual closure of Western Union on the island, imperiling hundreds of thousands of Cuban families. And after an Obama-era uptick in tourism, Trump’s various restrictions on travel, including a 2019 cruise ban, saw tourist numbers drop for the first time in a decade, by 9.3 percent over 2018 to 2019, and nearly 20 percent over the year after that, with US visitors declining close to 70 percent.

On top of all this, the decline in both remittances and tourism deprived the country of key sources of hard currency. That’s caused the government’s further struggle in paying overseas creditors, hobbled its ability to import the 60 to 70 percent of its food supply it gets from overseas, and motivated its creation of the high-priced dollar stores that have been a core source of anger driving the current protests.

While it may be true the US blockade technically no longer applies to food nor prevents trade with other countries, Washington’s overlapping web of sanctions – by doing everything from depriving Cuba of oil and foreign-exchange currency to crippling its economy more generally and forcing tough trade-offs in overseas purchases – has effectively closed the door on both.

The Cuban state’s generous and long-term investment in health care and education means it was able to develop its own COVID vaccine – only to then face a shortage of syringes.

All of this would’ve been hard enough to navigate at the best of times. But in 2020, Cuba, like the rest of the world, saw its economy further devastated by the coronavirus pandemic that exacerbated every one of these problems: it brought tourism to a standstill, further strangled the entry of hard currency, worsened food shortages, and caused job losses that made Cubans ever more dependent on the foreign remittances Washington was determined to choke out. Over the year, the country saw its economy shrink 11 percent.

As the pandemic magnifies the devastation of the US blockade, the blockade has in turn made it harder for Cuba to handle the pandemic. In July 2020, a UN special rapporteur concluded the blockade was “obstructing humanitarian responses to help the country’s health-care system fight the COVID-19 pandemic.” Among other things, the blockade stopped medical aid and money transfers from overseas companies and humanitarian organizations, denied Cubans the ability to use Zoom, precluded the country’s purchase of ventilators, and caused a shortage of these and personal protective equipment (PPE), while blocking a donation of pandemic aid from China’s richest man.

Oxfam reports the blockade has had a “drastic effect on Cuba’s vaccine industry,” making it difficult to obtain the necessary raw materials. Even so, the state’s generous and long-term investment in health care and education means it was able to develop its own COVID vaccine – only to then face a shortage of syringes, the blockade making it difficult to buy them from manufacturers.

It’s the blockade, too, that has driven the pandemic’s resurgence on the island, a big driver of the current protests. The economic squeeze pushed a desperate Cuba to reopen the country to tourism in November, which, combined with shortages of PPE and a shortfall of 20 million syringes, led to a jump in cases. Still, it’s rich for the Rubios of the world to charge that “the regime’s disastrous COVID response is the predictable result of a corrupt government” as they beat the drums of regime change, when, even with Washington’s determined effort to sabotage Cuba’s pandemic recovery, its response – with 1,608 deaths as of July 12 – doesn’t even come close to the mass death of US citizens engineered by Rubio and his ilk during the pandemic.

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Over his four years in office, Trump signed more than two hundred directives aimed at making Cuba’s economy scream.
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Of course, none of this matters to Washington politicians who don’t think twice about casually starving and killing foreign people, whether by bombs or economic sanctions. But the irony is that the blockade has had a devastating effect on Cuba’s private sector, which is heavily dependent on tourism and on traveling to the US to buy materials. Nor is it particularly good for American industry either, with the blockade estimated to cost US businesses and farmers nearly $6 billion a year in export revenue.

Nor is it popular. For years, polling has shown a majority of Americans, even a fluctuating majority of Cuban Americans in South Florida, support ending the blockade, likely realizing that it’s both inhumane and, after nearly sixty years, ineffective.

Unfortunately, true to his Trump-lite approach to foreign policy, Biden has broken his campaign promises and is steadfastly continuing Trump’s Cuba policy, departing from the successful approach of the very Democratic administration he served in. Even as he “calls on the Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs,” Biden refuses to lift the Trump restrictions on remittances that more of those Cubans now depend on than ever.

Washington’s Handiwork

The unrest last week in Cuba cannot be fully understood outside the context of the blockade. None of this absolves the Cuban government over its repression of dissidents, or for the mistakes made in the course of the country’s economic management. But to put the stress on its “Soviet-style, centrally planned economy” and insufficient zeal in market reforms as the cause of the country’s economic woes, and not the more than half century of economic warfare waged by the world’s biggest power, is misleading to say the least.

Short of sadism and imperial hubris, there’s no good reason for the blockade to continue against a country that poses no threat to the United States, and which creates overwhelming misery for the ordinary people figures like Donald Trump and Joe Biden claim to stand with. And while removing it in full will be a heavy lift, requiring getting Congress on board, the president on his own could at least roll back the Trump policies he himself once acknowledged were an abominable failure.

Not doing anything will only drive home how hollow establishment lip service to human rights is.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Branko Marcetic is a Jacobin staff writer. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Let’s start off with a declaration: While I do admire the exposure that Black Lives Matter (BLM) has put on the issue of police brutality across the United States, and while I do not feel BLM deserves much of the skepticism and discredit that many on the right and even the Revolutionary Left have heaped upon it, I also do not consider myself a hardcore “BLM supporter”.

I have my critiques of the organization and, occasionally, of its founders. I do not always agree with their strategy. My perspective is more Pan-Afrikan and, as such, calls for less of a “hands up don’t shoot” petitioner’s approach to the pursuit of social justice. I believe that a person’s sexual orientation is that person’s own business, and as such I do not keep a scorecard as to whether some or all of BLM’s core founders — Alicia Garza, April Tometti and Patrisse Cullors — consider themselves lesbians, queer, LGBTQ, or not. I do believe that a Black organization should consider itself Black first, and sexual orientation and gender identification should be separate from that Black organization’s list of central issues, particularly so that conflicts between the Black Agenda and the so-called “Gay Agenda” do not occur. I have my concerns about the recent financial allegations against Ms. Cullors and the degree to which they might indicate a betrayal of the grassroots revolutionary leftist principles that drew so many people to BLM’s aggressive in-your-face style of protest.

But I do believe the organization is involved in important work for social justice. I do believe that many of the discussions that are taking place today would not have occurred had it not been for BLM. I do believe that BLM has an important place in the overall Movement For Black Lives, as long as they can remain consistent with the core beliefs that brought them into existence. And I will not embrace some of the smear attacks against them that have been launched by right-wing ideologues, Web sites and media outlets just so I can flex my Revolutionary muscles, thumb my nose at Black elites or buck up my Straight Black Male Cred. There. I’ve made my declaration. Now on to the point of this article.

This is the full statement that was recently removed from BLM’s “What We Believe” page on their Website (https://blacklivesmatter.com/), according to a Fox News article (https://www.foxnews.com/media/black-lives-matter-disrupt-nuclear-family-website):

“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

How did Fox News get away with distorting that statement (which they had included, in full, in their article) into a call to “disrupt” the “nuclear family structure” in its headlines? Did they know that most readers will stop at the headline and not read the full statement, or at least not think and comprehend what the statement actually says? Apparently they were counting on it, so as to build cynicism among the community based on a right-wing talking point.

This comes at the same time that Rashad Turner, the reported founder of BLM-St. Paul, published a video (“The Truth Revealed About BLM”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncYj2xfV6A) that claims he learned an “ugly truth” about BLM’s commitment to Black education and the Black family, in which he repeated the misleading quote “We disrupt the nuclear family structure” and he also made this statement:

“I believed the organization stood for exactly what the name implies – Black lives do matter. However, after a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding Black families … And they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis. That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers’ union. … I was an insider in Black Lives Matter and I learned the ugly truth – the moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the Black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for Black children.”

Fox News was quick to jump on this opportunity in a June 1 article by Sam Dorman, Former BLM leader sounds off on group’s ‘ugly truth’ (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/former-blm-leader-sounds-off-on-group-s-ugly-truth/ar-AAKBbRK?ocid=msedgntp):

Turner’s video, published to YouTube last week, highlighted how the group’s website stated that it wanted to “disrupt the nuclear family structure.” …

“And they cared even less,” Turner added, “about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis. That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers’ union.”

“I was an insider in Black Lives Matter and I learned the ugly truth – the moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the Black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for Black children.”

Apparently, the video was published by “a Black-people-led organization TakeCharge, whose ideals reject critical race theory and woke culture, writes The Daily Wire.” (https://meaww.com/rashad-turner-blm-founder-quit-movement-insider-learned-ugly-truth-wanted-to-be-cop-take-charge)

The organization TakeCharge Minnesota (https://takechargemn.com/) states this on their main page:

TakeCharge is a new organization committed to countering the prevailing narrative in popular culture that America is structured to undermine the lives of black Americans. Kendall Qualls will lead TakeCharge with the objective to inspire and educate the black community and other minority groups in the Twin Cities to take charge of their own lives, the lives of the families and communities as citizens fully granted to them in the Constitution.

We acknowledge that racist people exist in the country, but explicitly reject the notion that the United States of America is a racist country. This is a subtle, but significant difference!

We also denounce the idea that the country is guilty of systemic racism, white privilege and abhor the concept of identity politics and the promotion of victimhood in minority communities.

Mr. Qualls has been a rather frequent guest on Fox News to discuss his criticism of BLM, Critical Race Theory and other initiatives that he believes wrongly depict the United States as a racist country. Mr. Turner, meanwhile, appears to have moved rather suddenly from a leader of BLM-style street protest against the system to an embrace of the more “conservative” (I actually consider that word a misnomer, but more on that in another commentary) approach of Black organizations like TakeCharge, seeking to establish their bona fides as good, patriotic Americans. His video, however, which is billed as some sort of “expose” of the corruption of BLM, smacks more of opportunism than simple political or philosophical difference.

If Mr. Turner no longer believes in BLM’s tactics and wants to follow a more “conservative” strategy centered on the nuclear family and charter schools, fine. If he wants to align himself with TakeCharge and the Minnesota Parent Union to accomplish goals that are more in line with his personal political beliefs, fine. If he wants more of a “family values” approach that rejects Critical Race Theory and “woke” politics, fine. But what was the point of publishing the video on the way out the BLM door if not to discredit the organization and curry favor with more “conservative” interests?

BLM, as well as a number of other progressive-minded activist organizations (including some that are BLM critics), oppose charter schools because they have been the harbingers of efforts to defund the public schools upon which so many poor students depend, and they push for increasing the funding for public schools and better pay for teachers instead. But “conservatives”, motivated by notions of competition among schools and a commitment to free-market Capitalist principles, have expended much political capital (pun intended) in branding progressive groups as Socialist and un-American. This goes for the opposition to charter schools as well as the teaching of Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project (“They’re teaching children to hate America”).

Mr. Turner’s apparent uncritical support for charter schools, despite the issues many Afrikan-centered educators have faced in dealing with the boards that control the charter schools’ funding, and the questions concerning what effect the proliferation of charter schools was having on the educational prospects of those students who could not meet the requirements for admission into those charter schools, makes one wonder about the degree to which he may have been influenced by right-wing interests such as those who still dominate media outlets like Fox News. His willingness to readily interpret “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement” as a plot to “disrupt the nuclear family structure” seems to indicate his tendency to accept that, as well as other, right-wing talking points.

It would appear that his onetime support for BLM, an organization birthed in the aftermath of multiple police killings of Black men, women and children, has now waned as he has found his own Western-influenced beliefs to be in conflict with several of BLM’s core beliefs (which he may have ignored earlier). This seems much more accurate than some sensationalized statement about the “ugly truth” about BLM, which again smacks of a right-wing propaganda hit job best suited for “shock jock” radio or QAnon message boards.

Mr. Turner, if you have always supported charter schools and the Western-imposed “requirement” of a nuclear family, then just say so. If you are a so-called “Black conservative” who only backed BLM because of its opposition to police brutality and have now soured on its other political beliefs, just say so. If you have issues with the sexual orientation of BLM’s leadership, just say so. If you consider co-founder Patrisse Cullors’ financial involvements, which apparently included the purchase of several homes, to be a betrayal of what you thought was a more revolutionary organizational ethos (or simple grassroots ethics), just say so. But your objection to their stance on charter schools and the image of the nuclear family, as though this was some sort of surprise, and this “ugly truth” sensationalism that seems to inform your comments, does not speak well of your commitment to leftist or grassroots activism.

As I stated above, this does not mean that I agree with everything in BLM’s platform or political orientation, or that I reject the work that Mr. Turner and groups like TakeCharge and the Minnesota Parent Union are doing for Black children. But I don’t have to. That’s not the point of organizing and building Black unity. If every activist, every organization or every person agreed on political strategy, there would be only one organization instead of the many thousands that exist today. My issue is less with Mr. Turner’s personal critique of BLM than it is with the way he has expressed it — the “ugly truth” video that really only served as a mask for his expression of “conservative” values that has gotten him some personal exposure and won him favor with right-wing media outlets. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we do need to stop trashing each other in public for our enemies’ entertainment.

As I have stated numerous times, if Black people are to rise up against the repression we continue to face in the United States and around the world, we will have to unify around a key set of core issues that we all hold in common. We will have to ditch our ideological rigidity, kick our personal beefs to the curb, swallow our egos, put our need to personally set every agenda to the side and sit down together to build a more effective resistance and establish a more just society for all of us. There is no room in such work for those of us who will run to the mass media of our oppressor to seek headlines through sensationalist accusations against each other. These are the types of behaviors that destabilize organizations, destroy coalitions and crush movements, often before they have begun to stand up on their own two feet, before they are even able to breathe.

These are critical times for Black people. Right-wing politicians in over 40 states are pushing hard to restrict our ability to vote. Racist attacks are increasing. Objections are being raised across the country to the teaching of America’s racist history, even as atrocities like the Tulsa Massacre and the Red Summer of 1919 are being exposed to many Americans for the first time after a century. White people are increasingly drawing battle lines among themselves over their willingness to support autocrats and marginalize “disadvantaged” communities. The post-COVID economy threatens to make all of that worse. And, as has been stated an untold number of times, “when America has a cold, Black America has pneumonia.” If we as People of Afrikan Descent are to prevent yet another Tulsa Massacre, or even worse, another Red Summer of 1919, we must do better among ourselves.

One year after the death of George Floyd under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, author and academic Caroline Randall Williams read the statement of Darnella Frazier, the young woman whose videotape of Chauvin killing Floyd led to the officer’s conviction on all three counts against him.  Ms. Williams read the statement at the behest of MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell since Ms. Frazier, who recently turned 18, does not grant interviews or make public statements after the trauma of witnessing Floyd’s death and then testifying about it in Chauvin’s trial.  One year later, and the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act of 2020 (HR 7120) is still being debated in the Senate as right-wing politicians seek to water it down or block it completely.

The historic irony is that this also comes as we approach the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which the thriving Black community of Greenwood, Oklahoma, also known as “Black Wall Street”, was burned to the ground in a violent White race riot on May 31 and June 1, 1921 that killed up to 300 Black people, sparked by a trumped-up story that a young Black teenager had bumped into a young White girl on an elevator and was accused of assault.  Close to 10,000 Black citizens were left homeless and thousands were taken into custody and detained.  (Tulsa race massacre – Wikipedia; Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre | HISTORY Channel)  That this was not an isolated incident is shown by the Wilmington, North Carolina Massacre of November 1898 (Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 – America’s Black Holocaust Museum (abhmuseum.org); America’s Only Successful Coup d’Etat Overthrew a Biracial Government in 1898 – HISTORY) and the Rosewood Massacre of 1923 (Rosewood massacre – Wikipedia; Rosewood Massacre – Overview, Facts & Legacy – HISTORY).  The message has long been sent that to step out of line meant death for Black people.  We do not see the large-scale race massacres today, but the death toll continues under color of law, one body at a time.

In all of this, we continue to hear the protestations of many of the country’s White citizens and a few of their Black friends that the United States has come a long way, that much progress has been made, that this is decidedly not a racist country, that those who insist it is are unpatriotic, communist, or terrorist sympathizers, and that Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project are divisive, historically incorrect, and must not be taught in the schools, because, as they have reminded us time and again, this is not a racist country.  Never mind all the evidence to the contrary.  Never mind that the United States was founded on the extermination of the Indigenous population and built on the backbreaking unpaid labor of kidnapped and enslaved Afrikans.  Never mind the vicious, genocidal race riots from Wilmington to Rosewood to Greenwood that were never prosecuted, the victims never made whole and the history buried and denied to this day.  Never mind the internment camps for Asian Americans after the conflict with Japan in World War II.  Never mind the country’s history of ethnic, racial and political repression, from the Red Scare to COINTELPRO, that disproportionately targeted Black and Red communities.  Never mind the repressive policies from several US presidents that increased the misery in the poor neighborhoods where many people of Afrikan Descent live, and the draconian law enforcement and judicial practices that severely punished transgressions by those who live there.  Never mind the statistics on mass incarceration, political imprisonment and extrajudicial murders by police that continue even as you read this. 

If 99.9 percent are good cops, how do we keep getting that one-tenth of one percent, time and time again?

The following was our answer to one well-meaning person who, we believe, did not understand why George Floyd has become such a symbol, not because he was a hero but because, as a victim, he has symbolized, once again, the fine line that so many of our Brothers and Sisters must walk when they are forced to live in the margins of existence and are met by the keepers of “law and order”.  To be sure, the person we are answering suffered tragedy of their own, and we feel sympathy for their suffering.  But the Black Experience in America is one that apparently too many still cannot fathom, hence the old 1990’s saying, “It’s a Black Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand”.  So many of this country’s White citizens (and some Black ones) have bought the right-wing’s rhetoric about how discussing and resisting police brutality in particular and racism in general is divisive, that we shouldn’t even see color, that the Movement for Black Lives and other anti-police brutality movements (whatever you think of their effectiveness) amount to “reverse racism”, and that the calls to “defund the police” are simply taking things too far.  Thus, it was necessary to offer our analysis, from our particular point of view, of What It Is Like To Be Black In America.

As for police brutality in general, there are certainly many honorable police officers (I’ve met some and read about others), but where are they when these atrocities occur?  Don’t they realize that the “rotten (bad) apples” at least will spoil the bunch and at most are indicative of a rotting tree?  In Floyd’s case, there were apparently FOUR dishonorable cops, not just one.  As Floyd begged for his life and Chauvin choked that life out of him over the objections of witnesses, where were the good cops telling Chauvin to stop?  Where were they when Eric Garner was killed in NYC with an illegal chokehold for selling loose cigarettes?  Where were they when Abner Louima was sodomized by FOUR cops in a police station bathroom?  Where were they when Amadou Diallo was gunned down by four cops and 41 bullets IN HIS OWN DOORWAY?  Where were they when Tamir Rice was gunned down as he played alone in a park?

We keep asking, begging and demanding that reforms be instituted every time an instance of police brutality occurs to deter further such acts.  When someone kills a police officer, the death penalty is almost automatically sought as a deterrent.  But when the reverse happens, the excuses resume. Proper police procedure was followed.  The officer feared for his life.  The 12 year old did not drop his (toy) gun quickly enough (two seconds).  The man was a threat (as he was running away).  His belt buckle looked like a gun.  One of the officers yelled “gun” and we assumed it was.  If 99.9 percent are good cops, how do we keep getting that one-tenth of one percent, time and time again?

The refreshing behavior of the police witnesses in the Floyd case offers some hope for police ethics, but this was still the exception that proves the rule about the Blue Wall of Silence, and the right-wing bent of many politicians (whose “Back the Blue” duplicity was shown in their defense of the January 6 rioters whose actions led to the deaths of Capitol Police officers) is still working to ensure that police accountability stays off the table.

One year after Floyd’s death, a death that a jury has now declared to be murder, a Congressional bill to punish further such acts is still being fought, tooth and nail, in the United States Senate.  Reforms are resisted at every turn.  But when someone gets frustrated with this level of obstruction and says “to hell with it — defund the police”, suddenly all the hit dogs start to holler.

UPDATE: As an indication that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) seeks to be responsive to the concerns of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), comments from CSOs will be officially posted on the UNOHCHR Web page sometime after May 17, 2021.  The Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC, on whose behalf we made comments to the Consultation) received the following message from them regarding the posting of SRDC’s presentation on the UNOHCHR Web page:

“We thank you for your submission in response to the ‘call for inputs for the preparation of the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 43/1’.  As indicated in the call for input, we will post submissions in full, and as received, on the OHCHR public website (see OHCHR | Call for inputs: Implementation of Human Rights Council resolution 43/1).”

As the process of establishing a Permanent Forum on People of African Descent continues, we hope this is a sign that the UN, at least, is ready to begin to move from theoretical celebrations of the International Decade of People of African Descent to implementing actual policies and practices designed to improve conditions for Afrikan People around the world.

Friday, April 9 saw another of the United Nations’ (UN) Consultations with Civil Society regarding issues impacting People of African Descent (PAD).  This meeting, held virtually over the UN’s Interprefy network, dealt with the establishment of a Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, what its essential purpose would be, where it would be organizationally and physically quartered, and how it would go about its business.  Through several Consultations held over the last several years, there have been increasingly urgent calls for the official establishment of a Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in the United Nations, and this seems to be an attempt to bring that about, or at least set that work in motion.

As we enter the last three years of the UN’s International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD), efforts are being made to lend greater effectiveness to the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD), the Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG), the International Conventions on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination  (ICERD) and the efforts of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR).  The April 9 Consultation with Civil Society was convened to solicit feedback from representatives of UN Member States as well as from Civil Society organizations.

The Consultation was co-facilitated by Madame Ammo Aziza Baroud of Chad and Mr. Rodrigo A. Carazo Zeledón of Costa Rica.  After remarks of welcome from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Chilean political prisoner-then-president Madame Michelle Bachelet, the Consultation officially began.  Member States participating included Algeria, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Costa Rica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Russia.  Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that participated included, among others, the African Diaspora Directorate (AfDiDi, represented by Baba Hershel Daniels Junior), the December 12 Movement (D12, represented by Mama Collette Pean), Diaspora Rising (represented by Dr. Amara Enyia), the European Network of People of African Descent (ENPAD, represented by Bro. Michael McEachrane), Global Afrikan Congress UK (GAC-UK, represented by Mama Judy L. Richards), Maat For Peace (represented by Bro. Ahmed Elbasuoeny), People of African Descent Belgium Observatory (PADBelgium, represented by Modi Ntambwe), Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), Tiye International and the United States Human Rights Network (USHRN, represented by Dr. Vickie Casanova-Willis).

The comments primarily consisted of statements of support for the ongoing process, mixed with ideas about key objectives and some concern about the fact that the International Decade is well past the halfway point with relatively little accomplished in comparison to the goals and aspirations of the program when it was launched in 2014 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

We include here two official presentations that were made at the Consultation. 

The first is by Dr. Barryl Biekman, who was present at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa (which the United States and Israel walked out of because of the call for Reparations for Afrikan-Americans and for recognition of the rights of Palestinians in what was often referred to an “Apartheid-style” government in Israel).  She has since founded the African Union African Diaspora 6th Region (AUADS) Community Council Europe, Tiye International (https://tiye-international.org) and the Global African Diaspora Decade of Return Organization (https://decade-of-return.com), among others, and she is a regular contributor and longtime organizational ally of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), working with them to establish a representative presence for the Pan-Afrikan Diaspora in the African Union.  She has devoted much time and effort to similarly raising the voice of the Diaspora at the UN, and was the only member of Civil Society to speak at the UN’s official launch of the International Decade in 2014.

STATEMENT DURING THE CONSULTATIVE SESSION
On the Topic of the Permanent Forum People of African Descent (POAD).
Date: April, 9th 2021
Dr. Barryl A. Biekman, Tiye International

Ms. Ammo Aziza Baroud,
Mr. Rodrigo Alberto Carazo Zeledón,

Thank you for the opportunity to present to you, on behalf of my organisation Tiye International, the National Platform of the Dutch Slavery past and the National Forum UN Decade POAD the Netherlands and a large number of worldwide Pan African organisations and other of good will listed on page 4 and 5 of my written proposal regarding our thoughts on this matter of the modalities for the Permanent Forum POAD.

Excellencies,

At the May 10th, 2019 Consultation organised by the OHCHR in Geneva, when I had the opportunity to make a presentation on the modalities of the Forum, I have strongly urged, that the three days Forum under the Human Rights Council that had been agreed in the Programme of Activities of the UN Decade should be realised immediately, while still keeping open the possibilities at a later stage to create a Forum likewise for the Indigenous people which would require both, much developed consultations and understanding and a budget from the UN for the covering of its operations respective organisation structure.

After all I have listened very carefully at the May 10th, 2019 consultations to the interventions and explanation of the UN Experts, amongst them Professor Dr. Ahmed Reid; CERD member, Professor Dr. Verene Shepherd and Eminent Expert, Ms. Edna Roland. After research what will be the best model I have come to the understanding that creating the Permanent Forum with the structure and modalities similar to the Forum on Business and Human Rights and the Forum on Minorities are much relevant and should be supported as the basis of the modalities-resolution to be adopted by the General Assembly.

To be concrete

Our advice regarding the model is a three days Permanent Forum under the Human Rights Council that would meet under the guidance of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent every year. In carrying out this task they could be assisted by the other Durban follow up mechanisms. This mean that there would be no need to appoint a new group of Experts for the Forum which would rely on the existing Experts of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and help to strengthen the Durban follow up as a whole. We should note that this model has functioned perfect for the Forum on Minorities as well as for the Forum on Business and Human Rights. Those Forums have brought together a great number of participants, up to a thousand, that fulfil the criteria of intersectionality to work together.

We should use these positive models to ensure that we can mobilise support for implementation of the Programme of Activities in the three full years that remain of the Decade…

Excellencies, lastly, in 2014 I was the single Civil Society Speaker at the launching of the International UN Decade for People of African Descent at the UN General Assembly. In 2001 I served as NGO liaison in the Dutch Governmental delegation during the Durban Anti-Racism World Conference (WCAR) . Since 2001 I dedicate myself to work actively with worldwide organizations to promote the adopted Programme.

I speak out the hope that my contribution on behalf of all the organization as above mentioned will make sense. To reach a consensus agreement at the General Assembly on the modalities as I have presented as an important instrument to contribute to the 20th commemoration of the Durban WCAR annex the adoption of the DDPA reach the Goals

That success may be at our side.

I thank you for your attention

On behalf of
1. Tiye International in Special Consultative Status with the ECOSOC of the United Nation, the umbrella NGO of 21 National Organizations of Black, Migrant and Refugee Women and Youth in the Netherlands
2. National Forum Civil Society of African descent (Netherlands)
3. ENGOCCAR European Wide NGO Council for Afrikan Reparations
4. Coordinating & Monitoring UN Decade for People of African Descent WG, Netherlands
5. National Platform of the Dutch Slavery Past exist of 7 affiliated organizations (Netherlands)
6. The African European Women’s Movement “Sophiedela”
7. African Union African Diaspora Facilitators Working Group Europe
8. Pan African Reparations Coalition in Europe
9. African and African Coordination Cooperative Coalition (Netherlands)
10. African World Studies Institute (Netherlands)
11. African Diaspora Networks in the Dutch speaking countries: Republic Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean
12. I Drammeh Institute (USA)
13. Global African SHEROES Union (USA)

African Diaspora Union based in South Africa (These exist of the Diaspora living in the Continent Africa)
1. Impact Africa Education Foundation Nigeria & South Africa
2. International Gathering for Peace and Human Rights Nigeria; South Africa, Burundi and Togo
3. African Diaspora Forum South Africa
4. International Human Rights Commission Nigeria & Ghana
5. Nigerians Citizens Association South Africa
6. Nigerians in Diaspora
7. Ghana Community in South Africa
8. Congolese Community in South Africa

Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) & Affiliates
1. Pan African Organizing Committee, South Carolina USA
2. Association of Afrocentric Scholars and Activists, Los Angeles, California
3. Harvest Institute/Los Angeles Chapter, California
4. The Black Think Tank, Los Angeles, California
5. Reparations United Front, Los Angeles, California
6. Reparations United Front-Seattle Seattle, Washington
7. Reparations Research and Advocacy Group, Los Angeles, California
8. NAACP Political Action Committee, Hollywood/Beverly Hills Branch
9. OUR WEEKLY Newspaper-Reparations Reporter Los Angeles, California
10. African Students Association, California
11. Allensworth Heritage Committee, Los Angeles, California
12. African American Chamber of Commerce/Pan African Business & Trade Organization, Los Angeles, California
13. Shaping Black Culture Diaspora Committee, Los Angeles, California
14. Africa Support Group, Berkeley, California
15. Black Men’s Health Coalition/Black Barbershop Project California
16. Kuumba Report/Mumia Support Committee/PAOC Baltimore, Maryland
17. Black Political Prisoners Support Group Baltimore, Maryland
18. SRDC Facilitators Group—Washington State, Seattle, Washington
19. SRDC Facilitators Group—Ohio, West Columbus, Ohio
20. South Carolina Community Council of Elders, Charleston, South Carolina
21. SRDC Facilitators Group–New York
22. SRDC—Canada, Toronto, Canada
23. Central American Black Organization/ONECA (Thirty-five member organizations, including Center of Afro Costa Rican Women, Guatemala Garifuna Women’s Association, etc., representing 7 Central American countries) Nicaragua
24. UNIA-ACL Parent Body
25. AAPRP (All African Peoples’ Revolutionary Party) Central Committee, Los Angeles
26. African Unity of Harlem. Harlem
27. Per Ankh University Human Rights Organization, Virgin Islands
28. Collective Black People’s Movement, Atlanta, Georgia
29. National Black Leadership Council
30. CIPN/MIR (French Caribbean Pan African Organization/International Reparations Movement), Guadeloupe & Martinique
31. African Medical Corps/Physicians for Pan African Progress, Cuba
32. PANASTRAG (Pan African Strategic Planning and Research Group), Nigeria,
USA, Europe, Caribbean
33. Middle East African Diaspora Council, Dimona, Israel with affiliate in the Middle
East Region.

The second response we will share is that of Bro. Cliff Kuumba, Maryland State Facilitator of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus, Member of SRDC’s National Secretariat, Editor of SRDC’s Web site (https://srdcinternational.org) and Editor of KUUMBAReport Online (https://kuumbareport.com).  This statement dealt primarily with concerns about how the work of the Permanent Forum or any of the UN’s panels of Experts will be able to make their work relevant to local communities, the grassroots, the “people on the ground”, who continue to suffer as these high-level meetings of Experts go on year after year.

Making Consultations Count: What We Need from the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent
by Bro. Cliff Kuumba
Maryland State Facilitator, Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC)
Friday, April 9, 2021

I thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts today. My primary concerns center on the question of how to make this process work for grassroots communities “on the ground”. More than halfway through the International Decade, most of us in urban and rural local communities still have no idea of what WCAR, CERD, IDPAD, WGEPAD, IGWG and DDPA are, or how their activities can make the people’s lives any less of a struggle. It is often difficult for us as community organizers to even answer these questions, because these gatherings of Experts seldom seem to translate to practical programs for grassroots communities. People in Town Halls that my organization, SRDC, has held in the past often deride such meetings of even the most conscientious activists (including our own) as little more than “talk shops” where we try to impress each other with our knowledge and concern about the issues faced by People of African Descent.

They feel this way because, while these meetings of Experts continue in high places, their lives and the lives of their communities never change, with systemic racism, economic exploitation and voter disenfranchisement their constant tormentors. In the United States, Georgia and over 40 other states are pushing measures right now to restrict voting access for primarily-Black citizens, disinformation about COVID has hampered processes for vaccination and even non-medical public health measures in our communities, and murderous police continue to act with impunity despite the sensational testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial thus far. These and other continuous shocks to the conscience speak to a failure of the theme of “recognition, justice and development” to have any real impact on people’s lives “on the ground”.

There must be a way for the unvarnished concerns of local grassroots communities to be heard at the UN, International Decade, CERD and Working Group of Experts levels, and for the actions taken by these bodies to have a real impact on our communities so that we will see them as truly and effectively responsive to our concerns.

We love to wax eloquent about the sad state of the world and show everyone just how aware or “woke” we are, but too many of us, from local grassroots groups to international organizations, seem to have difficulty getting from the “Whereas” describing the crisis we face to the “Now Therefore” where we actually decide what we are going to do about it.

So, my “Now Therefore” today must focus on ensuring the inclusion of grassroots civil society organizations at the local level. Perhaps the establishment or strengthening of a full database of participants in these consultations and the assignment of sufficient staff to maintain regular communication with us and with each other will be needed as a start. And when comments and recommendations are made, the response must be more than words. Usually, when someone at a meeting says “this effort will not end here, we will be following up very soon”, that’s when I know I will never see them again. Follow-up must actually occur if activists are to believe that official commitment goes beyond noting their comments in a report or a video to be squirreled away in some dark corner.

As far as the Permanent Forum is concerned, one idea may be to work with African Diaspora civil society organizations to craft a plan for local, national and Diaspora-wide Elections of Representatives, chosen by the “people on the ground” in their home communities instead of by virtue of their organizational, political or economic connections, to take their voice to ECOSOC and other organs of the UN. My organization, SRDC, actually devised such a plan for the AU in cooperation with AUADS, Central American Black Organization, Middle East African Diaspora Unity Council and others, and we have been waiting for 15 years for that plan to be finally reviewed, discussed and acted upon. We’re still waiting.

Inclusion of on-the-ground civil society organizations is critical to this effort. Let’s develop a concrete strategy to make that happen and truly invest the masses of the people in making the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent a success for the UN and a victory for truth, justice and African People.

We anticipate that there will be further developments in the building of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in the United Nations.  How many of the suggestions made by the assembled Member States and Civil Society Organizations will be seriously considered and implemented, and how effective will the Permanent Forum be when it is finally created and empaneled?  Time will tell, and we plan to be able to tell you when that happens.