Challenging Trump's Handling of DACA is a Pro-Black Position!
I am for Black people first, last, and always. I believe that WE must solve our own problems, meet our own needs, and determine our own issues, leadership and methods. I believe that Black people must spend the vast majority of our time and resources to accomplish these things, without apology or validation from others.
However, being "Race first" or Black-centered" does not or should not suggest that we are unable or unwilling to show solidarity with other oppressed people on a case-by-case basis. Standing against the oppression of other vulnerable and exploited people only shows our humanity, not our weakness or gullibility.
This is a longstanding revolutionary and liberation movement principle. Arguably, there is NO Black organization in existence today, that is more revolutionary, organized, and effective than those during the Black Power Movement, and those organizations recognized and endorsed this principle. At the global level, actual nations lend humanitarian aid, financial and military support to certain other nations. Hence the relevance of Cuba, Libya, and Palestine, all of whom supported African/Black independence/liberation movements. If Fidel Castro didn't honor this principle, Robert F. Williams and Assata Shakur would certainly have been murdered.
Speaking out against Trump's handling of DACA is not "selling out" Black people, nor does it signify that we privilege others over ourselves. Incidentally, we are not completely in love with the policy itself either, as it has serious deficiencies. Those of us who choose to speak out do so to challenge a horrendous campaign to displace and disempower 800,000 people largely from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and other places, We challenge the conspicuously selective criteria used to demonize and scapegoat BLACK and BROWN people who live in the United States without "documentation," When undocumented Europeans live in this nation as well. We also realize that some of our people - from Africa, the Caribbean, and parts of Europe - live in this country as "illegal aliens." Though white supremacy has done its best to lobotomize us, some of us remember this nation's criminal past. Therefore we challenge the notion that the smug and xenophobic descendants of imperialists, colonizers, and slave owners who unethically and brutally murdered and displaced indigenous people - get to decide who is authentically "American."
It is disappointing to witness that so many Pro-Black individuals fail to see that DACA IS OUR ISSUE AS WELL! I personally think we must begin thinking like a nation-in-training rather than a cult of ideologues with no grasp of how politics and liberation struggles really work on the ground. We need to really study actual political struggle and grassroots movements to protect ourselves from becoming slaves to dogma and disconnected political rhetoric....
