The plight of African Americans can be explained from the beginning of the 15th century, as western European monarchies began to recover from the dark ages. Many people call Christopher Columbus as the, “godfather” of the Trans-Atlantic trade, and rightfully so, as his “discovery” of the new-world led the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies on a literal frenzy to snatch up new land, which was impossible in the already crowded Europe. By this time imperialism was in full swing. Due to the naval supremacy of the Spanish and the Portuguese they had already began trading with the western African kingdoms. The main commodity for the impetus of this trade was labour, initially for house-hold purposes which later expanded in to their plantations in Caribbean, central and South America. With the systematic genocidal murders of the natives there arise a vacuum or demand of indenture servitude, thus giving rise to the vicious triangle of trans-Atlantic trade.
As time passed, the Spanish and the Portuguese empires declined, they were replaced by the British and the French who hoarded of the land in North-America which was previously untouched by the Spanish and the Portuguese. As far as what was happening in Africa, most of the people who were enslaved were captives of rival tribes captured in a battle. The Europeans traded them on the Atlantic coast, like the Bight of Benin in the north or Angola in the south, even though many of them came from places inland. Thousands of them died on a thousand miles marches from inland towards the coast to be sold, and once they were sold they were packed into the ships in literally the same manner as cargo. Roughly 2 million out of 12 million people brought to the Americas in the Trans-Atlantic trade died in the voyage due to the conditions on the ships.
The US bourgeoisie post the revolution (declaration of independence 1776) made it extremely clear that the Africans were property, and not people. They did so by creating legal code that would disadvantage them. Soon after, the US constitution featured a population count, that counted 5 blacks as 3 people, i.e. 1 black person was only 3/5 of a person. Black people were not allowed to hold land. Even seldom when they became free, they were not allowed to vote legally until 1865 and actually in practice till 1965 (post-civil-rights movement) the enslaved were intentionally traded away from their families. By the end of 19th century a civil war broke in the United States, between the industrial north and the agrarian south. In India, we usually presume that the conflict at its core had a moral impetus of ‘abolishment of the slavery’. This is far from the truth if you observe the conflict with the lenses of historical materialism. This movement of abolishment was a top to down revolution, by that time industrial capitalism had established its roots in the north. The northern bourgeoisie manufactures intended to push this new form of economic system on the wealthy southern plantation owners. The south’s succession- understanding that there was virtually no manufacturing in the south and nearly all the manufactured goods came from the north. This became unacceptable for the northern bourgeoisie who stood to lose a lot of profit in the process.
The end of the civil war marked with a northern victory opened a new chapter in the history of African Americans. Then ushered the era of reconstruction where considerable progress was achieved in the advancement for the rights of former slaves. The first decade also saw an increase in the rise of the black population in the prison labour systems which till this day stand to be disproportionate. Following the years all southern states including some states in the north adopted the draconian Jim Crow laws, claiming to provide ‘separate but equal’ rights for the blacks, the law prohibited blacks from using the same facilities, attend the same schools or hold the same job as whites. This continued almost post WW2. Black people were largely occupied as share-croppers. I.e. Agricultural labourers living under peasant like conditions. To escape from these treacherous conditions many young black people migrated to big cities like New York and Chicago in a hope to find better paying industrial jobs. This era particularly marks the cultural emancipation of the black people in the US in the form of Harlem renaissance, a movement which witnessed black communities actively contributing in various walk of life including religion, arts, music and academics. This great migration also saw an increase of the black population into the industrial workforce, yet they were paid less than their white counterpart. Many of them were left unemployed and used intentionally as strike-buster by the factory owners to create more antagonism in all-white unions. This didn’t change until the radicalization of the labour movement and the emergence of the Communist party USA during the time of the great depression.
The post-modern American society saw a decline in the living conditions of the working-class. The US was no longer was a major producer or manufacturers. All those production jobs were systematically outsourced to exploit the cheap-labour in third world countries like ours. The current BJP led government’s “make in India” campaign is an ideal example of such an abuse. This de-industrialization of the American working-class affected the black communities the most, since black people were denied education, the blue-collar jobs were the prime source of economic stability. Why Black lives matter? In the last 40-45 years, after the beginning of the decline of American domestic industrialization, virtually all the economic expansion in the US have occurred in either the field of finance or service sector. The finance sector has been inaccessible to black people because of the denial of education and institutionalized racism, which has been internalized in all walks of the American society. While, the service sector which approximately employees 70% of the American workforce, the capitalist over here have been successful in creating low-wage jobs by decades of union-busting laws in early 80’s and 90’s.
One cannot begin to have an objective discussion on the condition of the black people in the US today without accounting to the fact that out of the total general US population blacks constitutes 13% of the total population, yet they comprise 37% of the prison population, 30% of the total population living below the poverty line and 44% of the total population working on low-wage jobs. Why is that they have a high rate on unemployment and low rate of high school graduation (not college) compared to whites? While these questions remained unanswered the effects of cultural hegemony have been tremendous. Imagine a group of people forcefully removed and then being denied the right to learn their own heritage, being denied basic schooling and treated as savages and thugs by the state apparatus (media and police). The new civil-rights movement started with the murder of a young black teenager being shot by the police in the small town of Ferguson in St. Louis County, MO, while he had his hands up. But the underline grievances have been years of exploitation by the ruling elites. A recent report on the municipal courts of the Ferguson city backs this claim. Out of the city’s total population, 67% of residents are blacks. Of it, 22% of the total population lives below the poverty line. Despite, Ferguson’s relative poverty, fines and court-fees comprises the second largest source of the city’s revenue. A modern day debtor’s prison has become a common practice in America’s small towns and cities. Malcom-X was right when he said, “You can’t have capitalism without racism”. Black lives matter is a revolutionary movement demanding for radical justice especially economic justice. The black people of the US are fighting to shake off their chains!
P.S: A special thanks to Com. Albert Terry(MBSA CWI-US)who gave me a definite perspective so as to introduce the topic of slavery in the U.S
