A New Year’s Resolution: Sovereignty For African American Nation

Crow2

Read Michelle Alexander’s “New Jim Crow” to understand the crises

Traditionally, a New Year’s resolution is a declaration that something tangible or measurable will be rendered to enhance the quality of one’s life or living standards. 

According to BlackDemographics.com, the poverty rate for the estimated 44,456,009 Blacks living in the United States in 2012 was 28.1 percent which is an increase from 25.5 percent since 2005 where, for the most part, Black families are living on two dollars a day or less.

The Pew Research Center,  in a 2011 study titled “Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics Twenty-to-One,” illustrates that from 2005 to 2009, Black households lost 53 percent of its wealth and as a result, their assets were 5 percent that of Whites. 

Moreover, BlackDemographics.com indicates that Blacks in the United States have an unemployment rate that nearly doubles the overall population where the income/wealth disparities and poverty/ incarceration rates of Blacks are calamitous under a bi-racial president.

Recently, President Obama pardoned several drug dealers who destroyed Black families and communities. President Obama has yet to pardon Black political prisoners who have strengthened Black families and communities.

Furthermore, this president has yet to improve the quality of life for African-Americans. Hence, commencing on January 1, 2014, Blacks in the United States must strive to achieve sovereignty given our heartbreaking living conditions and lugubrious quality of life along with the historical fact that our sovereign rights as Africans have been interrupted and usurped by the European-American empire as evident in the transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow, and systematic racism. 

Sovereignty is the supreme economic, political, and cultural reality where a group of people establishes autonomous power and authority to govern and manage their land, labor, and resources.  Thus, it is paramount that we focus our energy, time, and resources in becoming a sovereign people who can govern ourselves and our own nation. 

As of this moment, given the fact that African-Americans do not have a military, the most feasible avenue to achieve sovereignty is to either pressure President Obama to sign an Executive Order establishing our protected status as a sovereign people and nation; lobby Congress to enact amendments to the US Constitution regarding a federal trust responsibility as it pertains to our sovereign rights and protective status; or petition federal, state, and local courts where human rights laws can be legally argued regarding our sovereign rights and protective status using the Marshall Trilogy as a stare decisis. 

As a matter of fact, local human rights laws can become one of the most expansive human rights laws in this country, if amended.  As such, an amendment to the human rights laws or a bill regarding a human rights hybrid to African-American sovereign rights and protective status can be filed by a council member where the mayor can either sign or veto the proposed legislation. 

If the mayor signs the proposed legislation, it becomes local law and part of the City’s Charter and Administrative Code.  

As an addendum to the above strategies, we can also explore the possibility of seeking relief, justice, and sovereignty by petitioning the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which is the main judicial branch of the United Nations along with the International Criminal Court (ICC) where an established tribunal prosecutes and tries perpetrators for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. 

By appealing to the global African community, we can also garner support to employ the foundation of international human rights law, the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (UDHR), where the creation of an International Criminal Tribunal for African-Americans (ICTAA) can prosecute and try perpetrators who violate the humanity, sovereign rights, and protective status of African-Americans by way of hideous transgressions.

Only the enemies of African-American sovereignty will not pressure the President of the United Sates, lobby Congress, petition the courts, and pursue human rights laws to establish sovereign rights and protective status for the descendants of enslaved Africans living in America. Thus, enemies of African-American sovereignty would rather engage in rallies, marches, and prayers where the outcome is speculative as we continue to live in squalor under the watch of a bi-racial president.

Professor Patrick Delices is a political analyst/commentator for the Black Star News and the author of “The Digital Economy,” Journal of International Affairs. For nearly a decade, Prof. Delices has taught Africana Studies at Hunter College. He also served as a research fellow for the late Pulitzer Prize recipient, Dr. Manning Marable at Columbia University.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *