Africa “Benefit� Or Reparations?

Live 8 should not be called a “benefit concert.â€? The western world owes Africa –which is why we should not be impressed with Bush recently “forgivingâ€? the African debt—Africans are owed. Africa’s wealth, literally, built the Western world, including Americans of African descent – as stolen human cargo – providing 300 years plus of 100% free labor. It’s easy to have wealth if you don’t pay the people who work for you, or pay for exploiting their vast natural resources.

‘Live 8’ – Africa has not become a cause for Black artists while white musicians are largely the force behind benefit concerts, raising awareness, etc. for many reasons, some of which are outlined in this article. Not all of Africa is impoverished, though most Americans would never know, especially Blacks, who, when thinking of vacation spots, usually prefer to frequent Europe or one of the western world’s many occupied resorts.

This, and so much of how we view the world, view ourselves, our standard of beauty, contributing to our challenges at forgiving each other’s mistakes and so much more results from that we have been colonized.  We have become worker bees for the power and success of others.

Among its many ironies is, where Africa is impoverished, in most cases, can be traced back to cultural, infrastructural and governmental instability resulting from colonial/European/White war on Africans, exploitation, neglect (like now in the Sudan) and robbery of these nations.

Yet, in too many cases, not to offend or appear angry (to guess who?), Americans of African descent are encouraged to be A-political and  A-historical, to not even think about such things. (The disorienting result of this is connected to why so many of us don’t vote.)

Another outcome of our A-political and A-historical state will be that many of us won’t realize that Live 8 should not be called a “benefit concert.� The western world owes Africa (which is why we should not be impressed with Bush recently “forgiving� the African debt!) Africans are owed.

Africa’s wealth, literally, built the Western world, including Americans of African descent – as stolen human cargo – providing 300 years plus of 100% free labor. It’s easy to have wealth if you don’t pay the people who work for you, or pay for exploiting their vast natural resources.

If any of the Live 8 money does make it to Africa it should be seen as payment on the debt owed by the predominantly White do-gooders and beneficiaries of Africa’s compromise! They (the predominantly European Live 8 conveners) tend to know African history better than colonized Blacks anyway. Blacks, in too many cases, avoid the topic altogether.

Colonization! Among most Americans, definitely among African Americans, there exist amazing levels of African disassociation (Creation of horrible terms like “That’s Ghetto� are attempts to dissociate from each other here too across artificial class and light/dark-skin color lines). Almost all people in the Western World, including [White] Jews, many Asian groups, and Haitian and other African descent groups directly from Africa, and Americans of European descent send resources back to their people’s countries.

Even the underpinnings of the Bush/Blair Sadam Hussein Destruction Team, was a White family affair: White Father (England) supporting White son (America) to illegally execute their agenda on darker people. Both Bush and Blair were giving back to each other connected by their mutual colonial legacy. When their trumped-up, murderously deceptive war is over they plan to split the booty.

They’ve already started. But I digress a little! The lack of notable Black American artist involved in Live 8 embodies both the disassociation with Africa many Black Americans suffer, and the artificial concept of “benefit� (when it should be reparations) had by Whites involved in Live 8.

Americans of African descent born in America, with very little exception, do not reach back to the continent of Africa – our indigenous home – to give anything.  Our disassociation, in circumstance (400 years of brainwashing, brutality second to none, internalized and institutionalized oppression, etc.), gives us a justifiable excuse. But, when reading this article, understand that we should resist this disconnect, and consider a consciousness shift regarding Africa. Consider breaking from the post (and current) colonial trance, and initiating some love – in resources or talent – for our own people. 

Because this is what is just, and so that Africans do not continue to see the manipulative faces of their (our) colonizers and destroyers as the primary poster-children of their resurrection. The cultural, infrastructural and governmental resurrection of the continent is connected to our resurrection, and we should be involved.

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