Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
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on starvation wage ..." (36)<br />
In the fields tens of thousands of Afrikan farm<br />
families during the 1930s were driven not only off the land,<br />
but out of the South altogether. As we have seen, this was<br />
clearly not the result of "blind economic circumstances,"<br />
but was the genocidal result of imperialist policy (as<br />
enacted by the most liberal settler administration in U.S.<br />
history). The social disruption and de-population were no<br />
less significant for Afrikans than for other dispersed colonial<br />
peoples, such as the Palestinians.<br />
The militant struggle on the land and the turn of<br />
Afrikan workers toward revolution was not only blunted<br />
by violent repression; increasingly the Afrikan masses were<br />
involuntarily dispersed, scattered into the refdgee camps of<br />
the Northern ghettoes, removed from established positions<br />
in industries and trades that were an irreplaceable part of<br />
the modern Nation. It was not just a matter of dollars, important<br />
as income is to the oppressed; what was happening<br />
ravaged the national culture. The "sea" of Afrikan society<br />
was stricken at its material base.<br />
*Interestingly enough, the 1934 AAA and the entire program<br />
was administered by FDR's Secretary of Agriculture,<br />
Henry Wallace. This man was later to become the darling<br />
of the CPUSA, and the 1948 Presidential candidate of the<br />
CPUSA-led "Progressive Party."<br />
4. Neo-Colonialism<br />
& Leadership<br />
The U.S. Empire has had a long and successful<br />
history of applying neo-colonialism to hold down the oppressed.<br />
In Latin America and in New Afrika during the<br />
mid-1800s the U.S. Empire utilized neo-colonialism prior<br />
even to the advent of world imperialism. But in the 1920s<br />
and early 1930s U.S. imperialism's neo-colonial instruments<br />
lost control over the Afrikan masses. In order to<br />
re-establish pro-imperialist leadership over Afrikan<br />
politics, U.S. imperialism had to forge new neo-colonial<br />
instruments. These neo-colonial instruments were not only<br />
traditional but also radical and even socialistic in outward<br />
forin, and had the special task of controlling the modern<br />
forces of Afrikan trade-unionism and Afrikan socialism<br />
that had arisen so widely.<br />
We should remember that the essence of neocolonialism<br />
is an outward form of national selfdetermination<br />
and popular democracy concealing a submissive<br />
relationship with imperialism on the part of the<br />
new bourgeois forces. As Amilcar Cabral pointed out<br />
almost twenty years ago concerning.neo-colonialism:<br />
"The objective of the imperialist countries was to<br />
prevent the enlargement of the socialist camp, to liberate<br />
the reactionary forces in our countries which were being<br />
stifled by colonialism and to enable these forces to ally<br />
themselves with the international bourgeoisie. The fundamental<br />
idea was to create a bourgeoisie where one did<br />
not exist, in order specifically to strengthen the imperialist<br />
and the capitalist camp. "(3 7)<br />
The U.S. Empire had literally done exactly that in<br />
the 1870s. The neo-colonial stage known as Black<br />
Reconstruction had qualitatively changed and enlarged the<br />
New Afrikan petit-bourgeoisie. This class, even in defeat<br />
by the Euro-Arnerikan planter capitalists, were to a degree<br />
held up by and patronized by U.S. imperialism - and they<br />
retained like a religion their loyalty and dependence upon<br />
the Federal government. Washington, D.C, was their Mecca<br />
or Rome. Indeed, the Federal Government was for 111<br />
many years the prime employer of the Afrikan petitbourgeoisie.<br />
Many Afrikan politicians of the 19th Century were<br />
consoled by Federal patronage jobs for the lost glories of<br />
Reconstruction. U.S. Senator Blanche Bruce from<br />
Mississippi was the last Afrikan in the Senate. When his<br />
term ended in 1881, Mississippi politics were back under<br />
planter control and he was replaced. For his loyal example<br />
the Empire awarded him the position in Washington of<br />
U.S. Register of the Treasury (for the next thirty-two years<br />
that post would be reserved for loyal Afrikan leaders).<br />
Even Frederick Douglass was not immune to the<br />
ideological bent of his class. He was appointed U.S. Marshall<br />
for the Distfict of Columbia, and later in his life was<br />
U.S. Consul to Haiti. Small wonder that the former radical<br />
abolitionist spent years preaching how Afrikans should<br />
always remain loyal to the Republican Party, Northern<br />
capital and the Federal Government.<br />
By 1892 the Federal offices in Washington<br />
employed some 1,500 Afrikans. While most of these jobs<br />
were as cleaning women and the lowliest of clerks, a trickle<br />
of professional and official positions were reserved for<br />
hand-picked Afrikan petit-bo.urgeois leaders. Washington,<br />
D.C. was then the "capitol" in exile of Afrikans, the<br />
center of "Negro society."' Some eight bureaucratic positions<br />
with status eventually were reserved for them: D.C.<br />
Municipal Judge, Register of the Treasury, Deputy<br />
Register, Assistant District Attorney for D.C., Auditor of<br />
the Navy Department, Chief Surgeon at D.C. Freedman's<br />
Hospital, Collector of Customs at Georgetown and U.S.<br />
Assistant Attorney-General.<br />
In 1913 a journalist light-heartedly labelled these<br />
eight "the Black Cabinet." But what began in jest was<br />
eagerly taken up by petit-bourgeois Afrikans in<br />
seriousness. The custom began of regarding the "Black<br />
Cabinet" as the representatives to the U.S. Government of