Academic

What is Africa to Me, or Should African-Americans Boycott the Beijing Olympics?

By Salamishah Tillet

In 1968, African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the medal podium with heads bowed and fists raised in solidarity with the Black Power movement as a non-violent protest against American racism. Forty years later, African-Americans have another reason to protest the Olympics: China?s economic and political support of the Sudanese government.

Since February 2003, the Sudanese military and the militia group, Janjaweed, have been responsible for the genocide and slaughter of 200,000 to 400,000 people from the Darfur region of Western Sudan. Recently, the Chinese government has come under international pressure because of its heavy investments in Sudan?s oil industry and its large-scale sale of arms to the Sudanese government.

In no way, do I endorse ?Red Scare? tactics against China; however, I do think that China as well as the United States must continue to demand that the Sudanese government end bloodshed, dismantle the Janjaweed, and create land redistribution policies.

Outside of Don Cheadle, very few African-American leaders have spoken out against the genocide. From supporting Nkrumah?s Pan-African vision in Ghana in the 1960?s to demanding American corporations divest from apartheid South Africa in the early 1990?s, African-Americans have a long history of involvement with varied political movements throughout Africa. As such, our recent silence on Darfur (and our former reticence on Rwanda) seems especially loud and troubling.

Some scholars suggest that because there are no longer European imperialists to overthrow, African-Americans do not know with whom to align in the world of internecine conflicts. Even if there is no clear racial division, we as members of the African Diaspora, should feel both a moral obligation and transnational imperative to end the genocide. If threatening to boycott China?s Olympics, as Steven Speilberg did last week when he pulled out as an artistic adviser for the Beijing Olympic, is one way, so be it. If campaigning with Save Darfur and putting pressure on our elected officials is another, then do it. ?Not On Our Watch? should not be a slogan, but our mantra.

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Full post as published by BlackProf on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).