The Rio Stanton Report

Tag: descendants of Africans

  • The Diaspora Wars Are a Distraction from Black Liberation

    The Diaspora Wars Are a Distraction from Black Liberation

    I hate the so-called “Diaspora wars.” I really do.

    The more I watch these online battles between Black Americans, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and other members of the African diaspora, the more convinced I become that they serve almost no productive purpose. At best, they are fueled by grifters within our own communities who care more about clicks, engagement, and money than they do about Black liberation or Black self-reliance. At worst, they function as a psychological operation that keeps Black people divided while distracting us from the systems that continue to harm all of us.

    The tragedy is that these conflicts are built on the words and actions of a relatively small number of people. Social media algorithms take the most outrageous opinions from a handful of Black Americans and immigrants, amplify them to millions, and convince us that these fringe voices represent entire communities. Existing mistrust, jealousy, and stereotypes (many of which were created and reinforced by white supremacist systems) do the rest.

    The supposed barrage of negative comments and feelings haven’t been my experience. I’ve spent time in the Dominican Republic, and I found most people to be warm and welcoming. I’ve traveled throughout Africa without experiencing the hostility that social media would have you expect. I’ve visited the Caribbean, and while many people understandably assume Americans have endless amounts of money, my interactions have overwhelmingly been positive. More importantly, I don’t stay isolated in luxury resorts. I spend time among everyday people.

    Even here in the United States, many of my friends are immigrants. They respect me, and many have expressed that they want to be accepted by Black Americans just as much as Black Americans want to be accepted by them.

    That’s a reality you don’t often see reflected online.

    Unfortunately, every Black community has people who have internalized anti-Black beliefs. Coons exist in every nationality and every ethnicity. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. After centuries of slavery, colonialism, segregation, imperialism, and the constant message that Black people are somehow inferior, many of us have absorbed those ideas in one form or another. When you’ve been taught for generations that your people contributed nothing to civilization except labor or criminality, some people eventually begin to believe it.

    Internalized oppression doesn’t stop at national borders.

    If we are serious about Black liberation, I believe the only path forward is Pan-Africanism.

    That doesn’t mean pretending our experiences are identical. Black Americans have a unique history rooted in slavery, Jim Crow, and the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Africans have their own histories shaped by colonialism, independence movements, and modern political challenges. Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, and other members of the diaspora have their own distinct experiences as well.

    Recognizing those differences shouldn’t prevent us from recognizing our shared humanity and our shared struggle.

    We are connected not only through ancestry but through centuries of resistance against systems built on white supremacy and the ideology of Black inferiority. Those systems have always benefited when Black people distrust one another more than they distrust the institutions that marginalize all of us.

    We shouldn’t allow a handful of loud voices on social media to define our relationships.

    Ignore the people whose entire online presence depends on attacking other Black people. Be skeptical of pseudo-intellectuals who use selective history to create division rather than understanding. And let’s stop demonizing foreign-born Black people over hypothetical reparations that have neither been promised nor seriously pursued by either major political party.

    I wholeheartedly support the idea and the pursuit of reparations. They can help address historical injustices and repair some of the damage caused by centuries of oppression. But no amount of money can guarantee genuine Black liberation if we remain divided and lack a shared vision for our future.

    Liberation requires more than compensation.

    It requires education, unity, and a unwavering love and trust of our people as a collective.

    One lesson I think we should seriously consider comes from communities that invest heavily in teaching their children history, identity, culture, and collective responsibility outside of traditional public education. One such community are Jewish people. Academic subjects are important, but so is learning who you are, where you come from, and what obligations you have to your community.

    We need Afrocentric educational spaces that strengthen our understanding of African civilizations, the global African diaspora, and the interconnected histories of Black people everywhere. Those spaces should include Black Americans, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, and every other branch of the African family.

    The encouraging news is that this work is already happening.

    I’ve seen Africans sharing the history of Black Americans with wider audiences. I’ve seen members of the diaspora eager to learn from one another, exchange culture, build businesses together, and strengthen Black institutions. There are far more people interested in unity than social media would have us believe.

    Those people deserve more attention than the influencers profiting from division.

    Our goal should never be isolation or xenophobia. Black Americans should not view other Black people as competitors or outsiders simply because they were born elsewhere. Likewise, members of the diaspora should recognize the unique history and contributions of Black Americans without relying on stereotypes.

    History gives us a better example.

    The Civil Rights Movement did not exist in isolation. Black American leaders built relationships with African independence movements, Caribbean intellectuals, and freedom struggles across the globe. Ideas, strategies, and inspiration flowed in both directions because they understood something that many people online seem to have forgotten:

    Our liberation has always been connected.

    Instead of fighting one another over social media narratives, we should be building institutions, exchanging knowledge, strengthening our communities, and creating the kind of global Black solidarity that those who came before us envisioned.

    The diaspora wars may generate clicks but pan-African unity can generate freedom.

    We are stronger as a people when we are united.
  • American History Myths #7:The Myth of “Irish Slavery” and the Politics of Bad History

    American History Myths #7:The Myth of “Irish Slavery” and the Politics of Bad History

    Every so often, a meme or viral post circulates claiming that the Irish were enslaved in the Americas in the same way that Africans were. It’s one of the biggest historical distortions I see repeated online. The idea that “Irish slaves” existed in the same way as African slaves is about as academically credible as the claim that Black Americans are actually Native Americans and not part of the African diaspora (that post will be coming soon).

    In other words, the entire premise is built on bad research, misinterpretation, and repetition. When a claim gets repeated often enough within a certain audience, people begin to treat it as fact, even when it collapses under the slightest historical scrutiny.

    But let’s entertain the argument for a moment.

    Let’s pretend, for the sake of discussion, that Irish people in colonial America were enslaved under conditions as harsh as, or even worse than, those faced by enslaved Africans or descendants of Africans. Even in that hypothetical scenario, the historical outcomes would still be vastly different than the horrific reality that Black slaves endured.

    After slavery ended in the United States, Irish immigrants were able to assimilate into the broader category of whiteness after a relatively brief period of northern discrimination against them. This was mostly based on xenophobic ideas rather than strict adherence to a rigid and inhumane racial hierarchy.

    Although there was some discrimination against Irish immigrants during much of the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, there were no “Irish Codes” modeled after the Black Codes. There were no Jim Crow laws designed to keep Irish Americans segregated. There were only a relatively few systematic housing policies designed to prevent Irish people from living in certain neighborhoods, and no widespread legal restrictions prevented them from entering particular professions.

    In fact, Irish Americans quickly became deeply embedded in American civic life. In cities across the country, from Boston to New York to Chicago, Irish Americans filled municipal jobs, political offices, and police departments.

    Whatever discrimination the Irish faced as immigrants in the nineteenth century eventually gave way to full incorporation into the American definition of “white.”

    The same cannot be said for Black Americans.

    Other European immigrant groups—Italians, Poles, and others—also faced discrimination when they first arrived in the United States. Yet over time, most of these groups were absorbed into the dominant white majority. In many cases, they even became participants in the same social and political systems that marginalized Black Americans.

    This is a crucial aspect of the historical narrative that is often overlooked.

    The uncomfortable truth is that many Europeans, including the Irish, participated in systems that upheld slavery and racial hierarchy. Irish immigrants were not merely victims of history. Many were slaveholders in the Caribbean, plantation overseers, or participants in slave-catching systems within the United States.

    The New York Draft Riots of 1863 offer a stark example of this tension. Irish immigrants in New York violently resisted being drafted to fight in the Civil War, and many of those riots turned into attacks against Black residents of the city. It would make little sense for Irish rioters to protest a war that was supposedly freeing “Irish slaves.” They understood perfectly well to whom slavery applied in America.

    And the reality was simple: slavery in the United States was overwhelmingly imposed on Black people.

    Some people feel compelled to rewrite history to minimize that fact. But arguments built on historical distortions ultimately collapse under their own weight. When people attempt to counter the legacy of slavery with myths, they end up strengthening the very grievances they are trying to dismiss.

    So let’s state the truth and the historical record clearly.

    • Irish Americans ultimately assimilated into the broader category of whiteness and were able to participate fully in American society by the early to mid-20th century.
    • The system of American slavery became explicitly racial because race made it easier to identify who could be enslaved and who could not.
    • The legacy of chattel slavery, followed by Jim Crow, segregation, and institutional discrimination, continues to shape American society today. There is no such legacy connected with the mistreatment of Irish immigrants.
    • When Black Americans discuss slavery, we are not asking for pity or charity. What we are demanding is full participation in American society without harassment, stigma, or the expectation that we must hide parts of ourselves to be accepted.

    History is complicated. But it becomes even more complicated when people intentionally distort it for political convenience or to escape collective culpability.

    The truth is difficult enough without myths getting in the way. And lying about and/or omitting history will not shield the guilty from accountability.