The Rio Stanton Report

Tag: Freedom

  • Memorial Day, Patriotism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

    Memorial Day, Patriotism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

    I have a hard time participating in jingoism, even when it is meant to honor people I respect, sometimes even members of my own family.

    Memorial Day is the day Americans set aside to remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the United States armed forces. It also happens to be the unofficial start of summer, a day of barbecues, pools, and gatherings with friends and family.

    But every year, as the speeches and social media posts roll in, I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the rhetoric surrounding the holiday. Much of it feels less like remembrance and more like pseudo-patriotic flag-waving.

    Let’s be honest about something.

    The United States has not fought a war primarily over the freedom of its own citizens since either the War of 1812 or the Civil War, depending on how one chooses to frame it. Nearly every major conflict since then has been tied to geopolitical strategy, alliances, or the protection of American economic and imperial interests abroad.

    From the Cold War through the late twentieth century, many U.S. military interventions were justified under the Truman Doctrine, a policy aimed at stopping the spread of communism. But communism was never an immediate threat to the civil liberties of most Americans. What it threatened was the global political and economic order dominated by the United States and its Western allies.

    And while American leaders were promoting narratives about defending freedom abroad, millions of Black Americans were still fighting for the most basic civil rights at home.

    Black soldiers served in every American war. They fought and died under the banner of freedom while living in a country that often denied them full citizenship, equal protection under the law, and even basic dignity.

    In many cases, they returned home from battle only to be treated as second-class citizens. Their sacrifices were praised in speeches, but their humanity was still questioned in everyday life.

    In that sense, the people who fought most directly for my freedom were not generals or politicians. They were activists, organizers, and everyday citizens who challenged systems of racial injustice. Many of these heroes were harassed, imprisoned, exiled, or assassinated for their efforts.

    They fought not on foreign battlefields but in American streets, courtrooms, churches, and communities.

    That history makes it difficult for me to fully embrace the triumphant, chest-pounding patriotism that often dominates the Memorial Day holiday.

    This doesn’t mean I don’t respect the individuals who served. Many of them acted out of genuine belief, duty, or economic necessity. Some of them were family members. Their sacrifices were real.

    But respect for those individuals doesn’t require me to accept the mythology that surrounds American military power and American motivation.

    So while others participate in the patriotic pageantry and blast Toby Keith songs about American might, I’ll probably spend the day doing something much quieter.

    I’ll remember the complicated history behind the holiday.

    Then I’ll enjoy the food, spend time with family, and maybe take a dip in the pool.

  • Diaspora Divisions and the Cost of Infighting

    Diaspora Divisions and the Cost of Infighting

    One of the trends I have become increasingly frustrated with in recent years is the rise of diaspora conflicts among people of African descent, particularly the rhetoric coming from the Foundational Black American (FBA) movement and the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) movement.

    My criticism is not about recognizing the unique historical experience of Black Americans whose ancestors endured slavery and segregation in the United States. That history is real and deserves to be studied and acknowledged.

    Nor is my disagreement with these groups over the fight for reparations and the hypothetical distribution of any amount of personal funds that is a direct result of said fight.

    The problem arises when that recognition turns into hostility toward other Black communities, such as Africans, Caribbeans, Afro-Latinos, and others within the broader African diaspora (the sixth region of Africa).

    Movements that frame liberation as a zero-sum competition between groups of Black people misunderstand the history of Black struggle.

    Black liberation movements have always been global.

    Pan-African thinkers, such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, and many others, understood that the struggle against racism and colonialism was not confined to a single country. Activists, intellectuals, and artists from across the African diaspora have participated in and led movements for civil rights, cultural expression, and political freedom.

    This global exchange of ideas and customs had always shaped Black American culture.

    Music, political ideas, literature, and social movements have flowed back and forth between the United States, Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America. That cross-pollination helped create many of the cultural forms and political traditions that people celebrate today.

    For that reason, turning these relationships into ideological battlegrounds does not strengthen Black communities. Instead, it weakens them.

    Diaspora conflicts often distract from the structural issues that affect people of African descent globally: economic inequality, systemic discrimination, political marginalization, and the long historical legacy of colonialism and racial hierarchy.

    Even debates about policies such as reparations often become framed in ways that pit Black communities against one another. Yet those discussions are largely hypothetical at the moment, given that meaningful reparations programs in the United States remain politically distant.

    Arguing among ourselves over potential future policies does little to advance the broader goals of empowerment, economic development, and collective liberation.

    If the goal is Black power, Black wealth, and meaningful progress, then building solidarity across the African diaspora is far more productive than deepening internal divisions.

    That does not mean ignoring real disagreements or historical differences.

    But it does mean recognizing that the struggles of people of African descent have always been interconnected, and that fragmentation ultimately benefits those who would prefer those struggles to remain divided.