The American Spring: A Perennially Hijacked Revolution

Mehran Banaei

Oppressed masses entangled in a capitalistic system operating on an orgy of greed and lust for power, where a few psychopaths systematically control all national and international affairs will eventually reach the boiling point to rise up against tyranny. The ruling class unwilling to relinquish the illegitimately seized power under the pretext of “democracy” would hold onto their throne by any means necessary. Those who dare to rise up against them are brutally crushed.

One particular group which for centuries has been subjugated to mental and physical slavery in a violent system of global exploitation is the community of African descent. Historically they have raised numerously against institutionalized racism and systematic injustices, but each time the uprising has been sidetracked and diverted on a detour to nowhere. All empires rest on hypocrisy, deceit as well as violence. Thus, the usual employed strategy is the use of force as well as giving a few meaningless, but highly inflated concessions. In this strategy, language plays a crucial role. The end result is that the unwary settles for a change which is always cosmetic, not real and substantive. Case in point, at the peak of the civil rights movement in the U.S. the word Negro changed to Black and then to African-American. Nevertheless, the so-called African-Americans continuously experienced the same human rights violations and were subjugated to worse Police brutality. The U.S. Police’s violent and coward reaction to George Floyd peaceful protesters has made Saudi Arabia looks like a human rights paradise. So much for “the land of the free and home of the brave”.

The real change occurs when victims of prejudice keep the same stained term, but change the mindset, attitude, social perception and stigma attached to the term. In the last century, African-Americans repeatedly took the bait. In comparison, the Gay community was much smarter. Members of this community proudly continued to refer to themselves as queers, but aimed to change the social perception and the attitude of people and legislators towards their community. Unlike Negro, queer was a derogatory term intended to insult and belittle homosexuals, while the root meaning of Negro in Latin refers to things of black colour with no negative connotation. There is nothing offensive about Rio Negro, a river located in Northern Brazil which its water is black due to the high concentration of organic constituents of soil, minerals and vegetation. Why should it be different, when the same term is used in a descriptive way to refer to a particular human “race”? The fact is that using the term Negro was how most black Americans comfortably described themselves. The civil rights movement somehow diverted as though the racial tension in the USA was a semantic issue, not a human rights issue. If it was the latter, human rights violations are resolved when victims enjoy the same rights as everyone else in society and are treated equally in the eyes of the law. The term Negro was often used unequivocally by civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. They did not settle with hypocritical trivialities. They knew better: respect in a form of lip service is worthless.

The African-Americans are being manipulated again by more subtle diversions, cosmetic changes and worthless concessions. For instance, reducing the “Black Power Movement” to controversial “Black Lives Matter”, the former is a struggle for equality in all aspects of the sociopolitical sphere, the latter is “don’t shoot me” or “allow me to breath”. Thereby, moving away from having the power to focusing on begging to have some basic rights. Furthermore, of course black lives matter, but so too the Indigenous lives, the Latinos and all others who have been systematically oppressed or have not. In pursuit of justice and combating racism, why should the American Spring be racially exclusive? This would no doubt, will provoke a swift backlash, i.e. “All lives matter”, “Blue lives matter”, etc. Although some slogans are launched by members of the black community, it is the corporate media that gets to choose which ones ought to be publicized and which should be buried.

Consider, the temporary removal of the 1939 Oscar-winning movie: Gone with the Wind from HBO streaming service due to its upbeat depiction of slavery. After two weeks, the movie returned with an added disclaimer, like the new insertion to an old movie is a huge amelioration to the current social conditions of the black community. Further concessions given are in changing the name of some sports clubs and supermarket products as well as discontinuing biased TV series: “Cops”, or by re-naming some streets to “Black Lives Matter”, as if by changing the name of a street, the neighborhood will suddenly turn into black utopia. We can observe none of such changes came with a change in police conducts towards the black community. On the contrary, it has gotten far worse. What is really achieved when police brutality against blacks occurs on Black Lives Matter Avenue?

To retire brands or changing the product name is a common corporate strategy. Like changing Marlboro to Philip Morris, at times it is a necessary business move for their own corporate vested interests, not for the good of the black community. Under the current climate when sales are going down, the change made is de rigueur. The move is not an indication of being supportive of a sociopolitical cause. Acknowledging reality for what it is, is what matters.

Over the past century, the civil rights of blacks in America did not improve despite having many high-ranking black politicians, black senators in Congress and having a black President for 8 years. Inequality, displacement, exclusion, segregation and mistreatment by law enforcement agencies and the judiciary continuously persist. This demonstrates that the solution is not within the upper leadership, but within the whole global system of exploitation where foreign and domestic policies are intertwined. America’s hawkish domination of the world’s resources and jingoistic violation of other nations’ rights contributes to the domestic brutality at home. One cannot have contradictory ethical standards, behave like a demon abroad, while pretending to be an angel at home, particularly when one’s priorities are set on the accumulation of wealth.

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America needs a foundational change to resolve its race problem; any other remedy is nothing short of an ineffective band-aid approach. Unless the entire global power structure, the culture of greed changes, nothing substantially will ever result. Race or nationhood is a human construct, not a way of nature. There is no such a thing as racial supremacy or the chosen people in the state of nature which gives undeserved economic privileges to some, but not to all.