America’s Most Wanted: Africans in Postracial America

• In Event: (Re)Teaching Trayvon Martin: Critical Pedagogy for Racial Justice and Human Freedom

Abstract

The violent murder of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of his killer have resonated in deep emotional ways throughout the African American community. This tragedy has served as a stark reminder of the power of race in U.S. society. Ultimately it invalidates the premature notion that we have arrived in a post-racial utopia.
In May of 2013, the FBI reported that former Black Panther Assata Shakur had been added to their list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” (Maat, 2013). Considered in concert, Trayvon’s murder, Zimmerman’s acquittal, and Assata being retroactively proclaimed a terrorist all portend an ominous future for African Americans. This paper endeavors to examine these two phenomenon through the intergenerational lens of African American critical social thought. Specifically I draw upon the insights Martin R. Delaney, a 19th Century activist, scholar, soldier, and pioneering Black nationalist; W.E.B. Du Bois, a pioneering scholar and civil rights activist, socialist, and Pan-Africanist; Malcolm X, a key Black nationalist whose ideas greatly informed the Black Power Movement which spawned after his death, a key thinker and organizer in the Nation of Islam, and a proponent of Pan-Africanism; as well as Assata Shakur, whose bibliography discusses her life and work with the Black Panther Party, and her critique of the political economy of white supremacy and the role of radical forms of resistance.
I seek to answer the following questions: First, do these two seemingly disparate phenomenon echo historic patterns of racialized oppression? For instance, how does Delaney’s discourse about the Fugitive Slave laws relate to the renewed interest of the FBI in apprehending Assata Shakur (Delaney, 1993). Second, what theoretical and analytical frameworks did these activists devise that captures the salient features and implications of this particular cultural moment? In this instance we might consider how Du Bois’s contestation that "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line" contradicts the discourse of post-racialism in the United States (Du Bois, 2002, p. 95). Third, what do these phenomenon suggest about the role of the state in African American life, and its supposed role as an arbiter of equity, justice, or even protection for African Americans? Malcolm X’s critique of American liberalism suggests that the state is not a neutral actor (X and Haley, 1992; T’Shaka 1983).
Quite the contrary, he posits that the state was directly implicated in the oppression of African Americans. Fourth, if these two occurrences are signifiers of the contemporary political economy of race, what does the Black radical tradition offer as potential responses? Delaney’s exhortations for emigration, Du Bois’s call for a radical democratic praxis, Malcolm X’s emphasis on community autonomy, and Assata’s call for revolution all pose interesting implications, and illuminate fascinating possibilities in relation to the on-going malaise of Africans in America (Assata, 1987). Finally, how should schools answer this quandary? How can Black radicalism inform social justice pedagogy?

Author

• Kamau Rashid, National Louis University