I am not your POC

I am a 22-year-old Black man and I refuse to be identified and identify as a person of color. I refuse to be lumped in with another race and other ethnicities in efforts of achieving false solidarity. I refuse to buy into gender politics and toxic masculinity. I refuse to sway from my goal of preserving the American Black family unit.

I refuse to forget the history of my people, the Black people who have been in this country 500 years plus.

I refuse to forget slavery.

I refuse to forget being raped, sold, and killed.

I refuse to forget building this country, turning this country to the economic power of the world.

I refuse to forget reconstruction and sharecropping.

I refuse to forget Jim Crow.

I refuse to forget redlining, sunset towns, and segregation.

I refuse to forget the CIA dumping crack in my neighborhood to fund a foreign war.

I refuse to the government incinerating us on a level unheard of for drugs they introduced.

I refuse to put the issues of others over the issues of my people.

 I refuse to stop fighting for ADOS people.

I refuse to stop fighting for reparations.

The ripple effect of the ADOS community receiving reparations in the United

States would upset many norms and unwritten rules that are and have been in place in this country for centuries. America itself is built on a series of social contracts, all acting towards preserving the “ideal” of what “America” is supposed to be. For a social contract to work, people need to be incentivized with tangible benefits in order for them to fully buy into the system.

 In this country, the foundational social contract is an agreement upheld by every non-ADOS person to both, directly and indirectly work to keep African Americans at the bottom of this corporate caste system we call America.

This means that African Americans have no ally in this war for freedom and self-dominion. Even within the ranks of our own, we must push to establish a common goal and a code of conduct. All should know—from infant to elderly—that White Supremacy is the one and only enemy we have, the only enemy we propel energy towards.

The LGBTQ, feminist, and other movements do not care about the safety and prosperity of the Black American family unit. African Americans who choose to indulge and campaign harder for climate change, marijuana, and other dull policies rather than reparations for their ADOS people must be corrected. It’s time as a people that we act in our best interest, campaign solely for our issues, break away from the derogatory “person of color” label, and plant the proverbial flag in the ground that we are Black Americans and nothing more.

Until recently, being referred to as colored was just another way of being referred to as an n*gger. Some of us are old enough to remember segregation, those of us who are younger, like myself, have only photos to look at. No matter the age, we all can envision the “Whites only” and “Colored Only” signs. White people reserved severely underfunded schools and low-quality public facilities/amenities to those they named Colored.

Obviously they saw being Colored in that society as negative, so what makes you think that they don’t now. This just goes to show how arbitrary these labels like Black and White are. While these terms are just social constructs there’s too much history submerged within these terms for them not to be respected. The terms “Black” and “White” were originally put in place to further dehumanize enslaved Africans (ADOS) in efforts to ease the “White” guilt of having slaves. Pushing forward the thought that we’re

”White” and there “Black” so it’s okay to enslave them, they’re not human, their Black.

These two labels ‘Black” and “White” are truly the inverse of each other. Not just in color but in their formation, which is why it’s imperative that we accurately tag who is truly Black in this country. At the start of the slave trade, we see Portugal and other European countries buying and kidnapping enslaved Africans from Africa and spreading these enslaved people to the Caribbean, Europe, South America and finally North America.

Europeans took Africans with countless different languages, cultures, and spirituality spreading from all 54 countries In Africa and condensed these different people down to one. The move to America shrank 54 tribes to one, and created what we now know as African Americans. These people and their decedents are the “n*ggers” and “Negros” that by law, couldn’t own property, who couldn’t be educated, who couldn’t be and still aren’t free. Being Black isn’t about how much melanin you have, being Black is about your time and lineage in this country.

To sacrifice and expand in the name of control is what it means to be White. Being “White” is a sweater you can put on if deemed eligible. The Chinese were offered the label but rejected the notion in the 1990s. The majority of Hispanics identify as “White.”

Last century, the Irish, Swedish, the Italians, among other European countries, were brought in to America to be White, as well. This is where the POC (people of color) label is dangerous because it dismisses history, socio-economic standing, as well as common sense.

According to the Minnesota Compass, the Asian Americans’ median household income is listed at $80,943 dollars. The White Household income is $73,608, Hispanic household income is listed at $50,240, while “other races,” presumably immigrants, are listed at $48,404.

Black Americans, however, are listed at $36,849. Where is the POC solidarity?

Why are African Americans, the people who’ve built the country, and who been in it the longest, the lowest in this category? Why are African Americans dead last or closest to it in every statistical category in the state and the country as a whole? Where is the inclusion?

African Americans are only used to make statistics look worse for other groups so they can receive more money and opportunities while Black Americans themselves receive none. This is why it benefits ADOS to not be associated with others because we’re constantly pushed aside and our issues are never addressed.

Black Americans being diluted and replaced has been made much more prevalent by the immigration of continental Africans in this country. Continental Africans are allowed to distinguish who they are amongst themselves in Africa (Somali, Ethiopian, etc.) but come to America and get merged under the banner of “Black” despite not having our lineage. As I said earlier, to be “White,” you must abandon your home country, its language, customs, flag, etc. and buy into America and what it stands for, that’s the deal.

The Africans that do claim to be Black, sacrifice nothing to wear the banner. They still claim their home country, their language, holidays and celebrations, food, etc. and then take the crumbs of resources African Americans do have because they’re “Black” too, in addition to already having the benefit of government assistance and tax breaks that foundational Black Americans aren’t afforded. You can’t be Somali and Black too, that’s not how this works. The idea of being Pan-African is of Black American origin. Since the beginning, it was African Americans who were the ones extending hands and pushing unity, and since then, that same energy has not been returned by any African people of the diaspora. This is why the political designation of ADOS (American Descendants of Slaves) a description first coined by Randall Robinson in his book, “The Debt,” and later turned into a political designation by Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore, is so important. It allows for lineage to be of focus and driving factor.

As recent as 2016, the president of the United Nations, Gregory H. Stanton, made a criteria of what genocide of a people looks like. Saying that “Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.”

“1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality.”

“2. SYMBOLIZATION: We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We name people “Jews” or “Gypsies,” or distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply the symbols to members of groups.”

“3. DISCRIMINATION: A dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other groups. The powerless group may not be accorded full civil rights, voting rights, or even citizenship. The dominant group is driven by an exclusionary ideology that would deprive less powerful groups of their rights.”

 “4. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases.”

“5. ORGANIZATION: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility. (An example is the Sudanese government’s support and arming of the Janjaweed in Darfur.)”

“6. POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Motivations for targeting a group are indoctrinated through mass media.” “7. PREPARATION: Plans are made for genocidal killings.”

“8. PERSECUTION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity.”

“9. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human.” “10. DENIAL is the final stage that lasts throughout and always follows genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses.

These are all checkable for African Americans. Urgency and militancy is a must, we have to stop looking at the history of our ancestors made and make our own.

Delmar Napue, III is a Twin Cities blogger. Find more of his work at https://sovereigntytalks.blogspot.com.