Remembering Black-Asian Socialist Solidarity this Black History Month
This Black History Month, in the light of US media highlighting divisive stories to drive a wedge between Black and Asian communities, I want to highlight the long history of international Black-Asian Socialist solidarity.
Samora Machel
Samora Machel, pictured embracing his good friend and fellow revolutionary, General Võ Nguyên Giáp of Vietnam, was a socialist revolutionary leader against Portuguese colonialism, and the first President of Mozambique. He was killed in a plane crash in South Africa, which many accuse the South African apartheid government of orchestrating. In 1981, the CIA plotted to assassinate Machel, and was accused by the Mozambican government of preparing to back a coup against the Marxist government with the help of the South African apartheid government. The racist South African government reportedly supported right-wing Mozambican rebels to carry out atrocities and to cripple the economy to undermine the country’s independence and the government, which they saw as a threat. A minority report requested by the Soviet Union suggested that Machel’s aircraft was intentionally lured off course by a decoy radio navigation beacon set up by the South Africans, leading the plane to crash on South African soil.
Black Panther Party Comrades in DPRK, Vietnam and China
A cover story on the Black Panther newsletter covers the friendships that the party forged with international communist leadership in DPRK, Vietnam and China in contrast of the state-sponsored terrorism, assassinations and apartheid that black American activists faced from their own government and neighbors at home.
International Socialist Solidarity
A photo of the Black Panther Party delegation visiting China in 1971. The Black Panther Party has been effectively erased from US history. Outside of a couple images of scary looking black men holding rifles, most Americans have no idea who they were, their body of work fighting for black and American working class progress, and that they were socialists allied with other socialists worldwide.
Re-learning the History of Korea, and the DPRK’s support of Black Revolutionaries
A letter of solidarity from Kim Il Sung from the Korean people to the Black Panther Party. Most of us are not ready to learn about the history of Korean Peninsula-US relations since WWII. Most of us (including me up until about 2018) have been so polluted by Western propaganda on Korean history that we reflexively reject any notion that DPRK are anything other than a land of brainwashed Asian zombies under the leadership of a maniac, that DPRK’s nuclear arsenal is the ONLY reason that they have been able to keep the CIA and Pentagon outside of their borders, that the only independent Korea is DPRK, that the US never ended the Korean War, and by deliberately not doing so, are able to impose Pentagon direct order over the South Korean military, that the US will never leave the South because they view my people as a human shield during a planned war vs China/Russia, and our land as a nuclear missile launchpad during that war. Anyways, this is about Black History Month. This letter is an example of solidarity between 2 communities separated by an ocean, united against the same oppressor.
Asian-American Revolutionaries
Asian-American revolutionaries have marched next to, gotten arrested with, and taken beatings from cops alongside their black radical comrades since the earliest days of the American Civil Rights movement.
Stopping Asian hate and supporting black lives is the same battle. It means rejecting the wedge US corporate media have created between blacks and Asians in America. It means recognizing that both of our communities exist in a dangerous world. There has never been a time in America where it was safe to be black, and ever since our country shifted military and propaganda resources from the “War on Terror” to “Pivot to Asia” under the Obama administration, our country has become a progressively more unwelcoming place to Asian-Americans. Chinese and (North) Koreans are the new enemies of the state, and demonized every single day in US mainstream media. There is no side of American politics standing up against this, as Democrats and Republicans are equally complicit in pushing the violent narrative. Asian-Black unity is an inconvenient truth, so they make us dig it out of out-of-print books and digitized microfiche archives to learn about its history, but it’s the only path forward. Celebrate Black History everyday, and stop Asian hate everywhere.
If this is a topic that interests you, please learn about the connections between Eldridge Cleaver and Kim Il Sung, the Black Panther Party and Communist Party of China, Vietnam & DPRK. I also recommend reading about Paul Robeson’s time in the USSR.