Olufemi

We need to develop a genuinely structural politics. The solution is clearly not as simple as putting someone who looks like you in power.  The trouble with identity politics is its focus on who’s bad and who’s good, who’s the oppressor and who’s the oppressed, who is the victim and who is the victimizer. But any sensible history of colonialism shows the contribution and complicity of African merchants, slavers and state bureaucrats. We need to understand the structural reasons for domination, racism, and forge a less predatory form of politics.

So if you look at housing insecurity or incarceration, for example, here in the US or internationally, you will see stark racial divisions. But the reasons for that are complicated and the solutions will be too. We need to structure our political world so that we defend each other’s safety rather than defend some people’s profit margins or some people’s pretensions to control or desire to perpetuate a colonial politics, as Achille has explained.

Olúfémi Táíwò