The Dangers of ‘Minstrel Diplomacy’

By Wilmer J. Leon III – Nov 8, 2023

“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions… He will find his own ‘proper place’ and will stay in it… You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary… ” — Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

T Here have been defining times in history-moments, epochs, and periods that are typically marked by notable events or particular characteristics that have changed the world forever.

Nicolaus Copernicus’ publication of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, postulating the model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center was such a moment.

The Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840), was a defining period in the methods and processes of global capitalist production that transitioned most of the world away from hand production, towards more efficient and stable mechanical manufacturing.

In 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the Earth’s first artificial satellite, launching the “space race” that led to America landing the first humans on the moon in 1969.

These are just a few examples of moments in time that have changed people’s perceptions of the world as it was known. Humankind once again finds itself in the midst of one of those epochs.

Humankind is witnessing the fall of the Western empire. The shift is away from the unipolar world, financed by the US dollar and controlled by American military power projection and hegemony, to a new multipolar geo-political landscape.

This “new world order” will not be controlled by American interests. It will be managed by the cooperation of numerous countries, with a goal of establishing, “… a more just, balanced, and stable multipolar world order, firmly opposing all types of international confrontation.”

People naturally tend to think that a “fall” or collapse of this nature would be more immediate, dramatic, and easily recognized. On the contrary, empires tend to collapse over time. It’s analogous to going bankrupt.

In Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Mike Campbell, a bankrupt Scottish war veteran, was asked how he went bankrupt. Mike replied, “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.” When asked what brought his bankruptcy on, Mike replied, “Friends. I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too.”

Just as Mike had “friends,” the US has allies. As Mike had “creditors,” the US is trying to finance multiple wars on multiple fronts.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s pronouncements that “… the U.S. can afford to support both Ukraine and Israel in their respective war efforts without hindering the nation’s economy,” reeks of overreach. Financial overreach and military overreach are among the contributing factors that have historically led to the fall of empires.

Messaging in a Time of Decline

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Oct. 13 in Tel Aviv, which he visited to “underscore the unwavering support of the U.S. … to ensuring Israel has what it needs to defend itself.” Photo: Chad J. McNeeley/DoD.

As empires begin their decline, messaging becomes very important. The narrative that’s created to control people’s perceptions of reality are key.

MSNBC told us, the “US is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid.” Simply put, the government is lying to you in order to maintain some semblance of order.

It’s Plato’s “noble lie.” This is very important. These are the lies that need to be told so Americans will believe that more US taxpayer dollars need to be sent to Ukraine and Israel while American infrastructure disintegrates.

We’re told that the US needs to invade Haiti again, that sovereign African countries should be sanctioned for doing business with Russia, and a humanitarian pause in hostilities in Occupied Palestine is a bad idea and only benefits Hamas.

These distortions and lies are part of the narratives that directly impact the development of our perceptions. These manufactured realities then determine the policies put into place and actions taken. This becomes a vicious cycle as in the Easton model of systems analysis.

In telling the narrative, who tells it can be as important as what is being told. This is where the minstrel and “minstrel diplomacy” rears its ugly head.

In the 19th century in the United States, minstrels were bands of entertainers (or an individual), typically white who would blacken their faces with burnt cork referred to as “corking up.” They performed songs, dances, and formulaic comic routines based on stereotyped and demeaning depictions of African Americans. Sometimes, African American performers wore blackface when taking the stage in order to make their presentations more acceptable to White audiences.

What was once found to be an effective entertainment device, the minstrel show has now become a device to disseminate the dominant imperialist and racist, Western narrative of American foreign policy.

Since the phenotype of many of the victims of these policies are people of the darker hue; the disseminators of the narrative have decided to “cork up” the people being used to sell the story.

In a nutshell, using Black faces to explain and rationalize racism and white supremacy in order to make the audience more comfortable with and receptive to the message. These people are easy to find.

They are part of what the late Glen Ford called “The Black Misleadership Class” who have “been busy selling out Black people for half a century.” The late Amiri Baraka called them “functionaries of the US government.” They know their proper place, stay in it, and do their jobs well.

Baraka addressing the Malcolm X Festival in San Antonio Park, Oakland, California, while performing with Marcel Diallo and his Electric Church Band, May 2007. Photo: David Sasaki/Wikimedia Commons.

Israel, the US Army, ISIS, and Al Qaeda Bomb Syria in 24 Hours

Obama on Israel & Gaza
Former President Barack Obama recently published an op-ed entitled, “Thoughts on Israel and Gaza” in which he wrote that Israel had a right to defend itself against the October 7 attacks and he reiterated the need to abide by “international law.”

I agree that Israel has a right to exist, but not on occupied Palestinian land!

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Balfour Declaration continues to represent the first international recognition of the establishment of a Jewish national homeland on the land of Palestine.

The declaration clearly states, “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people… it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

Notice, the word “State” is never mentioned nor is the word “Israel.” Why are Zionists allowed to ignore their own documents and rewrite the historical narrative?

I wanted to share some thoughts on what’s happening right now in Israel and Gaza.https://t.co/fEaYWFisnN
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 23, 2023

Obama’s non-contextual and ahistorical talking points are being passed off as substantive analysis. Obama goes on to write,

“But even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters… that Israel’s military strategy abides by international law.”

In fact, Said was Obama’s English professor at Columbia University. Obama attended many pro-Palestine events when he was younger, and he worked closely with many Palestinian organizers. He was supportive or at the least even-handed. That he capitulated to state interests… shame. https://t.co/XHOL4PrZ2x pic.twitter.com/hHxF2eFtMr
— humza (@humzasayshi) November 5, 2023

He does not acknowledge the humanity of the Palestinians. It’s as if Obama thinks that it’s okay to bomb them as long as we’re nicer about it or just use a nicer form of genocide. Also, Obama totally ignores that Israel’s entire anti-Hamas strategy is based on the concept of “collective punishment” and is in violation of international law and is itself a war crime.

Many ignore the historic realities of this conflict. If Obama is saying it and he’s Black, it can’t be racist.

From left, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres ahead of the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East on Oct. 24. Photo: Manuel Elías/UN Photo.

Thomas-Greenfield at the UN
The U.S. recently vetoed Brazil’s proposed United Nations resolution condemning all violence against civilians in the Israel-Hamas war.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said the council needs to allow current diplomatic efforts to unfold. She also criticized the measure for failing to underline Israel’s right to self-defense.

It’s hard to negotiate the terms of delivering humanitarian aid to a people suffering genocide when, as was the case with African Americans, their very humanity is in question.

"The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me. What I don't understand is why the cries of Palestinians sound different to you all." –@RepRashida https://t.co/WqnKDiaCMp pic.twitter.com/2vy6MMe1zX
— jordan (@JordanUhl) November 7, 2023

The US veto of the proposed resolution amounted to the U.S. giving Israel as much time as it wants to, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “…to turn them into rubble.”

Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman recently described Palestinians as “horrible, inhuman animals.”

Israel’s defense minister called for a “complete siege” of Gaza, describing the Palestinian fighters who attacked Israel October 7 as “human animals.”

None of this can be considered racist if Thomas-Greenfield believes that humans can be exterminated because she doesn’t like the language in Brazil’s proposed resolution. The statements of both Obama and Thomas-Greenfield fail to provide historical context related to the atrocities being committed against the Palestinians in Historic Palestine.

US House Minority Leader Jeffries, President Joe Biden and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), during the Democratic House Caucus Retreat on March 1 in Baltimore. Photo: Adam Schultz/White House.

Palestinian Resistance Frustrates Israeli Advance into Gaza

Jeffries on Tlaib & Haiti
US House Minority Leader Jeffries, President Joe Biden and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), during the Democratic House Caucus Retreat on March 1 in Baltimore. (White House, Adam Schultz)

Other examples of “minstrel diplomacy” include US Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) [who voted on Tuesday in the US House of Representatives to censure Congressperson Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian member of the House for her speech. Jeffries said before the vote:

“Slogans [used by Tlaib] that are widely understood as calling for the complete destruction of Israel — such as ‘from the river to the sea’ — does not advance progress toward a two-state solution. Instead, it unacceptably risks further polarization, division, and incitement to violence.”

In 1842,
Joshua Giddings of the Whig party was censured by congress for introducing an anti-slavery bill.
Tonight, Congress has censured congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for humanizing Palestinians
Posterity will remember pic.twitter.com/vNsGGZuuhV
— Propaganda and co (@propandco) November 8, 2023

The House censure resolution ignorantly called the phrase “a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” Tlaib said the cry represents “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”

In other words, it means creating a one-state solution in which all people in historic Palestine have a vote, which does not mean killing or expelling one Jew.

Jeffries also supports the Global Fragilities Act and the U.S.-backed reinvasion of Haiti. Dr. Jemima Pierre, associate professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, writes, “The act and its prologue clearly articulate that the main goals are to advance ‘US national security and interests’ and to ‘manage rival powers,’ presumably Russia and China.”

The U.S. understands the poor optics of it leading the invasion into Haiti, so it is trying desperately to find a “Black led” country or “Black face” to take the lead. Vice President Kamala Harris and Hakeem Jeffries traveled to Nassau in June for the US-Caribbean Leaders Meeting in a failed attempt to convince a CARICOM country to back the play. None would.

Eventually, the US was able to convince Kenya to take the lead in this US misadventure and has agreed to pay Kenya over $100M. This has also resulted in US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signing a five-year agreement with Kenya to shill for U.S. militarism on the continent. Much to the dismay of the US, a Kenyan court has temporarily suspended the government plan to send Kenyan troops into Haiti.

Anti-Russia Sanctions in Africa

Another example of this minstrelsy is US Congressman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) championing the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act that sanctions sovereign African nations that decide to do business with Russia.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has vehemently expressed their collective opposition to this law. In a recent statement they said,

“Africa Is Not For Sale. Africa is open for business not for sale or looting. We must defend what is ours and make sure that no one takes from us what is ours…”

We must be vigilant and aware of the Black faces that are being used by the failing empire to sell us on failed racist, white-supremacist, imperial, and neo-colonial militarism.

If we continue to allow these narratives to go unchallenged, Americans will continue to blindly support money laundering schemes disguised as military and humanitarian support bills for countries such as Ukraine, Israel, and Haiti. As Woodson stated, “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions…”

The real goal is to pay stock dividends to investors in the military-industrial complex and bonuses to the CEOs of companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin with Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars. (Defense Secretary Austin sat on the board of Raytheon before heading the Pentagon.)

These are just some of the dangers of minstrel diplomacy. As the late Fred Hampton told us,

“it’s a class struggle… We know that in order to be able to talk about power, that what you’ve got to be able to talk about is the ability to control and define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner.”

Listening to the minstrels we continue to get confused. We continue to come up with, as Hampton said,

“answers that don’t answer, explanations that don’t explain and conclusions that don’t conclude.”

(Consortium News)

BLA