Hamilton and the Crisis of Legitimacy

A BAP PRESS RELEASE

U.S. rulers are in complete disarray as the legitimation crisis of the system and the state deepens every day another person is killed by the police and the number of COVID-19 deaths is reported.

The U.S. national identity—always fragile because of the United States’ origin as a slavocracy built on genocide and extreme individualism—is rapidly disintegrating as the public’s anger has turned to the symbols of white supremacy. The Confederacy and its heroes were the first and—for many—the most obvious targets. But as people tore down those statues, it began to dawn on some that not much difference existed between the leaders of the Confederacy and the slave-owning “founding fathers.”

Here, the Disney Corporation came to the rescue. Disney, one of six major companies that controls over 90 percent of news and entertainment content in the United States, released the movie version of the play, “Hamilton,” on July 3, taking advantage of the July 4 holiday weekend.

The play itself had broken records for attendance and profits on Broadway in portraying “founding father” Alexander Hamilton as an abolitionist. Puerto Rican artist Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the play, dressed up African/Black actors as slave traders and appropriated hip hop in yet another attempt to whitewash the history of degradation and dehumanization that is at the center of the U.S. national project. Black writer and critic Ishmael Reed was correct in his brutal dismemberment of Miranda’s insulting piece of historical revisionism. Of course, liberals and particularly warmongers such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Bolton loved it.

It is clear the objective in rolling out the movie at this critical moment is to turn the tide of the U.S. public’s growing rejection of the United States’ white-supremacist origin story.

But people are seeing through the smoke and mirrors because the reality they are living through is too harsh to keep them disillusioned. That is why thousands took to the streets. It’s why the monuments are coming down and the crisis is deepening.

BAP is contributing to help people see through the nonsense with our weekly newsletter. By presenting alternative news and analysis, we are in our small way laying the foundation for a new movement that understands the fundamental difference between the people’s history and the lies peddled by the U.S. settler state.

PRESS AND MEDIA

Netfa Freeman, who represents BAP member organization Pan-African Community Action (PACA), interviewed BAP Advisory Committee member Mireille Fanon-Nendès France. A human rights lawyer and former member of the U.N. Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, she appeared on Netfa’s WPFW radio show, “Voices with Vision,” to discuss the United Nations addressing U.S. police repression and its relationship to anti-Black policies internationally.

CodePink Radio interviewed Netfa on radio networks WBAI and WPFW about the demand for defunding the police and community control over police. The interview can be heard here and seen here.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley examined the call to defund the police.

PACA organizer Olufemi Taiwo was featured on an online panel hosted by Dissident Magazine as part of its summer series, “Dismantle Racial Capitalism.”

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka urged the public to stay vigilant against U.S. “attempts to control the narrative” of the Black Lives Matter movement during an online event organized by the Workers’ Party (Ireland). He also discussed the issue in his latest Black Agenda Report article.

U.S. Out of Africa Network Coordinator Tunde Osazua broke down how the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) enforces the U.S. colonial project.

EVENTS

July 16: The Embassy Protection Collective in the United States and the Committee for International Solidarity in Venezuela have organized a meeting, “Strengthening US Venezuela Social Movement Solidarity.”
July 18-19: The International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity is hosting a two-day concert for Cuba to celebrate the revolutionary country’s achievements amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Register here.
July 20: BAP member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party will continue distributing food, supporting community sustainability with window-box garden creations and a giving away books for African/Black children through the #LiberationThroughReading program. For information, call 443.826.9654 or send a message to the organization’s Facebook page.
July 25: Register for the “International Meeting: No to the New Cold War,” featuring Ajamu and other prominent speakers, who will discuss the U.S. drive toward a war with China.

TAKE ACTION

Ask your local, state and federal candidates to sign BAP’s 2020 Candidate Accountability Pledge. If you are a candidate, distinguish yourself from the other corporate warmongering candidates by signing the pledge.
Sign up to join BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network to receive the bi-weekly AFRICOM Watch Bulletin in your inbox.
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