US imperialism colonizing African Americans: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jesse Nevel, with the African People's Solidarity Committee from Saint Petersburg, to get his take on the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol in the wake of a mass shooting at a black church in Charleston.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Why did it have to take nine people African Americans who be killed in a church for this debate regarding the Confederate flag to reach the point that it has today?

Nevel: ... I think what we saw in Charleston, South Carolina, was nothing new, when you look the history of how the United States was formed that white people carrying out violence against black people African people in this country is as old as the United States of America itself. And the fact of the matter is that the Confederate flag represents slavery and genocide as much as the American flag does. There are many people who are defending the Confederate flag by saying that flag represents their heritage and it’s true. Slavery and murder and genocide, the theft of this land and the indigenous people, the enslavement and lynching of African people is the heritage of every white person in the United States. And that’s why we have to more than tear down the flags. We have to stand in solidarity with the struggle of the black community and oppressed people everywhere to have genuine freedom and self-determination and independence from this vile system.

Press TV: Why is it that this as you’ve just pointed out this terrorist attack has been boiled down to gun control and a flag?

Nevel: Well, our Chairman Omali Yeshitela pointed out that if gun control was the problem then we would also need a road control and bomb control and control of every other weapon that white people have used historically to terrorize the black community. Gun control is not the issue. The issue is that there is colonialism against African people in this country. Africans are colonized by the US government, by US imperialism, the same way Palestinian people are colonized by ... Israel. And only when African people have genuine political and economic power over their own lives, we will see an end to that. It’s much deeper than racism, than ideas in the minds of white people. It’s a whole social and economic system of colonialism built on slavery and genocide at the expense of African people. And it has always required violence like what we just saw in Charleston for the system to exist.

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