Discussion
Today the United Nations voted 123 to 3 on Resolution A/80/L.48, the Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement, formally labeling the transatlantic slave trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity in history.
123 countries said yes. 3 said no. 52 abstained.
Their entire economies are rooted in their ability to leverage free labor. That is not history. That is the foundation their current wealth is still sitting on.
And the 3 who voted against?
I am not surprised.
What I find remarkable is how many "good white folx" who claim to be on the right side of history have no capacity to engage honestly with a long-standing atrocity that still negatively shapes the lives of Black people worldwide.
Not in the past.
Right now.
Today.
As article is paywalled, which we’re the 3 (besides the U.S., I presume)?
@paninid@mastodon.world @KimCrayton1@dair-community.social
The proposal was adopted with 123 votes in favour and three against - the United States, Israel and Argentina.
Fifty-two countries abstained, including the United Kingdom and European Union member states.
This resolution does not change policy. It does not redistribute wealth. It does not repair a single material harm. What it does is name the thing officially, on a global stage, in language that can no longer be called fringe or political.
That naming is exactly what makes it dangerous to the myth.
Watch what gets said over the next few hours and days. Watch who says it.
Watch how quickly the conversation moves from the resolution itself to the feelings of the people who are most threatened by it.
That is the myth doing what it was designed to do.
You already know what this is. The question is whether you have the capacity to stay in it without looking away.
#LifeBeyondTheSupremacyMyth #MythOfWhiteSupremacy #ProfitWithoutOppression #KimCrayton
I want you to pay attention to what comes next because what is about to be platformed in response to this resolution is going to be a masterclass in how anti-Blackness operates when it feels threatened.
For generations, folx have worked to downplay, minimize, and reframe the impact of the slave trade. Not because the evidence is unclear, it isn’t, but because acknowledging the full weight of it requires accountability that most of the countries who abstained are not prepared to accept.