Anti-Americanism among African Americans

Anti-Americanism has been a recurring theme among several influential African American political organizations and activists due to racism against African Americans domestically,^[1] and against other non-white people internationally.^[2] African-American anti-Americanism can be contrasted with African-American patriotism, although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive antonyms.

Panel from the comic *Death Rap: Tupac Shakur, A Life*, in which America is spelt "AmeriKKKa" and the patriotic song *My Country, 'Tis of Thee* is satirized.

History

The African-American community is unique compared to Afro-Caribbean or Afro-Brazilian peoples in that "unique natural population growth resulted in a slave population that was already about four-fifths American-born by the late 18th century; after the end of the slave trade in 1808 the number of African-born slaves in the South faded to statistical insignificance."^[3]^: 587 Revolutionary Anti-Americanism, as manifested by politically active African-American elites, was rare in the 19th and earliest 20th century, in part because African-Americans of the era were educated at institutions that manifested the paternalistic and elite worldviews of the high-caste WASPs who contributed to their establishment.^[4]^: 26 Some early African-American nationalism was integrated with the idea of the African diaspora and the concept of pan-Africanism, developed by Alexander Crummell, Martin R. Delany, and Henry McNeil Turner, among others.^[5]^: 186

Political organizations

Several African-American radical and underground movement organizations professed anti-Americanism.

Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party's founder Huey P. Newton criticized American nationalism.^[7] Furthermore, the party believed that the destruction of the United States was a prerequisite for a world revolution.^[8]

Revolutionary Action Movement

In 1966, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) published a document titled "World Black Revolution", in which the organisation advocates for the destruction of the United States, along with Europe and the Soviet Union, which they considered equally as imperialistic and white supremacist as the United States.^[9]

Black Guerrilla Family

The Black Guerrilla Family rejected patriotism for the United States^[10] and called for the overthrow of the American government.^[11]

Literature

Blood in My Eye

In Blood in My Eye (1972), George Jackson calls for the destruction of the United States,^[12] stating:^[13]

"We must accept the eventuality of bringing the U.S.A. to its knees; accept the closing off of critical sections of the city with barbed wire, armored pig carriers crisscrossing the streets, soldiers everywhere, tommy guns pointed at stomach level, smoke curling black against the daylight sky, the smell of cordite, house-to-house searches, doors being kicked in, the commonness of death."

Research

Johnson (2018)

Studying patriotism towards the United States among African Americans, Micah E. Johnson identified a subset of the African American population which he termed "subverters".^[1] Johnson describes subverters as African Americans who reject patriotism for the United States, due to the racial inequality present in the country.^[1]

During the study, one subverter expressed^[1]

"American patriotism glorifies a world that doesn’t exist. The idea is that all Americans benefit from their rights to liberty, life, and justice for all, but this is a false ideal because everyone isn’t allotted to those rights in America. I’m not patriotic because I don’t feel there is anything to love about this country that globalizes imperialism and capitalism crippling every nation it comes across."

YouGov (2022)

In a 2022 survey of 1,000 American adults by YouGov, 12% of African American respondents described themselves as "not very patriotic", while 9% of African American respondents described themselves as "not patriotic at all".^[14]