Africana Studies and the Decolonization of the US Empire in the Twenty-First Century

I argue here that the central task of Africana Studies in the twenty-first century is to engage its faculty, its students, and its various public in the intellectual and political task of decolonizing the nationalism of empire within the United States, and thus moving toward solidarity with the billions of oppressed people in the world-system whose lives are constrained by the overarching power of the US hegemon. Utilizing Malcolm X's observation about the "chickens coming home to roost," I will argue that the nationalism of empire within the US has been undermined by its historical constitution as an imperial nation which colonized numerous populations and incorporated them as either second-class citizens or non-citizens. These internally colonized populations articulated their own sense of peoplehood, cross-cutting the nationalism of empire on which social and political stability depended, and thereby becoming the empire's potential gravediggers. Adapted from the source document.