Opinion: The Problem With #ADOS



#ADOS is the latest feel good, social media driven movement seeking reparations from the U.S Government for the enslavement of Africans in America. Like many other human and civil rights social media movements, #ADOS was born out of our people’s frustration with the status quo and the current reality of racism directed at and negatively affecting people of color; primarily Africans in America.  It is a movement whose primary mission is to seek compensation payable to African Americans for the forced and free labor extracted from our Ancestors in America from 1619 until the end of the American Civil War.  

 There are several issues I have with #ADOS that I find problematic. First and foremost, the acronym itself is insulting and highly disrespectful to our ancestors and their rich history, culture and contributions to human civilization prior to what is called American slavery and of which Pan-African people rightfully call the African Holocaust. I am not, nor have I ever ascribed to the idea that I descended from slavery or from an enslaved people. All people of African “ascendency” (if you will) are the progeny of a people that built and maintained High Culture Civilizations for over 4,000 years; and some would rightfully argue even longer than that.

 I ascended from a people that mastered and taught the entire world the arts, language, agriculture, math, physics, engineering, economics, medicine, metaphysics, architecture and other disciplines. I am ascended from a people that mapped the universe, understood time and space and mapped all of the bodies and stars within the universe. This is where I and other African-Centered and African-Conscious individuals start our journey when discussing how to move forward with a viable (and global) socioeconomic agenda for our people.

 What #ADOS and other African American movements, organizations and entities that seek redress for past (and present) atrocities committed against our people fail to grasp is that slavery is something that happened to our people. However, our ancestors did not call themselves slaves. Nor did they willfully or willingly acquiesce to the nomenclature, culture or the conditions of being a slave. Slavery was a traumatic, oppressive and highly destructive institution and to embrace a movement that begins with the premise we descended from slaves is embracing a victim’s legacy. 

 We did not descend from slavery to where we are now and it’s certainly not a position I would embrace to seek redress and compensation for the atrocities committed against our ancestors, grandparents, our fathers, mothers, sisters or brothers. #ADOS is a movement that is fueled by an overt and endemic black victim mentality. It is a movement that values and places symbolism over substance. Unfortunately, like most symbolic movements that came before it, it too is bound to fail. 

Let me add this footnote: we are the only culture in this country that attaches itself to a mindset evoked for the sole purpose of profiting from our real or perceived misery and complaint by our own so-called leaders and some of our brothers and sisters within the black pundit community. While other cultures of color in this country are rising and transforming their communities, economies and infrastructures; despite the obstacles placed before them, we continue to fight a war that was essentially won and literally paid for in blood of our esteemed brother and sisters during the Civil Rights struggles of the 50’s and 60’s. That being the case, it’s time we put down our marching boots and our twitter handles, step from behind the daises, turn of the microphones and move forward into the twenty-first century as a people of achievement and excellence!

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