I shudder to think where we people of African descent would be without our allies in the international community. It's been our everything, quite frankly.

I think we need to de-center the idea of US sovereignty.

Cuba was in some ways a de facto state of the United States before 1959, given its proximity and given its neocolonial status.

I think - particularly in terms of the destiny of Africans in North America - our destiny has also been shaped indelibly by global alliances.

I think that even though we should always welcome allies within the four corners of the United States, we shouldn't limit our allies to the four corners of the United States. I think that would be a grave mistake.

The Africans were oftentimes allied with the antagonist of the Republic. Now, you may want to step back and ask yourself why that might be. It may lead you to a reconsideration of the origins of the nation now known as the United States of America. As opposed to seeing it in the same vein as the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, you might see it in the same vein as the revolt against British rule in Rhodesia in 1965, and, if so, that might help to shed light on why conservatism is so deeply entrenched in this republic.

As long as colonialism was allowed to reign and fester in Africa, it was going to be a source of tension, if not war, as was evidenced by World War I itself, which, among other things, featured Germany on one side of the barricades and Britain, which had come earlier to the table of colonial plunder, on the other.