Why Sovereignty

For centuries Black Americans have been refused the freedom, access, and opportunity needed to achieve the American Dream. And yet, we faithfully supply an economy we neither own nor fully benefit from with our skilled labor and cultural influence. 

Meanwhile Black communities continue to face disproportionate systemic inequalities while our culture is violently policed and vilified, only to then be appropriated, co-opted, and commodified.  

If anti-Blackness is the foundation upon which this white supremacist establishment was manufactured, then liberation can never truly be realized within it because reform does not threaten power, privilege, or oppression. It simply renovates and rebrands what was built to thrive off Black suffering. But, a commitment to collectively divest opens the door to something else entirely and it begins by acknowledging:

We are worthy of something better than this!

Before rebuilding, architects and engineers conduct a full assessment of a structure’s integrity to determine if it even holds  capacity for repurposing. Older, compromised infrastructures are complex and often require selective de/reconstruction, which can be more difficult to navigate, time-consuming, and costly than total demolition. Avoiding the constraints imposed by working with an existing foundation, ground-up construction allows for full customization over the new building’s design, materials, features, and functionality.

White supremacy is a hazardous, damaged, and inadequate construct incapable of repair. So perhaps the most constructive, radical thing we can do is abandon our efforts to dismantle and rebuild it altogether.

BSVRGN unequivocally believes in Black sovereignty. We can build on our own terms, for ourselves, and exercise our right to determine a future where our communities across the African Diaspora are free and protected from external forces in perpetuity.