What Robert A. Wood, Ralph Bunche and Linda Thomas-Greenfield represent is known in the discourse of African ontology as Black complicity—Afro-complicity, if you please. This is a distinct kind of complicity reified when a Black person tries to dispel racist oppressive hegemonic constructs but due to his inability to be critical of the underlying subtleties of Black stereotypes, he ends up becoming the instrument for its advancement.
From the arched table behind which the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members sit, a single Black hand rises and rests on the padded surface. Some faces stare down at this hand in mild surprise, while millions more growl from thousands of miles away from the UN hall. With a closer looking, the internal distress of the Black hand becomes visible as it shivers and finds refuge on the cheeks of the envoy. The subject, of deliberation on this day, Friday 8 December 2023, is humanitarian, yet contentious. So when the (Black) hand representing America says no, it means no for everyone.
This is a scene from a familiar play. The main star is America, and the other actors—well, if they can even be called actors—simply perform their parts. No one is oblivious to the chokehold America has had on the UN for many decades now. We understand that, in principle, America always gets what it wants from the assembly of nations and that its interests are central to each resolution. However, the trend of doing this, especially within the Joe Biden administration, consistently with Black individuals necessitates curious examination.
Before Robert A. Wood, the alternate representative of the US to the UN whose hand is mentioned above, Ralph Bunche was the first Black face to represent the US as an emissary in the UN in the 1940s. His appointment at the time signified significant progress for the Black race globally. And domestically in America, it exemplified an illusion of Black advancement amidst the Jim Crow era. When Bunche first arrived, he worked in various advisory capacities before attaining positions that granted him some autonomy. One would expect that someone like Bunche, who intimately understood the situation of oppressed minorities in America and the rest of the Global South, would use his new position in the UN to help the marginalized. However, he did quite the opposite...
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