If Steve Biko – the iconic leader of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement - were alive today, what would he make of the Afrophobia/xenophobia in South Africa? Would he stridently denounce it – unlike South Africa’s leaders – and seek to foster a new sense of self-love in the transformed slogan: “Black is Beautiful! Be Proud of your Blackness and the Blackness of other Africans!”?

The racist policies of Israel constitute the internationally recognized crime of apartheid against Palestinians. As was the case for South Africa under minority white supremacist rule, it is imperative to think seriously about the nature of Israel’s constitutional order and about how to deepen anti-racist alliances and solidarities across borders on behalf of the Palestinian people.

Black people are quickly labeled racist any time we raise our voice against white supremacy. It is racism fighting back. It is meant to silence us. We should not openly express what we feel and know. As Black people we should not own our experiences and history. No. We are instead supposed to become complicit in our oppression by attributing our suffering to everything else except white supremacy.

Xenophobia is fear of strangers. Afrikans cannot be strangers or “foreigners” in Afrika. What is happening in South Africa is an extreme form of an element we can trace in all Black societies across the world: self-hatred expressed as rage against our own. White Supremacy has disempowered the Afrikan being to such levels that it only reacts with violence: Us killing us.

 “The actions by our siblings here in South Africa, particularly in Pretoria, when they target those black persons who are from other parts of the continent, are anti-black actions stemming from self-hatred caused by white supremacy.”

My neighbors Anthony and Fenton, brothers aged 7 and 8, and I had a sidewalk conversation about Trump’s victory one evening. The boys were nervous because they had heard that Trump hated Black people; they wanted to know whether this was true. I told them that all evidence indicated it was. They deliberated for a few minutes, and then Anthony said, “Well, our dad is white, and our mom and grandma are Black. So he would hate our family.”

According to one report, Black households in the US will not reach wealth parity with white households until 2241. While disillusionment between young Black Americans and American institutions is real, a growing movement has erupted to challenge forces of white supremacy and funnel dissent into powerful, disruptive change.

When one Jewish person is attacked because of his identity, the entire Jewish community feels assaulted. They do not forget the holocaust. People of African origins have suffered far more than any ethnic or social group since the beginning of time. But they are yet to develop their version of “never again” frame of mind. They have the most potent weapon to fight racial injustice: moral capital.

My father is a man of principles and a stubborn man. I am terrified that he will take his hunger strike to its end. I do not want him to die.

The current student protests have their antecedents in the youth movements of 40 years ago. These students are fighting for their lives, their dignity and their humanity. Their resistance to white supremacy should provide inspiration to Black girls colonized in the US, Europe and around the world.