Bloodshed marks the new decade just as it marked the inaugural moments of this country. News of Soleimani’s death incited fear in some and anger in others, however, there is seemingly more issue with the way Trump did what he did rather than the deed itself.

Articles on Soleimani reveal that the US considered him a threat for quite some time. This characterization substantiates a ubiquitous political sentiment that condemns the Iraqi leader. Previous presidents Bush and Obama declined to assassinate Soleimani based on the potential risk of retaliation. 

Trump, however, seemed to access Soleimani’s assassination as a reward greater than the risk. 

The American government sites Soleimani as a murderer who killed countless Americans, Syrians, Iraqis, Yemeni, and Lebanese people. The Atlantic references him as a “terrorist Kingpin,” thereby substantiating  his pervasive portrait as a murderer. 

However, to assign Soleimani such status betrays America in the same light. Specifically, it is hard to separate the acts America accused him of from the pervasive attack America displaces onto the black collective.

America illuminates this attack through the continued exclusivity of the term “American.”

Days after Donald Trump ordered a hit on Qassan Soleimani, secretary of state Mike Pompeo sought to vindicate Soleimani’s murder with a proclamation that Soleimani’s death was “for the good of the American people.” This statement, while seemingly inclusive, upholds America’s original exclusivity. By this, I reference the white in the American flag as pledging an allegiance to a specific constituency.

The black community does not benefit from America’s terrorist acts. “We,” the black collective, are not guarded by American terrorism; rather, it foreshadows what can and will manifest against our person and composite. 

These terrorist acts function solely to assert white supremacy in the face of any presumed threat. American terrorism, therefore, ensures that the violent demonstrations inflicted onto those outside the USA does not happen to whites in America. 

This complicates “America” as a proper marker of black identity. Black people live here, but our status as American is still very much pending.

The black community has a list of casualties from children and pregnant women, to men simply walking down streets which match overseas loses bearing the same cavalier disregard for non-white human life. 

We need not see the caskets return from overseas, or view the murder statistics on international news outlets. We have the unmarked graves of our slain ancestors, fathers, children, brothers, mothers, cousins, and friends to mark an American terrorism known as anti-blackness. 

There will be many who who read this post, shake their heads, and deem my words anti-american. This act and praxis reflects a predicable disposition from those who assign antipathy to any response to anti blackness that is not acquiescence.

A black person’s love for America is an irrelevant topic of conversation. This topic too often clouds a glaring truth: America has never shown love to its abducted Africans or its descendants. 

So what does American terrorism mean to the African in America?

 American terrorism, to the African in America, does not consituted an isolated occurence; rather, is it is illustrative. American terrorism is yet another another reminder of the low regard to which America holds black people as individuals and a collective.