Time To Take A Dna Test

Of all the continents, none has had a more troubling history than Africa. In Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece Heart of Darkness, Conrad sifts the metaphor of darkness from the African peoples to the Europeans who enslaved millions from West Central Africa and then divided up the entire continent into European colonies.

It is only since the 1960s that many African nations have achieved independence, but the damage left by European nations continues to this day. Perhaps out of guilt or to gain political advantage, nations like the US have sent billions of dollars in aid to help African nations deal with drought, famine, HIV-Aids, unsafe water, inadequate health care, and political instability.

Most of the US aid programs and resources to African nations will now end with the new administration’s decision to shut down foreign aid to Africa and elsewhere. I don’t deny that massive aid programs have led, at times, to fraud and graft. But no one should forget that millions of Africans will suffer and die without US aid. Until this past month, US aid has been money that struggling African nations and their health care facilities could count on to survive.

What makes the new administration’s plan to end aid to these countries seem so cynical is a related, but lesser-known, story about Africa, specifically the Republic of South Africa, that has surfaced. Here we see the huge role that Elon Musk is playing in the new administration. Musk is from South Africa, a nation long plagued by racism in the form of apartheid. It was only in 1994 that apartheid ended in South Africa, and the nation became a democratic state with Black majority rule.

Elon Musk has publically spread unfounded conspiracy theories that the 7% white population in South Africa has been and is being mistreated by the Black majority. Now, President Trump has not only joined in describing the white Afrikaners as a persecuted community, but has offered the whites of South Africa political asylum in the US if they choose to come. So far, the white population of South Africa has said it has no plans to leave their country.

In foreign relations, there is something known as “optics.” In this context, optics refers to how a nation’s foreign policies are perceived by the global community. Optics can be positive or they can be negative.

So what will be the world’s perception of the Trump administration’s policies toward immigrants? On one hand, the Trump Administration is committed to keeping powerless black and brown refugees out of our country. On the other hand, the administration is opening a back door for powerful whites from South Africa. Taken the two decisions together, the new administration’s actions look a lot like blatant racism.

At some point, our country will have to face the massive influence that Elon Musk seems to have on the new administration. Jokes are already circulating about Musk being the real president in charge. For the people of Africa, who are still picking up the pieces from the colonial period and facing incredible problems, there is nothing funny about the end of US aid.

Surely, both Democrats and Republicans can agree that it’s not in our country’s DNA to withhold aid from people for whom our help is the difference between life and death.