Under imperialism “Black lives don’t matter.” Ho Chi Minh, The Black Race, and Black liberation

Pateman, Joe

Abstract

Ho Chi Minh, the father of modern Vietnam, was deeply interested in the lives of Black people and their struggles for equality. He was one of the first Asian communist leaders to explore the issues facing Black communities and promote their freedom movement. The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh and Selected Works on Systemic Racism is the first English language publication dedicated to this overlooked aspect of Ho’s legacy. Compiled and introduced by Dr. Dai Trang Nguyen, and edited by Luis Silva, this anthology collates Ho’s major writings on Black peoples struggling under capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism. It offers an illuminating insight into a man often portrayed as a Vietnamese nationalist and patriot. Ho regarded the “Black race” as “the most oppressed and most exploited of the human family.”1 His writings on the subject were didactic, polemical, evocative, and bitingly satirical. Ho sought to highlight the inhumanity of anti-Black oppression, expose the hypocrisy of Euro-American civilization, and mobilize communists for the struggle for Black liberation. His writings resonate with the concerns of movements like Black Lives Matter today, and as such, Nguyen’s anthology could not be timelier.

• Journal Article Type: Review
• Acceptance Date: Aug 27, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 8, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 24, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 2, 2022
• Journal: Critical Asian Studies
• Print ISSN: 1467-2715
• Electronic ISSN: 1472-6033
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 582-589
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2021.1974913
• Keywords: Sociology and Political Science; Geography, Planning and Development
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6298953
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14672715.2021.1974913