Neocolonialism in simple terms is a continued model of economic and political control of a previously colonized nation, state or territory upon obtaining political independence. It is implemented usually via war and economic policies that serve the incessant underdevelopment of said nations and territories. Through the use of transnational corporations, balkanization, contrived artificial boundaries, foreign aid and international organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Western governments are able to maintain dominance and control of these states, for the purpose of the extraction of natural resources and in order to govern second and third world countries more effectively. Kwame Nkrumah described neocolonialism as "the last stage of imperialism. Others including Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon considered neocolonialism as a tool for plunder and an extension of slavery. The vignettes contained herein explain and describe in colloquial terms, the Foreign Policy practices as implemented and administered under the leadership of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ex post fact to the President's receiving of the Nobel Prize for peace in 2009.
"On May 3, 1866 46 blacks were killed in Memphis, Tennessee by white mobs made up largely of Irish residents on the city's south side. Some historians have reduced this blood bath to a "race riot" and suggested that a black soldier's gun fire provoked the attack. With verve, candor, and a steely eye for detail, Memphis native son Torrance Stephens provides a nuanced revision that grounds these sordid events in a much larger history of the South's defeat during the Civil War, the persistence of white supremacy and the problem of the Negro in the post-bellum United States." Dr. Fanon Che Wilkins, Associate Professor of American Studies and History Doshisha University Kyoto, Japan
If you do not want to think, do not read these essays. I Don't Get Down Like That is a cogent and powerful collection of essays that incorporates Torrance Stephens's private reflections and personal indictment of the mainstream, liberal intellectuals that have turned African Americans in to political servants. Using world and modern history, he provides a clear, principled, sobering and non-partisan analysis of the economic and social changes impacting African Americans brought about by accepting beliefs and positions without query and the potentially dire social consequences of doing such. This eloquent and moving collection enriches, and is easily accessible to contemporary readers. It not only provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind and personality of one of his generations greatest writers and essayist, but also offers a supremely clear outline of what not thinking for one's self can result in.
