Everyone is hitting the binternet to try to figure out what the word oligarchy means. In his final address, President Joe Biden warned of America becoming an oligarchy of tech billionaires, and this sent the interwebs into a frenzy. Many Americans immediately googled the question ‘what is an oligarchy’ trying to make sense of what the president said.
We got you. Sit down and grab a cup of coffee because we going to school. Today’s subject? Oligarchy. It may sound boring, but, trust me, you need to know what it is. And more importantly, you need to know how it might impact Black folks.
In a nutshell, an oligarchy is a system of government in which an elite (those on the top of the food chain) few control the government’s actions. China is an oligarchy. Russia is one. France doesn’t know what it wants to be, but it has flirted with it from time to time.
Now, the way oligarchs (the elites) get that power can vary. Maybe they are born with it like Maybelline. Maybe there is a military coup. Or, perhaps, there are very wealthy people who pull the strings of government behind the scenes.
That’s what Biden was talking about. When he gave that final address and set the internet on fire, this is what he was warning us about. Yeah, he is concerned about what President Donald Trump might do, but what troubles him more are the people who surround the commander in chief.
Elon Musk’s super PAC spent 200 million to help get Trump elected. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cohosted an inaugural reception for the incoming president. Even Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post (a man we all thought opposed Trump) was looking mighty cozy at the inauguration. This shows us that there are a group of very wealthy people who have the ear of the president.
That’s the danger. That’s why people are concerned about America turning into an oligarchy. Trump did not surround himself with people from the economic class of the folks who stormed the capital on January 6. There were not many farmers or coal workers invited on stage with him when he was sworn in inside the United States Capitol Rotunda. No, there were billionaires. So many in fact, that some news publications jokingly called it the billionaires row.
This would be detrimental for folks who look like us. There are not many Black billionaires running around. Of the 3,000 people in the world who can claim to own that much money, only 16 are Black. This means that if the 47th President is only really listening people in that tax bracket, he certainly will not hear from anyone who has our interests in mind. What’s even more concerning is the fact that, historically, Oligarchies tend to be quite brutal to those who would oppose them.
Black folks specialize in opposing corruption in government. Martin Luther (the) King, the man that America claims to love, did it in the 60s, and the FBI unleashed COINTELPRO on him. The Black Panthers did it in the 70s, and they murdered Fred Hampton in Chicago. Angela Davis did it, and they tried to send her to jail for the rest of her life. If America does indeed become an oligarchy, that means that anyone who dissents could be in real danger.
Let’s be clear. America is not a full oligarchy…yet. But we must fight to make sure it does not. I thought Public Enemy’s song Fight the Power would one day no longer be relevant. I was wrong.