Actor Terrence Howard, famous for his roles in films such as “Hustle and Flow” (2005) and “Iron Man” (2008), and the TV series “Empire”, recently claimed that the taxation of black people in the U.S. is immoral after a Philadelphia judge ordered him to pay over $1 million in back taxes and other fees.
On a voicemail left on the prosecuting lead tax attorney’s phone, Howard said, “Four hundred years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it.” He continued, “Now you have the gall to try and prosecute and charge taxes to the descendants of a broken people that you are responsible for causing the breakage.”
Despite Howard’s position as part of the black petty bourgeoisie, his recognition of the illegitimacy of taxes is influenced by African people’s historic struggle against colonialism, for freedom and self-determination.
Howard’s sentiment can be found in Point 3 of the 14-Point Working Platform of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which states, “We want an end to all local, state, federal and other taxation of black people by the U.S. government and any of its agencies.”
This is given the fact that the U.S. taxation system is an illegitimate institution – one established by a government whose institutions are built on brutal, stolen African labor and upheld and perpetuated under the oppression of African working-class people today. Africans in the U.S. are forced to pay taxes, which in turn are used for the colonial State, including the police and prisons, in which we are forcibly entangled.
Taxes are further used to support the imperialist efforts of the United States worldwide – quelling, suppressing, and exploiting the real struggles for liberation by oppressed and colonized people around the world. The billions of dollars in aid packages to Israel to continue the colonial genocide of the Palestinians today is but one example.
Knowing this, there is no justification for the continued forced taxation of black people, and Howard is correct in this sense.
Economic exploitation does not happen in isolation; African people’s exploitation, reinforced by the world economic system of colonial-capitalism, is directly connected to the taxes levied on African people in the U.S.
It is part and parcel of the world economic order that was birthed after the first African was snatched and enslaved to work on the many plantations that became the pedestal for both the development of the “West” and the exploitation of North American working-class people.
The APSP’s recognition of this is not only evident in Point 3 but also in the 1982 Tribunal on Reparations that concluded that the U.S. owed African people trillions in reparations; not only for taxation but also for the impoverished conditions of housing, health, education, and more.
In this fight to counteract the taxes on African people, the Uhuru Movement has over 50 economic institutions across the U.S. that serve African people, concentrating political and economic power in the hands of the African working class, and negating the influence of colonialism over our lives.
As the anti-colonial struggle rages on, Howard’s position will increasingly be echoed. We must use the Party’s 14-Point Platform to deepen our understanding of this question and win it among the masses, as we’ve done with many other important, defining questions of our struggle.
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