Part II: The Long War: A Historical Timeline of How Black and Brown Humanity Has Been Targeted Across the Globe
(A continuation of yesterday’s discussion)
Yesterday, I wrote that I no longer want to talk about this sham administration because everything we warned about is already happening. The assault on humanity is not new — it is simply more visible. What we’re witnessing today is the continuation of a global pattern that has been playing out for decades, even centuries, against Black and brown people across the world.
So today, I want to zoom out.
Not to soften the truth — but to anchor it.
Because none of this began last week.
None of this began last year.
And absolutely none of this is accidental.
This is a long war.
A Timeline the World Pretends Not to See
When you map the suffering, the pattern is undeniable. The names change — the weapons change — the “official explanations” rotate — but the targets remain consistent.
1948 to present — Palestine: Gaza & the West Bank
Since the moment Palestinians were displaced from their land in 1948, the region has endured continuous cycles of war, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. Every decade brings a new “operation,” a new naming ceremony for the same violence. Entire generations have lived and died under siege.
1960s–present — Congo, culminating in the Second Congo War (1998–2003)
Often called “Africa’s World War,” this conflict pulled in multiple nations and left over five million dead — most of them civilians. And why? So the world could control cobalt, coltan, and the minerals that make phones, electric cars, artificial intelligence, and modern warfare possible. Congo has been bled so the rest of the world can shine.
2003–2005 and resurging today — Darfur, Sudan
The genocide that the international community claimed it would “never allow again” happened in real time — and is happening again. Black African communities targeted, displaced, massacred. And global powers, once again, shrug.
2011–present — Syria
A civil war backed by global powers on all sides has turned brown civilian bodies into collateral damage. Millions displaced, entire cities erased, and a refugee crisis met with barbed wire and xenophobia.
2014–present — Yemen
One of the deadliest humanitarian crises in the world. A blockade engineered starvation, relentless airstrikes, poisoned water systems — and a brown population left to fend for itself while nations debate “geopolitics.”
Decades of instability — The Sahel: Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon
Communities caught between extremist groups, state militaries, and foreign forces. Villages wiped out, children recruited or killed, millions displaced. The world calls it “terrorism.” The people living through it call it survival.
Centuries of destabilization — Haiti
The first free Black republic has paid the price for its freedom every day since 1804. Foreign intervention, imposed debt, occupation, and political manipulation have produced conditions where violence becomes both a weapon and a justification for further control.
Western Sahara & West Papua
Indigenous Black and brown communities resisting occupation, land theft, and resource extraction — invisible to mainstream media yet carrying some of the heaviest burdens of colonial violence.
These conflicts aren’t isolated. They are chapters of the same book:
a global system that devalues Black and brown life while extracting everything possible from Black and brown land.
The Pattern Is the Point
When you lay this timeline next to the present day, the through line becomes painfully clear:
The same countries that destabilize regions then criminalize the refugees who flee.
The same governments that arm one side claim to be “neutral mediators.”
The same institutions that claim to defend human rights refuse to name genocide when Black and brown bodies are the victims.
The same extractive powers that profit from conflict will lecture those same nations about “corruption” and “instability.”
It is the choreography of empire — and Black and brown people have been forced to dance to this rhythm for generations.
Why This Matters Right Now
Because what we are seeing today — in Gaza, in Sudan, in Congo, in Haiti, in Myanmar, in the Sahel — is not new.
It is the modern expression of a very old playbook.
It’s the same script:
Dehumanize the population.
Exploit the land.
Displace the people.
Control the borders.
Rewrite the narrative.
Blame the victims.
Profit from the destruction.
Yesterday’s article was about naming what this current administration is doing without euphemism. Today is about naming the system it is participating in — the one that outlives any administration, any news cycle, any election.
Because this did not start with Trump.
It will not end with him either.
We Are Standing in the Middle of History — Not the Edge of It
Every conflict listed above is still shaping the world we live in right now. Many are ongoing. Others leave scars that dictate geopolitical realities decades later.
But the truth is this:
The world only labels it a crisis when white bodies are at risk.
When the bodies are Black, brown, or Indigenous — it becomes “complex,” “regional,” “complicated,” “not our place,” or my personal favorite… “tragic but unavoidable.”
There is nothing unavoidable about oppression.
There is nothing natural about war.
There is nothing accidental about whose lives are declared expendable.
A Call to Presence
If yesterday was about refusing to speak in circles around this administration,
today is about grounding that refusal in history.
We are not imagining the pattern — we are living inside it.
And until more people recognize the timeline for what it truly is —
a global war on Black and brown humanity —
the world will keep pretending each conflict exists in a vacuum.
It doesn’t.
It never has.
Tomorrow, we continue.