Beware of the ADOS Movement: A Threat to Social Justice and Black Collective Activism
By Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor, 2nd Episcopal District
The year 2020 is pivotal for the Black community. This is a year of change but it’s also a year of deception. Back in 2016, African American communities were targeted by disinformation campaigns that sought to weaken the Black vote and infiltrate unified social justice movements. Unfortunately, it appears that this is happening again.
A fringe movement called “American Descendants of Slavery” has emerged to systematically fracture Black communities and directly attack unified social justice efforts among the U.S. Black population. The term “American Descendants of Slavery” (ADOS) was created in 2016 to describe and distinctly separate African Americans from Black immigrant communities (Africans, Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latinos).
ADOS leaders say they’ll use the moniker “ADOS” as part of their legal justice claim for reparations. Instead, it will likely be used to influence policies that would further marginalize and oppress Black communities.
The movement’s leadership is linked to entities that have a history of anti-Blackness, xenophobia, and attempts to cause divisions in the Black community. ADOS leader Antonio Moore wrote for right-wing media outlet NewsMax and ADOS leader Yvette Carnell was on the board of the fake-progressive organization, Progressives for Immigration Reform that was aided by white supremacist and eugenics supporter, John Tanton.
ADOS leadership is focused on widening divisions between African American, African and Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latino communities. Their platform currently advocates for policies that would remove Black immigrants from affirmative action and would limit visas to African immigrants. This would essentially render Black immigrants, second-class citizens.
The ADOS movement has largely been amplified on social media networks by bots, trolls, and fanatics. As has been documented by journalists and researchers, a large part of disinformation campaigns is their ability to amplify false or divisive narratives through fake social media accounts, with the hopes of making real people react, respond, and unknowingly become heavily influenced.
The National Urban League reported, “Your timeline is the new battleground for voter suppression… Russian propagandists specifically targeted African Americans through a wide-reaching influence campaign. Their tactics included posing as legitimate activist groups, eroding trust in democratic institutions and spreading disinformation.”
Now, many believe that these types of voter suppression tactics are happening again, specifically with ADOS’s “No Black Agenda, No Vote” and “Vote Down Ballot” campaigns. To be clear, ADOS does include real people but its xenophobic and anti-Black rhetoric is being amplified online by trolls and fake accounts.
Additionally, the ADOS group seeks to rename all African Americans “American Descendants of Slavery,” thereby limiting our identity to enslavement. ADOS leadership and followers believe that African Americans should disconnect from our African lineage and instead cling to slavery as the beginning of our heritage. Not only is this ahistorical but it is also extremely dehumanizing.
Bishop Richard Allen and the Rev. Absalom Jones named their organization the “Free African Society” and named our church the “African Methodist Episcopal Church” for a reason. Their theology and activism were grounded in their heritage and humanity as descendants of Africans. This is also why Bishop Henry McNeal Turner traveled promoting the AME Church in Sierra Leone and Liberia and sent missionaries to Cuba.
Fathers and mothers of the AME Church recognized that the struggle of African Americans was connected to the global collective struggle of Africans and African descendants throughout the Diaspora. The ADOS movement’s attempt to disrupt this historical framework is indicative of its anti-Black ideologies that insist upon the erasure of our identity.
Despite ADOS group followers’ sudden claims of ownership over the reparations movement, the reparations movement has been in existence since the abolition of slavery. Organizations like The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA, est. 1987) and the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC, est. 2015) have been steadfastly advocating and organizing around reparations. Instead of joining these groups, ADOS leaders and followers have attacked them, disregarding their work and activism.
Reparations organizations have historically worked in coalition with each other as a global movement. Thus, ADOS’s practice of alienating long-standing reparations organizations further demonstrates ADOS leadership’s divisive intentions.
As we get closer to the 2020 presidential election, ADOS efforts to disengage Black voters and further divide Black communities will likely increase. However, they are not alone. The African American community should be cautious of similar disinformation and misinformation campaigns that arise under the auspices of a social justice movement throughout 2020 and beyond. To learn more, read the report: Understanding ADOS: The Movement to Hijack Black Identity and Weaken Black Unity in America.
Jessica Ann Mitchell Aiwuyor is an author, publisher, and cultural storyteller. Her writings about African American cultural heritage and ethnicity have been published and cited across a wide-range of publications including Huffington Post, the Business Insider, MSNBC, LA Progressive, and TV One’s “News One Now.” She is also the founder of Our Legaci Press and the Centered Voices Project. Her blog, OurLegaci.com, has reached over two million readers worldwide. She is a member of Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC.
