Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Sex was Central to Dutch West Indies Anti-Colonial Politics
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
22 Dec 2020
🖨️ Print Article

Margaret Kimberley · Sex was Central to Dutch West Indies Anti-Colonial Politics

Sexual issues were loudly debated among anti-colonial activists in the Dutch Caribbean colonies of Curaçao and Aruba, said Chelsea Shields, a history professor at the City University of New York. Among colonized people of color, the connection between sex and violence “was why it was so urgent to reclaim sexuality as a vital aspect of self-determination,” said Dr Shields, author of a book on the subject and a recent article titled, “Sex, Socialism, and Black Power in the Dutch Atlantic.” However, Curaçao authorities created an economic model reliant on tourism” – including sexual tourism, which remains a drawing card for the island. Shields’ forthcoming book is titled, “Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy after Empire.”

Decolonization

Related Podcasts

Black Women Against White Supremacist Empire
Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Black Women Against White Supremacist Empire
27 January 2020
Black women played a central role in the fight against European colonization, said Annette Joseph-Gabriel, professor of Frenc

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Palestine Question: Background and Solution, Edward Atiyah, 1946
    20 May 2026
    “It is impossible to make a national home for one people in a country inhabited by another, except by dislodging the latter.”
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    That Sunday morning Mom cried …
    20 May 2026
    "That Sunday morning Mom cried …" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Tamanisha J. John
    Annexationist Chauvinism: There is No Justification for the Venezuela-Guyana Essequibo Border Dispute
    20 May 2026
    The Essequibo dispute benefits Exxon Mobil and the Pentagon while crushing anti-imperialist solidarity.
  • Roger Harris , Sara Flounders
    Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
    20 May 2026
    The same week Cuba mobilized millions to defend its revolution, the White House imposed even more illegal measures in an effort to strangle the country into submission.
  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Police tear gas and arrest protesters at France-Africa counter summit in Nairobi
    20 May 2026
    Organizers, activists, intellectuals, and international delegates were arrested in Nairobi during an anti-imperialist protest against the France–Africa Summit, which critics have described as an…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us