Ted Colbert, Photo Credit: Boeing Global Services
Many might look at Ted Colbert’s journey as inspiring–having made his way to the CEO of Boeing Defense, Space, and Security. But for others, what this alumnus of Historically Black College Morehouse College is detrimental to people of color worldwide.
Colbert grew up in Baltimore as a talented three-sport athlete with aspirations of becoming a lawyer or a politician. However, his teachers recognized his exceptional aptitude for math and science and encouraged him to pursue a career in engineering.
After graduating from Morehouse with a degree in industrial engineering, Colbert launched his career which took him from AT&T Bell Labs to Ford. At Ford he played a crucial role in integrating mobile phones into vehicles. He then spent three years at Citigroup, where he worked on redesigning consumer banking. He went on to join Boeing in 2009. There, he’s taken on various information technology positions, leading to him becoming the Chief Information Officer. He was moved up to president and CEO of Boeing Global Services, overseeing the development and delivery of aerospace services for global customers. In March 2022 he was elevated to CEO of Boeing Defense, Space & Security at Boeing, according to Defense.com. This, of course, entails connecting with the U.S. military to provide the weapons the Pentagon needs. And, this is also where Colbert’s critics step in.
According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Boeing made $29.15 billion in arms and military services sales in 2018, the second most of any company worldwide, USA Today reported.
Colbert is one of the very few Black people at the company, let alone in the executive suites Boeing’s overall workforce is about 67 percent white, according to 2021 company figures, and just 6.8 percent of Boeing employees identified as Black, Defense One reported.
Blooger Da’Shaun Harrison, who describes themselves as a trans theorist and Southern-born and bred abolitionist in Atlanta, GA, recently write about a different kind of Black-on-Black crime. Generally, this term refers to inner-cit crime in which the Black residents are pitted against one another. But Harrison points to Blacks in high positions, such as Colbert, who, says Harrison, use their power to tear down people of color.
Harrison, the author of the book “Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness,” like Colbert, attended Morehouse. Harrison currently serves as Editor-at-Large at Scalawag Magazine, is a co-host of the podcast “Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back.”
“The term ‘black-on-black crime’ has been used to demonize and delegitimize the Black Liberation Movement. While the harm Black individuals encounter during daily survival are frequently used to justify the flawed concept of ‘black-on-black crime,’ the audacious nature of white supremacy to use Black bodies to further an agenda for systemic eradication [of people and total movements] is the true ‘black-on-black crime’, in that Black bodies become agents of the machine — white supremacy,” Harrison blogged in 2017.
Harrison continued, “The interconnectedness of struggles for liberation around the globe can be separated when/if white supremacy can weaponize the identities of people who have been at the crux of global domination.”
Harrison pointed out that HBCUs are often used by the U.S.’s military as well as by special interest groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“Such a machine constructs institutions like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is the most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group on Capitol Hill. Its biggest role is to ensure the funding of the gradual genocide of the Palestinian people,” Harrison penned.
They added, “What is not well-known is how AIPAC has recently recruited Black politicians and students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities in an effort to collude with the ongoing domination of the Palestinian people…Through this experience and the more recent event (read: drafting) of Bakari Sellers and fifty-nine other Black politicians signing a letter to undermine Cornel West’s attempt to endorse Palestinian freedom, the conclusion can be made that Black bodies are only useful when needed to undermine the struggle for freedom. Cornel West is not alone in the commitment to Palestine’s liberation.” This fidelity has been a long-standing relationship with Black radical tradition, wherein Black radical thinkers and leaders have not only faced opposition from White bodies but from Black bodies at the behest of white supremacy.”
More recently Da’Shaun tweeted in light of the Hamas-Israel conflict and Colbert’s role at weapons machine Boeing, “this ongoing campaign to diversify—or, more precisely, to blacken—the bomb-maker, the one who drops the bomb, & the funder of both should clarify that antiblackness organizes the world such that the state uses black subjects to cut through any critiques of the violence it wields.”
Da’Shaun added, “a morehouse man being the CEO of the company that manufactures the bombs dropped on Gazans is not by happenstance. he serves as a political tool in the longstanding project to give white politics and white violence a black face.”
Ted Colbert, Photo Credit: Boeing Global Services
