Aside from the Vietnamese, Panamanians, Iraqis and Haitians who directedly suffered at his hands, Black people were most negatively affected by him. By the time Powell came to prominence the notion of liberation came to mean little more than having access to those places where only white people had been allowed. If one of those places entailed being a decision maker when bombs rained down and coup plots were hatched, so be it. Black politics had diminished to such a point that Black people turned against their own ethos and were no longer averse to aggression and criminality if someone who looked like them was a party to the wrongdoing.
The people who excused Powell’s actions ended up excusing Barack Obama when he destroyed Libya, a country they previously viewed in a positive light and defended when no one else would. The destroyer in chief was not to be questioned because his very presence in office seemed to validate them and as such he gave them a dangerously false feeling of comfort. That inclination has not dissipated ever since Powell worked for presidents or Obama was one himself.
-- Margaret Kimberley, "The Many Crimes of Colin Powell" (BLACK AGENDA REPORT).