The Time is Right for Reparations (No, he's serious!)

The Washington Informer ^ | May 3, 2012 | Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.

[2ndDivisionVet]

For more than 45 million black Americans, there are many issues that unite or divide us. Undoubtedly, the issue of reparations for African people in general and in particular for black Americans is an issue began as a divisive topic but now receives support from a board cross-section of blacks in America.

Of course, there are some who wanted to table a national discussion of reparations in the aftermath of the election of President Barack H. Obama. Yet, there were many others who have argued that now is the most propitious time to accelerate the national dialogue about reparations because there is a "brother" in the White House.

This is a pivotal year because of the November elections. Any issue that is related to race will be used by those who oppose to President Obama. The goal of conservatives is to polarize American voters to vote their racial prejudice instead of voting their conscience about the future of the nation as an inclusive participatory democracy.

Given the recent polarization around the calls for equal justice and fairness in the Trayvon Martin killing, it would be naïve to think that race will not play a factor in the upcoming elections. The truth is race is just not a problem that crept onto the national scene accidentally. Race has been a social, economic, and political problem in America for more than 200 years. This is nothing new. What is new, however, is how the victims of racism see themselves, and how the perpetrators of racism view themselves.

Fortunately, renowned legal scholars such as Harvard's Charles Ogletree and others have articulated a rational defense for reparations, which would be therapeutic not only for black Americans, but also for all Americans.

I have consistently supported the call and the demand for reparations that go beyond whatever monetary compensation. Reparations are also about "repairing the damage" that was done to millions of African people, not just in America, but in the Caribbean, Central and South America, in Africa and throughout the rest of the world.

The United Nations is slowly working on establishing a permanent memorial to the victims of the infamous trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Washington, D.C., the construction of the African American Museum has begun. The United States Senate has issued an "apology" for slavery. And in my home state of North Carolina, Gov. Bev Perdue has just called for the state to spend $10.3 million in "reparations" to the victims of a vicious eugenics state program that sterilized thousands of people against their will. Most of those who were unjustly and savagely sterilized were black. Again, no amount of money could ever justify or rectify that awful and callous past. Still, Gov. Perdue's actions are the right steps at the right time. Healing is a long-term process. It takes time. The perpetrators of racism need a "repairing" of their minds and hearts.

It is interesting to note that even amidst a recovering of the American economy from the threshold of severe economic ruin, billions of dollars are being spent by candidates and campaigns for political office throughout the U.S. like they have unlimited money-trees to spend without reservation or limitation. The point here is so much of the "old money" and ingrained wealth of the nation came directly from the systematic economic exploitation of African people during 500 years of slavery and post-slavery institution-building. That is why it will take a tremendous calculation to determine a full accounting of the financial and human toll of the slave trade and its aftermath. Harper's magazine did a study that concluded that the U.S. owes black Americans more than $100 trillion in reparations. It is probably more than that.

This may not be the perfect time to raise this issue. Judging by the past, there is never a perfect time. Today is as good as any time. Let's work harder on the issue of reparations. We can begin by supporting the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA), which will hold its national convention in Philadelphia, June 22-24. Reparations for black Americans should be supported by all Americans.

******

Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is president of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) and Education Online Services Corporation and serves as the national director of Occupy the Dream. He can be reached at drbenjamin.chavis@gmail.com

[Yorlik803]

I go with both. We give them the cash but with a clause that with it they renounce citizenship and use the cash to set up a new life back where their ancestors were taken from.
If they have such a love for Africa and think it would have been a better place but since slaver trades{more often than not their own people} sold the best and brightest to whites here,then here is their chance to return to their homeland and prove it. See how long it would take for them to figure out how rotten their homeland is and see how good they have it here.
Friggin crybabies.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[sauropod]

Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. - What you preach is poison.

You must have a very black (morally speaking) soul.

Quite sincerely, ‘Pod.

[Recon Dad]

I would suggest that the good doctor look to the ancestors of the man in the white house while seeking reparations. The Arab blacks were the main conduit for rounding up and shipping your kin to the new world.

[Rearden]

I couldn’t agree more! Somebody grabbed my great-great grandfather right off the boat and put him in the Union Army.

I’ve lived in the South for all of my adult life now and have never been able to live down the shame.

/S

[BigCinBigD]

Can the reparations be paid in lead?

[eyedigress]

LOL! That cracked a smile from this crusty fart.

[muir_redwoods]

We have already paid reparations in the form of the two worst, most costly and most wasteful wars in our history; the Civil War and the War on Poverty. We are long since square on the deal.

[eyedigress]

BAM! I’m Irish and I want MY MONEY NOW!

[ScottinVA]

Reparations goes both ways, Benny boy. We fought a civil war, conducted a Reconstruction, instituted welfare, and a plethora of civil rights-related legislation. And you have, in YOUR words, a “brother” in the White House.

No one forces black women to bear children in fatherless families. No one is making young blacks fail at school. No one pushes them to commit the disproportionate amounts of violent crime that land them into the prison system.

Get over it, Ben. You want reparations? You got them already.. a long time ago.

[hitkicker]

Reparations are paid to the victim by the criminal.

I suppose Chavez will think it unreasonable that the recipients be obliged to prove that they are in fact descendents of slaves.

While I’m not a lawyer, I’m under the impression that in our legal system responsibility for a crime does not pass down to descendents of the criminal. So who will pay?

[heshtesh]

I was concerned for a moment till i realized we’re off the hook, we can just pay for reparations with Obamas STASH!!!//

[SECURE AMERICA]

Ok. If we each front for a ticket for any African that wants to renounce citizenship and return to Africa then I am all for reparations.......

[BilLies]

330,000 White Union servicemen died between the years 1861-1865 due mainly because the Radical Abolitionist Republicans interfered and had undue influence on the execution of the war. Hundreds of thousands of servicemen were wounded and subject to military connected diseases and suffered throughout remainder of their lives, Hundreds of thousands of families were left without fathers, sons, husbands and suffered untold hardships.
Those are your reparations MF!

[tcrlaf]

We tried that once, remember?
Ever heard of Liberia?

The Americo-Liberians suppressed the tribes and local minorities brutally, and maintained a rigid caste system with themselves at the top, for a hundred years.

The history of Liberia makes for interesting reading. Like Detroit, before it became the Detroit we know today.

[Jumper]

This should never be considered. Reason number one - All those blacks who think Cleopatra in Egypt was Black first owe to the Jews.... Of course, then there is the matter of generations of welfare recipients who have squandered any legitimacy of receipt of additional government payments.

[Future Snake Eater]

This could happen in Mr. Obama’s second term. But then again, what couldn’t?

Well, he will have more flexibility, for sure...

[2ndDivisionVet]

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”
Abraham Lincoln in his fourth debate with Stephen Douglas in the campaign for the United States Senate on September 18th of 1858.

“Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a god, great enough to make and maintain this universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogue-ism as this?” – Abraham Lincoln in notes for speeches in September of 1859.

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” – Abraham Lincoln in his first debate with Stephen Douglas in the campaign for the United States Senate at Ottawa, Illinois on August 21st of 1858.

“I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.” – Abraham Lincoln in the fourth debate with Stephen Douglas.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Cleopatra wasn't even Egyptian. She was a Ptolomy ... a Greek. Cleopatra VII Philopator (Greek, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ; Late 69 BC – August 12, 30 BC), known to history as Cleopatra, was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death during the Hellenistic period. The Ptolemies, throughout their dynasty, spoke Greek and refused to speak Egyptian, which is the reason that Greek as well as Egyptian languages were used on official court documents such as the Rosetta Stone. By contrast, Cleopatra did learn to speak Egyptian and represented herself as the reincarnation of an Egyptian goddess, Isis.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_VII

[ballplayer]

They have to stop Putting Satire on Freerepublic