Posted on 06/19/2002 3:26:43 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Promising that it will be one of the "most historic gatherings of African people in America," organizers of the Millions for Reparations Rally are demanding monetary compensation from the United States government and its citizens. The theme of the rally is: "They owe us!"
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), and a critic of the rally, said, "If that many people have enough money to go to D.C. to march, then they don't need reparations."
The Aug. 17 event will take place in Washington, D.C. on the 115th birthday of the late civil rights leader Marcus Garvey. But Peterson said Garvey was an outspoken advocate of post-slavery self-repair for black people in America and would not support the idea of modern day reparations.
The Durban 400 and National Black United Front (NBUF), the lead organizers of the rally, claim their event is "simply an attempt to repair, to make whole, the descendants of the victims of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade."
At the urging of the Durban 400 and other groups, the United Nations' 2001 World Conference Against Racism declared the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and the pre-Civil War slavery in the United States crimes against humanity.
NBUF National Chairman Dr. Conrad W. Worrill recently urged concerned "African people in America" to review and add to a list of nearly twenty atrocities that, according to Worrill, "they owe us for."
Among the atrocities on the list are the "Raping of African Women," "KKK Night Riders and Lynchings," "Mental Atrocities," the "Crack Epidemic," and "the 13th and 14th Constitutional Amendments."
According to Worrill, "The abolishment of slavery was really a constitutional scam and the 14th Amendment that allegedly made African people citizens of America was imposed on us. We were never asked if we wanted to be citizens."
But David Almasi, spokesman for the black conservative group Project 21, said those seeking reparations forget the benefits of living in America.
"What about the fact that now you're in America, the land of opportunity as opposed to being in Africa with malaria, dictators and things like that," Almasi said.
According to Peterson, "These organizations that are supporting this so-called Millions for Reparations are anti-American organizations anyway. They're communist/socialist organizations."
Peterson added that "so-called civil rights leaders" like Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan have encouraged a culture of dependency among African Americans instead of self-reliance.
Peterson said he especially wants to encourage white Americans to protest those calling for reparations and "not have the fear of being called a racist" for doing so. However, he said, "As long as you give into these people, there is no stopping them. There is no end to their destruction if we don't stand up to them with truth."
The "truth," Peterson said, is that reparations are "a bad idea in that it is divisive, it is racist, and it's another form of using black Americans to gain power and wealth."
E-mail a news tip to Michael L. Betsch.
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If you're new to the biz you might want to get in closer to the ground floor and check out an Atzlan rally in East L.A.
Exactly. Just as one can't be compensated for something one has never lived through and/or experienced.
BUMP!
The reparations movement makes me ill. What about the affirmative action? welfare? What about the times my dad had a hard time getting a job because a minority needed to fill the slot, not a white man?
Neither was I. Did they ask me if I wanted to be an American citizen when I was born in a Cleveland hospital? Noooo-oooo! But, at least I realize that if I really don't want to be an American citizen, the answer is for me to move out of the US, not make a foolish attempt to turn it into a justification for handouts.
That having been said, there has to be some way to end it once and for all. I propose that a set value be put for each person, say the equivalent of "40 acres and a mule", or a flat sum of 50k (pick any number, it really doesn't matter).
This amount would be paid in proportion to one's ancestoral slavery heritage. For example, if a reparee (is that a word?) can prove that 100% of his ancestors were slaves, that person would be entitled to the entire amount. If one branch of the family tree can be traced to slavery, then 50% and so on.
That way, someone who's ancestors emigrated from the Belgian Congo during WW2 would be eliglble for nothing. Of course, after receiving your share, you would then have your citizenship revoked and, should you wish to remain in America, would be able to apply for a green card. Line forms to the right.....
Of course, this opens up a whole new can of worms, after all my wife's ancestors burnt a few witches back in New England, and I'm sure that the wikkens (sp?) will be asking for theirs in due course. Just a long as they don't turn me into a newt.
You've got my vote.
If people are going to be paid for helping the country to become prosperous, everyone gets a check!
When can I expect my share? Thanks.
rdb - I understand your displeasure at people using this particular phrase. However, I think a lot of it is simply shorthand for "Fine, if these whiners don't like living here in America, then it's fine by me if they GET what they seem to be demanding -- that the admittedly bad and painful past history that brought their ancestors to this country (and thereby gave them an opportunity to be here too) can be, as much as possible, completely undone. Let's buy these 'I'm-an-African-first-and-an-American-second' bed-wetters a plane ticket and let them go and live in whatever country they would have ended up living if their ancestors had never come to America, since that's what they seem to want."
It takes a long time to spell all that out, but I think it's what most people really mean.
Having said that, I'm sure for some white folks, it does express a bit of an us-and-them attitude ("us" being white folks, "them" being black folks). While some of this is simply a bad racial attitude (we all know bad racial attitudes are out there, so we may as well be up front with that), a fair portion of this, IMO, is probably a knee-jerk reaction to some of the us-and-them attitude expressed by liberal whiners like Jackson and Sharpton who are doing their very best to divide the world up into "us" vs. "them."
As far as I'm concerned, the world does to a degree divide into "us" vs. "them." "Us" includes you, me, and most of the folks here at FR. Not to mention folks like the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson.
"Them" includes Clintoon, Hellary, Algore, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and most of the folks at DU...
The difference is in how we think and act.
What an idiotic comment! Subsidized housing for low-income Americans (regardless of color) has been around since long before GWB even entered politics. Your comment is about like saying, "Well golly, if dubya is willing to pay for Medicare, then he'll probably socialize the whole health care system."
Here we go again...
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