Posted on 06/10/2002 6:58:31 AM PDT by H8DEMS
The Millions For Reparations Rally that will be held on August 17, 2002, the 115th birthday of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, in Washington, D.C. promises to be one of the most historic gatherings of African people in America.
Day-by-day, African people in America are becoming more familiar with the concept of reparations and what it means to our continued struggle in America for self-determination, liberation, independence, and freedom. Therefore, we must be clear that reparations means repair for the damages inflicted on a people or a nation.
In pursuit of this repair, we are conscious of the fact we must engage in the process of assuming responsibility for repairing ourselves that includes: changing the way we think, supporting our own institutions, particularly financially, supporting our families, supporting our own Black business enterprises, cleaning up our own communities, and changing the way we relate to, and think of, each other as a people. These are just a few of the internal repairs we must constantly work on.
In this connection, part of our internal repair is to struggle, fight, mobilize, and organize to demand external reparations from those governments, corporations, and institutions that are responsible for our historical and continuing state of oppression. Just as Jewish people proclaim “Never Forget,” African people should do no less.
We should “Never Forget” that “They Owe Us!” Part of our internal repair is to consciously understand that, “We Are Owed” and have a historic responsibility to demand reparations from those forces of white supremacy that continue to benefit from what they did to us that lingers on as part of the vestiges of our enslavement.
As we prepare for our participation in the Millions For Reparations Rally on August 17, 2002, we should be clear that They Owe Us For:
1. The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery - The United Nations World Conference Against Racism declared that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery were Crimes Against Humanity. Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations.
2. Expropriation of Our Labor- For more than 250 years, we were forced to work for free. Our free labor was a major ingredient in the building of America and its wealth as a nation. Also, the thousands of white individuals and their families’ accumulated wealth that continues to benefit them as a result of our free labor.
3. Slave Code Laws- The slave owners developed their own codes of what they could do to enslaved African people in America that permeated throughout the emergence of this country. In many ways, informal slave codes exist today (racial profiling).
4. Destruction of the African Family- The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery had a devastating impact on destroying and dismantling African families.
5. Raping of African Women- Our capture and enslavement provided white men with the power to rape African women and girls by the thousands without reprisal.
6. Fugitive Slave Laws- When our enslaved ancestors resisted their enslavement and fled plantations, the government of this country sanctioned laws and policies that supported the capture and return of so-called runaway enslaved Africans. The Dred Scott Decision should be consulted to fully understand the implications of the Fugitive Slave Laws.
7. Colonizing of Our African Culture- Created systems by law and societal practices that forbade African people, in our captured state, to engage in our traditional spiritual cultural practices.
8. KKK Night Riders and Lynchings- The Ku Klux Klan was established in the late 1860s as a secret society whose mission was to exterminate, by any means necessary, African people in America. They were known to have been responsible for the lynching and murdering of thousands of African men, women, and children.
9. The 13th and 14th Constitutional Amendments- 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.
10. Denied Our 40 Acres and a Mule- We didn’t get it! It was sold down the river and the land was given to white confederate soldiers.
11. Jim Crow Laws- The Jim Crow Policies of America became the fabric and foundation of American society after the period of Reconstruction. Jim Crow Laws and Policies reinforced the foundation of white supremacy and Black inferiority in every aspect of American society.
12. Fighting and Dying In Imperialist and White Supremacist Wars- We fought and died for the freedoms of others and were denied our own freedoms and civil rights.
13. Assassination of Black Leaders- Malcolm X, Dr. King, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark to name a few.
14. COINTELPRO- This was a government program, established by the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, designed to destroy the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 70s.
15. Crack Epidemic- Research reveals the United States Government, through the CIA, targeted Black communities for the dispensing of Crack Cocaine.
16. Criminalizing Our Youth- It should be obvious that the aim of the Prison Industrial Complex is to Criminalize Our Youth to insure a young and viable work force for this multibillion-dollar industry.
17. Jailing of Freedom Fighters- The incarcerating of our Freedom Fighter thus, making them Political Prisoners.
18. & 19. Centuries of Mis-Education and Mental Atrocities- This has caused serious damage to our people, which continues to cause much mental confusion about our true reality as an African people in America and around the world.
I am sure, as we approach August 17, 2002, you can add to this humble list of why “They Owe Us!”
(Dr. Worrill is the National Chairman of the National Black United Front / NBUF located at 12817 S. Ashland Ave., Fl. 1, Calumet Park, IL, 60827, 708-389-9929, Fax 708-389-9819, E-Mail: nbufchi@allways.net, Website: nbufront.org)
I can understand your points, and hope you are right, but with PC being so firmly entrenched in America, most likely, we will bend over and take it in the shorts, as we always do. I wish I could be more optimistic, but I am not.
Unfortunately, every penny in the US Treasury.
Don't want to be a citizen? Then leave. You can renounce your citizenship at any time.
13. Assassination of Black Leaders- Malcolm X,
Talk to Louis Farrakan about that one. He had X whacked and everyone knows it.
I owe nothing. Slaveowners are held accountable by their god, perhaps.
Beats working
you're an Anglo-Saxon Protestant, no one owes you anything... and they weren't "thrown out", your ancestors went to Ireland to enslave the "filthy Celts" in exchange for land and title.
I wrote a letter to the moron who started this mess, and he never got back to me. I figure it has something to do with keeping people angry at one another so we can't get together and reform government. So long as everything is stirred up, nobody pays attention to what is going on in government. If this goes through, and our government, and big business pays reparations to blacks, I will move my company, and my family to another country. I will not be taxed for something that happened 200 years ago, by people who are long dead. I will not be held responsible for the acts of the AFRICAN WARLORDS who sold those people into slavery. I will not be held responsible for the European traders who brought them here. I will not be held responsible for the slave owners who bought them. My family never owned slaves. My family never benefitted from slavery, so I am exempt from this, as is every American whose ancestors never owned slaves.
If The Black Community wants their reparations, they need to go to Africa to get them. They know why they aren't pursuing their African Sellers, because AFRICA IS A TOILET, and has nothing to offer them. What should happen is all African Americans who want to be written a check, need to be immediately deported back to their homeland. NEVER to return to this country, EVER. They should be tagged and fingerprinted, and treated as hostile to this country. Let them go back to Africa, and let them fix all of the problems there. Let them create their version of America in Africa. It's what they want, let them do it.
The next group we should be looking at to hit us with Reparations are the Chinese, The Irish, and the Mexicans.
The u.s. government should only pay 1/3 of what they want, the other 2/3 will have to come from the spaniards who slave traded them, and the black african tribes that captured them in the first place. But that 2/3 is none of our business, since they will no longer be u.s. citizens, and the blacks that seek reparations will all be living in africa, of course, and it will be their problem, not ours.
Yeah, I also really doubt that "millons" of them will give up their u.s citizenship and live in africa for the rest of their lives.
We don't have enough jobs around here so welfare must be helping them out. I really don't see too many Africans working in the area. I do see quite a few African teens in the schools and walking around town.
There is one good thing about the climate here. It is cold, and many of the Africans move out of here to warmer climates. Of course, that means they move south.
But the ones who do stay here will have an impact on the society here. They are intermarrying, or living with, the white women here. Just what impact that will have on society is anyone's guess.
I have heard white teenage boys talking about the blacks here, and there is animosity there. I suspect that we will have interracial tensions here before long.
I don't know about moving to another country. Just what country would that be? I am not sure there is another place where conditions will be better.
On top of that, there is very little grass roots energy for this one. Yeah, polls do show a strong majority of blacks in favor of reparations, but the way it's often presented to others is as a "free money" option. Going to DC requires effort. So just like previous rallies have fizzled pretty badly, this one so far looks like it's going to be a dud: at the very least, there almost definitely won't be "millions" there for this.
Nevertheless, I've seen a few people saying that they will never pay. I feel the same way, and so I've started a web site for people to make this declaration:
For those who really feel this way, feel free to stop by.
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