Posted on 08/17/2002 2:36:52 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A few thousand black demonstrators rallied on the Mall in Washington on Saturday to demand that the U.S. government pay blacks reparations for slavery and decades of discrimination.
"I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing,' and then slap him, just for my mental health," Charles Barron, a member of the New York City Council, told the crowd.
The demonstrators, numbering about 2,000 to 3,000, came from all parts of the United States, many traveling by bus from as far away as Texas. With the U.S. Capitol in the background, they chanted "Black power! Reparations!" and "Start the Revolution!"
"Apologize White America," said a sign carried by one demonstrator.
Barron, a self-proclaimed "elected revolutionary," said if the government did not act swiftly he personally would storm the Treasury Department ( news - web sites) and take the money for reparations.
Black activist Louis Farrakhan told the crowd, "America owes the black people a lot for what they've endured."
"We need land for political independence, we need millions of acres," Farrakhan added. "We need payment for 310 years of slavery, of destruction of our minds and the robbery of our culture."
The United States, torn apart by the Civil War, abolished slavery in 1865. Some people argue that even 137 years after abolition, blacks still suffer from the vestiges of slavery.
U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, urged blacks to press their elected representatives in Congress to deal with the issue of slavery reparations.
"We want reparations -- not next century, not 10 years from now, but now," Conyers said. "These wrongs can only be corrected in the House of Representatives, only Congress can do what we want now. All congressmen ought to be here today."
Conyers has backed legislation that would require the House of Representatives to study slavery's effects on blacks.
Demonstrators said blacks deserved "long overdue" reparations, noting compensation won by Jews in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust and Japanese-Americans for their internment by the United States in camps during World War II.
The turnout was smaller than the tens of thousands of demonstrators forecast by organizers of the "Millions for Reparations" movement. But those who traveled to Washington said they believed the rally would make a difference.
"You have to really make some noise just to be heard," Edna Russell, who traveled from Denver, told Reuters.
Kobina Abew, an American citizen from Ghana dressed in a colorful African gown, said, "It's going to be very effective. It's going to bring a solution to this problem, I believe."
Yea, and Slick will grab a rifle and fight and die. We hear ya.
The white ruling class of United States of America is certainly not going to line up and march our peasant black population into Mexico just to get rid of them and avoid a pitiful twelve percent minority revolution but this is what Mexico is doing to our country every day.
Scouts OUt! Cavalry Ho!
Even if we did pay reperations, the money would end up right back in the hands of rich whites in one generation. The spending spree would be fun to watch and would boost the economy much like a tax cut would.
First, it would be gone in no time, second, not our problem anymore.
First, it would be gone in no time, second, not our problem anymore as long as they remain in Africa.
No Lou, you're a seditionist, and a racist. What you need is a prison cell.
Reparations take place everyday in the US: black on white crime. This past week, three blacks jumped a white guy and beat the living day lights out of him for his wallet where I work. It happened in broad daylight.
Excellent point. Now the victims of black on white crime will be able to sue the perps, because they will have money, thus 1/3 of the money goes to the reparations lawyers, 2/9 to the victims lawyers, and the original payer, gets back 4/9 of what they paid the descendants of slaves in the first place. Very circular--except for the lawyers...
Actually, the true heart of the matter is greed, pure greed.
(I will not go into detail as to why reparations are contrary to US law. Too many freepers, including experienced freeper lawyers, have done so. )
Many black freepers are understandably offended and annoyed by the "send 'em back to Africa" comments reparations brings out. They point out (reasonably enough) that they were here at least as long as white Americans. But consider this : Reparations supporters want us to believe that they are the exact same people who were slaves ("We suffered slavery and discrimination for 400 years" comments are de riguer among supporters). So let's take them at their word : Anyone who wants reparations and a black "homeland" goes 'back' to Africa and renounces US citizenship. This must be understood from the beginning. But that's only those who take the payments...not any person who "looks black". Just those who apply for the cash, take it, and renounce US citizenship forever.
The people who want reparations know they are not entitled to them as victims, as is the case with those who were interned for being Japanese. Rather, they want reparations on the grounds that they suffer 'post traumatic slavery disorder'. They want us to believe that all the ills we see in the so called 'black community' are caused by the "legacy of slavery". That these ill effects did not show up in the generation that were slaves...or their children...or their grandchildren...but in fact did not show up till the 1960s...proves to the logical among us that the "legacy of slavery" is in fact the legacy of the Great Society.
But let's pretend to take their specious claim of PTSD seriously. Let us give reparations to all black Americans who can prove they are so suffering.
How will they prove it?
Simple. Those who are really , truly hurt by" slavery's legacy" will prove it by their alienation from American society. And what is one thing that will prove this alienation ,and which will entitle the "sufferer" to reparations?
Conversion to Islam.
IOW, only those who feel a need to abandon the religious and philosophical basis of western civilization (from which are derived the principles of individual rights, political and personal liberty, which is what led to the abolition of slavery in the west) to embrace the religion of those who sold their ancestors into slavery and of those who still practice slavery (in Africa and perhaps elsewhere) are to receive reparations.
Do you see where I am taking this?
We give reparations payments to every Muslim convert and send them to Africa permanently. There, they can use their reparations payoffs to set up western-style businesses, and pump hard currency into the African economy. They can hire the locals. Whether US blacks bringing reparations money will be enough to bring Africa up to the status of a second world continent I don't know-but nothing else has worked to date. The misery in Africa worsens every year, it seems.Maybe this would help.
We've all seen the figures on interracial violence-how many of those murders, assaults, rapes, are inspired not just by racial hatred, but by religious hatred? In Norway, 65% of all rapes are commited by Muslim immigrants, and similar figures are found throughout the EU. A large portion of the African American conversions to Islam occur in prison. Could the obscenely high levels of black on white violence reflect Islam's normal way of spreading : By terrorizing the population into submission, as we see throughout Indonesia and parts of Europe today?
And if some of these 'African American' muslims who apply for reparations sound suspiciously as if they are recent Middle Eastern Immigrants...or if some have blue eyes and blond hair...or if some sound as if they may be from Mexico, or Canada, or parts of Europe...So what? Any price we have to pay to get these people out of our country is worth it. Whether they're con artists willing to sell out US citizenship for (eg)$25,000-$250,000, or whether they are people who truly believe their "religion" entitles them to rape, murder, and mutilate nonmuslims for the 'greater good' of overthrowing our Constitution and our rights to set up an Islamic theocracy under sharia-either way, we're well rid of them!
And bear in mind that while 65% of all those who make up the 1% of the population that's Muslim are black American converts-barely 2% of black Americans are Muslim. Over 6% are Roman Catholic. Even if the rate of conversions to Islam skyrocket among American blacks in a cynical effort to cash in , I still believe the overwhelming majority nationwide will NOT sacrifice their citizenship for a lump sum. Perhaps whole housing projects, maybe much of certain inner city populations, will take the money and emigrate, but I'll bet the majority nationwide will refuse.We will just get rid of that portion of the black population called the underclass-the criminals, welfare recipients, the entitlement mentality crowd-as well as quite a few nonblacks who fit this description. And a goodly chunk of the Muslim population (of all races).
I say it's a win-win. The Muslim population living in the US has been quieter than in Europe, because they're a much smaller percentage of the population and because we have the Second Amendment. Overseas, they are demanding the right to set up independent communities under sharia within the "host countries". And we read about the things being done to the women of Norway..France...Austria...Germany...the UK...and Australia, not to mention what Muslim insurgents are doing in the moluccas and Indonesia. Whole villages of nonmuslims forced to submit to conversion and mutilation on pain of death. I say there's no reason to doubt they'd like to treat us as they do their nonmuslim neighbors elsewhere, and they will try if their population grows.
My plan kills two birds with one stone.
(OK ,I know this is not a "brilliant plan". It's unworkable, and not least because reparations are based on an inherently fallacious basis, so no plan of distributing it would be feasable. But hey...I can dream...)
I wonder what it would do to American race relations if every black person walking down the street knows that every white person around knows s/he renounced wealth (especially by the standards of wealth of the African continent) and racial preferences in favor of retaining US citizenship?
Like I said, I know my plan is pure science fiction. Flame away.
If we gave each of them a reparations payment of $10, it could cost the rest of the 220,000,000 white people a total of $350 million.
Now, $10 is not very much. Let's change it to $100. That brings the cost to $3.5 billion dollars.
Well, $100 will only buy you 13 packs of cigarettes in New York City. We better increase it to at least $1000. That brings the cost to $35 billion dollars.
What if we make it $10,000 each? No problem---only $350 billion dollars for those 220,000,000 white people to pay.
How about giving each black $100,000? Piece of cake. It will only cost the white oppressors $3.5 trillion dollars. Now, put this in perspective---our total national debt is $6 trillion dollars.
And how much will each white person have to pay for these reparations? Approximately $15,000 for each white man, woman and child in the country. Even if their ancestors arrived fifty years after slavery was abolished through the blood sacrifice other white ancestors, they will come up with $15,000 each to pay black people who may have no connection to past slavery and in fact, may have immigrated to the US during the 1990s.
Want a prescription for race war?
Stolen from the White farmers who were then killed because of the color of their skin.
Unfortunately, Mugabe has given the farms to his Zanu-PF cronies even though they don't know anything about farming. That's strange considering people are starving in Zimbabwe and the country needs all the food it can grow, but there's Mugabe's brilliant reparations logic for you.
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