Posted on 01/16/2003 3:49:03 AM PST by kattracks
New York (CNSNews.com) - Jesse Jackson, in a speech on Wednesday, declared that New York's financial district was built on an "African burial ground" and achieved prosperity "on the backs of African people."
Jackson made his remarks at the 6th annual Rainbow/Push Wall Street Project fund-raiser in New York City.
Jackson also said discriminatory policies in 19th century America attracted immigrants who were "looking for 100 free acres, the right to kill an Indian, and free labor."
One of the panelists at the conference sharply disagreed with the Wall Street Project's racial agenda and questioned Jackson's intentions.
"On balance, this event does not advance the cause of civil rights," said panelist Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity, a group opposed to affirmative action. "I think it's good for Reverend Jackson, but I don't think it's good for anyone else," Clegg added.
At a Diversity Forum panel discussion, Jackson slammed Wall Street for its historical links to the shipping industry and its role in the transportation of African slaves. "Wall Street is built on the backs of African people. It is an African burial ground down here. Wall Street was built on the shipping industry," Jackson said.
The 2003 Wall Street Project is being billed as "Equity for All: Establishing the Economic Agenda for Growth," and it runs from Jan. 14-17 in New York.
Jackson believes that government policies have caused African-Americans to miss out on numerous economic opportunities throughout America's history.
"At the beginning of the (20th) century, before we had the right to vote, all these [economic] territories were given away - automobile territories, fast food franchise territories, federal licenses, Homestead Act land grants, universities, all of this was given as largess," he said.
Jackson also claimed that the influx of immigrants to America during the late 19th century stemmed from government handouts. "People didn't come here looking for religious freedom; people came here looking for 100 free acres, the right to kill an Indian, and free labor."
Jackson kept his focus on New York's financial center to make a point about the need for slave reparations and affirmative action.
"In 1840, there was more Africans enslaved in New York than there was in Charleston South Carolina," he said. "So if we didn't know all our history, then the conclusion [that blacks deserve reparations] might seem unfair."
Jackson compared opposition to slave reparations to denying the holocaust.
"In Germany today, if you deny the holocaust, it is illegal, it is illegal, besides being immoral," Jackson explained.
"If slavery is a non-issue, if we are considered in the Constitution a non-issue, if the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation was a non-issue, if the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments were a non-issue, then 1896 ("separate but equal" Plessy v. Ferguson ruling) didn't happen and 1954 (the ruling that segregation is unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education) wasn't quiet, then reparations is foolishness. It is unfair to white people," he said to laughter.
"But if those dates are real, if there was a time when the woman by virtue of being a woman couldn't vote... [then] you cannot give up the whereas and leap over to the therefore," Jackson said.
In an interview with CNSNews.com following his speech, Jackson attacked the Bush administration's racial policies.
"There is no future in limiting the marketplace, that is why it is so strange that on the actual date of Martin Luther King's birth [Jan. 15], when the marketplace is looking for ways to open the door, President Bush is drawing up litigation to figure out ways to close the doors," Jackson said of the Bush administration's decision Wednesday to declare its opposition to the University of Michigan race-based admissions policies. The Supreme Court will decide the future of affirmative action programs in the pivotal case.
"There is no commitment to enforce laws of inclusion, no commitment to affirmative action. [Bush] doesn't believe in it. No commitment to EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,) to class-action discrimination, gender- or race-based lawsuits," Jackson explained.
"The government has turned its back on us," he added.
Asked if the scheduled appearance by two Bush administration officials at his conference was an attempt by the administration to reach out to the minority community, Jackson was not convinced. Federal Communication Commission Chairman Michael Powell and Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission Roel Campos are scheduled to appear at a Wall Street Project awards luncheon on Thursday.
"There is no connection, because these are very qualified men. If affirmative action becomes illegal, then [their appearance] has no value. So these are very able men but they need civil rights law to enforce," Jackson said.
'Trent Lott card'
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), also a panelist at the Diversity Forum, brought up Sen. Trent Lott's name in a discussion about affirmative action.
"We in the Congressional Black Caucus are going to play our Trent Lott card, and we are in the process of asking, as a result of Trent Lott's appearance on BET," for his support in defending affirmative action.
Lott appeared on Black Entertainment Television and pledged support for affirmative action in an apparent attempt to defuse the fallout following his controversial remarks at former Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party in December.
Conyers agreed with Jackson's assessment of the Bush administration's racial policies. "They are cutting back on every front. We don't need affirmative action, that is what is coming out on Martin Luther King's birthday?" Conyers asked.
Conyers, who has been an annual sponsor of a slavery reparations bill in Congress for the past decade, spoke of the necessity for corporate reparations to African-Americans.
"The shipping companies were involved in the transportation of slaves. Might they not have a legal obligation going back 200 years? That is what I think," Conyers told CNSNews.com.
Conyers noted that lawsuits against the insurance industry for its alleged profiting from the slave trade were already proliferating. "No one is waiting for [attorney] Johnnie Cochran...people are suing the crap out of them right now," Conyers explained.
Conyers was also unimpressed with the scheduled appearance by two Bush administration officials."I don't think Michael Powell has ever seen a deregulation proposal that he doesn't like," Conyers lamented.
"[The Bush administration] is not reaching out on anything...it is abolishing affirmative action - that's not reaching out," he said.
'Shakedowns'
One panelist at the diversity forum surprised the crowd with his blunt opposition to affirmative action. Roger Clegg said, "Discrimination is wrong whether the victim is white or black or the victim is male or female."
Clegg attacked the whole purpose of Jackson's Wall Street Project.
"Reverend Jackson is encouraging companies to engage in exactly the kind of discrimination that the civil rights movement opposed," Clegg told CNSNews.com.
"Unfortunately, there are a lot of organizations, and I don't think Jesse Jackson is the only example of this, but there are a lot of shakedowns that take place these days in the name of civil rights and diversity, and I think that's wrong," he added.
Clegg sharply disagreed with Jackson and Conyers on reparations.
"I think it's ridiculous to argue that Americans now should either receive a check or have to write a check based on their skin color," Clegg said.
Clegg said the two Bush administration officials scheduled to appear at Jackson's conference "should make clear in their remarks that the administration does not support discrimination based on race, ethnicity or gender."
Clegg believes Jackson's organization showed some courage in inviting him to speak. "They invited me, so I have to give them credit for that," he said.
Conyers went out of his way to praise Clegg's appearance on the panel.
"He is the most reasonable adversary I have ever met on the subject in my life. It's easy to dislike the people that are opposed to the positions that I raise," Conyers said.
Clegg, noting that he did not agree with the agenda of the Wall Street Project, said, "It wouldn't break my heart if next year I don't get invited because they are not having this event."
See Related Story:
Bush Administration 'Duped' By Jesse Jackson Event (6 Jan. 2003)
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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Those who were shipped are dead, thus no plaintiff is around, nor even any member of their immediate families, around to make such claims.
Kindly shut up, Mr. Conyers. Race baiters like yourself are the true purveyors of division and hatred.
Ivan
Jesse, Conyers and Rangel are scheduled to speak at this Saturday's anti-war rally in DC. They will be giving even more publicity to their irrelevance and malevolance.
By the way, under U.S. federal tax law, there is no statute of limitations, shockingly, for tax fraud. Since corporations remain the same legal person for as long as they survive, it is thus in theory possible for the federal government to make a tax claim against a corporation for tax fraud committed in 1910, say (the current federal corporate income tax antedates the 1913 income tax against individuals by a few years.) When I clerked for the U.S. Tax Court, eight or so years ago, I actually saw such a case decided for the government concerning alleged tax fraud allegedly committed by a real natural person from the 1950's.
Remarks like this are racist because they imply that a small minority 12% had a larger impact on the prosperity of America than everyone else.
Classic apples and oranges comparison.
Jackson and the black caucus socialists are nothing if they are not dividing the country on racial lines.
I am not certain this is true...however, I am sure that northern shipping interests transported Africans for slavery....
In other words, Conyers is not in a contest of ideas. He is a member of the vast left-wing conspiracy engaged in the politics of personal destruction. In his world, anything that advances his position is good, and anything or anybody that hinders his position is evil.
Those who are against racial discrimination of any kind are "hated" for the mere fact of being idealist, and believe in equality before the law.
Jackson (I will not denigrate the term "The Reverand") is a bigoted, shameless race baiting hustler con-man & pimp. He is delusional, to boot. Why anyone, black or white, would so much as give him the time of day astounds me. We know the content of your character, Jesse!
This link is not about Wall Street, but the Yankees most certainly had slavery.
Archaeology Magazine, Sept-Oct 2001: "Yankee Slavery"
"New Salem was one of many New England plantations that were part of the so-called triangle trade, in which rum was shipped to Africa and exchanged for slaves, who were brought to the West Indies and exchanged for molasses, which was shipped back to Rhode Island to produce more rum.
Some ten percent of slaves brought to the New World ended up in the North.
'Our written history suggests that there was no such thing as slavery in the North,' says (archaeologist Gerald) Sawyer.
'But our Connecticut site was not working in isolation--enslavement there could not work without a global colonial political system behind it.'"
My people came here penniless, didn't come here as slaves and I'm grateful to be born in the USA.
More pertinent to our discussion, will this affect slavery reparations that is increasingly in demand?
More like a pimple on their butt. That's why they call him "pimp" for short.
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