Woebeit when it comes to lamenting made in America African’s regrettably slavery experience, Jim Crow laws, discrimination, inequality, or just plain old racists and bigotry, I’m in a class by myself. I’m good and I know it.

Consequently, there ain’t an iota of shame in my game when I claim: with the exception of God almighty-- ain’t nobody in the known, civilized universe that knows more about brothers and sisters’ proclivities than the old African warrior. Nevertheless, every now and again, I hear my brothers and sisters say or write something with such clarity and sensitivity until I find myself wishing I had said it before they did.

Square business, I’ve been known to outright steal an unsuspecting deep thinker’s profundities and use them as if they originated in the Outer Limits of my cranial circuits and ain’t about to apologize or even recognize the person whose brain I picked. Ergo, I found myself pondering whether I should simply file an e-mail entitled “Reparations are like a Nasty Divorce” that showed up around 10:53 a.m. central daylight time on August 9, 2002, in my journalistic deep well.

I had a perfect right to claim the message, insofar as it wasn’t a letter to the editor, but stated specifically “From Dinah to Bud.” I started to save it for a future Eyeview, but since reparations have become such a hot topic until I paid for a youngster’s seat on the bus to Washington, D. C. (at the behest of Bro. Kofi, of the National Black United Front’s Houston Branch), I decided to share Dinah’s thoughts with over 2 million Eyeview mavens, who ideally get their hands on one of the 350,000 plus free copies of African-American News&Issues each week. First, let me assure you that this isn’t one of my intellectual concoctions, but the following text is for real.
“Dear Bud: I parallel the Reparations issue to the unfortunate divorce I went through with my husband. I wanted us to discuss certain issues before going before the judge. Property, 401K, child support, assets, etc. He simply did not want to talk. He insisted that we air our issues before the judge. I replied, ‘Why are you so nonchalant about your future. Why do you trust White folks and White institutions to govern our affairs? We can judge ourselves, what we have accomplished together and equally divide. Go before the judge and tell him what we have agreed upon.

“He simply replied, There’s nothing to talk about. The divorce is imminent. We’re finished!’ White people were married to us during slavery. They were abusive husbands and we were their battered downtrodden wives. Once slavery ended, they divorced their subservient wives, and have vowed in their hearts not to give her ‘a damn thang!’ They feel deeply in their hearts they owe us nothing. Jews, Asians, are like their mistresses who asked for reparations and got it with deep respect. Yet, they are embittered immensely toward the wife of their youth whom they treated like animals, while by force, assuring her faithfulness in building her husband’s country.
“Bud, this is the first time that I have read AAN&I with tears streaming down my face. Bud! I am so sad at our plight in White America. And I’m equally sad that my pastor allowed Vasquez to come into our church and pimp votes, yet at Wednesday night’s bible study he said nothing about Vasquez’s betrayal to our community and preached, teached and shouted about Jesus, like that’s going to solve all our problems. I wonder does Heaven cry for us for being so blind to truth. Bud, I sometimes feel like preachers are drug dealers keeping us high on Jesus.
“And as we all know addicts’ thinking is distorted. Addicts detach themselves from reality by staying high on the drug, and keeping the drug dealers with fat pockets. Sorry to vent Bud, but I am grieved and angry! From Dinah to Bud.”

And, I like every believer that knows that the truth shall set ye free, said AMEN! Ironically, just as I started writing this epistle, damn if I didn’t get another e-mail from an obvious descendent of slave masters, whom I fairly and objectively give equal consideration.

“I’ve just read your rant entitled ‘Reparations for what?’ You refer to ‘stupid bigots’ and ‘foolish racists’ in your final paragraph. Those characterizations refer to YOU. Slavery was wrong. What you claim happened to you in 1940 was wrong. Those days are long over. You’ll be a much happier person if you can shed that huge chip from your shoulder and live in the here and now and be an AMERICAN rather than an African-American. Hyphenated Americans are part of the problem. We need to get pass all that divides and just be Americans. Shame on you.”

On second thought, I’m not sure that the e-mail-- signed “djoy” was from a “real”American, or one of those made in America Africans who insist that we are not a monolithic people. Then again, since I had no way of looking at his feet, he could have been “A Brother From Another Planet,” who failed to grasp the concept of a “White Only” America, that still exists in the 21st century as “The land of the free,” just as sure as there are KKK Grand Wizards, who can operate just as effectively wearing a Federal or State District Court Judge’s black robe, as they can clad in hooded white robes.

Nevertheless, my response couldn’t have possibly made it pass that pious Baptist preacher who edits my copy. I wonder if anybody knows where I’m coming from?