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Reparations
The growing and re-invigorated
reparations movement today is a continuation of the African American
struggle for human and civil rights.
The National Coalition of Blacks
for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and the National Black United Front (NBUF)
among others are calling for reparations. The Houston African and
African-American community will dialogue on ‘what America owes people of
African descent from 400 years of chattel slavery, racism, and economic
discrimination or not in the form of reparations on Friday, January 16, 2004
at 7:00 p.m. at SHAPE Community Center. Panelist s include Dr. Imari Obadele,
retired PVAMU Professor, longtime soldier in the struggle for reparation,
Dr. Obidike Kamau, UH Professor of African American Studies and Director of
the Texas Southern University Library, Kofi Taharka, Houston Chair NBUF,
Cleveland Gite, Co-host with Dr. Kamau of Critical and Progressive Review
(CPR) radio program on KPFT Sunday nights, and ANelle Williams, co-host and
producer of The Women’s Collective radio program also on KPFT Thursday
nights.
What are reparations?
The growing and re-invigorated reparations movement today is a continuation
of the African American struggle for human and civil rights. Reparations are
compensation in the form of resources to repair tangible and intangible
damages to a nation or a people for a wrong or injury. Reparations can
restore a nation through the act of making amends for a wrong done.
Reparations are also atonement for wrongdoings. Reparations is nothing new,
the table below offers examples of reparations the US has paid out to other
ethnic communities over past injustices and wrongdoings:
Reparations is a complex strategy to analyze in human damages the
devastation and loss to a people and assess compensation and redress today
for African Americans who continue to suffer culturally, economically,
politically, socially and spiritually from the injustices of systemic racism
---- the longstanding and prevailing product of slavery.
Contrary to popular opinion, reparations involve more than just money. As we
re-think reparations, contemplate this --- after 246 years of slavery,
followed by another century of nationally racist policies to legally oppress
and confine African Americans in dire hopelessness and poverty, coupled with
no protection or representation by law for 345 continuous years, are civil
rights legislation passed in 1964 and more recently affirmative action laws
passed in the late 1970’s really enough to repair the damages to a people
whose ancestors' blood, sweat and suffering built the wealth of this nation?
Is it realistic to think that nearly 350 years of economic, political and
social injustice can be leveled off by laws introduced a little over 40
years ago?
Why Reparations?
The decision by the US Supreme Court deeming the Black man three-fifths of a
human being permanently sanctioned the dismissive and unjust treatment of
Blacks that continues today. The present condition of the African American
community is reflective of the fact that our future as equal US citizens is
marked by a past that remains unresolved -- our nation’s systemic
exploitation and unjust treatment of Black people. To clearly understand
where we are now, it is crucial that we revisit our past.
In comparison to other countries that were engaged in the institution of
slavery, the US involvement was among the most cruel and inhumane ---
involving chattel slavery during which the slave owner had absolute
possession of all future descendants of anyone bought or born into slavery.
Newly freed Blacks who were prohibited from learning to read and write
during slavery were tricked or forced by the bureau to sign contracts for
sharecropping and tenant farming while Whites maintained wealth through
control and ownership of land. At the same time, state legislation, later
known as the 'Black Codes' were introduced as laws that prevented Blacks
from having equal political, economic and social status as Whites,
maintaining conditions of oppression similar to those before Emancipation.
These laws were further refined into what we know today as Jim Crow laws.
Perfecting this systemic criminal process is ongoing and has lasted well
over 300 years, yet Blacks today are told simply, “get over it”. How can we
get over it when today, like yesterday, our life expectancy is considerably
lower than the life expectancy for all other racial ethnicities in this
country? How can we get over it when our infant mortality rate is the same
as that of Third World countries? How can we get over it when Blacks of
comparable education and professional status are assessed half the wealth of
their White counterparts? How can we get over it when we are reminded all
too frequently that we can still be lynched or murdered without recourse by
anyone and especially those who uphold the laws of this country? What about
the brutality and injustice against all Black people that occurs daily and
systemically in neighborhoods, in the workplace, in general society, that
goes under-reported and in some instances not reported at all? The car chase
and suspicious murder of Ida B. Delaney, here in our own backyard, by
off-duty police officers; Rodney King’s beating by urban police in Los
Angeles, California 1991; James Byrd’s dragging death and decapitation by
ordinary small town White citizens in Jasper, Texas, 1999; Amadou Diallo,
innocent of any crime, unarmed, yet shot to death 44 times by New York City
police; the brutal beating of a Black teenager, Donovan Jackson-Chavis in
2002, again by cops, again in California; are just some of the more
prominent misfortunes of living Black and particularly male, in America.
It is due time for broad intelligent dialogue about the issue of reparations
for descendents enslaved Africans in America.
For more information contact ANelle Williams at 713-785-3827 or
essenceoflife@sbcglobal.net.
(Information compiled by he Reparations Research Project (RRP), a
Houston-based group committed to raising awareness through local advocacy
and community education in support of reparations for African Americans.)
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