Reparations for Today, Reparations Tomorrow, Reparations Forever
Why some of you white Neo-Liberals and Conservatives remain clueless about reparations
One of the definitions of the word reparation, is the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. In America, if we want to discuss groups who have been wronged, the list is long, but few groups have been treated as poorly as black Americans. Black Americans were stolen from their native lands. They were drowned by the hundreds of thousands, as they were tossed overboard in their chains from the slave ships that ran into storms during transport and were foundering.
Black Americans were put to work as human property, to build the wealth of America with their labor and misery. Slavery and American Capitalism poisoned just about every group prior to the Civil War, including groups who had themselves been persecuted. Black Americans have been abused by most groups in America at one time or the other. This is the potion white supremacy mixed with American Capitalism, to create the carrot on the end of a stick to entice immigrants and others to support the white supremacist system. That if they worked hard enough, they too, could one day own slaves, rule over employees, or be wealthy.
Stolen Identity
If I had to guess what the single most damaging thing done to black America by light skinned America, I would have to say it was American Capitalism stealing the identity from black Americans, and indoctrinating them with a made up narrative that benefited white America. They did this through forced indoctrination, cartoons, media, and other hogwash propaganda designed to keep the working castes from unifying. This practice erased who they were, and gave them the idea their role in the world was to serve the white upper caste.
For three hundred years as slaves, and later as third class citizens, black Americans have shouldered the burden of white America. Chain gangs were created to extend slavery once chattel slavery was outlawed. The war on drugs was another way to fill the prison systems and profit the corporations who owned them. Three strikes and you are out was mostly directed at black urban Americans. Black towns were burned, black wealth was confiscated and black advancement has been purposely stymied.
None of the old white men like Biden yammering on about you ain’t black unless you vote for me, ever experienced anything like this. When the Neo-Fascist, Donald Trump bellows, look at my black voters, he nor his family have ever experienced life like black Americans. Not them, not their ancestors, and not most of the people they know. None of their white ancestors ever had a whiff of what happened to the average black American at any point of American history. If you do some digging, you will likely find their ancestors behind the bull whip on a plantation, owners of a factory, or creators of a slum.
There should be no other choice for black voters and black allies
As for black voters in America, there is finally a real representative of black America running for president, in Doctor Cornell West, but the DNC expect you to vote for yet another old white man with false promises. Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, along with the establishment news media are attacking Doctor West because they believe he needed to stay on the Democratic plantation and keep his mouth shut. Doctor West has remained consistently for the vulnerable. He has the intelligence, and moral fiber to cause white supremacy some issues in this election. There is no other candidate for anyone who is serious about black issues or for helping the vulnerable.
As for the scare tactics of the Democratic plantation that claim voting for Doctor West might put Trump in office. So what, it is not Progressives responsibility to support the opposite of Trump just because. I do not see how Fascism has been slowed down since Biden was elected. The DNC needs to win their own elections by being truly Progressive, and choosing better candidates. If you want Progressive votes start passing laws that Progressives hold dear. So far, Biden might as well be W Bush, and you cannot blame everything on Lord Cheeto Trump, he has not been president since he lost the last election.
Another war for white people but no reparations
What has Biden done for working Americans other than have the world on the verge of a nuclear holocaust, over you guessed it, a snow white European nation with ties to groups that use Nazi symbolism, and who has been reported mistreating black refugees. What has Joe Biden done for black America? What is he going to do? You know the answer. Do not trust another old white man to help you this time around, they really do not want to. The fucker couldn’t save Roe vs Wade, forgiveness of student debt, or bring Medicare for all to a vote, and that is the short list.
The billions spent on white Ukraine could be spent on reparations for black Americans, but this white supremacist system does not want those things for black people. They want all the money and power for themselves. I voted for our current president, but he is clearly showing you whose side he and his party is on. I see how they are attacking a leader I have loved for decades in Cornell West, and it is unlikely Biden will get my support again.
Reparations now
The one issue that gets passed over quickly when spoken about seriously is Reparations. If you want to be attacked by both the left and right, bring up reparations. Reparations is controversial, because reparations means money, and property. The sad thing about it being controversial, is reparations was already promised and is already owed. The Federal government after the Civil War promised forty acres and a mule to recently freed slaves, but it was overturned after Lincoln’s death. In fact, much of the land that was going to be given to former slaves was returned to the former slave owners instead.
White Neo-Liberals are not always a friend to black America
True Progressives should clearly understand that white Neo-Liberals and the Democratic party are big on talk, but white liberals refusal to take up the reparations battle is just another part of the last gasp of white supremacy. Wealthy light skinned people do not want to give up their upper caste status. Reparations remains controversial, even for so-called liberal Democrats, because reparations will come at a significant financial cost and once they do it, it will come at a cost to those who take up this battle in a serious way.
Reparations is where real civil rights in the 21st century begins, because Reparations given in the right spirit says to black Americans, we are sorry for stealing you, using you, abusing you, raping you, selling you, and lynching you. It finally says to black Americans, we are truly sorry, and to show you we actually mean it, we are willing to pay up in money, land, and a share of positions of power. Black America already paid their share in blood, tears, and misery.
Black Americans are not asking for anything special, they are asking for what they are owed, and what they were promised. If there is enough money for another European war to protect white people, there is more than enough for reparations, national healthcare, universal basic income, retirement at age 55, federally mandated livable wage, and fewer hours worked.
Time to Pay Up
If we truly want to begin to fix American problems with race, we need to pay up, then change up. We should start by putting the White House up as a museum or dismantling it completely as the symbol of white supremacy it is. It was built by slaves, and we literally call it what is represents, the white house. Let us come up with a more inclusive name for the house of the president, and let us keep it less elaborate for something that is supposed to represent a servant of the people, rather than faux royalty.
While we are at it, let us do what Mississippi did and change the flag, it is past time for a new symbol that does not have three hundred years of blood on its hands. If we really feel emboldened, let us write a new Constitution where inclusion cannot be amended out or overturned by the Supreme court. Why keep any vestige of America’s past genocide, abuse, and slavery? Reparations is about more than money and land, reparations is even more importantly about the beginning of healing. Reparations represents a new beginning. There is no middle ground on this issue.
Time to Leave the Democratic plantation and make a statement
If you want to make a statement for issues like reparations in the next election cycle, working Americans and black voters have a new opportunity. A vote for Dr. Cornell West by every black American, every poor or working white American, women, LGBTQ will scare the shit out of the establishment. In fact, it already has, because they and their white establishment news media are already working overtime to slander him. To those who say he cannot win, they said that about Trump in 2016. There is power in words spoken in the face of evil by someone with moral integrity and real knowledge as Doctor West has.
The words of James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., James H. Cone, Frederick Douglas, Rosa Parks, have shown this to be true. We have in Cornell West, a true civil rights leader whose driving force is justice, and whose platform is love. He is running for the office of President, and he should get our support. The fact is, Biden is not likely to win anyway unless they rig the election as they are trying to do by not having Democratic debates, so why back another old white man who will likely lose.
Biden and Kamala are terrible candidates and if anyone but Trump were running against them, it is likely the DNC would be trying to find another candidate. My support is going to someone who will at least bring reparations to the table, and will speak to the needs of the vulnerable against the powerful. I will continue to support the vulnerable of every group, but this article is about black Americans, and in my view, the new slogan should be, reparations now, reparations tomorrow, reparations forever.