Isn't this what we wanted, Mike? Let Kerry state his position on this one.
Oh, goody!
Show 'em my motto!
Posted on 04/10/2004 7:20:32 AM PDT by schaketo
The debate over compensation for descendents of American slaves belongs in the presidential race, say organizers of the “Big Sitting Down,” an annual conference geared to unite the reparations movement.
On March 20, during the townhall meeting of the Third NDABA conference -- “ndaba” is a word used in South Africa to describe coming together to reach a consensus -- Dr. Conrad Worrill, chairman of the National Black United Front, said, “We decided to place the reparations demands clearly in the middle of the presidential discourse, and a number of strategies were agreed upon to insure our community knows where the presidential candidates stand and what actions to take.”
Strategies include writing letters to John Kerry and George W. Bush inquiring about their positions on reparations and H.R. 40, the bill introduced by U.S. Representative John Conyers, (D-Mich.) to acknowledge the injustice of slavery and form a commission to examine and mitigate its effect on African Americans, forming study groups to educate the community on the concept of reparations, conducting a survey of all elected officials requesting their positions on reparations and H.R. 40, and initiating a grassroots campaign to obtain one million signatures in support of the reparations movement.
Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, was the keynote speaker during the townhall meeting that concluded the two-day NDABA. His address followed sessions at the historic Shrine of the Black Madonna, where working groups deliberated on issues including youth and faith-based organizing, legislative initiatives, legal strategies, the justice system and organizational collaboration.
“Reparations is a method by which that which is broken is made whole,” Minister Farrakhan told the cheering crowd of over 3,000. “It is a principle, a rule of action, which when acted upon produces repair.” He continued, “Many Black people have not caught on to this principle, even though it has been invoked since the 19th and 20th centuries. For 400 years this community has lived in the worst form of oppression.”
The vision to organize the voices calling for reparations was conceived last year by Dr. Worrill, who became concerned that the efforts seemed to be disconnected. The first NDABA, which included nearly 50 historians, educators, activists and organization leaders, was convened in Chicago in July 2003. “NDABA isn’t an attempt to form a new organization, but an umbrella under which the reparations movement can come together and unify its work. It’s a process,” Dr. Worrill explained.
The quest for reparations is a sacred undertaking that began with, “the demands of our ancestors as a cry for justice from the pain and exploitation of their enslavement in America,” Worrill continued. “The cry for reparations today includes repair of damage due to continued socialization of Africans in America which denies human rights -- in the areas of education, land ownership, healthcare, the justice system, economic development, political representation, etc. -- guaranteed by international laws ratified by the United States government,” he said.
Dr. Raymond Winbush, director of the Institute of Urban Research at Morgan State University, where the fourth NDABA will be held Oct. 29-30, spoke of the recent dismissal of the “Black Wall Street” reparations case in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A judge threw out a suit brought by survivors of a 1921 massacre in which rioting residents killed Blacks and destroyed their property while the U.S. government dropped explosives on their community in Tulsa. It is well documented that Africans had no recourse for dealing with matters like this via the judicial system until recent years.
“This country has consistently denied the humanity of Black people,” said Winbush. “Even if the U.N. says slavery was a crime against humanity, the U.S. still sees us as property. There are people right now making efforts to move the world court to address the issue, even as the U.S. has sought to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the world court.”
Winbush, author of “Should America Pay?: Slavery and the Raging Debate on Reparations,” said his research showed him why America doesn’t want to approach the issue of reparations. “Sometimes we say rhetorically that Black people built this nation, but we built the Western world,” he said.
“Nothing that we refer to as the Western world would have come into existence without the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The slave trade literally was the economic foundation for this country. It was blood money.”
Isn't this what we wanted, Mike? Let Kerry state his position on this one.
Oh, goody!
Show 'em my motto!
This does not hurt the Right in the least.
Show 'em my motto!
Maybe, but right now we should focus on Kerry's position on this issue. In fact, all conservatives and Rightists should support getting Kerry to answer the question of where he stands on reparations. Talk about your knight fork!
Show 'em my motto!
Well I like the guys name...
Like I said, wish I kept the article or could remember where I read it.
African-Americans should be paying GRATUITIES to the ancestors of those who liberated them from the sickest, deadliest, most horrible, most brutal continent on earth.
How many African-Americans are driving around with bumper stickers saying: "I'd rather be in Rawanda"?
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