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Day-by-day, African people in America are becoming
more familiar with the concept of reparations and what it
means to our continued struggle in America for self-determination,
liberation, independence, and freedom. Therefore, we must
be clear that reparations means repair for the damages
inflicted on a people or a nation. In pursuit of this repair,
we are conscious of the fact we must engage in the process
of assuming responsibility for repairing ourselves that includes:
-
changing the way we think
-
supporting our own institutions, particularly
financially
-
supporting our families
-
supporting our own Black business enterprises
-
cleaning up our own communities
-
changing the way we relate to, and think
of, each other as a people
These are just a few of the internal repairs
on which we must constantly work.
In this connection, part of our internal repair
is to struggle, fight, mobilize, and organize to demand external
reparations from those governments, corporations, and institutions
that are responsible for our historical and continuing state
of oppression. Just as Jewish people proclaim “Never Forget,”
African people should do no less.
We should “Never Forget” that “They Owe Us!”
Part of our internal repair is to consciously understand that
“We Are Owed” and have a historic responsibility to demand
reparations from those forces of white supremacy that continue
to benefit from what they did to us that lingers on as part
of the vestiges of our enslavement.
As we continue to build the Reparations Movement,
we should be clear that They Owe Us For:
-
The
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery - The United Nations
World Conference Against Racism declared that the Trans Atlantic Slave
Trade and Slavery were Crimes Against Humanity. Crimes
against humanity have no statute of limitations.
-
Expropriation
of Our Labor - For
more than 250 years, we were forced to work for free.
Our free labor was a major ingredient in the building
of America
and its wealth as a nation. Also, the thousands of white
individuals and their families’ accumulated wealth that
continues to benefit them as a result of our free labor.
-
Slave
Code Laws - The
slave owners developed their own codes of what they could
do to enslaved African people in America that permeated
throughout the emergence of this country. In many ways,
informal slave codes exist today (racial profiling).
-
Destruction
of the African Family - The
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery had a devastating
impact on destroying and dismantling African families.
-
Raping
of African Women - Our
capture and enslavement provided white men with the power
to rape African women and girls by the thousands without
reprisal.
-
Fugitive
Slave Laws - When
our enslaved ancestors resisted their enslavement and
fled plantations, the government of this country sanctioned
laws and policies that supported the capture and return
of so-called runaway enslaved Africans. The Dred Scott
Decision should be consulted to fully understand the implications
of the Fugitive Slave Laws.
-
Colonizing
of Our African Culture - Created
systems by law and societal practices that forbade African
people, in our captured state, to engage in our traditional
spiritual cultural practices.
-
KKK
Night Riders and Lynchings - The
Ku Klux Klan was established in the late 1860s as a secret
society whose mission was to exterminate, by any means
necessary, African people in America. They were known to have been responsible
for the lynching and murdering of thousands of African
men, women, and children.
-
The
13th and 14th Constitutional Amendments - The abolishment of slavery was really a constitutional scam and the 14th
Amendment that allegedly made African people citizens
of America was imposed on us. We were never asked if we
wanted to be citizens.
-
Denied
Our 40 Acres and a Mule - We
didn’t get it! It was sold down the river and the land
was given to white confederate soldiers.
-
Jim
Crow Laws - The
Jim Crow Policies of America became the fabric and foundation
of American society after the period of Reconstruction.
Jim Crow Laws and Policies reinforced the foundation of
white supremacy and Black inferiority in every aspect
of American society.
-
Fighting
and Dying In Imperialist and White Supremacist Wars -
We fought and died for the freedoms of others and
were denied our own freedoms and civil rights.
-
Assassination
of Black Leaders - Malcolm
X, Dr. King, Fred Hampton, and Mark Clark to name a few.
-
COINTELPRO
- This was
a government program, established by the FBI, under the
direction of J. Edgar Hoover, designed to destroy the
Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 70s.
-
Crack
Epidemic - Research
reveals the United States Government, through the CIA,
targeted Black communities for the dispensing of Crack
Cocaine.
-
Criminalizing
Our Youth - It
should be obvious that the aim of the Prison Industrial
Complex is to Criminalize Our Youth to insure a young
and viable work force for this multibillion-dollar industry.
-
Jailing
of Freedom Fighters -
The incarcerating of our Freedom Fighter thus, making
them Political Prisoners.
- Centuries
of Mis-Education and Mental Atrocities - This has caused serious damage to our people, and
continues to cause much mental confusion about our true
reality as an African people in America
and around the world.
Remember, “They Owe Us!”
BlackCommentator.com
columnist Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National
Chairman of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click
here to contact Dr. Worrill.
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