I know, I know, I know the timing is bad. You just got your degree or master’s or just defended your dissertation and now wear the name Dr. in front of your name. Or maybe you just got your new home or car. Or maybe you just landed that job at Apple of Microsoft or some other notable employer. Or maybe you just signed a contract for the NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, or some other sports league or team. Or maybe you just landed your part in a movie or play or television series, etc. Or maybe you just discovered that you are neither male nor female and have fallen in love with a human being that has the same sex organs as you do. Or maybe you finally erased all of the race and color in your life and found the love of your life in a White person or Hispanic or Asian or something other than Negro. Whatever your successes are, this may be a bad time to bring up REPARATIONS.
After all of the progress we have made in America since slavery, with Jim Crow and the Bell Curve, Darwinism, The KKK, gerrymandering and redlining, Propositions that make Blacks inclusive and special, and all of the elected officials, all the way to the President and Vice-President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, etc., it is disrespectful to bring up our ugly but truthful past. “Why can’t we just move forward?’ some say. “We are in a good place right now and here you come, messing things up for everyone with your talk about stuff that nobody really cares about anymore and that ain’t going to happen anyway.” Many said the same thing about there ever being a Black President of America, or a Black quarterback or coach, or a Black astronaut or skier or swimmer. We proved everyone to be wrong and we will again about our Reparations.
Well, I have over a trillion reasons why REPARATIONS are still important and should be on the forefront of every Negro’s agenda. Even those who are successful should know that a debt unpaid by the United States government is still a debt that is unpaid. It does not automatically disappear into thin air. If the US we Nazis guilty of war crimes and the US was located after 157 years of being in hiding, the Jews would persecute and prosecute the US to the utmost levels that the law would allow, to include the repayment of money and property stolen as a result of the wrongs done against the Jews. This is fact, not fiction!
REPARATIONS are the payment of money for wrongs done against a people. We have millions of wrongs that were done. Each and every African brought to America against his or her will is a wrong, it is called kidnapping, unlawful detention, torture, abuse, international human trafficking, and denial of human rights, just to start the list of wrongs done. After arriving to the Americas, the crimes expanded into many other areas to include rape, sodomy, fornication, adultery, murder, assault, battery, use of deadly weapons, armed robbery, vandalism, terrorism, extortion, coercion, child labor, sex slavery, theft, denial of civil rights, and many more crimes against humanity. These are facts of history, not fiction!
Why must the Negro always have to turn to the other cheek and give up his and her rights? Why must the Negro always have to be the better and bigger person? Why must the Black Negro have to become the White Jesus and do what White people are supposed to do behind the images they have shoved sown the throats of Black people since the early 1500s? Why can’t the White people be more like Christ or Christian instead of rebels from Hell?
When will we be paid the debt that is owed to us? Why must everything else take precedence over us? No one has a debt lingering on the books for more than 157 years. The US has made trade agreements with many countries and has sunk billions of dollars into wars and bullying foreign nations as they try to spread democracy and fight for freedom. All the while, the debt owed to the Black citizens of America goes unpaid and ignored. The US focuses on border and refugees and pays big money to house and deport and detain and maintain illegal and legal aliens of the US while the US still refuses to spend a penny on its debt owed to its Africans that it illegally and unlawfully enslaved for centuries. And the Negro just sits back and watches the US treat it like it is unimportant and irrelevant and not in need of fairness or justice. In fact, the US employs the Negro to manage its domestic and international affairs, causing the Negro to lose even more focus as the Negro actually believes that the interests of America are his and her interests.
These psychological tactics of distraction, redirecting and forgetfulness are old and tiresome. There are not enough drugs and alcohol that they can pour into our communities to make the conscious and righteous members of our race to forget about this massive debt that has gained penalties and interest since 1865. The longer America waits to pay this debt and agree to pay this debt and fails to make plans to pay this debt, the more interest and penalties continue to accrue. 157 years is a long time to allow penalties and interest to accrue. It is as if America is ignoring this debt and has no intention of paying it. America must not be taking the Negroes seriously. Maybe the Negroes are not taking the debt serious enough!
Congress threatens a government shutdown every year it seems around the end of the fiscal year. Democrats and Republicans fight over national debt and budgets. Trillions of dollars are budgeted to be spent; some of the money is for ridiculous expenditures. Yet, the Negro and his and her REPARAITIONS are not part of any agenda, discussion, budget or expenditures by the US. Either the US is crazy or the Negroes in the US are weak and stupid or simply do not care about the trillions of dollars owed to them. Negroes talk about getting equal rights and having a chance to catch up with Whites and the rest of the world after 400 years of detention and retardation. A stimulus check of $2,400.00 makes the Negro celebrate; finally qualifying for social security benefits makes the Negro celebrate; finally getting that subsidized housing or Section 8 makes the Negro celebrate; getting general relief, EBT, food stamps, TANF, WIC, SNAP and any type of assistance makes the Negro celebrate; being part of the projects in the ghetto makes the Negro celebrate. All the while the real money that could change every Negro’s life in America is sitting in the US Treasury Department, accruing penalties and interests but the Negro just doesn’t know how to get the money that is owed to him and her.
Fear! Fear to ask! Fear to rock the boat! Did you see what they did to Malcolm and Martin? Did you see what they did to Bill Cosby and other ornery Negroes? Did you see what happened in Rosewood, Tulsa and other places where the Negro actually proved he was equal to or better than the White man? It is better to live freely than to rock the boat and demand what is due to us, many of us believe. Leave that White man alone and forget all this talk about REPARATIONS.
Was Harriet Tubman afraid? Did Harriet Tubman give up? Did Martin turn to the other cheek and stop marching out of fear? Negroes would still be on plantations and under separate but equal laws if it were not for our brave and courageous men and women of color who feared not but wanted and demanded and got justice for all of our people. What are we doing with this legacy of sacrifice? Becoming selfishly deluded into thinking we’ve done something great while all of our trillions of dollars that would emancipate all of our people sits in the banks and under the control of the very and same race that enslaved us and promised us REPARATIONS in the first place. So what are we going to do? You decide what kind of Black man and woman you are! Look back at all of our struggles and the lives that were lost over centuries and you decide what they sacrificed for. Now what are you going to sacrifice? You decide!
