The Bailout and Reparations
By Tre Millyanz
I just have one point to make to all you hankerchief-headed Negroes out there that don’t “believe” in reparations…you can’t ever say that the U.S. can’t afford to give reparations to Blacks in America (for slavery and Jim Crow semi-slavery). They spend $700 billion for a bailout and have a $661 billion budget for the so-called Department of Defense, but Blacks, who weren’t even allowed to read for 400 years, still have to pay for college? $700 billion and our people still lag behind on every economic indicator imaginable? If this sounds right to you, please seek professional psychological help immediately.
Now you see that money is no object when it’s in their self interest to spend in order to avoid disaster. Given that statement, you should know the answer to this question: How do you make the US government and society in general interested in giving African Americans reparations?
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Brother you hit the nail *exactly* on the head!!!
How do you make the US government and society in general interested in giving African Americans reparations?
Sure, making it in their self-interest by threatening disaster might work. 😉
Wouldn’t it be easier, though, just to educate people about the history that makes reparations for slavery worth considering? Most Americans I talk with don’t have a clue how to connect the evils of slavery with the present day, and that’s why they can’t even take reparations seriously as an issue.
James, education is not free…and no it would not be easier. If it was so easy, then it would have been done already. It takes money to build an educational system…money that should come from reparations. So how are you going to educate people about reparations when you need the reparations in order to educate the people? The current system is broken, and even if they fixed it they still wouldn’t have any interest in teaching people about Afrikan heritage, history, or culture. No it would not be easier to educate away 400 years of slave and slave master mentalities. It is a monumental undertaking, which will require a few people to grow a pair and demand what’s rightfully theirs. I agree, education is the key, but we need resources.
No, most people don’t want to be educated. They know very well the evils of slavery, and they want to keep it in the past and forget about it. They were complicit in perpetuating the peculiar institution of slavery, and now they are complicit in its cover up.
We don’t need everyone to take the issue seriously. The American Revolution was started by a handful of people before the masses jumped in the struggle. There are 40 million Black people in the US, just one percent of that population could make the difference. We don’t have time to wait around for people to get the picture. It’s up to us, who are already enlightened, to move ahead and seek justice immediately.
Tre, I respect what you’re saying about education. But I wasn’t referring to rebuilding our educational system–although that needs to be done, and personally, I can’t think of a better use for reparations dollars.
I was talking about educating people on the history of slavery, so that everyone can understand why this history needs to be addressed today, and what that might entail. This doesn’t require billions of dollars. There are plenty of relatively inexpensive programs to educate Americans about health and safety issues, for instance. These messages are communicated with ads, television programs, public events, one-time programs in schools, etc. I don’t see this task as any different in terms of how much information needs to be conveyed, just in terms of how much impact it will have on people’s thinking.
You’re right that many people don’t want to be educated on this history. But I’ve found that many people do, and when the rest are exposed to the truth, they usually begin to come around.
I don’t agree that most people know very well the evils of slavery, and want to keep that history covered up. Earlier generations did the covering up. Today, most people genuinely don’t learn what slavery was really all about, who was complicit in it, and what effects those evils still have today. It’s true that some people learn part of the truth, and stubbornly insist on what they thought they knew. And there’s fear for many people–white and black–in confronting the full truth. It does take a little patience sometimes.
The American Revolution was fought despite the loyalty of many colonists to the British crown. But it wasn’t fought by a handful of independence-minded leaders alone. Most colonists were sympathetic to the rebellion, and many of them were willing to leave home and fight for the cause. We won’t see reparations, or any other means of addressing the legacy of slavery, enacted in this country with just one percent of twelve percent of the population. It will take a political majority, or something close to it. This isn’t impossible, but I think it will require laying a careful foundation.
Thanks for listening,
James