Reparations

We Have The Means To Fund Reparations. Where Is The Political Will?

June 5, 2019 By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and Chuck Collins, Truthout.org Create! Inequality, New Economy, Racism, Reparations

Between 1983 and 2016, the median net worth for Black Americans actually went down by 50 percent. Paired with a growing Latinx population that also lags far behind whites in household wealth, the U.S.’s overall median wealth trended downward over those decades, even as median white wealth increased. These trends go hand-in-hand with the rigging of the overall economy. Over the last 30 years, the wealthiest 20 percent of households have captured almost 97.4 percent of all increases in wealth, leaving only scraps for the rest.

We Absolutely Could Give Reparations To Black People. Here’s How.

March 7, 2019 Julia Craven, Huffingtonpost.com Create! History, Racism, Reparations

A step-by-step guide to paying the descendants of enslaved Africans. Let’s say you’re driving down the street and someone rear-ends you. You get out of your car to assess the damage. The person who hit your vehicle gets out of his car, apologizes for the damage and calls his insurance company. Eventually, you receive a check for the harm done. Now, let’s say that for years, if not generations, your family and families like yours have been damaged by your country’s political and economic system — by law and widespread practice, with the intent of benefiting families not like yours — then the checks for the harm done would be called reparations.

University Of Glasgow Commits To Pay Reparations For Profiting From African Enslavement, Providing A Model For Others To Follow

January 15, 2019 By David Love, Atlantablackstar.com Create! History, Profit, Reparations, Slavery

Even as those who oppose reparations argue it is unfeasible or too costly, one British university is proving that it is both possible and necessary to make amends for the enslavement and genocide of African people. While the steps made so far may not seem so substantial, this institution could provide a model for others to follow. The University of Glasgow made £200 million ($255 million) from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to a comprehensive report, and because of that will make reparations through a “reparative justice program” and establishing ties with the University of the West Indies.

Migrant Groups March To U.S. Consulate In Tijuana Demanding Reparations

December 13, 2018 By Gustavo Solis, Sandiegouniontribune.com Resist! Caravan, Immigration, Reparations

Two groups of Central American migrants made separate marches on the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana Tuesday, demanding that they be processed through the asylum system more quickly and in greater numbers, that deportations be halted and that President Trump either let them into the country or pay them $50,000 each to go home. On the one-month anniversary of their arrival into Tijuana, caravan members are pressing the United States to take action but they are dwindling in numbers since more than 6,000 first arrived to the city’s shelters. Approximately 700 have voluntarily returned to their country of origin, 300 have been deported, and 2,500 have applied for humanitarian visas in Mexico, according to Xochtil Castillo, a caravan member who met with Mexican officials Tuesday.

Cuba Calls For Reparations For Descendants Of African Slave Trade

November 27, 2018 Staff, Misiones.minrex.gob.cu Create! Cuba, History, Reparations, Slavery

We support the intervention made by the Bahamas on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Cuba engaged in negotiations and supported General Assembly resolutions 61/19 and 70/7, which commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, designated this International Day and established the Permanent Memorial. My country attaches particular importance to the annual commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, a particularly sensitive issue for the Cuban people. It would be an unforgivable historic mistake to ignore or intend to forget the past.

Reparations Is Dead: How To Resurrect It

July 17, 2017 Jahi Issa, www.blackagendareport.com Create! History, Reparations

By Jahi Issa for Black Agenda Report - “I want Negroes first to realize that every Negro is an African citizen. Before we were Americans or West Indians we were Africa citizens. Negroes were never born originally to America or the West Indies. Negroes were originally born to Africa, isn't it so? Where did your forefathers come from? Georgia? No, they came from Sierra Leone, West Africa or they came from... [word omitted], West Africa. They were first African citizens before they were emancipated by Abraham Lincoln, who made Afro Americans and by Victoria, who made Afro West Indians. “Now if a Frenchman leaves France -- say he has left France 50 years ago and came to America and never asked or applied for naturalization papers. If he lived for 50 years, what would he be? He would be a Frenchman. He would never be an American citizen until he went through the process of action and applied for naturalization. He has first of all, according to the law of the country, to apply for naturalization papers before he can become a naturalized American citizen. If he lived for a hundred years and never applied for naturalization papers he would always be a Frenchman. “Now, sirs, can you remember the time when your forefathers applied for naturalization papers in this country? Your grandfathers never got any naturalization papers. They were gotten from Africa against their will. They were citizens of Africa.

A Case For Reparations At The University Of Chicago

June 20, 2017 Guest Poster, www.aaihs.org Educate! Chicago, Higher Education, Reparations

By Guest Poster for Black Perspectives - Julia Leakes yearned to be reunited with her family. In 1853, her two sisters showed up for sale along with her thirteen nieces and nephews in Lawrence County, Mississippi. Julia used all the political capital an enslaved woman could muster to negotiate the sale of her loved ones to her owner, Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas’s semi-literate white plantation manager told him “[y]our negros begs for you to b[u]y them.” Despite assurances that this would “be a good arrangement,” Douglas refused to shuffle any of his 140+ slaves to reunite this separated slave family. Instead, Julia’s siblings, nieces, and nephews were put on the auction block where they vanished from the historical record.1 Unfortunately, things went from bad to worse for Julia. By 1859, she had a 1 in 3 chance of being worked to death under Douglas’s new overseer in Washington County, Mississippi. Douglas’s mistreatment of his slaves became notorious. According to one report, slaves on the Douglas plantation were kept “not half fed and clothed.”2 In another, Dr. Dan Brainard from Rush Medical College stated that Douglas’s slaves were subjected to “inhuman and disgraceful treatment” deemed so abhorrent that even other slaveholders in Mississippi branded Douglas “a disgrace to all slave-holders and the system that they support.”3

How Chicago Became First City To Make Reparations To Victims Of Police Violence

March 28, 2017 Yana Kunichoff, www.yesmagazine.org Create! Chicago, Police, Reparations

By Yana Kunichoff for Yes! Magazine - He was among the first of at least 120 young, primarily Black men whom Chicago police officers would torture into false confessions. Yet while many who suffer at the hands of the police never get justice, Smith’s story ended differently. More than 40 years later, following the passage of historic reparations legislation, he became one of the first Black people in America to be granted reparations for racial violence. After receiving parole, Smith moved out of the city and attempted to rebuild his life. But his struggles were far from over. Given the conviction on his record, Smith faced difficulty in everything from finding work to accessing his car insurance benefits. He remained haunted by his experiences as a teen inside the interrogation room and never felt at ease in Chicago again—until May 6, 2015.

For Reparations: A Conversation With William A. Darity Jr.

March 20, 2017 Adam Simpson et al, www.thenextsystem.org Create! Reparations, US history

By Adam Simpson, Carla Skandier and William A. Darity Jr. for Next System Project - William A. Darity Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University. The focus of his work is on inequality based on race, class, and ethnicity. He has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and most recently Jacobin Magazine. He is currently co-writing with Kristen Mullen a new book about reparations for African Americans, From Here to Equality, hoped to be released by Fall of 2017.

What Should Reparations For Slavery Entail?

December 17, 2016 Ama Biney, www.pambazuka.org Create! Capitalism, Reparations, Slavery

By Ama Biney for Pambazuka News - Former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s insulting dismissal of trans-Atlantic slavery and his opinion that Africans and people of African descent should “move on from this painful legacy, and continue to build for the future,” would never be audaciously uttered to Jewish people by this arrogant warmonger who bombed Libya and sought to bomb Syria, but the British House of Commons voted against such action. As the African American actor Danny Glover said, the Jamaican government should tell Britain to "keep your prison, give us schools, give us infrastructure, not prisons."

Oakland Green Lights Drug War Reparations

May 19, 2016 David Downs, www.m.eastbayexpress.com Create! Drug War, Legislation, Marijuana, Oakland, Reparations

By David Downs for East Bay Express - Oaklanders who’ve been jailed for pot in the last ten years will go to the front of the line for legal weed permits under a revolutionary new program enacted by the City Council Tuesday night. The first-in-the-nation idea promises to make international headlines, and redefine the terms of reparations in post-Drug War America. Council voted unanimously to pass the historic “Equity Permit Program,” which bucks national trends in legal pot policy. Normally, convicted drug felons are barred from entering the legal cannabis trade. Instead, Oakland will reward them.

U.N. Calls Out U.S. For Lack Of Reparations To African-American

March 21, 2016 Salim Muwakkil, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Black History, Reparations, United Nations, United States

By Salim Muwakkil for In These Times - The contemporary discussion on reparations for African Americans was instigated by Ta-Nehisi Coates in an award-winning essay in the June 2014 issue of The Atlantic. Reparations were also the most salient recommendation of a United Nations working group that recently toured the United States to assess the condition of black America. At the end of its fact-finding mission, the group concluded it was “extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African Americans.”

UN Experts Catalog Endless List Of Racial Discrimination In US

February 1, 2016 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Educate! Racial Discrimination, Reparations, Restorative Justice, United States

By Andrea Germanos for Common Dreams - From being victims of police killings to facing barriers to educational and health equity, African Americans are facing "systemic racial discrimination" and deserve reparatory justice, a United Nations working group said Friday. Having just completed an 11-day mission with visits to Washington D.C., Baltimore, Jackson, Miss., Chicago and New York City, the five-member Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent say they are "extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African Americans."

BYP100 Agenda To Build Black Futures, Economic Justice Plan

January 17, 2016 Staff, www.byp100.org Strategize! Black Trans People, Black Trans Women, Black Women, Divestment, New Economy, Prisons, Racism, Reparations

By Staff for BYP100. As people across the world celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and take action to reclaim his legacy of radicalism, the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) announces its upcoming release of the Agenda to Build Black Futures. The Agenda to Build Black Futures, the organization’s second public policy agenda, is a platform for young activists seeking to create a new economy where young Black people can thrive. “For Black people living in America, there is no economic justice without racial justice. We live in a country that tells us that not all of us deserve to breathe, eat well or have access to water,” says BYP100 National Director Charlene Carruthers. We understand that Dr. King’s personal revolution sparked his commitment to economic justice. In doing so, a wider target was placed on his back. His last days were spent among street sanitation workers demanding dignity and fair pay for their work.

National AARC Sends Urgent Letter To Obama

June 27, 2015 National African-American Reparations Commission, www.ibw21.org Create! Obama, Racial Justice, Racism, Reparations

By National African-American Reparations Commission - "The National African-American Reparations Commission (NAARC) is comprised of eminent black leaders from the legal, academic, health and faith-based communities across the country. NAARC is requesting that President Obama name the Commission in honor of the esteemed historian and academic Dr. John Hope Franklin who had chaired President Bill Clinton’s Commission on Race some 22 years ago. “In honor of Dr. Franklin’s 100th birthday, we call upon you to have the vision to create a commission on reparatory justice in his name. This is only fitting as it also offers an opportunity to complete the unfinished work of President Clinton’s Commission on Race”, states the letter.

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