Justice demands reparations
Reparations are not about giving African Americans checks. That money would end up in the hands of whites, Asians, Arabs, Latinos, and so on. It would not benefit our community because we have no economic base to invest in such as thriving businesses, schools, or land.
And isn’t that the point of reparations? That’s precisely why African Americans deserve reparations. Slavery and its aftermath have completely devastated our community. Our labor has enriched every other race except ours. The cotton we picked and the wealth we helped create sent other people’s children to Ivy league universities while ours were sent to prison. We need America to repair the damage it did to our people and share the wealth our sweat, blood and tears helped create. America would’ve never become the economic powerhouse and created the greatest economy in human history, but for 250 years of free black labor, it robbed from African Americans. Call it wealth redistribution, reparations, or whatever, it’s past time for America to repair our community.
Economists predict African Americans will have no wealth in a few years.
What Needs To Be Repaired
What exactly about the African American community needs to be repaired? The short answer is everything: our families, schools, houses, businesses, hospitals, mental health facilities, and much more. Slavery and its lingering affects dealt a direct blow to each of these institutions. Even after slavery ended, we never received our forty acres and a mule to repair and build our community. Passing the civil rights legislation in the 60s helped some blacks but still left many blacks behind, especially after SCOTUS weakened the civil rights measures.
Blacks As A Whole
Also, don’t be distracted by the seeming prosperity of a few wealthy or middle-class blacks. Sure on an individual basis, many blacks started in poverty and are now prosperous. Good for them! We celebrate their progress. Nonetheless, those are anecdotes or exceptions. To fully understand how slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination undermined African Americans we must view the black community as a whole or group, including African Americans living in urban and rural areas. We can’t leave them out or singularly focused on suburban blacks. Here’s why? As a whole, there’s a massive wealth gap between white and black Americans and economists predict African Americans will have no wealth in a few years. Also, here’s a little secret about most suburban blacks, they have good jobs, cars, homes, and other stuff, but they also have heavy mortgages, student loans, credit card debt, and other liabilities that exceed their equity. In other words, most of them are as broke as poor blacks.
We’re not powerless! We have people in Congress, state and city government, board rooms, universities, and other powerful places.
A Roadmap Ahead
In the Kerner Commission report, following the urban uprisings of the 60s and 70s, Otto Kerner and other commission members found that racism was the cause of urban violence and poverty. They recommended massive repair efforts needed to build the African American community following several centuries of oppression and exploitation. Their recommendations were a roadmap ahead. However, white America didn’t listen and rejected their recommendations, and nothing was ever done to repair the damage to the black community.
Now fifty years later, African Americans face the same worsening issues. Justice demands that the nation revisits the Kerner Commission recommendations as a starting point, or this time we must force them to listen. We’re not powerless! We have people in Congress, state and city government, board rooms, universities, and other powerful places. Moreover, we have momentum, and we can’t afford to lose it.
We Will Win With God’s Help
The battle for reparations will be difficult because the will and opposition of our enemies have been stronger than ours. However, the Lord is on our side! He has always identified with the oppressed. He loves and will give us Justice, if we faint not and keep pushing. However, do remember as we fight, reparations may not help our generation, but they can uplift and improve the projected outcome of future African Americans such as our children, grandchildren and great grandchildern.
What’s more, America too will benefit from repairing the African American community since more black citizens will become better educated, more productive, and can help build a more exceptional America. Last, we cannot be deterred by questions like how, who, and other momentum killing inquiries. Those questions are intended to undermine the push for reparations. The country can answer those questions later. Besides, if we could put a man on the moon or a black man in the white house, we can assuredly figure out the specifics of reparations and how to repair the African American community.
We celebrate the progress, but continue pushing for the redress!