This is a hard issue, that introduces a slippery slope. For instance, what is the value that we will place on peoples lives who were slaves? Can we ever really make up for it? Also by this time, a single person could have hundreds of descendants, so how would the reparations be divided? I admit that slavery was an awful institution, but I'm not sure that financial reparations can make up for it. Maybe we should instead focus on the evils that we are still commiting, like never following our part of any treaties made with the first peoples of this land.
~Tristin

Before continuing, I have to ask a few questions regarding the justification of such behavior.

Where is it the least bit logical to force the descendents of any one group, who have not, in GENERATIONS, performed the behavior they are being asked to pay for?

Why is it the least bit logical for those who have never had a behavior inflicted upon them to recieve some sort of compensation for the said behavior?

How can these reperations be insured NOT to effect the millions of Americans who have in no way ever been involved in slavery?

Are these reperations only for the great-grandchildren of Black slaves or is any race allowed to seek reperations if they were in a state of slavery or indentured servitude?

In what way is this NOT reverse racism?

And if it is reverse racism, how can it be even vaguely justified from a religious stand-point, especially an Unitarian one?

If these questions could be answered to clarify the situation that would be great. They are honest questions.

My father was Cherokee/Chikasaw, born in Oklahoma in 1924. His parents and his grandparents and his great grandparents lived through what could be said to be acts of genocide and racism equal to any other minority, including, in my father's case, having his racial heritage removed from him through a single document (the Dawes Rolls) regardless of his genetics.

I do not expect reperations, nor do I feel even vaguely obligated to pay them. In fact, my gut reaction is to find the idea to be obscene. However, I am also able to entertain the idea that my reasoning is not valid.

Thank you,

Jim Chastain

Greetings:

By and large, reparative measures for the genocide of African People during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade the ensuing subjugation of the descendants of those slave, is an International Human Rights Issue, as defined by UN Resolution 60/147.

As an African American woman who has found her roots in the Royal Houses of West Africa, I must say this...if my family, the Traditional Rulers of Benin Republic, formerly Dahomey, can take responsibility for their role in the trading of slaves, everyone who participated and benefited from slave labor should as well. The United States did in fact, sign on to this resolution, as did other nations, including France and Portugal. Should the US pay reparations for the genocide of African people? Most certainly! History will bear out the very real fact that but for those African slaves, who worked from "can't see at day til can't see at night", there would be no United States. This nation must deal with the fact that slave labor built this nation and those laborers received no pay, and their descendants were subject to untold horrors.

No my friends, I am not angry. I have reconciled with my own family, have had my ancestral lands returned, have homes, family and dual citizenship, and work hard to educate people across the world on the need for those who benefited from the genocide of African people to atone for their role and for the african descendants to reconcile with this. Monies are not the only reparative measures for Diasporic Africans, but it would be a start. I daresay that should any of you be forced to work with no pay, no promises of pay and when you are awarded "40 acres and a mule" to start over in a strange land, that check was returned NSF!

What happened to Africans in the Diaspora was not slavery...it was genocide. Think of it this way...if you take sex away from my family members, without their consent, that is not slavery..it's rape. If you cut off a man's foot to keep him from running and to instill fear in him and his peers, that is not slavery, that is terrorism. If you hang a man from a noose until he is dead, or cut out the unborn child of a woman while she hangs from a tree, that is not slavery, that is murder. And finally, when you take a people away from their culture, their mores, their ethics, their language, their families and their religion, that most certainly is not slavery...that is the crime of GENOCIDE.

If there are any family members of slave owners here, please understand there is a moral obligation to make right what has been wrong. In today's litigious society, were this situation reversed, there may well be calls to own up to the natural and moral obligation of the family.

How the monies should be paid is secondary to the atonement, rehabilitation and reconciliation of an entire race of people.

Thank you for taking the time to listen. I pray for a fruitful dialogue and education on the issues surrounding "reparations".

May you be blessed

Her Royal Grace, Princess Ademide Adinasse
Daughter of the King of Ketu (Alaketu)
Benin, West Africa

<<And if no reparation should be granted, then why not?>>

No.

Because there are zero people alive who were slaves or kept slaves.

The whole idea is silly...

If america should pay then so should africa. didnt their own people sell them into slavery. honestly im tired of all the you owe me and the white man keeps me down crap. because thats what it is. maybe back in the day when african americans couldnt drink out of the same fountain as a white person, i could see it. who is still alive that owned a slave. if there is someone they are probably to old to use the restroom. granted not every person from a minority is is complaining and there are some who are trying to make a difference. but what is the money gonna do. get someone a new car, is that seriously going to make up for the treatment of your great grandparents and so on. are you going to give it to them, seeing as you didnt work in a field and you didnt get kidnapped and taken away from your home. it wont change anything. and it sounds like selfish greed.

considering that NONE of us, including the slaves and the slave owners are even alive or have been dead for over 100 years...huh? What about any one of us who had ancestors who were slaves that were not black, howabout the chinese?, how about reperations for my family who had to share crop durring the dust bowl?, how about the slaves from mexico and canada...no sorry...
I dont think you can make things right, because the people that are alive now are benefiting from the death of their ancestors, and all of us are being punished. In otherwords its redistribution of wealth, money is not made in machines, any money that is paid out is coming from the tax payers........

instead of paying money to people who dont need it because they are dead. why dont we work on paying money to poorer schools. like cleaning up the projects. or funding a music program at a school that had to get it cut because they dont have money. and just a question is the "priveleged white people who seem to be every white person in america" paying these reparations going to do? and how do european americans benefit from everything. ive seen plenty of white people without money and living just the same as any other race immigrant or not.

Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of
July?"

5 July 1852

Occasion: Meeting sponsored by the Rochester Ladies'
Anti-Slavery Society, Rochester Hall, Rochester, N.Y.
To illustrate the full shame of slavery, Douglass
delivered a speech that took aim at the pieties of the
nation -- the cherished memories of its revolution, its
principles of liberty, and its moral and religious
foundation. The Fourth of July, a day celebrating
freedom, was used by Douglass to remind his audience of
liberty's unfinished business.
-------------------------------------------------------

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who
could address this audience without a quailing
sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not
remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any
assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of
my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept
over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my
limited powers of speech. The task before me is one
which requires much previous thought and study for its
proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort
are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust,
however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I
seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me.
The little experience I have had in addressing public
meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing
on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th
[of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out
of the common way, for it is true that I have often had
the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to
address many who now honor me with their presence. But
neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I
think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from
embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between
this platform and the slave plantation, from which I
escaped, is considerable --and the difficulties to be
overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are
by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a
matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You
will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to
say, I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my
speech with any high sounding exordium. With little
experience and with less learning, I have been able to
throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and
trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I
will proceed to lay them before you.

"May [the reformer] not hope that high lessons of
wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give
direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the
patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's
brow heavier. . . . There is consolation in the thought
that America is young."

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th
of July. It is the birthday of your National
Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to
you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people
of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to
the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs,
and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that
day. This celebration also marks the beginning of
another year of your national life; and reminds you
that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am
glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young.

Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is
but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score
years and ten is the allotted time for individual men;
but nations number their years by thousands. According
to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning
of your national career, still lingering in the period
of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so.

There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under
the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of
the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending
disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter
at the thought that America is young, and that she is
still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he
not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of
truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the
nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and
the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be
shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out
in sorrow.

There is consolation in the thought that America is young.
Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep
in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and
stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and
fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They
may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their
angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and
hardship.

They, however, gradually flow back to the same old
channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while
the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and
leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the
unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the
sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with
nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length
on the associations that cluster about this day. The
simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of
this country were British subjects. The style and title
of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was
not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your
fathers esteemed the English Government as the home
government; and England as the fatherland. This home
government, you know, although a considerable distance
from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental
prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such
restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature
judgement, it deemed wise, right and proper.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable
idea of this day, of the infallibility of government,
and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to
differ from the home government in respect to the
wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and
restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to
pronounce the measures of government unjust,
unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as
ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need
say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures
fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a
declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth
much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as
to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the
great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was
right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy.

Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the
noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of
England towards the American Colonies. It is
fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to
pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of
the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were
accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators
and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right,
against the wrong, with the weak against the strong,
and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies
the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems
unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be
stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your
fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the
home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and
men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They
petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous,
respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly
unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the
purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign
indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered.
They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship
is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your
fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling
blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of
British statesmen admitted its justice, and the
loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its
support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the
unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and
his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British
Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted
now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly
lost on our present rulers.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise
men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive
under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims
of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial
capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for
oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation
of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a
startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance
of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has
been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked
and alarmed by it.

for the complete text on-line, go to
douglass.speech.nwu.edu/doug_a10.htm


-------------------------------------------------------
Where the text can be found: The speech was originally
published as a pamphlet. It can be located in James M.
Gregory's, Frederick Douglass, the Orator (1893). More
recent publications of the speech include Philip
Foner's, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass
(1950) and The Frederick Douglass Papers (1982), edited
by John W. Blassingame.

Prepared by: D. L. Oetting

Accepted: 1 September 1996
Last updated: 15 May 2002


Copyright © 1997-2002 Douglass Archives. All rights
reserved.

Normally I just lurk here, but I could not resist this topic.

It seems we are discussing two issues simultaneously, and allowing them to blur. First, are we, as a nation, morally culpable for the institution of slavery? Second, if so, are we, as a nation, legally liable for financial reparations in payment for the wealth and infrastructure which resulted from slavery?

I do believe we are morally culpable. If you want moral justice, you've come to right place. Unitarian Universalism is the epicenter of white, liberal guilt. We're sorry. Real sorry. So very, very sorry. Words can't described the level of guilt we feel. It's quite appalling, really, how guilty we feel. We're sorry if how guilty we feel is making anyone else feel bad. We don't mean to do that. It's just the excrutiating guilt talking. We wish we were in sack cloths and ashes... well, no, not really because it's hard to find sack cloth that wasn't made by exploited labor in developing countries, but you get the idea. We think about our guilt it every time we go to Whole Foods and pay the African American cashier for our organic produce. In fact, we feel guilty almost all the time about almost everything.

There. Feel better? Did that feeling of guilt rehab an inner city school? Did it develop a decent mass transit system in rural areas? Did it provide addiction treatment facilities? More equitable drug laws? Did it save New Orleans? Did it stop the war in Iraq? Moral reparations, anti-racism colloquia, and statements of public concern are all very nice and good, but aside from salving liberal consciences (and using up energy which could be used creating real change) what tangible good do they accomplish?

As posed in the original posting, the issue is not one of moral reparations, but rather cold hard cash. It is a question of public policy not moral culpability. Should we, as a nation, transfer X trillions of dollars from one group in this country to another? It's been said that the money is in payment for white privilege. Does that mean that with the transfer white privilege then becomes okay? After all, it has then been paid for.

Imagine how most white folks would view the reparations: "Here's your weregild, African American friends, co-workers, neighbors, lovers and spouses. We're done. Our forebears did terrible things to your forebears. We are not going to say we're sorry, because the average American really kind of isn't. But, instead here is X trillions of dollars. In exchange, though, we expect something for our money. First some historical re-writes: never mention slavery again except in the most abstract and morally detached way, please. Like, for example, when reading aloud from Georgia census tract data from 1840. Also, the Civil War was fought over tariffs and states' rights, not slavery. George Wallace was kind of a nice guy in his dotage, and not just a hateful lunatic with a bad dye job. No more white guilt. No more complaints about racism, please. We owe you for white privilege? Consider it paid. Deal is, we give you the money, you give us the white privilege. Here's your check. Don't spend it all in one place. Oh, and please stop saying we smell like wet dogs. Thank you for the continuing privilege, thank you for shutting up about racism, and have a nice day."

Tell me that is not how it would play out in the real world of public opinion. Okay, now try it with a straight face. If reparations ever got passed, anti-racism work would be set back fifty years. "Affirmative action? We paid you for that. Desegregation in the schools? But we already paid for the guilt thing. 1964 Civil Rights Act? What, did somebody forget to pay the privilege bill this month?"

No amount of money can ever change what happened. No amount of money can change the way things are. No amount of money can make modern racism okay. When specific and provable damages are done to a plaintiff, current civil rights laws and standard tort law can, and regularly do, provide remedy and recompense.

Only when people have a change of heart can they change the world, not when they are fined for refusing to change it.

Unequivocally, yes! But the financial benefit cannot be linked to pain and suffering (though that's important from a humanistic standpoint). It
They deserve repartations because of the huge positive impact that they had on our economy as a fledgling Nation. Ours is the strongest economy in the world because it was built on the backs of African Americans, and upon the bodies of Native Americans.

Consider this: you have two brothers. They are both told to go out into the world and make their way. One works very hard through life and develops a modest amount of capital. The other, as soon as he leaves home, carjacks someone. Because he has legal immunity he is allowed to keep the car and not prosecuted. Emboldened, he performs a home invasion of a multi-million dollar mansion and is also allowed to keep that (immunity again!) and is not held responsible for the violence. Even more emboldened, he engages in human trafficking, forcing people to work at his company for free! He passes not only his wealth but his sadistic ways of garnering capital down to his family for generations and they engage in the same sorry practices. After a couple of hundred years, the laws change and home invasions, human trafficking and car jacking are all made illegal, even to his line. But the extended family has amassed enough wealth, at the expense of others, to live off of the interest, not touching the principle. Though they no longer engage in violence, his family establishes a framework that subverts others opportunities at every turn.....making opportunities for his family that much greater. And then, when it is all said and done, they point at others and say......"What's the matter with you? My great-great-great-great grandfather came to this country with nothing....he worked very and look what he left us when he died!

America is that second brother. Through genocide (Natives), slavery (Africans) and treachery (Chinese) we took this land and had others sew the seeds and build the infrastructure. Which brings us to the bottom line: perhaps the punishment (reparations) should fit the following crimes.

a) Genocide: Everyone in our nation now resides on land that women and babies not so long ago were killed for so they could have it. So perhaps there should be a sin tax on land (the non-dwelling portion of your real estate) that goes to every Native American descendant. The tax can be almost unnoticable to the "owner" and still have a gigantic impact. Everyone(yes, everyone-even Natives) will pay because it has nothing to do with guilt but everything to do with ill gotten gains. That's because if you live in America and pay real estate tax you benefit from the genocide that was completed only in the twentieth century.

b) Slavery: "It's the economy, stupid." Since we would not be the world's biggest economy if our founders had not thought it was OK to buy and sell humans to fatten our pockets, there should be an EXPORT tax on everything (paper clips to aircraft carriers) that our nation sells abroad to be given to descendants of slaves. Again, extremely small, nano amounts would make a huge difference.

c) Slavery-in-Kind: Since so many Chinese Americans died building our infrastructure (railroads) it's important to acknowledge that they too paid the ultimate sacrifice so that the US government could spread itself from "sea to shining sea." Tax all of the rail shipments, again, an almost unnoticable amount and it pays huge dividends.

These are "voluntary" taxes because they are not linked to income tax. Don't like the tax that goes to Natives? Great! Don't own real estate and your OK. Don't like paying a couple of pennies extra for ground freight for descendants of Chinese rail workers? NO PROBLEM. Send your stuff airmail. Finally, don't like that everything your business sells overseas has an inconsequetial percentage of tax to help victims of American slavery (followed by Jim Crowe) to get equalized? That's easy....keep your customer base domestic.

Before you say this is going to far, think about how much you love your family and reflect on how many families were torn apart and even destroyed by these evil practices driven by greed. Daughters, sold for their little bodies to be used up. Sons, forced to rape women to "sire" more slaves. Mothers and fathers crying when their children were born because they knew what they would be subjected to. Slaughter of entire tribes of women and children in the name of "Manifest Destiny." Now, consider this: England, France and Belgium left their colonies in Africa as late as the 1960's. The only reason we did not suffer the same fate in this colony that is America is that we killed all (well, 98%) indigenous inhabitants that had a legitimate right to this land (there were just as many Natives in North America as South America.) I'd rather we pay now than pay later. Until America pays pennance, we won't mature as a nation. Nothing is best beloved in the sight of God as justice. I'd rather pick the "poison."

If you were to examine the historical horrors and everlasting impact of the Slave Trade, the correct answer is YES. Black Americans, who are the descendants of slaves, are entitled to reparations in every fashionable sense of the word. The American Empire, as well as Europe, was built off the misery, torture, rape, exploitation, robbery and quite frankly GENOCIDE of its unpaid African slaves. America is only a wealthy and prosperous superpower because of Slavery, and I dare anyone to deny this. I understand that you (White Americans) didn't actually own slaves or perpetrate their state of existence, yet you are greatly BENEFITTING from the untold suffering of African peoples while the masses of their children (descendants) are the most oppressed group within America today. The same goes for white immigrants who were welcomed into America with open arms and piggybacked off her success accredited to Slavery.

Also, that present day blacks did not experience Slavery so therefore should receive no reparations is an ignorant belief. It is almost like telling a son whose deceased father who was robbed of 100K (capital), that because he is not the man who was directly robbed, he therefore isn't entitled to regain the capital of his dead robbed father. The son has every right to regain his father’s goods because wealth is passed down. Is this not what the America constitution states within the Fourteenth Amendment? There are many cases where children force their fathers' wives to court to prevent them from gaining what they feel is rightfully theirs; Whereas the wives in our scenario is America, who has unrightfully taken the wealth and used it to benefit herself and other men (countries), while we suffer. There are many more examples I can mention to draw the bigger picture, but hopefully you'll get the point.

I've also heard arguments that Africa should pay for reparations since in fact there were some blacks who sold others into Slavery. Although this is true this is also irrelevant and seems like an attempt to take the attention off one's self. While I do acknowledge that some blacks participated in Slavery, I will say one thing; Africa has by no means prospered off the Black Holocaust in the extent that America and Europe have, and unlike both of these wicked nations, Africa has taken reparations into consideration and is making plans to advance these considerations as we speak. It is also widely known that (white) Americans of European ancestry were the leading fathers and perpetrators of American Slavery. In fact, before whites began in openly kidnapping blacks from Africa, they would lie to the blacks by telling them that America, then called the "new world", was a place where they could make more gold for their labor and live far better lives than they did in Africa. This lie of course persuaded some Africans to willingly travel to America and was quite successful for the first few decades of Slavery until the Africans realized their brothers had gone missing. But returning to the topic, Africa has already proposed for reparations and this should lead those of you who raised this argument to question why hasn't America and Europe done the same? The American government made special indemnity payments, provided land and social service benefits to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, Native-Americans for the theft of lands and mineral rights, and Philippine veterans who fought with the American army during World War II. Why can't she do the same for the Black world who underwent the most atrocious crime of all these groups and continues to suffer as a direct result of this? The fact that America can give reparations to every race but the black race, who single-handedly BIRTHED and defended this country with centuries of unpaid, unthinkable labor only to be treated as "animals", just proves to me that America is indeed racist. And any white man or woman who is willing to publicly oppose issues like animal abuse, abortion, homophobia, etc, but won't speak out against America's denial of REPAIRations to the Black community, is indeed racist as well.

As for reparations being in the form of cash, I could not disagree more. First of all, there is not ANY amount of cash that can equate to the suffering Africans experienced during the Black holocaust. It is actually very offensive to put a price on a person’s personal affliction, especially to the children of the one who was afflicted. Imagine if your mother, a doctor, was raped, hanged, burned, and shot by her patient while pregnant, and her patient offered to pay you a billion bucks to keep quiet, or “get well.” Would you accept the offer? You probably won’t. However, suppose you were that unborn child who miraculously survived the tragedy forced upon the mother, and as a result of being within the womb when your mother was taken from you, you suffer from a long list of bodily, social and psychological dysfunctions. Now suppose her patient took you into his custody, where he raised you to behave exactly like him, taught you nothing about your mother, mistreated and abused you; Now the day arrives when you discover the murder he committed, how much an impact it had on your being, how much he continues to mistreat you, and most of all, the good health he experiences because of his doctor, your mother. Would you, the burned, tarnished, asthmatic and abused “child” of this patient, not feel obligated to repair your damages using the resources or health insurance of the man who is responsible for your condition yet enjoys strength that should’ve been yours?

The unborn child is clearly the Black descendants of slaves in America today. Even further, America OWES her slaves an enormous compensation. This compensation should be in no form other than LAND, or separate territory for the descendants of the men and women who built this empire and got nothing in return. The essential requirement for freedom and independence of any kind is LAND; a group of people can't say they are free if they don't have their own land. Land is foundation for food, clothing, and shelter and is absolutely necessary for survival. This is why when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation he promised the slaves "40 acres of LAND and a mule." He knew that Blacks in America would never truly be free unless they had somewhere they could call their own. If the Black people in America who are the descendants of slaves had their own land, where they governed, worked, taught and established themselves without the hindrance and interference of white supremacy, within time, I’m almost certain many of their issues would begin to lose color.


Let’s also never forget that Blacks were brought into America to serve and to benefit the dominant group (whites). So when people speak of spending reparations of untold trillions on education reform, job opportunities, economic balancing what they don't realize is how that would only be using our resources to benefit and serve the white American empire, instead of requesting some territory to benefit and serve ourselves first, as every logical thinking people do. Even the Jews, who are not even a real race, have acquired a country they can call their own after the world saw their holocaust, which was like a walk in the park compared to ours. Every man who comes to the cities of America can brag, rejoice and celebrate his OWN COUNTRY - everyone but the Blacks in America who believe America is their country while everyone else knows it's not. I also feel that America is absolutely obligated to provide this land, seeing as to how her existence is largely owing to her black slaves who have already paid the price. Granting land to the Black people in America who are descendants of slaves would be the greatest deed America has ever done for Blacks.