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Vol. 13 Issue 20…Dedicated to the Dialogue on
Race…May 17, 2010
Politics Y2K10
By John Burl Smith
Harvard Professor Henry Louis
Gates Jr., author of Faces of America and
Tradition and the Black Atlantic took on what he called the
"thorny issues"of reparations in a New York Times op-ed (4-23-10)
entitled Ending the Slavery Blame-Game.
The learned professor defined reparations as "descendants of American
slaves receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and
bondage." Although Mr. Gates recognized slavery as "a sustained,
heinous crime," he considered it a matter of "parceling out blame to
those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense
economic gain." Consequently, the good professor settled on "the
considerable role Africans themselves played, which was significant."
Catechizing Prof. Gates, specious
argument will not advance the discussion of reparations nor enlighten those who
are confused about the goals of those who insist the United States of America
(USA) owes slave descendants an outstanding debt. The overarching fallacy of
the Mr. Gates' deception is his claim that slave descendants are demanding
reparations for "their ancestors' unpaid labor and bondage." Admittedly,
the brutal, heinous and diabolical crimes of slavery are repugnant and entities
that exist today that were responsible should be held accountable, since there
is no statue of limitations on such evils. But contrary to Mr. Gates'
contention, slave descendants today hold the
First and foremost, slave
descendants point to the 3/5 Compromise of Article I Section II of the US
Constitution as exhibit one. The 3/5 Compromise established the value of all
citizens of the US and it set slaves' value, our fore parents, at 3/5 of white
men, which in effect made slaves and their descendants less than human. The
United Nations has established a protocol that outlaws such constitutional
language, which makes it a human rights violation.
Contrary to those who argument
that the 3/5 Compromise is a relic of bygone days, Article I still determines
the election of the President and Senators of the
Smith's research provides an up
to date interpretation of the impact of the 3/5 Compromise by using black and
white unemployment and median family incomes statistics. She established
consistent and stable relationships between the socio-economic conditions of
black and white Americans. Her work revealed that black unemployment has
historically remained twice that of whites across every business cycle since
the
Remarkably, Smith's research
explains why, on average, white median family incomes are consistently 40
percent greater than the median family incomes of blacks. She has labeled the
difference the chasm of inequality. Smith's data supports slave descendants
claim that over the course of the last two and a half centuries the
Slave descendants content that
the US government was the primary agent in erecting the system -- black
codes/fugitive slave laws, segregation/separate but equal, the unequal
collection and dispersal of tax revenue - of human rights violation that
resulted in the hostile environment of lynching, mob rule and an exploding
prison population of which slave descendants make up nearly 50% of the inmates.
Putting an even finer point on the situation, even with ratification of the 13th,
14th and 15th Amendments, the 3/5 Compromise was not
repealed and none of the institutions and mechanism that enforce it have been
dismantled.
Last but not least, the US
Supreme Court's ruling that to do anything that denies a white person access in
order to give a slave descendant access is "reverse discrimination"
effectively forecloses any means of correcting the centuries of human rights
violations the US government precipitated. What has happened to slave
descendants in the
The Dialogue on Race International Network has filed a partitioned on behalf of
slave descendants with the United Nations Human Rights Council to present its
claims of human rights violations against the
Having already determined that
the
As far back as David Walker's
Appeal (1829) slave descendants have tried to educate the world about the true
conditions they endure. For the first time, the US will have to face its record
of human rights violations and must respond to the charges with creditable
actions that will end over 3 hundred years of 3/5 Compromise treatment of slave
descendants.
There have always been blacks
like Gates who are willing to concoct any kind of deception to undercut the
efforts of slaves and their descendants; only this time it is to disparage
reparation.
By John Burl Smith
Exploding louder than cannon fire
in 1829, David Walker's Appeal
lit the fires of rebellion by demanding immediate freedom for African slaves. Born
to a free mother and an enslaved father in
Leaving the South as a young man,
Walker published his seventy-six page pamphlet Walker's Appeal in Four Articles: Together with a Preamble, to the
Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those
of the United States of America, in 1829. His appeal argued that
African Americans suffered more than any other people in the history of the
world, and identified four causes for their "wretchedness:" slavery,
a submissive and cringing attitude towards whites (even amongst free blacks),
indifference by Christian ministers, and false help by groups such as the
American Colonization Society, which promised freedom from slavery only on the
condition that freed blacks would be forced to leave America for colonies in
West Africa. The pamphlet called for immediate, universal, and unconditional
emancipation -- an uncommon position, even amongst antislavery activists in the
1820s
The book was notable for refusing to conform to the period's conventions of
polite and deferential etiquette, and terrified southern slave owners, who
immediately labeled it seditious. His Appeal
proclaimed to slaves, "it is no more harm for you to kill the man who is
trying to kill you than it is to take a drink of water." Addressing slave
masters he wrote, "You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and
misery to enrich you and your children, but God will deliver us from under
you."
Examples of the suppression of
Like Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others, David Walker was lynched in 1830.
David Walker reflected the spirit that was reborn as black power in the 1960s.
For David Walker, speaking the truth became a crime punishable by death.
By David Walker
PREAMBLE
My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens:
HAVING travelled over a
considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my
travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist--the
result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that
we, (coloured people of these United States,) are the most degraded, wretched,
and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God
that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us
of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves,
which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings
under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under
this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher--or, in other
words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than
the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were
reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon our fathers, ourselves
and our children, by Christian
Americans!
....The whites have had us under
them for more than three centuries, murdering, and treating us like brutes;
and, as Mr. Jefferson wisely said, they have never found us out -- they do not
know, indeed, that there is an unconquerable disposition in the breasts of the
blacks, which, when it is fully awakened and put in motion, will be subdued,
only with the destruction of the animal existence. Get the blacks started, and
if you do not have a gang of tigers and lions to deal with, I am a deceiver of
the blacks and of the whites. ... Now, I ask you, had you not rather be killed
than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your mother, wife, and
dear little children? Look upon your mother, wife and children, and answer God
Almighty; and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man, who
is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when
thirsty; ....
.... I call upon the professing
Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant
himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a
verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the
insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they
were not of the human family. Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not,
after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet,
held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or
Orang-Outangs? O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this
insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries,
because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh!
pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. -- Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the
world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies
and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning,
combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in
chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer
in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the
same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one
at liberty.
.... The world knows, that
slavery as it existed was, mans..... comparatively speaking, no more than a
cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans. Indeed I should not have
noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very learned and penetrating Mr.
Jefferson said, "when a master was murdered, all his slaves in the same
house, or within hearing, were condemned to death." Yea, would I meet
death with avidity far! far!! in preference to such servile submission to the
murderous hands of tyrants. Mr. Jefferson's very severe remarks on us have been
so extensively argued upon by men whose attainments in literature, I shall
never be able to reach, that I would not have meddled with it, were it not to
solicit each of my brethren, who has the spirit of a man, to buy a copy of Mr.
Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," and put it in the hand of his son.
.... But let us review Mr.
Jefferson's remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable
fathers, with the learned philosophers of
....I must observe to my brethren
that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with Great Britain,
there were but thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of
which are slave-holding States, and the whites are dragging us around in chains
and in handcuffs, to their new States and Territories to work their mines and
farms, to enrich them and their children-and millions of them believing firmly
that we being a little darker than they, were made by our Creator to be an
inheritance to them and their children for ever-the same as a parcel of brutes.
....Are we MEN! ! -- I ask you, 0
my brethren I are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and
ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to
make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds
done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ
alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours? -- What right then, have we to
obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a
gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not,
I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot
precisely tell -- but I declare, we judge men by their works. The whites have
always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of
beings, always seeking after power and authority.
....to my no ordinary astonishment, [a] Reverend gentleman got up and told us
(coloured people) that slaves must be obedient to their masters -- must do
their duty to their masters or be whipped -- the whip was made for the backs of
fools, &c. Here I pause for a moment, to give the world time to consider
what was my surprise, to hear such preaching from a minister of my Master,
whose very gospel is that of peace and not of blood and whips, as this
pretended preacher tried to make us believe. What the American preachers can
think of us, I aver this day before my God, I have never been able to define.
They have newspapers and monthly periodicals, which they receive in continual
succession, but on the pages of which, you will scarcely ever find a paragraph
respecting slavery, which is ten thousand times more injurious to this country
than all the other evils put together; and which will be the final overthrow of
its government, unless something is very speedily done; for their cup is nearly
full.-Perhaps they will laugh at or make light of this; but I tell you
Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course, you and your Country are
gone! ! ! ! !
.... If any of us see fit to go away, go to those who have been for many years,
and are now our greatest earthly friends and benefactors -- the English. If not
so, go to our brethren, the Haytians, who, according to their word, are bound
to protect and comfort us. The Americans say, that we are ungrateful-but I ask
them for heaven's sake, what should we be grateful to them for -- for murdering
our fathers and mothers ? -- Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for
chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or
for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work
in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly
think that we are a gang of fools.
.... Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us
from our country.
.... Do they think to drive us
from our country and homes, after having enriched it with our blood and tears,
and keep back millions of our dear brethren, sunk in the most barbarous
wretchedness, to dig up gold and silver for them and their children? Surely,
the Americans must think that we are brutes, as some of them have represented us
to be. They think that we do not feel for our brethren, whom they are murdering
by the inches, but they are dreadfully deceived.
Exercising the Human Right to Housing
By Bill Quigley
May has seen an upsurge in local
organizations exercising their human rights to housing. Most people recognize
that international human rights guarantee all humans a right to housing. With
the millions of homeless living in our communities and the millions of empty
foreclosed houses all across our communities, groups have decided to put them
together.
Organizations across the
In Madison Wisconsin, the
grass-roots organization Operation Welcome Home helped Desiree Wilson, 24, a
mother with small children to move into a vacant house, hook up utilities and
change the locks, according to nbc15.com in
In
A faith-based group has been
moving families into vacant homes in
Housing is a human right recognized by a number of international human rights
laws. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted after the
Second World War, promised "Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including
food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the
right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability,
widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood."
Still, the National Coalition for
the Homeless estimates of the number of homeless people in the
Foreclosures are soaring. Some
housing experts say 4 million foreclosures are possible in 2010. There were 3.4
million homes which got foreclosure notices, auction sale notices or bank
repossessions in 2009. In the first quarter of 2010, RealtyTrac reported there
were 932,000 foreclosures. Auctions were scheduled on 369,000 homes in the same
time. Banks repossessed 257,000 homes during that time.
Organizations working to exercise
peoples' human rights to housing include Take Back the Land and the US Human
Rights Network. Both are working with local community organizations to support
their campaigns.
Bill Quigley is Legal Director of
the Center for Constitutional Rights and a Professor of Law at Loyola
University New Orleans. For more on efforts to secure the human right to housing,
email quigley77@gmail.com.
Hood Notes
Minority Seniors'
Plight
Millions of African-American and
Latino seniors are living on the edge of financial collapse, according to a new
report, Severe Financial Insecurity among African American and Latino Seniors.
Released by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at
Painting a daunting picture,
these findings are a result of analysis utilizing the Senior Financial
Stability Index (SFSI), a tool developed by IASP and Demos to assess the
long-term economic security of seniors. A combination of inadequate pensions
and savings, high housing costs, accelerating health expenses, and other trends
that affect seniors, will likely get worse, unless policies are enacted to
address them.
"The current economic crisis
will compound economic vulnerabilities that have been building for years unless
policies are developed to reverse these trends," said Tatjana Meschede,
lead author of the report.
Particular vulnerabilities
identified in the report include: (1) More than three-fourths of senior
households of color do not have adequate financial resources from savings,
Social Security, or pension income to cover essential expenses for their
expected life spans; (2) Out-of-pocket health care expenses are burdensome for
34 percent of African American and 39 percent of Latino seniors; (3) High
housing expenses put the budgets of 6 out of 10 senior households of color at
risk.
"These data show that
millions of African American and Latino seniors are living on the edge of
financial collapse, unable to rely on assets, income, or other pillars of
financial stability. Their circumstances are only made worse by the recent
economic downturn, which has been characterized by dramatic losses in assets
and housing values," said Thomas Shapiro, co-author of the report and
Director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy.
Policies must not only strengthen the existing safety- nets and promote asset
building opportunities for vulnerable seniors; they also must protect younger
families to help them enter retirement on a stronger economic footing.
"Future retirees will be worse off unless we attend to policies that grow
their resources for the future, and combat the rising costs of essential
expenses for seniors," said Jennifer Wheary, report co-author and a Senior
Fellow at Demos.
For more information and to
download the report, visit www.iasp.brandeis.edu
or www.demos.org. (Source: www.blackradionetwork.com)
Disgruntled wants to know:
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates' op-ed in the New York Times has
created quite a stir online. I have not heard much about it otherwise. For
those of you who did not read the article, Gates basically dismisses the idea
of reparations for slavery, placing much of the blame for the heinous crime on
Africans selling each other. Sure Gates relates a more complex tale than that,
after all, he is a learned professor. However, in the final analysis, his goal
seems evident! He wants blacks to believe they have no legitimate claim to reparations.
If you will recall, professor Gates was arrested by a white policemen for
trying to enter his own home in an upscale
Disgruntled feels: Sanitized!
Disgruntled
says: Things are bubbling to the surface. Oil is spewing from an
uncapped underwater well in the
Mailbox: E-Mails,
Faxes and Telephone Calls
Email www.huffingtonpost.com..."A shoplifting
suspect died Saturday after a CVS manager restrained him and choked him while
waiting for police, reports the Chicago Sun-Times: 'Chased out of the store and
down a litter-strewn alley shortly before 11 a.m., the 35-year-old unemployed
barber was strangled to death by a CVS employee who had seen him shoplifting,
officials said. 'Witnesses said Kyser, of the 1400 block of South Hamlin,
cried, 'I can't breathe, I can't breathe!' as the CVS worker held him in a
chokehold for what they thought was several minutes.' "Chicago Police will
not press charges against the unnamed CVS manager, despite a medical examiner's
finding that man's death was a homicide, reports MyFoxChicago. "The
alleged shoplifter, Anthony Kyser, was accused of stealing tooth paste and
crayons, the Chicago Tribune reports. "Kyser was 35 and known as 'Pops' to
his three former step-children, reports the Chicago Tribune. Kyser's ex-wife
Ann Marie Balboa questioned the police department's decision not to press
charges against the CVS manager: 'How's it accidental?' Balboa said. 'You're
choking the [expletive] out of somebody. He [the employee] should be fired. He
should be facing criminal charges. You don't take someone's life over
toothpaste.'" CVS has placed the employee on leave while the incident is
investigated.
Email www.laborradio.org...Whirlpool plans to
close a