Now, the U.S. government
paying slave owners reparations was a disgrace obviously. Those slave owners
committed unspeakable acts and they should have been compensated with
absolutely nothing. They should have been placed into prison back then.
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote many interesting words on this issue of reparations.
There is a historical precedent for reparations given to oppressed people after
the fact. There was 32 million dollars given to the Ottawas of Michigan in
1986. There was $105 million given to the Sioux of South Dakota back in 1985.
There has been tons of money and lands given to Alaskan Native Americans back
in 1971. Japanese Americans and Jewish people have been given reparations (to
folks who suffered injustices directly) as well. Some folks need to know that
slavery in the Americas was more than about kidnapping people. Slavery involved
genocide, rape, murder, the splitting of families, forced labor without pay,
evil abuse, etc. Regardless of what happens on the front of reparations, one
thing is true. Black people have every right to stand up for their dignity, to
fight racism, to fight discrimination, and to continue to incorporate
self-improvement in our daily lives. Certainly, black people have the right to
sue involving current policies of oppression. That is why the black farmers
sued the government and won for compensation involving racial discrimination.
Many black farmers are still fighting and the National Black Farmers
Association (NBFA) is doing great work in that regard. We should never accept
the status quo and that is why Brothers and Sisters now are fighting against
housing discrimination, police brutality, and other evils in our society. We
just have to keep on fighting for solutions. Many folks like act anybody who
advocates reparations for black people are irrational, mindless people when
there are cogent organizations advocating it. Regardless of where folks stand
on this issue, many supporters of reparations for black people are rational
human beings. Equality among both genders should not be a controversial
ideology in the world. That ideology should be a common sense truth that folks
should accept and believe in. Unfortunately, many men are afraid to think
outside of the box for fear of ridicule. Men and women should just say it out
loud that they are feminists if they want to. Those who oppose feminism aren't
shy about opposing feminism, so those who support it shouldn't be quiet about
it either.
We know that inequality
is existent in an unfree market. Some in the media are talking about the
criminally and record unequal distribution of wealth under capitalism. For
decades, the gap between the rich in poor (in the USA including other countries
globally) has been growing. The super-rich own so much of the world’s wealth.
The Occupy Movement came about to focus on the one percent. Before that
movement, populists and activists have protested and talked about economic
justice too from the BPP to Dr. King including Malcolm X. Today, protesters are fighting for the rights of low wage workers
at Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and other businesses. Some want a $15 an hour minimum
wage. Voices have been loud on this issue. Even President Barack Obama and the
Democrats want to propose the not even half measure of raising the minimum wage
from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour. Even reactionary Republicans have blocked
that overtly centrist legislation in the Senate. More and more literature is talking about
income inequality. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century is a book that
talks about this issue. The two others are Matt Taibbi's The Divide: American
Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap and David Cay Johnston's Divided: The Perils
of Our Growing Inequality. Capitalism produced wealth, technological
innovation, and consumer good on a historically unprecedentedly level. The
problem is that capitalism is readily associated with exploitation, inequality,
and economic crisis. This reality is not a product of a meddling of the free
market, but the exploitation and inequality is a pure component of the existing
capitalistic system itself. That is why some people are poor not because of
individual failings, but because of economic oppression. Adam Smith believed
that the genius of the system is that exchanges in a capitalist free market are
voluntary--we don't have to work for a certain company, we're not obligated to
buy their products, they're not required to deal with other companies, and so
on. Exchanges are not totally fair or equal in this system. The market
coordinates and regulates the exchange between capital and labor (beyond just
facilitating exchanges between consumers and corporations that produce the
goods that consumers buy). In other words, the free market, with its mechanism
of supply and demand, sets the rate at which workers are compensated.
McDonald's may pay less than $10 an hour, but that's because there's a supply
of workers willing to take jobs at that wage. The issues are that the vast
majority of people on Earth have to purchase the necessities of life (food,
clothing, shelter, etc.) with the compulsion to work. We know that the free
market is not free, but the market is imposed by economic, political, and
social mechanisms. Piketty's book refutes the idea that capitalism spreads the
wealth while protecting individual liberties. On the contrary, Piketty shows
that in the absence of some redistributive mechanism such as progressive
taxation, capitalism has produced ever-greater inequality throughout its
history. The mid-20th century period saw falling inequality, because of
progressive taxation, the growth of the social safety net, and higher
investments in the USA infrastructure (not because of laissez faire capitalist policies).
Piketty wrote that most
people with ultra-wealthy inherited their fortunes. Since the 1970’s, we have
seen more tax cuts on the super-rich, regulations repealed, corporate
personhood, and more privatization (which grows economic inequality). The
criminal justice system gives leniency to the rich and powerful and the
harshest punishment is shown to the downtrodden, black & brown people, and poor. Taibbi in his book
proves that many welfare applicants whose houses are searched--with the threat
of jail terms if evidence is uncovered of another wage earner at the
residence--while corporate executives responsible for mortgage fraud,
securities fraud and money laundering that cause harm to millions of people
never get investigated or charged (and needless to say, they aren't subjected
to the humiliation of their homes being searched). "Every day on Wall
Street, money is stolen, embezzled, burgled, and robbed," Taibbi writes.
"But the mechanisms of these thefts are often so arcane and idiosyncratic
that they don't fit neatly into the criminal code, which is written for the
dumb crimes committed by common stick-up artists and pickpockets." So, the
growth of inequality in America is a product of the functioning of the free
market and the social plus political system (or the system of whtie supremacy since let's keep it real here) built up around it. Between 2009
and 2012, 95 percent of the total increase in income in the U.S. flowed to the
top 1 percent of households. Did the 1 Percent work 20 times harder than
everyone else to deserve that overwhelming share of income gains? No. People
making lower wages work harder and longer to provide for their families. This
refutes the lie that the market rewards hard work. The rich corporate executives
have annual incomes equal to the lifetime earnings of millions of people.
Janitors, teachers, miners, bus drivers, the construction workers, etc. have
value. The free marketers say that the corporations are the job creators and
the wealth producers, but the people doing the difficult work (and receive less
compensation) produce the vast majority of the wealth in society. When workers
strike, production can go into a halt. Without labor, the rich can’t produce anything
in a massive scale. That is why people including scholars are challenging
capitalism. That is why wealth must be fairly and democratically controlled by
everyone. Folks’ pensions and wealth have been stolen. It is the stock
exchanges and the manipulation of financial instruments that allow hedge fund
manage and corporate executives to claim to get surplus value created by
workers themselves (when the market and the political system ensures those on
top to remain on top economically while those in the bottom have to work harder
for less). People have the right to fight for better wages, better benefits,
and better social services.
Mr. Moore has made
excellent points. Increasing the high school graduation rate will take effort
and strength. Token measures will not work, because if they did, we would not
have this crisis in the first place. We should first treat this situation as an
emergency, because it is. We don't want any black youth to be placed into jail
and potentially have their lives ruined. There are many solutions. One is
dealing with the development of the family. Strong families equal into strong
communities and strong countries. That is historical and validated by numerous
studies worldwide. Any parent raising children should receive concrete support
(from the community including educational systems) and even some teachers have
come into the homes of students as a means to improve the lives of students.
There should be targeted investments. There should be investments in policies
that work and not just investing money just to be investing money. More black
male teachers should exist in the education in general since such teachers can
understand the lives of black males obviously. Individual and collective
efforts should exist as a means for improvements to come about. We have to
improve the socioeconomic situations in communities too. Private and public
efforts ought to be part of the equation. We need education including family
development too. There must be economic justice. You have to give people hope
and compassion. Motivating people in unorthodox ways can help too. Certainly,
when the black community is fully unified, then they or the establishment view
that as a grave threat. Black people globally are making children all of the
time. The bashing of black women and the bashing of black men is not only evil.
To me, it is played out. It is time for more of us to honestly talk about our issues,
so we can create real solutions. Nothing changes unless we express love for our
people. At the end of the day, we as Africans are an international people and
we will always oppose the agenda of the oppressor. We have every right to stand
up for our convictions and fight for the truth. YES, BLACKNESS IS HERE TO SAY.
The 1960’s taught the
world many lessons. It reminds us that society still need jobs in the world. We
have to fight poverty, discrimination, disease, etc. as a means to see a true
change in society. Also, we have to know that many social programs can be used
to address inequalities in health care, housing, and education. Yet, we can’t
blame the victims of oppression for the system of oppression itself. At the
final analysis, it is the system, structural racism, etc. that are at fault.
The reactionary blame the victim views is the sick idea that says that black
people should be blamed for oppression. The racist culture of poverty theories
represents the influences of the conservative assault on the social safety net
(from the 1980’s to the present). Since the late 1960’s to the present, many
bourgeois Democratic mayors and politicians wanted to make deals with the
Democratic machine instead of supporting revolutionary solutions that can grow
the movement. Many such mayors even support evil law and order policies that
furthered jailed nonviolent offenders (even among black people). Some Democrats even love charter schools, the war on terror, austerity policies, race-neutral talking rhetoric, and other reactionary political agenda. Also, we have
to realize that there is nothing wrong with loving blackness and African
culture. Yet, we have to do more than that. We have to use political struggle
to redistribute economic and political power. Folks need housing, egalitarian
education, and universal health care. That is why I reject the views of the
reactionary Karenga who attacked the Black Panther Party and he rejected
equality for women back then. Equality is part of life and egalitarianism is
truth. Our enemies are imperialism and oppression. The corporate Democrat and
Republican parties (in their leaderships) have shown their support of the
status quo. The whole corrupt system must be done away with and it must be
replaced with a system of JUSTICE for the human family. Self-respect means that
we ought to never tolerate disrespect from anyone at all. We are one people.
Multinational corporations have made it a job to support artists that exploit
our struggle, demean our people, exploit many of our people economically, and
glamorize debased behavior for a long time. We have to put our foot down and
say enough is enough. We have to stand up for our image and for our human
dignity. We are having a political, economic, and social struggle for our
liberation as people of black African heritage. We have the right to advocate
for economic & social justice. One Brother named Solomon Comissiong has
great literature on this precise issue too. He is a very smart person. Margaret
Kimberley is a Sister with excellent views on this issue and on a myriad of
other issues as well. I love her work too. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew
that formal equality under the law is not equivalent to real equality. You have
to deal with the problems of the ghettos if we want to see real liberation. Dr.
King (who called America as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world
today.” His statement was condemned by even many establishment liberals) and Malcolm
X were right to expose and oppose the Vietnam War as imperialistic, racist, and
unjustified. We must be revolutionary not reactionary. The rights of workers
must be respected and we ought to have environmental justice in the world too.
We have to challenge the very roots of economic and racial inequality in
American society as a means for us to be free.
By Timothy
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