Submitted by Nixakliel on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 10:20
IMO Bernie could / should have said he’s open to discussing / listening to the case for Reparations, even without [initially] committing to it out-right. IMO he handled this issue re Reparations w less political ‘finesse’ than his first confrontation w the BLM people, & just a bit better than his anti-Chavez ‘Dead Communist Dictator’ quip!! Bernie’s & Adolph Reed’s [an admitted Bernie Supporter] excuse that reparations is a ‘divisive’ issue, IMO just does NOT fly!! The whole topic of RACE itself is a so-called ‘divisive’ issue [that’s why Obama been ducking it his whole tenure], Killer-Cops gunning down Black & Brown people w near impunity is a so-called ‘divisive’ issue, The Phony ‘War on drugs’ & the New Jim Crow / Prison Industrial Complex were until quite recently seen as so-called ‘divisive’ issues, the immigration issue is also seen as a so-called ‘divisive’ issue, & on & on, etc, etc, etc… With all due respect to Bro Reed, we can NOT let white folks dictate to us which issues should & should NOT be part of our agenda, just cause it’s seen [by most whites- whether ‘liberal’ Dim or conservative Repugs or even ‘socialists’] as so-called ‘divisive’ & ‘controversial’ [= most whites do NOT really want to talk about it]!!!
In an era where some states are trying to literally erase both slavery & the fact that the entire SW quadrant of the USA used to be the northern half of Mexico, almost completely out of various school text-books- IMO reparations is an important issue to discuss just as a potential counter-weight to that A-Historical trend!!!
The previous commenter raises the point [as did Bro Reed] that the aver working-stiff white guy & gal would balk & squawk at the idea that they’d have to pay Blacks reparations out of that hard-earned [& too often steadily shrinking] pay-check. Well IMO those that should be the prime payers of reparations are those that benefited the most from slavery, & we KNOW certain companies & corporations that are still in BIZ today [most are multi-BILLION Biz-operations] got their start or became major BIZ operation via some link to the slave trade / BIZ!!! Then there are certain Elite families that WE KNOW profited from slavery & are still on the scene [EI: the Walker-Bushes]. 3rd would be the US Gov’t in general- but particularly the traditional southern slave-states / aka ‘Ole’ Dixie-land’ States. IMO these are the main ones to be held to account re Reparations.
The commenter also made a quip about Israel, a foreign Govt that’s been getting 3 BILLION$$$ [set to increase to $4bn] of US tax-payer $$$ ea & every yr carte-blanch since circa 1970- Yet there’s a bipartisan [both Dims & Repugs] consensus in favor of this & most whites don’t even give it a 2nd thought!! Plus the US Treasury [both under Repug Bush Jr & Dim Obama] has given how many TRILLION$$$ of US tax-payer $$$ to ‘Too BIG to Fail & Jail’ Wall St Banksters [some of whom were foreign banks] to bail them out of a CRISIS they themselves caused that threatened to crash the entire US & Global economy- vs Africans in AmeriKKKa slaves who during the period of chattel slavery were the literal back-bone of the US econ??? So just how much did this commenter & his fellow white working class ‘stiffs’ squawk & balk about that??!
IMO reparations for Blacks Don’t necessarily mean every Black in the US would/ should get a $1 Million USG check [which IMO is the previous commenter’s & his ilk’s main concern]- In fact IMO generally [for several reasons] that should NOT be the way to go about it!! [perhaps w a few exceptions]! IMO first there needs to be a serious discussion for the case for reparation even within the Black community itself, before it’s even pushed outside our community. IMO one way to structure it is so that it potentially benefits NOT just [non-affluent] Blacks alone but rather potentially ALL [non-affluent] people of color & even working-class / working poor whites too! In Fact IMO the reparations initiative should seek to benefit Blacks even beyond the US- especially Haitians & Africans generally via new US Foreign & Econ policy paradigms, that forsake & even reverse ill effects of the current neo-colonial / neo-liberal ones vs Haiti & Africa.
Bro Reed claims that a call for reparations would under-cut Affirmative-Action initiatives, but he fails to explain just how & why. Yet per Slick Willy Clinton, the main beneficiaries of Affirmative Action programs have been white-women, while at the same time the white backlash vs such programs went into full gear w the Bakke so-called reverse discrimination case in 1978!!! And that had ZIP to do w calls for Reparations!!!
Then IMO Bro Reed seems to take a swipe at Black Nationalists ala Garvey & Elijah Muhamed’s NOI- w the quip that they talked to the KKK. Well IMO that was indeed a mistake on their part –But- Meeting & talking w the KKK once or twice ain’t the same thing as having a working relationship w them, which IMO Bro Reed seems to kinda-sorta imply!!! NO-One I know of claims either Garvey or the NOI ever ctually had a working relationship w the KKK, only that they met w them once or twice! But then I know that Garvey also met w [Black] Marxist-Communists too, as did NOI leaders Malcolm X & Min Farrakhan [who I KNOW had a good relationship w Bro Kwame Toure’ a Pan-African Scientific-Socialist]. Some even try to claim Malcolm was becoming a socialist!! So Bro Reed how should we ‘read’ those / that fact(s)??!
- PS-Re: Ron Karenga- It’s been long established that ‘Bro Ron’ may have been an FBI informant, or at-least allowed himself to be manipulated & used by the FBI vs the BPP in Cali- that even led to a deadly confrontation. But why stop there Bro Reed- to apparently put a ‘sleeping w the enemy’ / ‘snitch-jacket’ only on well known Black Nationalists [ala Garvey, Elijah.M along w Karenga]??? What about feminist icon Maggie Sanger as an out-spoken & unrepentant Eugenicist [& she did a hell of a lot more than just meet & talk once or twice], who rolled-out that curiously termed ‘Negro-Project’, & whose birth-control league clinic(s) in Brooklyn & Harlem were funded by the Rockefellers??! And then there’s feminist icon MS Gloria Steinem’s confirmed [even once admitted] links to the CIA, & who apparently once dated Repug war-criminal Heinz Kissinger!!! Furthermore MS Steinem had a 20 yr relationship as the intimate-partner / ‘wife’ [without portfolio] to a Kissinger & Bush Sr colleague under the Nixon-Ford regime named J.Stanley Pottinger [FYI: he was Ford’s assist AG & apparently worked w Ford’s CIA chief Poppy Bush Sr to cover-up the FBI’s role re MLK’s assassination]. Hell apparently even Black ‘Liberal icon’ Thurgood Marshall once collaborated w Edgar Hoover’s FBI- outing Black socialists / communists!!!
The Late 1800s to early 1900s.
Sis Callie organized some 300,000 ex-slaves to petition the US Govt for Reparations. The USG's response was to go after her the same way they went after Marcus Mosiah Garvey- They falsely charged & convicted [= FRAMED] her for mail-fraud- only they did it to Sis Callie House FIRST- YRS BEFORE They used the very same scheme to FRAME Garvey too!!!
See @ www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/01/the-first-demand-for-slave-reparations/
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