What do we want?
We want our just inheritance: the trillions
of dollars due us for the labor of our ancestors who worked for
hundreds of years without pay. We demand the resources required
removing all badges and indicia of slavery.
Why do we want it?
We must prepare African people and communities
for the demands of the new millennium. Reparations are needed
to repair the wrongs, injury, and damage done to us by the US
federal and State overnments, their agents, and representatives.
These have proved that their vision for African people in America
is joblessness, more prisons (more killer kkkops), more black
women and men in private prisons, AIDS and violence.
The US Eurocentric educational system has
failed to prepare African children for liberation, nation-building,
and self-determination. This educational system produces people
who are anti-black; including many blacks who are self-alienated
and anti-black. We want our resources, our inheritance, to do
for ourselves without US Federal and State involvement.
When do we want it?
We want it NOW! We know that preparatory
steps must be taken before we can receive reparations even when
the US Government agrees to pay us everything we demand. But NOW
is the time to prepare for reparations.
How do we prepare for reparations? In order
for reparations to make us whole, it must remove blacks from dependence
on others (the government, and the descendants of slave owners
and colonizers), to create our jobs, manufacture the goods we
consume, feed, clothe, and shelter us, build our institutions,
and oversee our money. There are many things we must do to prepare;
only a few will be discussed here. We must determine what is required
to enable us as a people, as a community, and as individuals to
be self-determining. We need to learn the difference between wealth
and money, and more about making money than spending it. And,
have that we spend, we need to learn how to keep it in our communities.
There are too many of our ntertainers, recording artists, athletes,
lottery winners, etc., who earn millions of dollars and have nothing
to show for it after a few years, but a memory of good times past.
We must study how reparations can be used
for our liberation for seven generations to come, and not for
a one time shopping spree. We must use this time to develop ways
to keep the billions of dollars, which we now earn, in the black
community.
How much is owed?
Once we know how much damage has been done
to us, and what is required to repair the damage, we will know
how much is owed. We cannot allow anyone to offer, or accept on
our behalf; some arbitrary figure based on some other peoples'
reparations settlement. For example, the four year internment
of Japanese in America, or the five year holocaust of Jewish people
in Europe may require a different set of remedies than the 500
years holocaust of Africans in America. The nature and extent
of the damage and the number of people impacted will dictate the
type, duration, and amount of reparations owed. Some estimate
eight trillion dollars.
How would reparations be paid?
Payment may include all of the following:
land, equipment, factories, licenses, banks, ships, airplanes,
various forms of tax relief, education & training, to
name a few. A good academic exercise would be to develop a plan
for how reparations could be used collectively to enable the African
community to become independent from racist institutions and economically
self-sufficient for at least seven generations.
Who would pay reparations?
The US Government would pay reparations
in the same
manner as they voted for and paid billions to Europe through the
Marshall Plan after WWII, or billions to Israel every year since
WWII, or to Russia, or Eastern Europe, or to prop up some puppet
African Government. Just as Americans did not, as Americans did
not, as individual, pay for aid to those countries, they will
not pay for the debt owed to Africans in America. Nor are we blaming
individual Americans, we are simply holding the US Government
accountable for its wrongs.
Who would receive reparations?
People identified as Negro, Colored, Black,
African American, New Afrikan, Black American who are the descendants
of persons enslaved in the United States. Of course, those who
feel that they are not due reparations, or do not need reparations
will not be forced to accept it. What about Africans enslaved
in other countries? Black reparations is an international movement.
The descendants of Africans in Canada, Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica,
and Brazil, West Indies, Caribbean, etc., are due preparations,
but from their particular European colonizer. Colonized African
countries too are due reparations. We recognize that although
we were colonized and enslaved by different European colonizers
and slavers, we are one people with many family members dispersed
to different Countries.
What can we do to help?
Make Black reparations a household word.
Learn to spell, define, and defend it. If we learn how to spell
reparations, we will easily say it. Once we learn how to defend
it we will raise the issue every time someone talks about Affirmative
Action, Welfare Reform, Jobs, Education, Housing, Health Care,
Prison, Building, Police Brutality, and so on. N'COBRA members
have developed books and other informational resources to enable
each of us to become able defenders of blat reparations. When
people talk about building more prisons to deal with the crimes
of today, we need to talk about reparations to deal wit the effects
of 500 years of crimes against the African community that led
to the crimes today. We need reparations to keep or people out
of prison. When people talk abort how criminals must pay for their
wrongdoing we must talk about how the US Government must pay reparations
for its wrongs.
Second:
Support HR 40. This bill has been reintroduced in Congress by
Congressman John Conyers of Michigan. It is a first formal step
toward reparations in studying the impact of slavery and proposals
for remedies. Work with organizations, churches, local governments,
and State legislatures to pass a resolution in support of HR 40.
Send a copy of each resolution to Mr. Conyers' office and to N'COBRA's
National Office.
Third:
Join a reparations organization. Have that organization or any
organization to which you belong, become a member of N'COBRA.
Or, you may join N'COBRA directly.
Fourth:
Attend the local, regional, and national meetings on reparations
to learn more about chat you can do to help. How can I join? Attend
an N'COBRA meeting and submit a membership application form, or
request an application from the National
office. Membership is open to organizations and individuals
of good moral character who believe that black people in the USA,
the descendants of enslaved Africans, are due reparations from
the US Government and various State governments.
