As the year (2023) progresses, and in this short span of time so far, we can see multiple state and municipalities calling upon their legislative bodies to develop reparations plans and tasks forces. California, High Point (North Carolina), Boston, Rhode Island, Miami, etc.
However these initiatives appear on its face value may look nice and pretty and justified, however deep down the hold no true substance which make them very dangerous.
There are 5 key components that the United Nations 🇺🇳 has laid out that reparations must include: 1)Cessation/Assurance of Non-Repetition 2)Restitution and Repatriation
3)Compensation
4)Satisfaction
5)Rehabilitation.
Each state and municipality has played their roles in black American oppression and terrorism and enslavement/ profiteering off of slave labor. However the reparations package American Freedmen (Black Americans) require can not but handled by local governmental bodies. The total budget of all 50 states put together does not add up to the value need to close the Black-White wealth gap. Theses state and city and college reparations “plans” don’t have the capacity.
These plans are further harmful because we know through consistent historical evidence that the Federal government was instrumental to the terrorism, human trafficking, financial exploitation and deprivation, generational trauma, etc. They must be held accountable to the 50 million American Freedmen. Every initiative created locally, whether it is successful or it fails, could be mechanized to deny a more comprehensive federal initiative.
Migration patterns are also a big issue with these local reparations plans. Because of continued terrorism from our white counterparts, American Freedmen were also in constant situations where they (including their families) were in danger or potential danger. Also job securities and wealth spurts or pitfalls pushed American Freedmen to different locations including west and north. At the same time places like New London, CT and Boston, MA had slaves and slave descendants are still living in those areas. For the state or city to try and cap the beneficiaries of those programs to people who were simply in those areas has a tunnel and limited range.
It’s wholly ineffective. Federal is how you circumvent these issues.
The federal government (through Special Field Order 15) promised “40 acres and a mule” to former black chattel slaves and their descendants. Some families even began to receive land and tools. The Freedmen’s Bank and The Freedmen’s Bureau was enacted specifically for ex slaves and free blacks. When President Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson became the next president and he rolled Back the reparations for former slaves and instead gave it ex slave OWNERS. A debt is owed by the Federal Government for free labor and broken promises.
If the states want to do initiatives for their involvement in American Freedmen Oppression and terrorism, they should and can do acts of ATONEMENT. These acts would go about reversing all the old legislation and or practices/processes that cause lineal disparities or hold old oppressive cores that would facilitate the growth and existence of predatory practices against American Freedmen.
Federal Lineage Based Reparations with Individually Distributed Reparations Portfolios with cash at the core of every portfolio is the only way to
- close the Black-white wealth gap
- Provide healing that was consistently denied as terrorism continued
- Finally pay a debt that is owed to a victimized lineage of people who built this nation but as well as reinvent the world with our organic and creative contributions and inventions.
- Create ways to recover the lost monies America suffered due to its efforts at depriving American Freedmen from access to wealth and wealth building via segregation, Jim crowism, institutional racism, direct terrorism, law aided terrorism.