Re: REPARATIONS O!

Akilimali,

 

Thanks for the information. However, while I do indeed feel that reparations is duly owed to African-Americans for the sufferings of American slavery and the Hundred Years of Terror that followed, I think the time has passed when payment of those long-due reparations can be of any material benefit to our people.

 

The one time reparations was paid to African-Americans on even a partial basis was through Union General William Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 issued in January, 1865 in the middle of the Civil War, in which enslaved Africans were granted the property formerly held by slavemasters on plantation lands of the Carolina sea islands and the areas just inland from the Carolina coastlines (the famous "40 acres and a mule" order). Our farmer ancestors knew what to do with those lands—both how to work them and how to keep them—and for the most part they generally remained in Black hands until the great land grabs of the 1960's and '70s.

 

Positive results from reparations would have been true up through my parents' generation. This was a frugal, practical generation heat-tempered by their coming of age in the Depression years. Just as so many of them took advantage of the economic bounty during the World War II years and immediately afterward to purchase homes and land and build businesses and community, I believe they would have handled reparations in their time  to the general benefit of our people as a whole.

 

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Despite many notable exceptions, much of the modern African-American generations has become an economic sieve. Wages and other monetary benefits flow through our community and our people and then almost immediately out again, with only a bare consumables residue left behind at the bottom in the form of clothes and cars and electronic toys and such, things of little lasting value. One cannot imagine that monetary reparations benefits to our people would fare any better in these latter days.

 

Further, how would it be determined who would receive such reparations? That was an easy question to answer in 1865, much more complicated—if not impossibly complicated—a century and a half later. There is a spirited discussion going on today as to what constitutes African-American, and the old question of whether African-American is, indeed, the way we ought to be defined and identified. These are legitimate questions that should properly be decided amongst African-Americans ourselves, such as our Jewish friends work out amongst themselves what defines a Jew and who should be let into the fold and who should be left out. But that is not the case with African-Americans. The discussions are not being held solely within our own communities and organizations but are broadcast on a national scale, with people not of our kin feeling empowered to weigh in on the conversation and the "decision." That situation could not help but be exacerbated if large monetary benefits were on the line.

 

In recent years, there has been some discussion about broadening the classic definition of reparations to include things beyond bread and land. That, to me, does not materially alter the equation. Reparations to African-Americans are certainly owed, but the time for payment has passed. We must look to other means to improve our condition.

 

That, in any event, is my opinion.

 

Yours respectfully,

 

Jesse

From: Akilimali Funua Olade <yeyeolade@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, February 4, 2021 at 6:05 AM
To: Adegboyega Thompson <opomaja1@gmail.com>, Dynast Amir <searchforuhuru@gmail.com>, Akilimali Funua Olade <YEYEOLADE@gmail.com>, Femi Adesina <kulikulii@yahoo.com>, louis_armmand <louis_armmand@yahoo.com>, M Allen <clnupmn@hotmail.com>, SIKIRU ADEWOYE <sikoamama@yahoo.com>, <azizaaallen@gmail.com>, Abolore Folorunso <fm_moshood@yahoo.com>, Yetunde Aina <jadeas@scannet.com>, Dare Babarinsa <sajuku@infoweb.abs.net>, Tamarva Butler <charismaalloverme@gmail.com>, "Brig.Gen. Mohammed Buba MARWA" <mbmarwa@hotmail.com>, BIB2 <yeyeolade.black@blogger.com>, CHIEF IBIKUNLE ODULANI <odulani@yahoo.com>, Paul O'Callaghan <pauloc@westafricaenrg.com>, Yeye Claudine Ejiola <cbrelet@free.fr>, Jesse Allen-Taylor <safero@earthlink.net>, <deli74sun@post.wordpress.com>, <eallen@afroam.umass.edu>, <editor@yorubapost.com>, Tani Fafunwa <tanif@resourcery.com>, FEMI OSIFISAN <okinbalaunko@yahoo.com>, <TOYin.falola@mail.utexas.edu>, Guardian Life Magazine <guardianlife2005@yahoo.com>, Hershima Williams <hershimamusic@comcast.net>, Hondo Solomon <hondo.solomon@gmail.com>, linda ikeji ikeji <LINdaikeji@gmail.com>, "Rev. Chris Okotie" <info@houseofnigeriafresh.com>, <info@alayoyeonline.com>, <kaylan@aainafrica.com>, Sean King <sicklecell@gmail.com>, Latifa Johnson <umosman@yahoo.com>, Ukali Redd <ljredd52@aol.com>, mercifulalhaji <mercifulalhaji@yahoo.com>, <murielpaul@msn.com>
Subject: REPARATIONS O!

 

Don Salmon (@dijoni) tweeted at 8:40 PM on Wed, Feb 03, 2021:
The case for reparation for African-Americans.#BlackHistoryMonth .#ReparationsNow .#BlackTwitterAwards2020 .#whiteprivilege .#shamewhitehistorymonth . https://t.co/8xUZ1HAvcP
(https://twitter.com/dijoni/status/1357051440217214977?s=03)

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