Reparations for slavery similar to the Marshall plan sounds good but then
that wouldn't be in the interests  of capitalists as it was in Europe. That
being said, any slavery reparation program would not be ecumenical.
Before and during slavery, the people who were already in America lost
people and land that would now be  worth billions of dollars.  All working
people should be demanding reparations in the form of healthcare, decent
wages and a party  for their own interests, instead of  trying to put a
square peg in a round hole.

in struggle,
ada

Reparations for Slavery

by Frank Scott


Fifty years after the historic Brown v Board decision, it’s about time
we really confront the crippling issue of slavery’s impact on America.
Race relations have changed and progress has resulted from the great
civil rights movement empowered, in part, by that supreme court
decision. But it is  foolish to believe that we’ve become a color-blind,
equal opportunity society now, as some of the sanctimonious, if not
overtly  racist political camp would claim.

An ugly system of  apartheid was ended in the south,  but what remained
was an institutionalized class and race structure that has  actually
gotten worse for many blacks . The social reality Brown v Board  helped
bring about  frequently left negative as well as positive imprints on
society, often “enabling” blacks  to sink to a level of market game
playing according to white rules, rather than rising to a higher social
plane.

The  economic barriers inherent in our system impede the progress of
most whites, but, when compounded by race, they become  insurmountable
for those not privileged in having professional  parents or inherited
property. That group numbers the overwhelming majority of American
citizens, not just blacks, but  the injustice and inequality  in class
economic structure becomes greatly magnified when the impact of race is
factored into the equation.


A growing black middle  class has  meant a better material life for
them, but it  left what were once diverse economic communities at the
full mercy of socioeconomic degradation. When the professionals left,
only the unprofessionals remained, and they suffered conditions often
worse than the days of outright racial segregation. Community cohesion,
role models, and marketing money were denied, and blighted neighborhoods
were often the result.

Our economy has created a  lower strata of citizens, a social invention
called the working poor. Millions of americans now work at unskilled
labor, sometimes more than one job, and remain poor. And the high
percentage in that group who are black  cannot look to Brown v Board as
some form of social uplift for them, since their education and  status
is even lower than before.

Our prison population has exploded since the fifties, and nearly half
that number is black and  overwhelmingly from backgrounds of economic
and educational hardship. Only a cynic can talk about  progress in race
relations that have brought a real social, and not just cosmetic or
individual, form of  justice to the descendants of Africa in America.

It will take another social movement and more  momentous legal action to
help bring about a just society in race relations. That would mean
confronting the sordid, bloody reality of our country’s  economic
strength having been built on the backs of African slave labor. it would
call for more  than   benefits to individuals that leave the structure
of institutional racism, and the social order, unchanged.

That something would be financial reparations  to black America,  as
partial payment for the personal dignity, cultural history,  and
billions of dollars stolen from slaves and their descendants. Notions of
checks being sent to undeserving individuals, popular among racists  who
can only see that as the outcome of reparations, are asinine.
Reparations for slavery  should be of a social, more than  personal
nature. The Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after the war did
not send checks to individuals, but financed major efforts in industry
and commerce that  strengthened cultures. And it brought great benefits
to the USA, which profited from newly affluent  europeans able to buy
its products.

The same would be true of a reparations program for black america, which
could   rebuild blighted communities with programs that financed
commerce within them;  renew impoverished school districts by bringing
in the best teachers and safe surroundings where students could learn
without fear ; fund previously redlined communities where no banks would
offer home loans to blacks , making home owners of more citizens, with
all the  benefits of such ownership. Such steps taken with appropriated
funds from our massive if misdirected wealth, would not only bring
benefits to black americans, but filter up, down and through the whole
of society.


Despite the group victimology battles that have been an unfortunate
byproduct of a time  that has meant affirmative action for some, but
negative action for most, the fact is that no  immigrants in our
history  have endured more suffering and pain than Americans  from
Africa .

While many immigrants arrived here in economic bondage, only the
Africans were in the physical chains of chattel slavery. And they did
not find family members waiting for them, and a community of common
language  in which they could enjoy some of the comforts of familiarity,
even while suffering the problems most newcomers to America have faced.
Africans were denied all of these and more, beginning with personal
freedom, while being subjected to the horrendous crossing, the lash, the
slave market, and the sexual depravity of their masters. These
experiences were unique to them, and it is  grossly ignorant to even
think any other group of immigrants were their equals in suffering.

But it is not guilt tripping that should be the outcome of a reparations
program, nor is that the intent of its supporters. Having dealt a
crippling blow to the original slaves, and visiting much of that upon
their descendants,  a program of social and financial  reparations
could  bring fairness and justice to Americans  unique in both their
original suffering, and in almost miraculously rising above that misery
to make  path breaking and profound contributions to American cultural
life since that awful beginning.

Progress since Brown v Board has  strengthened  the national character,
but it has done so in far more individual than social a fashion. While
we may be pleased that some blacks have gone to Yale, what is
significant is that so many more have gone to jail. That isn’t due to
the mythological America  of individual responsibility, but to the real
American  of social irresponsibility.

Representative Conyers of Michigan has a bill in Congress  calling for
an investigation and discussion of reparations to see if they  are
feasible and possible. It needs to be openly discussed, rather than
neglected as it, and the subject, have been for far too long. It will
take democratic action and the support of more than black america to
bring this issue to public consciousness. The truth may be that
reparations for black America could mean liberation for all America.
Let’s find out.

Copyright (c) 2004 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

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            Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on
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frank scott
email: [log in to unmask]
225 laurel place, san rafael ca. 94901
(415)457 2415  cell (415)847 4105

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