Friday, March 29, 2024

Is America Ready For Reparations?

May 31, 2015 by  
Filed under News, Opinion, Politics, Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Whenever the world gets too crazy for me, I head down to the soul food restaurant and seek out my mentor, the great ghetto philosopher, Cleophus Leroy Brown.

Cleo graciously waived me toward a seat at his usual corner booth. “What’s on your mind, College Boy?”

“Everything,” I blurted out. “”I’m on social media and practically every day someone posts another instance of black folks either being killed or brutally beaten by police just for being doing something, if it isn’t anything more than breathing , while black. Everybody jumped up and down- and rightfully so, I might add, about Freddie Gray, while more than 180 days after he was murdered by police, Tamir Rice’s family has gotten no justice, no charges filed, no nothing! They haven’t even been allowed to bury their child. We just had over 200 bikers involved in a shootout in WACO and the police didn’t kill anybody! Bikers- almost all of them white- shooting up a storm and none of the police were “in fear for their lives” like they were when they killed 12 year old Tamir Rice for playing with a toy gun, and all the other unarmed black folks. And not once did I hear the word ‘thug,’ used!” By now, I was on the verge of requiring oxygen.

“And you want to know what it all means. Right, College Boy?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I thought things were supposed to have been getting better. Especially with a black president and all …”

“And I thought I taught you that exceptions to the rule don’t negate the rule, they prove it! Just ‘cause some people get a seat playing musical chairs, that doesn’t mean there’s a seat for everybody! There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from what’s goin’ on. But the main message I get out a all of this is that America aint ready for reparations!”

Wha?”

“You heard me. But before I break it down for you, College Boy, I want you to tell me what you think reparations means.”ta-nehisi-2015

“It means we are finally going to be compensated for all those years of enslavement.”

“That’s the very least significant part of reparations. There has to be a monetary component, but that is just to make a statement of the seriousness of the situation. It should cost a lot, because a lot was taken. But, more than anything else, reparations is an apology. It says we are sorry. And a true apology says something else. Do you know what that something else is?”

“I’m really sorry?” I was truly grasping for straws.

“I means that I regret doing what I did to injure you; that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do that. It means that if my wrongful actions have defined our relationship, then I will do whatever it takes to redefine our relationship in a way that is right and just and proper. This represents what is called ‘atonement’ or ‘at-one-ment’ in theological terms. “   Cleo’s look of self satisfaction was so strong it almost knocked the taste out of my mouth. But in my heart, I knew he was right.

“Just look at the history. Whenever we tie today’s issues back to slavery, we get the same tired response. “That was a long time ago. When are you going to stop using that as an excuse? ‘Now If, when slavery was abolished, white America had said, ‘You know what? We must a lost our damn minds. We were so wrong. Here’s your forty acres and a mule, and we are going to do everything, from real education- not just propaganda- to whatever you might need- to bring you into the fold as fellow American citizens’ – if that had happened then we would have had a clean break and slavery really would have been quite a while ago. But instead we were lynched, segregated and denied the vote- even more than a hundred years after the so-called Emancipation Proclamation. Today’s police departments grew out of the paddy rollers whose sole purpose was to police and intimidate slaves.

“To this day, there has never been that clear, clean break with slavery. Never that admission of wrongdoing and renegotiating of relationship based on total equality. When unarmed black folks are slaughtered by the police, it’s just a statement that we aint ready to renegotiate the relationship. As long as Fox News scores more than twice the ratings of MSNBC AND CNN combined, we aint ready for reparations. As long as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh can make millions of dollars just by spreading stupid racism on the radio, we aint ready for reparations.   And as long as people have to wear Tee shirts to proclaim that “black lives matter,” we definitely aint ready for reparations. As long as we aint ready for reparations, the stain of slavery will never be lightened (it could never be removed anyway) from the soul of America.

Staff Writer; William Griggs

One may connect with this talented writer over at; http://WilliamGriggs.Net. You can also pick up his “newly” released novel entitled: The Megalight Connection.

Comments

9 Responses to “Is America Ready For Reparations?”
  1. Shena says:

    Uncle Cleo is a wise man…these comments alone suggests that America is not ready for true reparations. Too much fear about someone getting something they don’t deserve, when reparations have very little to do with money. It’s more like a civil suit to me. I am a firm believer that time is elusive and this is just a part of the preparation. Keep up the GREAT work William Griggs, do not be distracted!

  2. MamaAfrica says:

    Reparations for the African Holocaust Petition: http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/10151.html

  3. Hugh Janus says:

    What about all the black slave owners? Apparently there were quite a few.
    And what about Obama’s muslim family tribe that captured and sold African slaves?

    We’ve been paying reparations for years (welfare) and look where blacks are now. Still on the liberal plantation and still complaining. Lame.

  4. Roy Lofquist says:

    The Bible has a few things to say about “sins of the fathers”:

    http://www.openbible.info/topics/sins_of_the_father

  5. CD Smith says:

    Once again another writer believing that money is going to make it all better. If you believe the Bible, the world started in “paradise”. But a snake entered and you rest of the story. The big problem in the black community are too many snakes pretending to be our friend.

    The other problem with the black community is spiritual. Wealth and Success starts from the inside out. Black people barely do business with other blacks other than hair and nails..

  6. ewill says:

    I would suggest you stop listening to Cleophus Leroy Brown. Also, you should get him to REHAB for his CRACK addiction.

    Ask your Black African Brothers to apologize for making your ancestors slaves and have them pay you back the money they got for selling them. Black lives should matter but they don’t matter to other Blacks. Nothing has changed, not then, not now.

    I don’t need to apologize , nor pay you anything. I agree that Slavery was the worst thing in American history. Without slavery the Black population in America would most likely be about 2-3%.

  7. William Griggs says:

    Did either of you actually READ what I wrote??? It doesn’t appear that you did. It might be a good idea to read what someone writes BEFORE you insult them!

  8. ThinkTank says:

    As a black person GET OVER IT!!!

    Over 60% of White Economical Privilege from slavery was rebooted/destroyed in the Great Depression.

    Its never going to happen stop wasting pixels and keystrokes lol

  9. Pat Barrow says:

    Do you really think that is going to happen? I simply do not understand why any one of Color would bother to waste their time on this subject. As it stands they do not believe they owe you anything in fact, your still being treated in an under my shoe manner.

    We need to STOP this fruitless talk and use the tools to build from within. They have used the tools that came from your idea to enrich themselves and keep you in poverty. Brainwashed you so that you do not support each other and in fact kill each other on so many levels including taking a life. Wake up and find those who have become conscious, use the very tools, gifts, talents and abilities they the powers have stolen from you and used against you , to build a power community withing. Now if you do not understand what I just said, you are not the one who is ready, next.

    What am I doing? My part http://www.patbarrowdesigns.com

    BLACK PEOPLE STILL SLEEPING

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