Black Future: The 'Serious Challenge' of Reparations

After a week long tour of the Untied States, the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent released some recommendations after meeting with African Americans and others from around the country.  Now these are their preliminary thoughts according to various reports, but they believe the Untied States should put some serious effort into closing in race driven past.  For starters, they suggest the U.S. government consider reparations for all of the descendants of African slavery, establish a national human rights commission, and publicly acknowledge that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity.  The group was reportedly was "extremely concerned about the [current] human rights situation of African-Americans."    Mireille Fanon Mendes-France, chair of the organization said "the colonial history, the legacy of enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism, and racial inequality in the U.S. remains a serious challenge as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent."  Should their recommendation be built on?  Should some of today's black Americans receive money for their ancestors being enslaved?  Can this really happen?

Clearly, this entire issue is convoluted.  We got what payouts might look like, how they'll be dispersed, the process of verifying slave ancestry, and other key things that will turn this into a never ending conversation even if the intent from the government is good.  But the base of this, at least today, is it being all about the money.

In the movie The Barbershop, Ricky (Michael Ealy's character) made a statement during a reparation discussion.  He said something to the effect of reparations to black people would only make Cadillac the largest dealership in the world.  The joke points really to the large issue of whether or not the black community is truly prepared for swift economic empowerment.  We all should've heard about the black spending dilemma; generally only buying fake hair and Jordan's, rarely buying anything black owned, supporting racist brand owners, not spending any money in the black community.  Would reparations change any of this?  Would things stay the same, or would they be worse?

Well, we can imagine the outcry from white America if this was to go down.  And there would be a justifiable reason as there was a mildly significant number of enslaved whites.  Still, the report discussed black slave descendants.  The report considered that the Jim Crow Era was equally as damaging as slavery.  It also mentioned that the country has no real effort towards this sole group of people.  Apparently, the poor white isn't in the same category as the poor black, according to the UN team.

We also can look at the additional legislation that would accompany the reparation payments.  Just going out on a limb here, but I believe a racist, elitist government is not going to make monies available to blacks in any easy way.  And if you think Alabamians [still] have trouble getting voting ID's, just imagine getting "unearned" money.  This move could actually merge the Tea Party, the KKK, and the Neo-Nazi's into a white supremacist super group.

But then we can look at the development that will quickly occur when people get those payments.  There could be a real economic boom that will vibrate for centuries.  But still, when you look at who's dishing out the money, there's gonna be some sorrow with it more than likely.  Honestly, this could start a war.

Honestly, there's no way it would be fair to even guess this.  While economic empowerment is a collective issue, it's an individual responsibility.  I know most of us would like to attribute financial failure to all poor black people.  And of course I have my opinions about what would or could happen.  But can we honestly say the entire middle-class black population would do the "right thing" if the federal government sent checks for...say...$500,000?  Would you?  It is a strong possibility some of the money would fall into slippery hands, but also some of that money will help produce politicians that can prevent Flint-esque problems, plant real resources in challenged communities, and establish generational ownership within several areas of the African-American community.  It any rate, there needs to be follow up on this event and dialogue. You better believe that the United Nations group sees an opportunity for them with this research.  I think it's time we at least see if one exists...that is, exists for us.