[Cure-news] REPARATIONS PRESS RELEASE - An Obama Presidency: America’s Great Deception

[Ida Hakim]

Lost-Found Nation of Islam

3040 Campbellton Road SW

Atlanta, Georgia 30311

 

Contact: Raushana Karriem at 770-774-8765
E-mail: muhammadspeaksletters at yahoo.com

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 3, 2008

 

REPARATIONS

 

Presidential candidate Barack Obama should be seen as an American 
illusion – a false hope for Black people and an American impostor to the 
freedom lovers of the democratic free world.  Obama is paraded before 
the world in order to make other governments of the world, and Black 
people, think that the United States of America has changed its policies 
and is no longer a hypocrite to the fundamental principals of civil 
liberty.  But my people, and governments of the world, the truth is 
America’s “paramount issue” exists still!


The “paramount issue,” the problem of inequality between Blacks and 
whites in the country, is as evident today as it was in 1858 in the days 
of Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln’s chief concern was how other 
nations would view America’s handling of the slave issue.  Mr. Lincoln 
had this to say: “I hate it (slavery) because it deprives our republican 
example of its just influence in the world – enables the enemies of free 
institutions (other governments) with plausibility to taunt us as 
hypocrites – causing the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, 
and especially because it forces so many good men amongst ourselves into 
an open war … criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting 
that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.” You well 
know that the Civil War followed.

 

My reason for mentioning Mr. Lincoln here is that he defines the 
position in society Blacks would have, after slavery. What is the former 
and the present status of Blacks in the United States?  Mr. Lincoln had 
this to say: “Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings.  Is 
it quite certain this betters their condition?  I think I would not hold 
one of them in slavery, at any rate; … free them, and make them 
politically and socially our equal?  My own feelings will not admit to 
this; and if mine would, we well know that the great mass of white 
people will not, … we cannot, then, make them equals” (Abraham Lincoln 
His Book, by J. McCAN DAVIS 1909). Now!  There you have it!  Are we 
still in the position of “underlings” in America?  This question yet 
hangs over America’s head. “Underlings:” are we yet underlings in the 
United States of America?  Inequality between Blacks and whites persists 
still.  Does Presidential candidate Barack Obama speak of a change in 
our unequal status in the United States?  No!

 

We were released from plantation slavery in 1865 as America’s 
“underlings,” but we were not given equal rights, or any thing else.  Do 
we exist today as underlings, in perpetuity, seemingly forever? Both the 
late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad 
tackled this major U.S. problem in the 1950’s.  Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr., until 1968, had a dream that Black children and white children 
would walk hand in hand.  This dream was not fulfilled.  The Honorable 
Elijah Muhammad, until 1975, asked for some Southern states, some land 
that we could call our own, and for America’s government to take care of 
our financial needs for the next 20 years until we could go for self.  
His prayer fell on deaf ears. 

 

What has happened in the last 33 years to make you think that the 
American government has changed the unequal relationship?  Katrina, 
Rodney King, Jena 6, and the Sean Bell cases are just a few examples of 
the racial animosity in America.  Yes, Congress did apologize for 
slavery recently, however this apology came in the form of a resolution 
from the House of Representatives only, and is meaningless and 
non-binding, having no force of law.  The Senate and the Judicial and 
Executive branches of government did not support the resolution.  Ain’t 
nothing changed.

 

Why would a Black man run for President of the United States if not to 
aim at solving the “paramount issue” of America and to settle the 
question of reparations?  First off, he ain’t Black – presidential 
candidate Barack Obama. My people, do not lose your hopes on him by 
believing in, and voting for, him.  He ain’t Black!  He doesn’t pretend 
even to be one of us.  He is not like you.  He ain’t Black!  We cannot 
say he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  No, he doesn’t even pretend that 
he is like you.  It appears that He wants to be white, but he ain’t 
white either.  He, presidential candidate Barack Obama, dismisses our 
claim for reparations.  He states words to the effect: reparations 
should go into a fund for better schooling for all. He ain’t Black!

 

All people in America have not suffered 400 years of plantation slavery 
and its lingering effects, including Presidential candidate Barack 
Obama.  He was raised in a white environment by white people.  He even 
claims Presidential candidate John McCain to be his cousin.  What I’m 
getting at is Barack Obama does not have the mindset of a Black person 
that has suffered the effects of plantation slavery.  He does not have 
the same feelings as the children of slaves. He does not know the extent 
of that pain and has no idea of what it is like to be uprooted from 
one’s identity, or to live the life of a dead man with no human rights.  
(In his speech, he treated our call to America for equal justice as if 
we, Afrodescendants, do not exist.) 

 

Secondly, one element of reparations, where we are concerned, is to not 
only receive a paycheck, but to have our human rights restored and 
recognized, thus regaining lost ties or partially lost ties, joining on 
to each other to become a human family once again (ethnogenesis), having 
the recognition of the United Nations and enjoying the human dignity 
that other families of the earth enjoy.  Human families such as the 
Chinese, Korean, Iranian and Japanese still have their mother tongue, 
culture and religion.  Our mother tongue, culture and religion were, by 
force, taken from us during the sojourn into plantation slavery and its 
lingering effects.  We were robbed of our essential essence, and we 
still are.  Does the democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama not 
want us to have this?  We well know that the United States Government 
does not want us to have our essence, does not want us to join on with 
one another and become a human family once again, from its conduct 
exercised in the United Nations, in 2005.

 

Some countries in the United Nations want Afrodescendants (so-called 
African-Americans) to have their human rights and to be restored to the 
human families of the earth.  How do I know?  Because I, Silis Muhammad, 
have been there in the United Nations for the last fifteen years, 
talking to, and observing UN officials as they demonstrated their 
concern for the human rights of Black people, Afrodescendants. They have 
provided Sub-Commission sanctioned seminars in Honduras and Peru, and 
collected leaders of Afrodescendants throughout North America, South 
America, Central America, and the Slavery Diaspora (some 250 million of 
us) in an attempt to place us under one umbrella.

 

I also was present in the United Nations when the Human Rights 
Department was torn down.  I know, first hand, what the United States 
did to tear it down because they did not want us, and over 210 million 
Afrodescendants, to have our human rights.  The U.S. government tore it 
down along with the help of other governments from around the world who 
had similar problems.  Though China, Iran, Russia, Korea, India, Norway, 
Ukraine, Chile-- many African and Asian countries and other like 
governments of the world who do not hold 250 million Afrodescendants 
from their human rights and reparations, opposed this, the Human Rights 
department was destroyed!

 

Where does presidential candidate Barack Obama stand on this issue?  
Solidly behind the United States government, as is evidenced in the New 
America Media article, “McCain and Obama Make Reparations a Campaign 
Taboo.”  Does Barack Obama seek a change in the United States’ denial of 
human rights for Afrodescendants, since his campaign platform is 
change?  Emphatically, no! According to the Scripture, the people who 
suffered 400 years of slavery are to, afterwards, leave their slave 
master with great substance … according to the Scripture.  Barack Obama 
supports the United States’ denial of reparations and human rights for 
Afrodescendants.  Like the United States, Presidential candidate Barack 
Obama does not want reparations for Afrodescendants. He says that a 
better remedy for America is for ALL to get better education, 
healthcare, welfare, and so on.  But ALL are not suffering the 
psychologically damaging effects of plantation slavery and its lingering 
effects. 

 

My people, and governments of the world, Presidential candidate Barack 
Obama is America’s great illusion, a false hope for Black people, and is 
being used to hoodwink the world into making it believe we all have 
equal rights.  And we really do not.  While the platform of Presidential 
candidate Barack Obama is change, he makes taboo the issue of 
reparations-restoration on the campaign trail.  The mere fact that 
reparations is made a taboo on the campaign trail, by both Barack Obama 
and John McCain, is proof that it is an issue on the minds of the 
American people; or, that the major issues of Afrodescendants are once 
again swept under the table.

 

Reparations-restoration is on the tongue of every minor grass-roots 
leader of Blacks in America, and it is on the tongues of some major 
leaders of Blacks.  To be sure, reparations-restoration is, at present, 
a household word within the Black and white communities.  I say to the 
real friends of fundamental principles of civil liberty – freedom, 
justice and equality – to the world over, and to my people, ain’t 
nothing changed, and nothing will change, until you change it! 

 

Silis Muhammad
Chief Executive Officer
Lost-Found Nation of Islam