[cure-news] Response to Mr. Capehart’s Washington Post Op-Ed

[Ida Hakim]

Response to Mr. Capehart?s Washington Post Op-Ed
by Queen Mother Dorothy Benton Lewis

Mr. Capehart,?profound contrition? is not an apology.  It is a 
demonstration that we are dealing with the same mindset and worldview 
that held slavery in place for centuries, including right up to the 
present day.  Much like the lawmaker from Minnesota who said he would 
vote for slavery today if his district wanted it. These closet 
confederates who can?t apologize would do the same thing.  Many of them 
have enslaved again already by virtue of the positions they have taken 
on drug laws and the criminal justice system, voting rights, and the 
like.  It also shows their ignorance, if they think that by not 
apologizing they will get off the hook for paying reparations.  

Some Black people are so desperate to placate Massa and get past any 
uncomfortable conversation with their white friends that they will 
accept a non-apology for slavery, even after Massa has called in his 
best scribes to ensure that it is not an apology. Why is it that we 
think that Americans can?t handle a serious conversation among fellow 
citizens about their own history? We don?t seem to have problems 
dropping bombs on people to get justice.

Indeed, Afrodescendants who have lived under the daily institutionalized 
and state sponsored and protected  terrorism by US police, CIA, FBI, 
agents, and agencies, know well that the refusal to apologize is in FACT 
the refusal to end the ongoing terrorizing of African people. It is an 
awareness and acceptance of the continuing war against African people 
from which White people still profit at the expense of African misery.  

African enslavement in America is alive and well in the U.S. criminal 
justice system and has surpassed the number of those in bondage when 
Africans were supposedly emancipated in 1865.  The U.S. Constitution 
provided an escape clause to foreclose African freedom by criminalizing 
Africans and re-routing them through the criminal justice system. 
African people have been on a fast track to re-enslavement and 
disenfranchisement ever since.

The U.S. Government is demonstrating by their deeds that African people, 
whether in Africa or under their jurisdiction, have no rights that a 
White man, government, or business are bound to respect.  Neither the 
USA nor the Europeans have any moral authority or inherent moral 
capacity to do right by African people. It has taken 500 years for 
Europeans to begrudgingly acknowledge that the African Holocaust/War of 
Enslavement was a crime against African humanity, and they simply can?t 
feign an ounce of remorse sufficient for an authentic sounding apology.

The U.S. Government has always had the power and tools to create a 
climate of peace and security for African people in the USA, but has 
only used its power to create a climate of war, hatred, and fear to 
implement policies that lead to the re-enslavement and 
disenfranchisement of African people.  Now this unapologetic Congress 
wants an African Command in Africa under the pretext of protecting 
Africans from terrorist.  Ha!

And for the rare breed in Congress who wish to show an ounce of 
humanity, Mr. Capehart takes issue with some language that speaks to 
rectifying the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against 
African-Americans.  Why does he take issue?  His answer: It would raise 
more questions than answers.  Then he proceeds to ask a string of 
kindergarten questions that the slightest research would reward.

?Who would be eligible? (Would Sen. Barack Obama, who is half white 
Kansan and half black Kenyan? Or Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire?) Who 
would decide? (I can hear the blacker-than-thou crowd scrambling for 
seats at that table.) What form would reparations take -- money, land, 
tax credits, something else? How much would it be worth? How would it be 
paid? I have more questions than I have space to ask them. Trying to 
answer just those five would be bound to tear at the brittle fabric of 
national unity.?  

Mr. Capehart, there is no national unity. There hasn?t been any since 
Europeans arrived here, slaughtered the Indigenous people, dragged 
Africans across the Atlantic and terrorized them into submission for 
centuries, interned Japanese Americans, excluded Chinese Americans 
everywhere possible, broke all Indian treaties, set Africans out at the 
mercy of former slavers without land, reparations, or resources to 
address their pain.  Reparations is not about unity. It is about justice.

Where have you been for the past 30 years? Where have you been for the 
past three years? Do you know David Horowitz? He asked and about 50 
people answered all those kindergarten questions. Maybe you should read 
a few books on the subject before you attempt to speak for everyone, 
anyone.  Attend an N'COBRA conference, visit a few websites, do a little 
research.   How dare you write off a debt for an entire people and you 
haven?t read at least one book on the subject, been to google.com, or 
done any critical thinking to answer any of your own questions?  

Don?t worry about Mr. Cohen jump starting a movement for reparations, 
it?s already on.

For those of you who don?t know enough about reparations to answer your 
own questions, do your homework before you open your mouth to talk about 
it.  If you have questions, find the answers to them yourself.  You may 
find some healing in the process.

Here are some areas of reparations that we can deal with immediately. We 
can clean up our language and rectify some misleading terminology. For 
example, there are no African slaves. They were enslaved African men, 
women, and children, prisoners of war, captives. Stop referring to 
Africans as slaves, C-SPAN, CNN, Washington Post, historians, 
journalists etc.

There was no Transatlantic Slave Trade.  People are not property to be 
traded. It was an African Holocaust/War of Enslavement taking place on 
several fronts. Millions of people died, were tortured, hung, burned at 
the stake, nailed to the cross. It was evil, pure and simple.

Slavery was not legal. There was no international law governing 
savagery, barbarity, land theft, and trafficking in people. Africans and 
the rest of the world were not European subjects, under European 
jurisdiction.  Slavery was/is a crime against humanity.  It was 
international gang banging, race war against Black and Indigenous 
peoples of the world.

Your dismissal of reparations shows that you are possessed with the same 
White supremacist tendency to dehumanize African people.  African people 
can go through hell and you will accept a non-apology as paid in full.   
But other human beings are worthy of reparations.  Or perhaps you don?t 
really think that African people are human beings yet, and worthy to be 
treated like other human beings who have suffered a great tragedy?  We 
have a Federal Day of Remembrance for the European Jewish Holocaust but 
we don?t have a Day of Remembrance or an apology for the African 
Holocaust in America.

Those of us in the reparations movement are not trying to break down 
racial barriers and become a part of some beautiful ethnic swirl.  Our 
lives are at stake. Our survival as a people is at stake. We are 
claiming our humanity. We are claiming our memory. We want our land 
back, and our nationality that we never gave up. We are demanding 
respect; we are insisting that the truth be told. We are tired of living 
a lie. We are tired of living under the evil of White Criminal 
Supremacy. We are saying end the war against the African community. We 
are saying stop the genocide of African people.  We are saying stop 
shooting our people down in the streets like rats; we are saying there 
will be a day of reckoning and everybody who owes will pay.  And if you 
are not a part of the injured class, you can?t speak for the class.  If 
you are a part of the class, but you are not injured and you don?t want 
reparations, shut up and get out of the way of those who do.
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Sat Apr 21 10:28:03 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Sat Apr 21 09:23:38 2007
Subject: [cure-news] Kirk Douglas wants national apology for slavery
Message-ID: <462A3B93.5040902 at reparationsthecure.org>

KIRK DOUGLAS WANTS NATIONAL APOLOGY FOR SLAVERY:
Actor believes recent apologists North Carolina should lead the effort.
April 17, 2007

Perhaps best known for slaying Roman oppressors as the rebellious slave 
Spartacus in the legendary 1960 Stanley Kubrick film of the same name, 
Kirk Douglas has recently turned attention toward the history of 
enslaved Africans in America.

The 90-year-old actor and stroke survivor is among the contingent of 
American citizens who believe the nation owes African Americans an 
apology for the practice of slavery.

On Friday, he posted a statement on the MySpace page for his book ?Let?s 
Face It? to explain his position: He writes: ?Let's face it -- the world 
is in a mess! The younger generation will inherit that mess, what can we 
do to help them? At 90 years of age, I'm living on "the house's money" 
and I don't intend to buy "green bananas." But what about the kids who 
will replace us? What can we do to help them?

?I wrote a book that I dedicated to my grandchildren and the younger 
generation. They must know now that our country needs to take inventory. 
What causes suicide bombers, corruption in our top business officials, 
inefficient bureaucrats that can't deal with Katrina, deficits, schools, 
border patrols? Lots of problems.

?I don't have any easy solutions to offer but I can suggest the goal 
that we must strive to reach -- a strong nation filled with caring 
citizens. Let's not try to spread democracy by military might, but by a 
good example.

?Let's start by apologizing for our mistakes. First, we need an apology 
for slavery. Recently, the Jews celebrated the holiday, Passover. That 
commemorates the time when we were slaves in Egypt -- over 3,000 years ago.

?It was a much shorter time ago that human beings were wrenched from 
their families and their lands, put into the hold of a ship and carried 
to a far off country to become slaves. Thousands of young Americans were 
killed in a war to end slavery, but did the Civil War end it? Cruelty 
and discrimination existed long after the war. The examples are too 
numerous to mention. It is less now, but it still exists.

?I suggest that our offspring work to reach a national apology with that 
heinous error. The apology should be accompanied by a "Marshall Plan" in 
Africa. Let's try to help eliminate the poverty, starvation, genocide, 
AIDS that plagues the country where we captured our slaves. Let the 
world see that we really care about others and have the courage to admit 
our mistakes.

?I am encouraged to see that North Carolina is leading this apology. The 
State Senate expressed ?regret for the practice of slavery and 
apologized for promoting legalized discrimination.? Larry Shaw told his 
fellow senators, ?When you dehumanize a human being it's one of the 
worst things you can do.?

?I hope our future citizens will follow up and lead to a national 
apology for all African-Americans. There must be a national museum of 
that period to remind the world of man's inhumanity to man. Maybe 3,000 
years from now, the African-Americans will celebrate a holiday, like 
Passover, to remind them that they were once slaves and their Moses, 
Martin Luther King Jr. helped to free them.?