[cure-news] Greens make the case for reparations

[Ida Hakim]

On the eve of a major US House hearing on HR 40, Greens make the case 
for reparations for the descendents of slaves

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty at greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene at gp.org

WASHINGTON, DC -- On the eve of a major House hearing on the subject, 
Green Party leaders called for reparations for the descendants of slaves 
and a national discussion on how reparations should be implemented.

The hearing will take place on Thursday, December 6, before the United 
States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn 
Building in Washington, DC. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chair of the 
committee, is the sponsor of HR 40, the Reparations Study Bill .

"The most effective way to show the nation's regret for centuries of 
stolen labor is to make restitution," said Alfred Molison, co-chair of 
the Green Party's Black Caucus and a Texas Green. Mr. Molison noted that 
the Green Party of Texas and the Harris County Green Party have adopted 
a statement calling for the study of reparations as part of their platforms.

"The history of Jim Crow laws, enforced poverty and segregation, and the 
denial of human rights show that the ideology on which slavery was 
founded didn't disappear after emancipation, with lasting effects on the 
lives of African Americans. Red-lining in housing and job discrimination 
occurred within recent memory, persisting even after the 1964 Civil 
Rights Act. The targeting of black people for incarceration in the War 
on Drugs fills up cells and provides dirt-cheap labor for the prison 
industry and associated corporate contractors -- a new form of slavery. 
The obstruction of African American votes in the 2000 and 2004 elections 
and the treatment of black people in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane 
Katrina reveal the same ideology at work," added Mr. Molison.

The Green Party -- unlike the Democratic and Republican parties -- 
endorses reparations in its national platform .

In 2006, Greens expressed their support for a lawsuit that would hold 
Brown Brothers Harriman, a major US financial corporation, liable for 
its involvement in the slave trade .

"The call for reparations is a call to revive the unfinished work of the 
Reconstruction after the Civil War," and to correct the abuse of 
America's criminal justice system in the form of the War on Drugs," said 
Clifford Wallace Thornton, Jr, national co-chair of the Green Party, 
Connecticut Green Party co-chair, and co-founder of Efficacy, Inc. . 
"The Reconstruction was interrupted when Southern states began to pass 
anti-black Jim Crow laws, while at the same time the Supreme Court 
granted corporations rights as persons under the 14th Amendment, which 
was originally passed to protect freed slaves."

"The Green Party seeks to restore human rights where they belong -- to 
humans. Reparations were part of the Reconstruction, and Greens insist 
that reparations are essential today in the movement for equality, human 
rights, and democracy," said Mr. Thornton.

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Mon Dec 10 18:15:11 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Mon Dec 10 18:15:12 2007
Subject: [cure-news] Group says U.S. failing to comply with treaty to end
	discrimination
Message-ID: <475DD68F.5000103 at reparationsthecure.org>

December 10, 2007

Group says U.S. failing to comply with treaty to end discrimination
By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press Writer
 
ATLANTA - The United States is ignoring glaring and persistent racial 
disparities in this country, according to a report submitted on Monday 
by a coalition of social justice and human rights groups.

The U.S. Human Rights Network, cited the treatment of Hurricane Katrina 
victims, discrimination in the criminal justice system including 
incarceration and police brutality and unfair treatment of immigrants, 
as some of their concerns. The group said the U.S. is failing to comply 
with its obligations under the International Convention on the 
Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, an international 
treaty that carries the force of law in the U.S. and was adopted by the 
country in 1969.

The report was filed with the United Nations committee that monitors 
compliance with the treaty.
"Our analysis reveals that the Bush administration is utterly out of 
touch with the reality of racial discrimination in America," said Ajamu 
Baraka, executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network. "The State 
Department report reads like a fantasy...that is too often experienced 
as a nightmare for Americans of color."

In its report, submitted in April, the State Department said the U.S. 
"has made significant progress in the improvement of race relations over 
the past half-century."

"Due in part to the extensive constitutional and legislative framework 
that provides for effective civil rights protections, overt 
discrimination is far less pervasive than it was in the early years of 
the second half of the Twentieth Century," the report reads. "As the 
United States continues to become an increasingly multi-ethnic, 
multi-racial, and multi-cultural society, many racial and ethnic 
minorities have made strides in civic participation, employment, 
education, and other areas."

The report acknowledged challenges in overcoming racism in America, 
including an increase in legal and illegal immigration and "subtle and 
overt forms of discrimination reflecting attitudes that persist from a 
legacy of segregation, ignorant stereotyping, and disparities in 
opportunity and achievement." The State Department report also cited "a 
lack of understanding by the public of the problem of racial 
discrimination, a lack of awareness of the government-funded programs 
and activities designed to address it and a lack of resources for 
enforcement."

Among the U.S. Human Rights Network's concerns, the State Department's 
report does not mention the race and poverty related impacts of 
Hurricane Katrina, ignores police brutality and racial profiling, does 
not attribute racial disparities in incarceration rates to the 
cumulative impacts of racial disparities in the treatment of minorities 
in the criminal justice process and does not acknowledge widespread 
racially and ethnically targeted law enforcement practices such as 
rounding up and interviewing non-citizen Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.

In short, the U.S. is not being held to the same standards of 
accountability as other countries, Baraka said.

"The U.S. promotes itself as a defender of human rights, yet it has 
within its own borders these ongoing human rights issues," he said.

Understanding racial discrimination as a human rights issue puts the 
issue in an international context, Baraka explained, adding that many 
citizens are unaware of the treaty and that government officials do not 
understand their obligations under the treaty.

"If you don't know your rights, then you cannot claim them," Baraka 
said. "This administration and others have not done their due diligence 
in publicizing the existence of this human rights framework."

Instead, Baraka said, the government has hidden behind the Constitution, 
arguing that the country's laws adequately address racism and 
discrimination.

According to the State Department report, information about human rights 
is "readily available" in the U.S., as the issue is discussed in the 
media, debated by political parties and litigated in the judicial 
system. The government said it has also used the Internet to distribute 
information in multiple languages, and its report to the U.N. committee 
is available online.

The treaty committee will meet in February to review reports from around 
the world, including the United States and will question the government 
on its compliance with the treaty.
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Tue Dec 18 08:36:24 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Tue Dec 18 08:36:28 2007
Subject: [cure-news] CURE statement to HR 40 Subcommittee hearing December 18
Message-ID: <4767DAE8.5080108 at reparationsthecure.org>

CURE
Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation

December 18, 2007

The Honorable Jerrold Nadler
The Honorable Trent Franks
Subcommittee on the Constitution,
  Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
House Committee on the Judiciary
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

On behalf of Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation, CURE, 
we write to urge your Subcommittee's favorable recommendation on HR 40.  
We believe this resolution is a vital, if modest, first step in 
addressing the longstanding conflict between the stated values of our 
nation and our history of trans-generational chattel slavery and 
subsequent racial and economic discrimination against the descendants of 
enslaved Africans.

CURE is a non-profit membership organization founded in 1992, organized 
under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, representing over 
125 members from twenty plus states across the United States, as well as 
supporters in Canada and the United Kingdom. We define ourselves, in our 
Statement of Beliefs, as "an organization of white Americans, (who) 
express our deep remorse for the ongoing wrongs committed by our people 
against Black men, women and children in the U.S. and throughout the 
Diaspora who are descendants of enslaved Africans."

As white Americans, we understand the need to repair the damage left by 
our nation's institutional commitment to slavery and other 
manifestations of the ideology of white supremacy. The Commission to 
Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act asks only for a 
Commission to be established to examine and determine whether an apology 
should be offered, whether the effects of enslavement still linger and 
afflict Black communities, whether any compensation should be offered 
and if so, in what form and to whom.  We see this as an extremely modest 
request of a government that funded its very founding with a tax on the 
importation of slaves.

In Section 5 of the proposed HR 40, federal agencies are required to 
furnish all information requested by the Commission to the extent 
permitted by law. We would urge the consideration by this Committee of 
an amendment in section 5 which would explicitly urge agencies of State 
governments to grant similar cooperation. Such cooperation would go a 
long way to helping this Commission uncover the extent of our nation's 
crimes against humanity that the institution of slavery represents.

We see no need at this time to attempt to recount, however inadequately, 
the horrors of the institution of slavery or today's ramifications to 
the descendants of enslaved Africans. Experts will testify in far 
greater ways than we could express in this brief letter.

Within this letter we step forward to assert only that the onus for 
redressing our nation's historical crime of slavery has been, and 
continues to be, upon the white citizens who have long benefitted from 
slavery and its lingering effects. For as long as we white citizens, as 
a class, continue to receive benefit from slavery and receive the 
advantage and privilege attributed to us by Jim Crow segregation and the 
racial discrimination and racial prejudice that endure to this day, we 
will be denied a just and equitable society.

We decry the obstacles to equitable personal and collective 
relationships with African Americans due to the fact that justice has 
been denied. We shudder at the thought that a Commission must be 
established to study whether an apology is due when we know, in fact all 
Americans know, an apology was due centuries ago. We decry the economic, 
social and cultural privileges that slavery and our history since have 
given us, as unearned privilege corrupts our humanity.

We wish to thank Chairman Conyers and Co-Sponsors of this resolution for 
bringing this important matter to the Congress. We also want to thank 
the members of this Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and 
Civil Liberties for taking the time to consider this long overdue measure.

Finally, we urge your favorable recommendation that this resolution be 
promptly reported back with a do-pass recommendation to the House 
Committee on Judiciary and from there to the floor of the U.S. House of 
Representatives. We urge as well the support of the Members of this 
Committee for the appropriation of the funds authorized by this resolution.

On behalf of the Executive Board of Caucasians United for Reparations 
and Emancipation and our members and broader support base,

Sincerely,
Ida Hakim, CEO
>From hakimida at reparationsthecure.org  Tue Dec 18 19:50:50 2007
From: hakimida at reparationsthecure.org (Ida Hakim)
Date: Tue Dec 18 19:50:58 2007
Subject: [cure-news] Reparation needed to address transatlantic slave trade
 -Worldwide Faith News
Message-ID: <476878FA.2040208 at reparationsthecure.org>

 From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org
[WARC] Reparation needed to address transatlantic slave trade
 From Worldwide Faith News <wfn at igc.org>
Date Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:02:16 -0800

World Alliance of Reformed Churches News Release 17 December 2007

Joint release with the World Council of Churches and the Council for 
World Mission

Reparation needed to address transatlantic slave trade

Churches and society at large need to offer reparation to descendants of 
those enslaved, tortured and murdered by the transatlantic slave trade, 
says an international conference sponsored by three major ecumenical 
organizations.

The three organizations include the World Council of Churches (WCC), the 
World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Council for World 
Mission (CWM).

Sixty theologians, church leaders and activists from Africa, the 
Caribbean and the Americas attended the event called "Abolished, but not 
Destroyed: Remembering the Slave Trade in the 21st Century" held 10 to 
14 December in Runaway Bay, Jamaica.

The conference marked the 200th anniversary of the passing of the 
Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of the British House of Commons. 
Between the 16th and 19th centuries an estimated 15 million Africans 
were forcibly removed from their homes and shipped across the Atlantic 
Ocean to become slaves in the Caribbean and the Americas.

"Many churches were actively involved in the transatlantic slave trade 
in Africans and colonialism; hence the church's mission has been 
seriously compromised and betrayed by its historic complicity with two 
of the most blatant forms of oppression that occurred within the 16th 
and 19th centuries," the statement says.

"Further, the church's pastoral and prophetic roles in the contemporary 
period are obstructed by its voluntary amnesia about its corporate sin 
and silence regarding the past - as well as regarding the present - 
responsibility to bring justice to those still suffering from the legacy 
of the transatlantic trade in Africans.

"While there have been some acts of repentance and confessional 
statements made by some churches, for the most part those statements 
have not been effective enough in eradicating white supremacy, systemic 
racism and the ongoing legacy of the transatlantic trade in Africans."

The international conference called on churches that were complicit in 
the slave trade to name the trade - and other modern forms of slavery - 
a sin. The conference stated that reparation is needed by both church 
and society but that reparation is much more than a financial issue.

"The process of reparation requires the restoration of relationships 
that affirm the dignity and humanity of all parties in order to repair 
what has been broken. Reparation also challenges the perpetrator to 
confession and repentance and minister restoration and healing to those 
who have been exploited.

"The transatlantic trade in Africans destroyed the roots of nation 
building and enriched the oppressors to build their nations and states. 
Thus, we believe that mere financial aid is no replacement; rather, full 
nationhood and community restoration of peoples impacted should be the 
condition of reparation."

WCC representative Adele Halliday of Canada said that the challenge now 
is to move beyond statements and make the issues discussed in Jamaica 
tangible in the church. Added Lois McCullough of the United States, 
another WCC representative, "Churches need to atone and act."

Jennifer Ayana McCalman of Nevis, a CWM delegate, said, "What has been 
done in one generation has effects in the generations following. If we 
don't deal with these consequences from the slave trade then we, the 
church, are living in denial."

WARC general secretary Setri Nyomi, who also attended the event, 
expressed thanks for the collaboration with WCC and CWM.

"The statement sends a strong message challenging churches to look at 
their own past complicity in the evil of slavery and the slave trade and 
be at the forefront of exposing modern forms of slavery and oppression 
of people based on caste, race, gender or economic status," Nyomi said.