Survey Shows Most Blacks Favor Slavery Reparations

By Kevin Herrera
News Report
Wave Newspapers

LOS ANGELES — Eighty-nine percent of blacks believe the federal government should offer a combination of cash payments, debt forgiveness and social welfare programs to compensate for the devastating effects of slavery and racial segregation, according to a new survey released Tuesday.

Aimed at unifying a movement that has at times seemed fractured, the Reparations Survey, conducted by the Reparations Research and Advocacy Group, will be used to formulate an articulate platform on reparations that more accurately defines the desires of African-Americans. The platform would then be used in negotiations with the federal government and private corporations that profited from slave labor.

“It will be even more difficult than necessary to try and achieve reparations for black folk without asking black folk what they want,” wrote David Horne, Ph.D., who started the survey in April 2002 while teaching Pan African Studies at Cal State Northridge. “In order to forge a unified national agenda on reparations, the credible results of a sound survey of the black American population is absolutely necessary.”

Volunteers surveyed 6,680 blacks beginning in April 2002. Those who participated in the survey were between the ages of 17 and 80, with over 50 percent being between the ages of 35 and 55. The responses were collected at shopping malls, conferences, political rallies, churches, block club meetings and sporting events.

The survey was conducted in Atlanta, Kansas City, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Ore., San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Columbia, S.C., and Jacksonville, Fla.

Each person surveyed was asked to answer 21 questions related to reparations for African Americans. Questions ranged from “Do you consider yourself an African American, a.k.a., black American?” to “Do you think that the idea of reparations for African Americans is an issue of justice long denied and overdue?” and “Should substantial financial assistance from the U.S. government to African Americans who want to leave this country to live in Africa be a part of any agreed-upon reparations?”

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Comments

[Chris Laurel]

"Low brow, high stakes, crack smoke, black folks...."

I was always against Slavery Reparations. The mere execution of paying them out boggles contemplation. Do I think African-Americans as a class deserve them, though? Yes. Without doubt. We have continually beat that community down. They know we know this. We laugh at Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle because we know they are right. "It's funny, because it's true." But once we turn off the TV or leave the theater, we go back to the status quo, the Prozac, the lifetime of unending therapy sessions we need to help us deal with the fact our society is rotting from the inside out. It's not just our leaders; it's the people who elect them.

It's not just our leaders who barely debate the merits of destroying and rebuilding an entire country, but almost immediately debate the merits of rebuilding one of our own [black] cities? One of the most unique and culturally relevant places we have in this country? It shocks me. I question if this is the kind of society that listens to our forefathers anymore, or if we just listen to their words spun into lies. What has become of us? Do people ask themselves questions like this anymore? $1 billion dollars a day, and most of those fighting and dying are minorities, too. Go figure the white guys running the war never served themselves yet can question everyone else's patriotism. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. And we impeached Clinton over personal indiscretions, ones many of us in our own society are guilty? Remember the conservatives decrying "Travelgate?" That was cronyism and a scandal, and now look at those same individuals. Go figure - Republicans have the same human failings as Democrats. The difference is in the hypocrites who brandish their morality like a weapon at anyone who disagrees with them, or points out their unprincipled actions. It wouldn't frustrate so much if it didn't work. But the American public, in its decay, has suckled up to the hypocrites' teat, hearing what they want to hear, never caring the words rarely translate into principled action.

"Oh, but that's because Things Are Different." No they're not. They never are. I only see history repeating itself.

And we do nothing. We have turned our backs on blacks' problems and we have never kept our word to them. When we finally, reluctantly, started to accept them we said, "Go out there, be equal and good luck." Although we do not want to give them affirmative action or special consideration, or anything more than what everyone else gets in our Darwinian society. Then we wonder why one of their deepest poets was a drug dealer and gangster.

It's because they remember slavery. They remember hundreds of their children and men beaten or hung in the streets of New York City as the Civil War broke out, blamed for wanting their freedom. Isn't that heartbreaking? Even in this city. They remember "40 acres and a mule" which, had we fulfilled that promise, maybe their community would not be in the dire straits it finds itself in today. Instead we freed them, gave them Black Codes, Jim Crow, segregation and ghettoization. Holy Robert Moses! Because of one lousy Supreme Court interpretation, the Bill of Rights was not applied to blacks nationally until the middle of the 20th Century. Barron v. Baltimore. And now the kinds of guys who voted against applying the Bill of Rights nationally will be handing down decisions on our Supreme Court. And I'm not supposed to be frightened? I'm not supposed to yell out about this stuff in class when I hear it?!? Bullshit! A breach of decorum in defense of liberty is no vice, my friends. It's not even a partisan issue. We need to start looking and reading the roots of our country's founding, because it is obvious to me we've forgotten them.

http://accuracyblog.blogspot.com/

[TAMBA KARIM]

you guys realy have a problem.
let sleeping dogslye.
just what is exspected of black folk looking for a free meal ticket as always.
If you lazy ass black-folk in the land of milk and honey are looking for that then we should do the same in africa get real and get a life.
you people suffer an idnetity crissis you dont know wear you belong.I know i am african and i have made the sacifice and effort to endure the daily challanges to work and live out hear.
ITs HIGH TIME YOU SO CALLED AFRICAN AMERICANS OR WHAT EVER YOU REFER TO YOUR SEFLS AS GO TO WEAR YOU REALY BELONG INSTEAD OF SPUNGINGING OF THE GREAT USOFA.
THIS COUNTRY DOSENT BELONG TO YOU THE SLAVE TRADE WAS ABOLISHED LONG-TIME AGO YOU PEOPLE ARE TURNING YOURSELFS INTO SLAVES BY STAYING WEAR YOU DONT REALY BELONG

[dobe]

this website has a interesting view on the reparations issue. Nice shirts too.

http://www.whatisit.be