The Two America's and the Discussion of Reparations

The discussion of reparations is not a discussion that should be attributed to White people owing Black people money, but of AMERICA, a nation that was built upon the backs of Slaves, acknowledging that it never compensated her slaves or their descendants for raping them from their land, with millions never surviving the journey through the middle passage and being thrown overboard or jumping into the sea.

Then being bought and sold as property, taken and forced into uncompensated labor, being considered as property, not people, raping their women, tearing apart their families, keeping them from learning and providing for their own survival and well-being for hundreds of years, producing generations of thing-oriented human beings, then releasing these brain washed ancestors of ours, only after she (America), was forced to do so, by the outcry of the decency and human sentiment of the few abolitionists, and eventually a whole army of northern soldiers, eventually emancipating them into the open winds of the hot summer Sun, or the cold winter winds, with no compensation or land, or living quarters, forcing them back to their former masters, into the next level up from slavery, the sharecropping system, and the prison system. 

The Making of another America

Then after establishing a whole other America, called Jim Crow, originally established in the south, where slavery thrived.  It was established to keep the races segregated with separate but equal public facilities. However, in reality it was designed to develop them into a permanent underclass, which offered them separate but unequal justice, separate but unequal schools, and separate but unequal economic conditions. And after all of this suddenly came to an end with the Civil rights movement less then 60 years ago, our ancestors were expected to suddenly and immediately be on the same footing with all the other immigrants who came to this country for its opportunity and were given land, given dignity, given liberty, given rights, given freedom and the ability to work to establish stable families, businesses, corporations, and companies to pass on wealth, family and work/reward values and ethics to succeeding generations.  This is what reparations should address, and is most definitely a legitimate and valid discussion that has never been properly addressed in the over 150 years since the ending of Slavery.

The Sons of Former Slaves and the Sons of Former Slave owners.

In Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech we can see the canvas of the racial backdrop of the two distinct histories in America that the lives of those of African descent and those of European descent have been painted upon, and why we see different on this and many other issues in society. That canvas, which is seen in the below paragraph of the speech, shows us the lenses through which each people group sees life.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One lens – the sons of former slave owners – projects a victor’s, advantaged view of life, or a conquerors view of life.  The other lens – the sons of former slaves – projects a victim’s, disadvantaged view, or a conquered view of life.   Until we come together and sit down together at the table of brotherhood to understand how one another thinks and why, we will never understand to decode the racial issues that are keeping us divided.

I hear a lot of people of European-descent say, this person is playing the race card, or he has a victim’s mentality, diagnosing the obvious in despondent African-Americans, as if that person should just snap out of it and “Stop it!” “Enough already!” “Get over it!” some say.  As if legislated racism being done away with, and legal discrimination and segregation being a thing of the past, should automatically make that persons mentality, as a result of those legislative breakthroughs, equal, advantaged or better than their White counterparts.  Whether or not these systems have really been done away with within the heart and soul of this nation is still up to debate on many levels and in many circles.  And to a large degree it’s based on which group you’re talking to.  But even if these systems have been done away with within the soul of our nation it doesn’t automatically change the soul of a person or formerly disadvantaged people group. To overcome a victim’s mentality takes more than liberation.  It takes more than an equal playing field.  It takes sustained victories. 

It takes sustained Victories to overcome a Victim’s Mentality

I played sports all my life, all the way up to Division I college basketball.  Consequently, I’m aware that victories in any sport or in any activity in life takes good coaching, practice, and game time performance, and even then you might fail or lose many games before you start winning.  I’m in my forties now, well on my way to fifty, and after 25 years of adulthood I can truly say I am a victor not a victim.  Not because I haven’t had set backs, or because I haven’t been racially profiled or discriminated against, because I have. I no longer consider myself a victim or disadvantaged however.  Because though I have had some defeats and setbacks in life I’ve also had some victories in life.

My victories came from the fact that I was fortunate enough to have had good coaching (parents and mentors) and good practice (training, and education) and during the defeats I experienced I never let the setbacks make me take a step back.  I remember reading a book by Napoleon Hill in my twenties that said, “A SET BACK IS A SET UP FOR A COMEBACK.”  Therefore, because I refused to give up on life or people the longer I lived and the older I got I learned from my mistakes, failures and opposition as much as from good coaching.  I became renewed in my mind to think like a victor, even in defeat.  What actually took me from a victim to a victor was that I had some opposition, a defense intent on resisting my forward progress, and even some losses that I never gave up, in the midst of, and on my way to a breakthrough in victories.  I never stopped believing that I was more than what I was experiencing, or than what people tried to label me.  Once I eventually broke through to victory, because of the journey to obtaining those victories, I knew how to sustain those victories.

Reparations must help repair our communities

The word "reparations" comes from the root word repair...and it's obvious, from the economics, social and criminal justice issues in our communities, our communities need repairing. And I'm for whoever's serious about helping me (us) repair our communities. If reparations, (depending on what that may look like,) will help us repair our communities, giving us a hand-up, I'm for it....if it's just another hand-out, that has no plan or accountability attached to it (we've already seen how that's worked ) I'm against it.