Tag Archives: racism

Would African American reparations be America’s stimulus package?

January 25, 2014 admin Leave a comment

Would African American reparations be America’s stimulus package?

By: Samori T. Swygert

What would you do if you opened your mailbox, and received a letter from the United States government? The letter read something like this, “a review of historical data by members of various levels of government and the treasury department concluded that being a descendant of African American slaves that were wrongly obtained, detained, forced to slave labor without wages or salary, and subjected to various forms of abuse, we would like to first apologize with sincere honesty and hope you accept the enclosed check for $100,000.00. We are aware that the reward is meager compared to the hardship, disadvantages, and disenfranchisement that has occurred over the years. However, due to rewarding numerous citizens that are eligible for this compensation, restitution, and reparation, we concluded this amount may help lessen the burden and show true contrition for the act of slavery.”

What would you do? The check is ready to be redeemed, cash money!!!

I pose this question because of a conversation a coworker and I had. What would be the best form of reparations? Would the best act of reparation lie in a check for a specific amount of money, free education, work and live as citizens without paying any taxes, or etc? My response to the question has a biblical basis. The book and passage of the bible I would rely on is; Romans 12:2- “and be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”.

This is not a religious blog, but African Americans need a paradigm shift before receiving reparations. I may be accusatory or speculative, but I firmly believe that we have been groomed into an addictive consumer relationship with America. It’s not fair to paint the whole African American population with a broad brush, but you must concur that a great deal of us are groomed to be consumers and not producers. White Americans are large consumers also, but they differ from us because they are also largely the producers, owners and beneficiaries of various markets in the American economy.

I feel that $100,000.00 check would be a stimulus package to White America and other multinational groups. The music, music videos, commercials, magazines and billboard advertisements indoctrinate us to be gross consumers. This would be okay if we owned the majority of the products we consume or the sole proprietor of services we patronize. The truth is we do not own the majority of what we patronize. The contemporary culture overemphasizes and glorifies: luxury cars and aircrafts, designer clothes, top shelf alcohol, expensive electronics (new flat screens, Playstations, iPods, iPads, tablets, and computers), ostentatious jewelry, choicest restaurants, state of the art hotels and resorts, hi-tech fire arms, and then all the accessories, amenities and accoutrements to top off our purchases. Now this is not all blacks!! We must free our minds from consuming the symbols and byproducts of success, and really achieve true success! I am guilty myself, if this helps you settle into the honesty of these statements.

There are questions that need to be asked. How many black owned automobile and aircraft manufacturers exist? How many alcohol breweries and distilleries are black owned? How many cell phone, TV and electronics manufacturers are black owned? How many jewelers are black owned? How many black owned precious metals and diamond minds exist? How many choicest restaurants are black owned and franchised across the nation? How many gun manufacturers are black owned? What was the last black owned hotel or resort you’ve checked into? How many black owned fashion designers do you know and purchase from? What quantity of produce do you purchase from the black farmers? If you are being completely honest with me (keep it 100), your answers to these questions should be, few to none. I’m a pretty good dancer so I’m not trying to step on anybody’s toes, but this is done to force true introspection and self-evaluation. These questions also reveal where our hard earned money is squandered, and where we are creating millionaires by false visions of success and happiness they solicit to us via various mediums. These questions also reveal the various markets that we need to begin to compete in as owners and producers. Why should others take from the black community? Why must our dollars be everybody else’s stimulus package?

In the spirit of the Olympics, I would like to make a comparison of the Olympics to the African American community. In the Olympics, various countries compete for the gold medal in various sporting disciplines (boxing, track, gymnastics, swimming, archery, and etc). In our case, the gold medal translates into the “Black Dollar”. The various sporting disciplines translate into numerous industries (fashion, electronics, communication, recreation, entertainment, food, automobile, and etc). There are so many cultures from various foreign countries within and outside our neighborhood. They’re competing for the “Black Dollar”.

The conundrum is we are underrepresented in the competition for our own money. In lieu of the current economic, educational, and social conditions, we need to transform through the renewing of our mind. We need to begin learning these skills, technologies, business stratagems, and even create new markets and industries. This is the era of the inventor and entrepreneur. Unemployment is high, jobs are being outsourced, incarceration is increased, what are you going to do to get that gold medal? Do you have the innovation to create a new industry and market to captivate the black consumer, and command the black dollar? You have nothing else to lose if you’re already unemployed or underclass.

So we need to transform our minds to conserve our finances, pool our resources, plan and strategize. The chances of receiving reparations seem slim, but we can’t let our disposable income be everyone else’s stimulus package. We need to become more fiscally astute and financially scrupulous. If we do not read, apply our education, and think outside the box, we will be doomed to be permanent consumers, and cemented in the underclass. I’m starting by working on myself now. I just wanted to share my spirit with you, and God Bless!

African American Legacy

Ida B. Wells-Barnett: A real ride or die woman

January 24, 2014 admin Leave a comment

By: Dr. Samori Swygert

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett is one of the most prolific African Americans in the annals and chronicles of United States History. Many people are familiar with her, and conversely, many people are unfamiliar with her. With that being said, allow her to receive her kudos, accolades, and acclaim today.

Ida B Wells was born a slave in 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The nation was already deeply submerged in the Civil War. She would eventually be orphaned because her parents fell victim to the 1878 Yellow Fever outbreak. She demonstrated her courage and independence by supporting herself and siblings as a teacher in Tennessee, and Mississippi up into the age of 29.

You’ll see that Ida B Wells was a trailblazer of African American nonviolent civil disobedience. She demonstrated her disdain for the unjust discriminatory practices that were rampant throughout numerous American institutions. According to my reading, “in 1884 she filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Chesapeake, Ohio, and Southwestern Railroad for forcing her to give up her seat, the second African American after Sojourner Truth to do so”. Sounds eerily reminiscent to Rosa Parks and others right? She did receive money from the case, but the case was later overruled.

The pen is mightier than the sword

Ida began writing volumes upon volumes of articles, editorials, and essays addressing the atrocities and violations that African Americans experienced throughout the period of Reconstruction and beyond. Her pseudonym/pen-name was “Iola”.

She wrote for: The Living Way, Free Speech and Headlight, The New York Age, and countless other newspapers of the day. She was the editor of Free Speech and Headlight for 3 years.

Ahead of her time, she practiced the economic strategy of Boycotting to combat the injustices exacted upon African Americans. This started when 3 of her close friends were “hung from trees, their bodies mutilated, on the outskirts of Memphis”. March 9^th 1892, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William Stewart were the victims of this event. Thomas Moss was slaughtered because he operated a competitive and thriving grocery store across the street from a white-owned grocery store. Thomas’s flourishing business was viewed as an economic threat during Reconstruction.

Ida B Wells redirected that pain and anger into voluminous piercing writings instructing blacks to leave Memphis. She wasn’t as successful as hoped, however that didn’t thwart her mission. She then called for a boycott of the streetcars that operated in Memphis. Reports say “over 2,000 blacks left Memphis, while the streetcars were almost bankrupt by the end of the summer”.

The gravity and impact of the boycott reverberated throughout Memphis and enraged the local white population. They retaliated by incinerating her newspaper office to ashes. Subsequently she absconded to the North.

Undeterred from the attack, she converted the threat into a fuel source for more passionate writings. Their threats only emboldened her mission. She conducted research into hundreds of nationwide lynchings and this generated her book. Her book was entitled, A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States, 1892-1893-1894. This is considered the first statistical database of lynchings. The book debunked the postulated propagandized beliefs of the wild, s*x crazed black men like the movie, BIRTH OF NATION by D.W. Griffith, portrayed about black men. The movie’s intention was to scare white women, incite hate into white men, vilify African Americans, and justify the killings of African Americans.

Ida B Wells’s book infuriated the white demographic so much so they made a public announcement. Here is the quotation: “If the negroes themselves do not apply the remedy without delay it will be the duty of those whom he has attacked to tie the wretch who utters these calumnies to a stake at the intersection of Main and Madison Sts., brand him in the forehead with a hot iron and perform upon him a surgical operation with a pair of tailor’s shears.”

Shaming the nation into submission

Once again she converted all threats to fuel. She traveled to England, Scotland, and Wales in 1893. She vigorously broadcasted the grotesque inhumanities suffered by African Americans in an anti-lynching crusade. Frederick Douglass even published a formal public praise of her diligence in reforming the violent inhumane practices within America.

Time to organize

Ida B Wells was also a cofounder of the NAACP, and is said to have bumped heads with Booker T Washington and other members because she was considered too radical/militant. Eventually the NAACP excused her from leadership. Her service continued, she organized the Negro Woman’s Club of Chicago. She founded the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. She founded the Negro Fellowship League. She founded the Alpha Suffrage Club in 1913. The Alpha Suffrage Club’s aims were to stimulate the move for voting rights of African American women, and debunk the general white woman’s suffrage movement apprehension of African American men receiving voting rights before them.

She married a lawyer and editor, Mr. Ferdinand Barnett, they had 4 children. Even though she was married with 4 children, she traveled through Illinois, Arkansas, and Ohio addressing the race riots that occurred, and fought against segregation in Chicago’s school system with Jane Addams. She also joined in with the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) established by Marcus Garvey.

What kind of coffee was she drinking? zheesh!

It’s imperative that we share these stories of courage with our youth, because African American history is being excluded in the educational curriculums across the nation. Each generation born is a generation that needs this knowledge. The only opportunity that this history is being conveyed is either at an HBCU, rare documentaries, black history month programs, or oral discourse from our elders that are passing away by the bulk in the 21^st century.

Ida B. Wells Barnett REST IN PEACE (July 16, 1862- March 25, 1931)

Source:

The African-American Century by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cornel West, 2000
Fifty Black Women Who Changed America by Amy Alexander, 1999
Great African American Women by Darryl Lyman, 2005

Human and Civil Rights

J. Edgar Hoover’s 3-prong attack on black leadership is still alive today!

November 18, 2013 admin Leave a comment

By: Dr. Samori Swygert

Our black leaders have either been assassinated, incarcerated, or vilified. I was listening to the Warren Ballentine Show last week on the Empowerment Radio Network. Warren had reiterated that statement throughout the show, and it resonated with me because it was the truth.

I think of Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Fred Hampton, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Huey Newton, Geronimo Pratt, and a long list of others that were victims of those 3 MUTING METHODOLOGIES.

Warren also discussed how J. Edgar Hoover (Director of the FBI, and developer of COINTELPRO) had his own plan to stop the rise of a “Black Messiah”. Why are blacks considered a threat just because we choose to improve our situation, establish solidarity, foster camaraderie, develop economic sustainability, and gain equal rights and protection under the law?

That question reminded me of the story of King Herod in the Bible. I won’t go in depth, because you can read it at your personal leisure. However, I will give a brief synopsis.

A Brief Synopsis

Mary and Joseph sought private confines for the birthing of Jesus to avoid public scrutiny, because the conception was nontraditional. The word of Jesus’s birth got back to King Herod, and he sent out 3 wise men to conduct reconnaissance work for him. The 3 wise men arrived bearing gifts to the baby Jesus, and decided not to report back to King Herod. Joseph had a dream that the King would be sending for his family and fled to Egypt to avoid capture. King Herod got word of the betrayal, and then sent out his soldiers to kill each child 2 years of age and younger. This was done to prevent the possibility of any forecasted Messiah of taking his throne, and the deliverance of the people in his kingdom.

Translating this to the Black Experience in America

This seems so pertinent when you translate it to the black experience in America. For centuries a system of racism and white supremacy has dominated the sociopolitical and economic system of America. The barbaric violent system of slavery, and Jim Crow allowed white supremacists and their descendants to accumulate, and amass vast amounts of wealth and power for free, or pennies on the dollar. This imbalance of power resulted in the transfer of generational wealth and inheritance for the families, and friends of those in power. Moreover, even if you were not a slave owner, or even a racist, the system was engineered in way that just because you had white skin you were afforded the privileges, benefits, advantages, and accoutrements of a free society.

When African Americans were “freed” from slavery, that removed all free labor assets, and we became a liability to the system. We were now considered competitors for resources, because our food was no longer rationed, our domain was not a plantation shack, our bodies were no longer a free count for state representatives, and the poor working class whites had to compete.

Time progressed from decades to centuries, we deserved more rights, inclusion, representation, education, and to declare our inherent independent sovereign human rights that are divinely granted to mankind, and not just whites. However, this was considered a threat, and this resulted in vagrancy laws, night riders, Klan raids, nationwide lynching’s, voting restrictions, Eugenics programs, separate and unequal social programs, and etc.

The hunger in the voices for freedom and restitution became louder and more vocal as the quest for our GOD given human rights surged. Many prominent black leaders emerged from these voices. I assume that fear of insurrection, and a nationwide revolution scared many white supremacists who were reluctant to share or relinquish the power and authority they dominated for centuries.

This is the same type of fear King Herod had when he heard of Jesus coming to deliver his people. The same modus operandi that King Herod used to slaughter all children 2 years of age and younger, appears to be the same thought process that white supremacists had with our black leaders. This is the same type of fear and trepidation that J Edgar Hoover felt. What else would make you scared of a “Black Messiah”. This fear spawned a hatred that led to the sociopolitical castration of our black leaders. The moment when it seemed blacks were on the upswing to recalibrating the scales of justice, our leaders were slaughtered like the children under King Herod.

This became a recurrent theme that eventually neutered our drive for justice. This 3 prong attack method of assassination, incarceration, and vilification serves as a conditioning mechanism, because it discourages the black ambition. The potential pool of black leaders is thus diluted because many are afraid to take the helm, and be placed in the crosshairs of this strategy.

The King Herod Effect, and the practices of Hoover are still alive but are executed in a more stealth and subtle manner! Why kill our kids when they can lock them in a private prison for cheap labor? We can vilify and ostracize like the results of Rev. Wright, and Minister Farrakhan, with our TV and social media propaganda apparatus. Moreover, if it’s necessary to kill a generation, then flood our neighborhoods with drugs, guns, negative theme music, close schools and remove resources. That is a recipe for self annihilation, and removes the fingerprints of white supremacy. This profoundly reduces any chance of blacks achieving success and deliverance from our strife and plight.

Furthermore, by no means am I equating President Obama to a “Black Messiah”, but look what type of vitriolic hatred his election brought out of white supremacists. There were 43 white male presidents, and the one moment in history when protocol was broken, all h**l has to break loose? The other question to ask is, “is America paranoid of its’ own karma?” Lastly, this is about racist white supremacists. d**k Gregory always keeps me in check when he breaks down the contribution of John Brown and other whites that have helped through the ages.

THE TAKE HOME MESSAGE: “LET’S PROTECT OUR YOUTH AND LEADERS THAT HAVE A CLEAR VESTED INTEREST IN OUR PROGRESSION!”