Dear Dean Magazine - Issue 2

B L O G C O N T I N U E D
They were not asking for “free money,” they were
asking for the return of what their labor had given
to America — and what America stole.
Our ancestors wanted a chance. They wanted a fair
shake. They wanted the opportunity to be full
citizens who worked to feed and care for their
families – the same as what we want today.
And they wanted what the former slave owners
got: Reparations.
Reparations is a word that requires a “trigger
warning” for some people, so we are going to start
by reframing how we talk about reparations.
Change:
“U.S. Government paid reparations to ...”
to
“Black Americans paid reparations to….”
Using “Government” causes people to mentally
substitute “White people” because people assume
the owners of America and America’s money as
being exclusively white people.
In fact, Black people are co-owners of the country
and the country’s wealth, even if that wealth is not
in our bank accounts. This simple change, I believe,
will help most people understand one part of our
demand for reparations while also working to
change the incorrect assumption that Black people
are merely riders on the wealth contract in
America.
Now that we have changed how we frame and talk
about reparations. Let us look at all the people and
entities who have received reparations from Black
Americans.
Black Americans paid reparations to former
slaveholders.
The American media holds the
matches that ignites the flames
that spread the hate and racism.
They profit off the misery they
push onto the people.
Former slave owners petitioned the government for
reparations, demanding compensation for losing “their
property” and they won.
Most reports say slaveowners received $300 per lost
enslaved person but that number is incomplete when
factoring in what they *really received in the form of free
labor from the enslaved – men, boys, women, and girls, for
generations. (We will assign monetary value in parts 2 and 3.)
Enforcers of slavery also often received free land, reduced or
no taxes, and profits from enslaved labor… for generations.
Black Americans gave away millions of acres of free land
Almost simultaneously, as America wanted to populate the
western states, Black people gave massive amounts of
western land to settlers (colonizers) as the nation expanded
its footprint, while needing to encourage eastern and
southern people to go west.
Black Americans gave white settlers 160 million acres of
land under the Homestead Act starting around 1862 for the
nation, but it started earlier in Washington and Oregon.
DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | p.8