Dear Dean Magazine - Issue 2

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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
B L O G C O N T I N U E D "These acts allowed individual white people and white owned corporations to build wealth using Black Americans tax dollars and labor to do so." And there were other land giveaways including: Southern Homestead Act of 1866, Timber Culture Act of 1873, Kinkaid Amendment of 1904, Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, Stock-Rising Act of 1916, Subsistence Homesteads provisions under The New Deal of 1930, and the Small Tracts Act in 1938. In each of these cases Black people were either explicitly denied or prevented by force and intimidation from participating and receiving a fair share of our land. These acts allowed individual white people and white owned corporations to build wealth using Black Americans tax dollars and labor to do so. Black Americans paid Reparations to Europe Twice Black Americans gave Britain and France around $10b to finance their World War 1 efforts. Then in what is commonly known as The Marshall Plan, Black Americans bailed out Europe after World War 2, to help them rebuild after, let us face it, white people went crazy and tried to enslave or destroy the world. The money given from our taxes was $22b or close to $200b in today’s dollars. Black Americans paid Japanese Americans reparations The U.S. government flexed its racist muscle at home during World War 2 by placing eighty-two thousand Japanese Americans in concentration camps. After the war, Black Americans paid Japanese Americans $1.6b, which equal to $3.5b in today’s dollars and was not enough then to make up for the atrocity our fellow citizens endured. In addition, Black Americans also gave Japan $2.2b dollars after World War 2, or $15b in today’s dollars. DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | p.9
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Dear Dean Magazine - Issue 2

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