AFRO-DESCENDANTS IN THE SLAVERY DIASPORA STILL NEED HUMAN RIGHTS

 

Despite heroic struggles and sacrifices made by African Americans, as a people we are still not afforded the same dignity and the same human rights as other human families throughout the world. For the past 20 years, Mr. Silis Muhammad, CEO of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, has led a distinguished and diverse team into battle at the United Nations. Under the organization AFRE (All For Reparations and Emancipation) this team has brought about global awareness of Afro-descendants as one diverse family in need of recognition and human rights.  The Speaker’s Bureau of AFRE will give a combined lecture on Saturday, June 21, 2008 at the Association for Black Cardiologists International Library and Convention Center, 5355 Hunter Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30349.  The sessions are free but you must RSVP, as space is limited.  For more information, log onto www.AllForReparations.org and click Calendar.  Then simply fill out and submit the RSVP form.

Cynthia McKinney Statement on the Sean Bell Verdict

Cynthia McKinney
Statement on the Sean Bell Verdict
April 26, 2008

“[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit  to associate with the white race, either in social or political  relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line.  So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.

Interestingly, according to Attorney Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement’s International Secretariat, the criminal justice system in this country “always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people.”  Indeed, police officers seem to know that they can kill certain people with impunity.

Just in New York City alone, Wareham rattles off the murders that have defined police-”communities of color” relations over two generations:

Clifford Glover, 1972
Louis Baez, 1978 shot (22 times)
Randolph Evans, 1979
Eleanor Bumpers, 1985 (a grandmother)
Amadou Diallo, 1999
Patrick Dorismond, 2003
Sean Bell, 2006

Sadly, New York City isn’t the only city, with this plague.  In 2001, the Dayton Daily News reported that Cincinnati topped the list of police killings of Blacks, having had 22 people shot, 13 fatally.  All black men.  Three unarmed.  Plus two additional deaths due to police use of chemical irritants.

The 2001 “Cincinnati Intifada” lasted for three nights after a white police officer murdered an unarmed black teenager.  Timothy Thomas was the fifteenth black male killed by Cincinnati police over a six-year period.  I traveled with Ron Daniels and others to Cincinnati to support the call by black residents, including Reverend Damon Lynch III and 36 other ministers, for a boycott of that city.  Still reeling from the effects of the boycott, Cincinnati made headlines again in 2003 when the world watched as one black and five white police officers repeatedly beat Nathaniel Jones with batons and then left him in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, only to be pronounced dead later at the hospital.

The “Benton Harbor, Michigan Intifada of 2003″ lasted two nights after the murder of an unarmed black motorcyclist by white police officers.  Adding insult to injury, the residents of majority-black Benton Harbor are reeling under an attempted takeover of the last “undeveloped” beachfront property on Lake Michigan.  The residents are under attack by the Whirlpool Corporation, that wants to develop “Benton Shores” and move all of the residents completely out of the town.  The purported goal of the development is to turn Benton Harbor into one of the “hottest vacation destinations in the country,” to include a members-only indoor water park, and a Jack Nicklaus golf course.  According to Reverend Edward Pinkney, the valiant leader who is trying to save Benton Harbor for the people, Harbor Shores will result in a complete takeover of Benton Harbor, a city that is 96% Black.  Reverend Pinkney has been in jail since December 14, 2007 on trumped- up charges including violation of probation, for writing an article calling the chief judge racist.  Mrs. Pinkney called the Office of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to ask for justice for the residents of Benton Harbor and for her husband.  Shockingly, Chairman Conyers refused Mrs. Pinkney’s plea to get involved in this heroic struggle of a 96% Black community in his own state.  When I visited Benton Harbor, it was clear to me that Reverend Pinkney has the full support of the area’s residents, black and white, as they struggle to maintain the character of their community.  Reverend Pinkney is recognized by the people as true hero and occupies a jail cell because of it.

Finally, however, someone broke the silence and admitted it.  Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, “Breaking Rank,” that white police officers are afraid of Black men.  He develops this theory in a chapter of the book entitled, “Why White Cops Kill Black Men.”  Finally:  a hint of truth coming from the other side.  In a June 16, 2005 interview with the Looking Glass News, Stamper says that he personally believes “that white cops are scared of black men.  The bigger or darker the man, the more frightened the white cop.  I can’t shake that; it’s a belief I will take to the grave.”

So while the corporate press would have us believe that reporting on what a former Vice Presidential nominee says about a Presidential candidate is a discussion of race, the prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people.  That fear apparently extends to the larger community because juries construct ways to let murderous police officers escape just punishment.

Roger Wareham, and the December 12th Movement International Secretariat raise, inside the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, the details of the type of police abuse in which a 92-year old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, is murdered by police in Atlanta, Georgia and her family still has not seen justice or been made whole.  Or where a young black male, also in Atlanta, can be sitting in his mother’s car and is murdered because the police presume that the car is stolen.

The December 12th Movement has asked for United Nations Rapporteurs to come to the U.S. on fact-finding missions so that the U.S. can finally be listed as a major human rights abuser and a Rapporteur assigned to this country.  Already, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is coming to the U.S. from May 18 – June 6 and will be in New York City on May 21st and 22nd.  The December 12th Movement is scheduled to have a hearing for him at the Schomberg Center where the issue of police killings will be raised.  The Rapporteur is also scheduled to visit DC, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Mr. Phillip Alston, is conducting a Mission to the U.S. in June.  The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is also interested in reports of police abuse.  If a consistent and systemic pattern of abuse exists (which it clearly does in the United States), the United Nations General Assembly can pass a resolution which helps creates international public opinion and perhaps the political will to stop it.

Certainly, doing the same thing–a cycle of protest without punishment–will net the same results.  Something different must be done.  That’s why I authored legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve.  Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement. Imagine if juries wouldn’t grant impunity to killer cops.

Some of you have written to me suggesting that we do something different:  perhaps a full-scale boycott.  Perhaps a full-scale, all-out political response–something many in this generation have never done before.

Bobby Kennedy always said, “Some men dream of things that are and say why.  I dream of things that never were and say why not.”

It is not impossible for us to have justice.   We don’t have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder.  But, in order to change things, we’re going to have to do some things we’ve never done before in order to have some things we’ve never had before.

Are you willing to entertain that idea?  Today?  Right now?  If we demand more of our elected representatives, I’m convinced we will get it.  And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don’t get what we demand.

To read more of my writings, please visit www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com.
–
“And advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”
PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, p. 60

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.
– Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time

White Reparations Supporters To Have Stronger Web Presence

Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation
PO Box 156, Red Oak, GA 30272
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 
Date: April 23, 2008
Contact: Ida Hakim, hakimida@reparationsthecure.org
 
White Reparations Supporters To Have Stronger Web Presence

Ida Hakim and her colleagues, all white, have made their support for reparations known by publishing a book, and by appearing on radio and television, on college campuses, and at conferences Including those of the United Nations. Now they will have a state-of-the-art website as the flagship for their polite but firm expression of a message they believe white Americans must hear and respond to.

CURE, incorporated in 1992, is one of the oldest and foremost organizations of white Americans for black Reparations.  This week at www.reparationsthecure.org CURE launches a state-of-the-art content management system that will give visitors and members new ability to interact. It will also include a new area on resources for faith communities, a Video of the Month, and expanded links.
           
The new site is the work of Ida Hakim, founder and CEO of the organization, and web designer Hugh Esco, a partner of CampaignFoundations.com, which provides web hosting, IT development and support services to Green Parties and other progressive organizations.

“I wanted to make CURE members more a part of the functioning,” said Hakim in a recent interview from her Georgia home.  Hakim spent the past four months building the site.  “It was a steep learning curve,” reported the 62 year old grandmother; but she is, she said, very excited to have more control of the website.    

A new section, Our Community, gives more details on longtime CURE members, and their social justice efforts, including links to their own websites.
“We wanted to let the world know that persons who support reparations don’t exist in a vacuum,” said Hakim. “They’re broadly committed to justice – and they have identified support for reparations as a major justice responsibility for themselves as whites.” 

CURE members have won Associated Press awards, founded youth centers, launched anti-racist initiatives in their faith communities, trained anti-racist therapists, organized against racial profiling, crafted Amicus briefs for the supreme court, and founded the White Anti-Racist Community Action Network, another web resource for whites opposing racism. These are but a few of the achievements of the members.

Ida added “We also wanted people to know we’re not a bunch of crazies obsessed with one issue.”
  
The website’s section, Dialogue with White America, shows that some people do see CURE members as crazy – or worse.  In a thread of the “Get Over it – This is wrong” forum, one anonymous visitor writes, “You are perhaps one of the most thoroughly disgusting enterprises which I have ever had the misfortune of coming across. Give your selves [sic] a much needed slap in the face.”

Fielding comments like these, as well as more civil if also more challenging ones, has been part of CURE’s role since its founding.  One of CURE’s main commitments is “to educate our white family with patience and respect.”   This commitment will continue on the new site, adding features like the ability to subscribe to a feed, and operating more speedily and in a more user-friendly way. CURE members will also be able to take responsibility for specific sections of the site.

On the newly designed more spacious pages, CURE will continue to offer a speakers’ bureau and listing of relevant news items. Two CURE publications are currently available for sale on the site. One is CURE’s essay anthology, The Debtors: Whites Respond to the Call for Black Reparations.  Also available for purchase is an Amicus Brief filed before the Supreme Court in support of the case of Farmer-Paellmann v. Brown & Williamson, No. 06-1533 (the question at issue being whether the statutes of limitations should be suspended so slave descendants can bring actions for restitution).

A new and unique feature of the site is a Donor Guide. It lists, with links, fourteen organizations CURE has worked with, met, or corresponded with over the years.  Most of them are organizations of descendants of enslaved Africans, each with a different perspective and mission. Here whites are given an opportunity to directly support these groups, with suggestions on how to do so based on CURE’s long history of acting respectfully towards all reparations organizations.

The Resources for Faith Communities section of the site provides faith communities the opportunity to “make transparent their own history with regard to slavery, segregation, racism, discrimination and white privilege.” The first resource to be made available there is a comment by activist minister C. Mark Hollomon, author of “A Scriptural Perspective on Reparations.”  This section Is expected to grow to Include the Increasingly Intense discussion of racism In every U.S. denomination from Unitarian Universalists to Southern Baptists.
 
New technology, new capabilities, new sections, new members, and new energy are revitalizing CURE, which was founded in 1992 in response to the request of a Black Reparations leader.  Ida Hakim said, “I hope when you come here you’ll see your neighbors and friends.  I would like the world to know that white people advocating for black reparations is not a fringe idea.  It’s a very authentic and real form of justice work.  There are many many white people who want to see changes come to pass.  Our entire job is to make it easier for them to be part of those changes.” And with their new site’s April launch, CURE becomes a more vital, more responsive part.  See for yourself at www.reparationsthecure.org. 

 

Reparations to African-Americans: The Only Remedy for the U.S…

REPARATIONS TO AFRICAN-AMERICANS: THE ONLY REMEDY FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S FAILURE TO ENFORCE THE 13TH, 14TH, AND 15TH AMENDMENTS

Edieth Y. Wu

Abstract

This article takes a hard look at U.S. history: the political, the social, and the legal landscape after the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The author wholeheartedly believes that the Reparations dialogue must continue. Many, including well-educated Americans, are solidly divided on this important issue and have taken the position that Reparations should be buried because American slaves are buried. In spite of the difficulties, we must study and question the societal norms that led to major changes in the United States and forge ahead to find a solution to the issues that adversely affect a major portion of America’s citizenry.

Reparations have been used internationally as well as domestically and are not novel theories.

This work by Edieth Y. Wu – University of Connecticut School of Law can be read in its entirety at:  http://lsr.nellco.org/uconn/cpilj/papers/14/

 

Special Event

First Annual Awards & Recognition Banquet
Benefiting
Human Rights for Afro-Descendants
in the Americas and Slavery Diaspora

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Honoring: Mr. Silis Muhammad
of The Lost-Found Nation of Islam as he enters:
70 Years of Life plus 30 Years of Living =
A 100 YEAR CELEBRATION

Hosted By:
Radio and Television Veteran MR. COZ CARSON

Event Held At:
The Association for Black Cardiologists
International Library and Conference Center
Atlanta, Georgia

Agenda:

Panel Education Lecture
9am to 11am and 1pm to 3pm
Free with RSVP

VIP/Author’s Reception
6pm to 7pm

Dinner and Awards Banquet
8pm to 11pm
Tickets $100.00 pp

For information on ticket purchase, sponsor levels, advertisement and exhibit please contact: Tyran Asadi at 404-484-4898

All participation is 100% tax deductible.

Excerpt from “Regional Perspective…”

 

Excerpt from A Regional Perspective on Afro-descendant Quality of Life

 

For centuries, the descendants of Africans enslaved in the Americas, herein referred to as Afro-descendants, have been subjected to numerous forms of discrimination in countries throughout the Trans-Atlantic Slavery Diaspora. From Jamaica to the United States, Cuba to Canada, Guyana to Guatemala, these individuals share a common thread…although their fathers may have come from a tribe in Cameroon and their mothers from a tribe in Nigeria, making them indeed African people, they are unlike other people of African descent around the world in that they cannot use their mother tongue to call upon any government in Africa for support.  Through forced mixed breeding they were deprived of their mother tongue and thereby they are denied the use of it today.  Due to slavery’s lingering effects they speak the language of their slave masters—be it English, Spanish, Portuguese or a mixed language.  This communal history is a determining factor in the quality of life of Afro-descendant communities, underlying the poverty, inadequate health care and unequal access to opportunity that Afro-descendants suffer in the states in which they reside today.

 

Discrimination against Afro-descendants has historically manifested itself in each nation in various ways, and to varying degrees. Still, in most cases, it is born out of a Euro-centric sense of racial, cultural, economic and intellectual superiority, and out of a fear of retribution for the indignities suffered during and as a result of slavery. Those identifying as “white” commonly afford themselves higher social standing than is permitted the descendants of slaves, in part because of Afro-descendant’s slave ancestry itself. With ancestors who were severed from their mother tongue and cultural roots upon being kidnapped, Afro-descendants in the Western Hemisphere today cannot—except in very rare cases—claim tribal membership, point of ancestral origin, language, land rights or equality nor may they enjoy the benefits of their forefather’s labors or experience true human equality. This is despite the fact that enslaved persons were responsible for building much of the infrastructure that presently exists in their respective nations, and for establishing the bulk of agriculture as well. In the state of Georgia (US), taxes charged on each slave were used to fund the state government’s initial treasury.

 

In many states, similar forms of exploitation and unjust enrichment were—and continue to be—implemented and used. Even in nations where Afro-descendants may constitute a numerical majority, they are shown to possess less wealth and political power than those of other races because of such discriminatory practices.

 

Overall, the lingering effects of slavery and race-based discrimination have had an all-encompassing, profoundly negative effect on the descendants of enslaved Africans. Many nations are unaware of the difficulties facing this group, even within the constraints of their own borders. This paper seeks to spread awareness about the multitude of issues that currently face Afro-descendants in the Americas region, by attempting to highlight several factors within the context of this work, among them: the number of Afro-descendants in various countries, examples of discrimination against Afro-descendants and the economic and social conditions that result from such discrimination.

 

The full UN Sub-Commission conference room paper can be found at www.AllForReparations.org.

Reparations & Human Rights

 

I’m confident that Americans have heard just about every issue addressing the past, present and future of Afro-descendants (descendants of enslaved Africans, also known in the U.S. as African Americans.) Reparation has been discussed for a while, yet the umbrella under which reparations and all of the other issues are gathered, the umbrella of human rights, is almost never discussed.

 

While we continue to make remarkable strides, we still are not afforded the same dignity and the same freedoms as other human families throughout the world.  Our original identity, carried forth in language, culture and religion, was removed from us during slavery. Today, in the year 2008, despite our heroic struggles and sacrifices, most of us are still unaware that we have a HUMAN RIGHT to our identity, and we were stripped of that right.

 

We were forced to assume the identity of the people who enslaved us, and that rendered us non-existent – not recognized – under international law. That assumption of another’s identity also rendered us 2^nd class citizens, making us susceptible to other indignities such as racism, exclusion, exploitation, discrimination, racial profiling and unequal protection of the law.

 

For the past 15 years, (so-called) African Americans have been represented by a team of delegates at the international level addressing the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Sub-Commission and the Working Group on Minorities. This team stands on the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which envisages human rights for everyone, everywhere.

 

Led by Mr. Silis Muhammad, CEO of All For Reparations and Emancipation AFRE, the diverse team has represented Afro-descendants at UN sponsored forums in Switzerland, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Canada, and South Africa.  After Mr. Muhammad’s arguments on behalf of Afro-descendants were heard at the UN, experts began to recognize that the UN had an obligation to find a solution us – they had no choice if they wished to uphold human rights for everyone, everywhere.

 

After 20 years of work, and more than 40 occasions wherein Mr. Muhammad spoke at conferences and seminars of the UN, international recognition and establishment of international identity has been accomplished. Using the foundation and legal standing of these achievements, the battle for reparations continues.

 

As you know, the trans-Atlantic slave trade scattered our ancestors across the western hemisphere. Today Afro-descendants constitute a human family stretching far beyond the U.S. into many countries in Northern and Latin America and the Slavery Diaspora. The low estimate of Afro-descendants in the western hemisphere is 250 million.

 

There is a UN Sub-Commission conference room paper entitled A Regional Perspective on Afro-descendantQuality of Life available at www.AllForReparations.org.

I recommend that you read it and learn about the struggles of our human family in the many countries in which we live today.