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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Dec. 21, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------Reparations for African Americans
From a talk by Pam Parker at the Dec. 2-3 Workers World Party conference.
One of the main focuses of the progressive movement here is the struggle against racism and the prison-industrial complex. We should include in this discussion the fight for reparations for African Americans in the United States.
The Party raises the question of reparations world wide as part of our demand for self-determination for all oppressed peoples. Reparations are more than affirmative action. They include money, land and other goods owed for years of abuse and repression.
In the case of African Americans, it would be payment on the debt owed for the vast amount of wealth that was created as a result of slavery.
Of course the bourgeoisie in this country tries to minimize the importance of this issue or twist the argument around to make it appear that oppressed people are looking for handouts. They try this with most everything that's important to the working class. But the world is so small with the explosion of the Internet and other technological advances that there aren't many things the bourgeoisie can get away with anymore.
None of the old arguments are working. The bosses argue that anyone can "make it" under capitalism, if they just work hard enough. What people are discovering in record numbers is that this system is not designed for us all to "make it." What it's designed to do is create super-profits and maintain large numbers of "expendable" people, which help toward that end.
They have discovered that there is so much wealth in this country, but that this system is not designed to allow the equitable distribution of it. And they're angry!
That's why the question of reparations is so important to the anti-racist struggle. It flies in the face of the bourgeois arguments and it does so shamelessly. People are saying, "No, we're not looking for handouts, we're looking for give-backs, and if they don't come soon they'll be take-backs."
The struggle for reparations not only clarifies the reality of racism, but explains how there are still oppressed nations inside the U.S. It's a way to acknowledge that slavery did exist as an economic institution in this country and that the legacy of slavery is still alive.
Don't get me wrong. We can in no way put a dollar sign on slave labor. There isn't enough money in the world to repay the debt owed to oppressed people as a result of slavery and repression. But this fight is an important tool in the broader struggle for self-determination and an end to the oppression of all people.
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