Appeal to Black Reparations Movement
Join fight for Reconstruction in New Orleans & Gulf Coast
Published Jan 17, 2008 1:31 AM
The following statement was issued by the Rocky Mount, N.C.-based
Black Workers League Reconstruction Commission on Jan. 11.
The reparations movement is an important section of the African American
liberation movement. It is made up of various political and ideological
tendencies and class forces and represents the largest alignment of Black
liberation organizations and activists inside of the U.S. It offers a basic
framework for connecting the struggles of Black people inside the U.S. to the
struggles throughout Africa and the African Diaspora against the continuing
super-exploited and genocide committed against our peoples, lands and
communities by U.S. and global capitalism.
Pan Africanists and internationalists must viewed reparations as a demand
against U.S. and global imperialism for the redistribution of the wealth
amassed from the historical and continuing oppression of Africa and the African
Diaspora.
The demand for reparations is core to the struggle for African American
self-determination, national liberation and for building socialism in the 21st
century. This means that the reparations movement inside of the U.S. must be
anti-imperialist, mass- based, and active in mobilizing Black people and allies
for radical structural changes that address historical problems on national
oppression, and that seek to alter the balance of power in favor of the
struggles against U.S. and world imperialism.
The continuing impact of the Gulf Coast disaster, resulting in the deaths of
hundreds and uprooting thousands of majority Black working class and poor
people, represents the most contemporary example of the U.S. government and
corporate violations of human rights against Black people inside of the
U.S.
It has become a lens to view the national oppression of Black people throughout
the country. It highlights the main features of this oppression—the
underfunding of the infrastructure, gentrification, state repression, political
disenfranchisement, privatization of public services, busting of trade unions,
massive unemployment, oppression of women, massive incarceration and forced
dispersion. Taken together and in their intensity and scope, these atrocities
represent crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide
against Black people in the U.S.
The reparations movement as an alignment of forces has no visible identity in
building national or international support for the struggle for Reconstruction
in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It has not taken up this struggle as a
primary focal point of its work.
Appeals to the U.S. government to pass legislation recognizing reparations for
African Americans, cannot be taken seriously by the masses or the government,
when there is no active struggle by the forces of the reparations movement for
democratic and human rights reforms connected to the struggle for
Reconstruction in the Gulf Coast.
The lack of a program of action has led many to view reparations as a
“pipedream” and a naiveté about the struggle against U.S.
imperialism. Instead of developing an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist mass
consciousness, which is forged through struggle, reparations are being viewed
by many, as a “paycheck” that would enable Black people to better
compete within the capitalist system.
Rebuilding the African American Liberation Movement
Many had hopes that the reparations movement would be that section of the Black
liberation movement, like the Black Power section was during the 1960s, to
serve as the core basis for building the national Black united front bringing
together the various organizations and tendencies around a program of
action.
The World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban, South Africa, in
August 2001, provided a point of international convergence for Africans and
other oppressed peoples of color throughout the world to begin developing an
international framework for the struggle against structural economic, social,
political and environmental racism as a key part of the struggle against global
capitalism/imperialism.
The events of 9/11 and the increased international repression led by the U.S.
in the name of the “war on terrorism” set back the momentum of the
reparations movement that was developing in connection with the WCAR.
This is a period with great dangers as well as opportunities for the
anti-imperialist forces inside of the U.S., particularly the working class and
oppressed nationality political and social movements that are organizing around
critical economic, social and political demands.
All movements, particularly their revolutionary sections, must look for
opportunities to mobilize the masses to break through the fears and to build
mass confidence. The conscious elements must help to organize and give
political direction to the spontaneous struggles. Alone, these struggles,
especially if they remain local and unconnected, will not be able to survive or
navigate through the increasing state repression and co-optation, the left
sectarianism and opportunism, or limitations resulting from the lack of
resources they will face.
The reparations movement as a national network of organizations and activists
could play an important role in organizing Gulf Coast Solidarity Committees
throughout the country, similar to the organizing of the African Liberation
Support Committees during the 1970s that built support for the African
liberation movements against colonialism.
Key battleground of the Black Liberation struggle
The struggle for Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast represents
both a response to the system of Black national oppression that continuously
subjects Black people to the harshest conditions of capitalist exploitation and
social oppression, and is also part of the growing resistance of the U.S.
working class to the domestic changes corresponding to the U.S. imperialist
global strategy.
The struggle for Reconstruction in the Gulf Coast must be viewed as an emerging
and leading zone of the struggle against African American national oppression
and for self-determination. The struggle in New Orleans to defend and insure
affordable housing is the leading flank.
It is one of the keys for the right of return of the Black majority to New
Orleans. It can contribute to the development of a greater level of independent
Black and working class led political and social organization in the Gulf Coast
and nationally forged through this struggle. This could represent an important
zone of contending power for the wider struggle for African American
self-determination and against U.S. imperialism.
A national Black liberation movement framework is needed to organize nationally
and internationally to weaken the capacity of the U.S. government and corporate
forces to contain, divide, isolate and setback this struggle. National support
is needed to help broaden the space for political activity in New Orleans and
throughout the country through a combination of mass mobilizations, independent
political action and international pressure.
The struggle in New Orleans must be seen as a key and strategic battleground of
the struggle for national Black democratic and human rights and
self-determination and against the increasing implementation and consolidation
of anti-working class and fascist government and corporate policies carried out
by agencies of the Department of Homeland Security like the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA).
The struggles in Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala.; the Mississippi Delta and
Memphis, Tenn., in the 1950s and 60s for access to public accommodations; Black
voting rights and trade union rights represented key Civil Rights and Black
power movement battlegrounds. They also helped to break the fears and paralyses
of the broader left that were created by the McCarthy period.
These struggles needed national support, and were critical to winning national
democratic reforms. They also enabled the Black left that was helping to
organize and lead some of these struggles in the South to launch the beginnings
of the Black Power movement that spread throughout the U.S. These struggles
were decisive for strengthening the national will and confidence of Black
people and their allies to struggle against the Jim Crow terror that was being
unleashed, and to oppose the U.S. war in Vietnam.
This period saw the emergence of the 1960s national Black liberation movement
and the formation of hundreds of local and national Black liberation
organizations. This period produced new, younger, more working class and
militant political leadership. National Black Power Conferences and Congresses
were organized to serve as national venues for Black liberation organizations
and activists to hammer out main political demands and campaigns.
Power concedes nothing without a struggle
The demand for affordable housing in New Orleans shows that the U.S. government
will not grant basic human rights reforms or reparations to the Black masses
without a mass and revolutionary struggle. New Orleans also helps to bring the
struggle against African American national oppression into the international
arena as a human rights struggle against violations that helps to further raise
the demand for reparations and that gives international forces and bodies a
point of focus to call for U.S. accountability to international standards.
The reparations movement must help to organize and give political direction to
Black people in the daily struggles against national oppression; helping to
build mass based power to win reparations along the way of our protracted
struggle for self-determination, national liberation and revolutionary social
transformation of U.S. society.
If Black liberation organizations, networks and activists can’t organize
Black people nationally to build support for the struggle for Reconstruction in
the Gulf Coast, the demand for reparations and self-determination loses its
concrete meaning. It departs from the self-determination slogan that “We
Are Our Own Liberators!”
Without Struggle, There Will Be No Reparations or Self-determination! All Hands
on Deck!
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