Reparations! An Idea Whose Time Has Come!

Reparations! An Issue Whose Time Has Come

by bro. Zayid Muhammad

Has the time come for African-Americans to make a strong stance for Reparations the litmus test for any kind of elected support for anyone coming before them?

Time will tell.

With the introduction of his bold new Reparations Bill to the NY State Assembly, Assemblyman Charles Barron of the East New York District of Brooklyn is clearly sounding that drum.

“Don’t play with the blood of our ancestors,” Barron blazed at a press conference announcing the bill.

It is NY State Assembly Bill A3080A, a bold bill that first unequivocally establishes that Slavery “flourished in New York State” and constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of African life, liberty and citizenship rights.

Unlike other bills on the controversial issue, this is a community based “remedy” bill, whose principal members will be representatives from the community who have established expertise on the issue, and they would be putting forth how the wrong of Slavery should be remedied.

This commission would have fourteen members, nine represented from the December 12th Movement, from the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, or N’Cobra, and from the Institute of the Black World. Of the remaining five, one would come from the Governor’s office, two would come from the Assembly and from the State Senate each.

The bill already has 42 co-sponsors, including Taylor Darling and Latrice Walker who joined Barron and Councilwoman Inez Barron at the Press Conference.

Darling, who explained that she district she represents in Nassau County is one of the most segregated in the country by race and wealth, asked pointedly “what about the money that our ancestors earned?”

Walker, who represents Brooklyn’s Brownsville section, railed first about her slave ancestor Guinea Charles of South Carolina, and said that the “clocking is ticking” on the matter of Reparations.

“I can feel it my blood.

“Tick Tock.

“I can feel it in my DNA.

“Tick Tock,” she asserted determinedly.

Councilwoman Barron, who has introduced a Resolution of Support to the City Council, asserted that “now is the time” to unite to get our demands met.

“We owe it to our ancestors to fight for the Reparations that we, as their descendants, are due,” she finished firmly.

Barron warned of a softer bill being pushed in the Senate as the “companion” bill by State Senator James Sanders that is really not a companion because it does not match the Barron Bill in content. It does not at all include the voices in the community. The Sanders bill calls for one representative from the Governor’s office and two from both the Senate and the Assembly.

Instead being a “companion” bill matching in substance its progenitor bill, this is actually a watered down “compromise” bill.

“This is a radical historical moment,” Barron asserted.

“This is not the time for people in office co-opting your movement.

“This is not the time for Black elected officials getting together with governors and mayors and selling out the Black community.

“Those days are over.”

©2020