Speaker 1: Who get it. It's really hard to talk about who
Speaker 1: qualifies for reparations. I think genealogy like who came from slaves?
Speaker 1: Whose great great parents where slaves. You have to find
Speaker 1: a way to prove that. So no matter what, if
Speaker 1: you're a person of coloring this country, you faith still
Speaker 1: freshness some type of way in America needs to repent
Speaker 1: for it. Every Black person that's been harmed by the
Speaker 1: system because and then then no matter where you go
Speaker 1: in the world, black people is the one who's mainly
Speaker 1: dominated how those countries run. Because you know, even in America,
Speaker 1: you're talking at least of America's wealth comes out of
Speaker 1: black people, and a lot of black people don't even
Speaker 1: realize that. Well, you have to do the history because
Speaker 1: we don't know who ancestors. You gotta go back and
Speaker 1: put the ancestors, Like I said, who family been a slave.
Speaker 1: I'm Erica Alexander and I'm Whitney down. Welcome to Reparations
Speaker 1: The Big Payback, a product sh of Color Farm Media,
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and The Black Effect Podcast Network. Erica,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question. Okay, I was
Speaker 1: about to say shoot, but yeah, okay, ask away. It's
Speaker 1: just like the most basic question, say you Erica persuade
Speaker 1: people that reparations are something that America can do and
Speaker 1: should do. Who gets them? While I'm rooting for everybody black,
Speaker 1: I gets them. That's all I know. But how about this,
Speaker 1: let's ask Killer Mike who gets it? I think the
Speaker 1: people who gets to other people who are the descendants
Speaker 1: of the people who came in sixty nineteen, right. That
Speaker 1: means to be very plainly, if the Obama daughters we're
Speaker 1: getting some type of reparations, it would be because of
Speaker 1: their mother's lineage, not because of their father's. That simple
Speaker 1: does not mean that I don't love all black people.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that the diasporas and oh you know, I
Speaker 1: think Portugal ols, the Dominican Republic, France, Old Haiti. I
Speaker 1: think we should all be fighting a worldwide fighting for reparations.
Speaker 1: But in terms of America, everybody who's descendant was brought
Speaker 1: off those boats at the port and Savannah, Charleston, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: and beyond, whether Louisiana and Florida deserves absolutely deserves it.
Speaker 1: And it ain't hard to find out who you are.
Speaker 1: And I always encouraged black folks to fill out the
Speaker 1: senses I'm able to look at the senses from the
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds and see exactly who my great grandparents
Speaker 1: belong to. So I think that that's important thing, because
Speaker 1: that will be part of the way you prove your
Speaker 1: ancestry right. So for me, everybody who is an ancestor
Speaker 1: of the people that were brought here from six nineteen
Speaker 1: into the embolishment of the trans Atlantic slave trade should
Speaker 1: be eligible before reparations in this country. Boom, well, I
Speaker 1: guess that settles it not so fast Erica Mark Moreal.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think he's exactly down with that.
Speaker 1: He used to be mayor of New Orleans, so you
Speaker 1: know they've seen a few things. But Mark says that
Speaker 1: colonial powers collectively owe adept to enslaved descendants in the
Speaker 1: Western hemisphere. I heard some people suggest, and I disagree
Speaker 1: with it completely, that people of Caribbean descent in the
Speaker 1: United States did not deserve to enjoy reparations. If there
Speaker 1: are some I said, hey, what you're missing is is
Speaker 1: that slavery in the Western Hemisphere didn't start in Jamestown
Speaker 1: in sixty nineteen. Slavery in the Western Hemisphere started in
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds in South America and the Caribbean. Huge
Speaker 1: slave port Cartagena, Colombia, was the main slave port in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. There was slavery raging in the Caribbean and
Speaker 1: in parts of South American places like what is now
Speaker 1: Panama and Cuba and Haiti even before sixty nineteen. So
Speaker 1: most Americans of Caribbean descent are descended from a slave
Speaker 1: system which was created by colonial powers. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things about reparations is due former
Speaker 1: colonial powers oh a participation in reparations France, Spain, the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Portugal who fundamentally created, nurtured, and
Speaker 1: sustained the system of slavery before the United States was
Speaker 1: founded in seventeen seventy six, you know. And that's a
Speaker 1: discussion we haven't handed. I think it's a legitimate discussion
Speaker 1: because it didn't start in the the seventeen seventy six. It
Speaker 1: started when the British is, French and the Spanish head
Speaker 1: colonies and the Portuguese own boats. There's a long, long story.
Speaker 1: So in this context of discussing racial justice, reparations equity
Speaker 1: in the current sense, we also have to go back
Speaker 1: and understand the origins the Western hemisphere. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: coordinating reparations payments with all those countries? I know what
Speaker 1: a wreath would say, nice harmony America. Thanks. Well, that's
Speaker 1: the rub, isn't it? Like? America is full of African Americans,
Speaker 1: but not all of them are descendants of a slaved Americans.
Speaker 1: So well, one case be made is that the descendant
Speaker 1: of slaves suffered things such as bondage, torture, family separation,
Speaker 1: forced labor Jim Coro, and of course four years of oppression.
Speaker 1: That say, recent immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica, Africa, Latin America
Speaker 1: didn't suffer. So believe me, Erica, I appreciate your what
Speaker 1: would you call it your socratic method here, but no, seriously,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, so, wouldn't you say that America remains a
Speaker 1: two tiered society, one with one kind of justice, one
Speaker 1: set of rules for white people and another for black
Speaker 1: people wherever they come from. Yeah, of course I agree
Speaker 1: with that. But it seems also that this whole series,
Speaker 1: we've really been talking about slavery and it's after effects,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about that, but those after effects affect
Speaker 1: more people than a strict definition would take in say,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant and Gianna's anti to Kompo. Like how I
Speaker 1: said that? Yeah, say they're driving in a nice car
Speaker 1: in a white neighborhood at night in Georgia. Wait, you
Speaker 1: know Gianna Suntokumpo Whitney, he's a four time all are well,
Speaker 1: they're both in the car. Okay, who's in danger? Only Durant,
Speaker 1: you think racist cops or systematically racist justice system are
Speaker 1: gonna split that here? Step out of the car in words.
Speaker 1: Oh no, wait, not you, Mr antikotone Compo. We know
Speaker 1: you're not an actual descentant of slaves. Yeah, I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it. But isn't there a larger social justice problem?
Speaker 1: Isn't that beyond the scope of what reparations really can
Speaker 1: or should do. I'm just making the point and I
Speaker 1: don't even know if I agree with it that reparations
Speaker 1: is or should be about more than bloodlines. Of course,
Speaker 1: American black slavery was a unique crime in history, and
Speaker 1: of course that suffering in societal disempowerment got passed down
Speaker 1: and in many ways reinforced through the generations. But another
Speaker 1: thing that got passed down for everybody was a gym
Speaker 1: crow society that persists to this day, where all Black
Speaker 1: people in America suffer from unequal education, unequal opportunity, unequal
Speaker 1: will access to health, to capital formation, to simple justice.
Speaker 1: Will reparations really change that? You know, I'm seeing reparations,
Speaker 1: this specific remedy of reparations is a practical way to
Speaker 1: help right or wrong, to lift people up who are
Speaker 1: kept down, to put money in people's hands, no doubt,
Speaker 1: And I'm with you on that. I'm all for putting
Speaker 1: money in black people's hands, but who and how many people? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, to your point, there's a racial wealth gap
Speaker 1: that has persisted in this country for decades and according
Speaker 1: to two thousand and nineteen study, the average white wealth
Speaker 1: is seven times that of average black well seven times,
Speaker 1: and that gap it hasn't narrowed since ninety two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's right. But I'm I'm just saying that maybe
Speaker 1: the who of reparations has a larger dimension, or a
Speaker 1: moral one, or even a teaching dimension, not just a
Speaker 1: practical one. Maybe it's a way of recognizing that in
Speaker 1: an unequal society, all Black Americans need an apology, all
Speaker 1: Black Americans need a reset of the scales, and all
Speaker 1: Black Americans need is Dr King said a check. So
Speaker 1: it's not the ato's point of view, right, I really
Speaker 1: don't want to get into that, at least under that
Speaker 1: rubic But let's take a better look at your suggestion
Speaker 1: that reparations only be given to descendants of slaves in America.
Speaker 1: How do you even do that? How do you parse
Speaker 1: out who's a slave descendant and who's not? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: economist William Darty says in his recent book From Here
Speaker 1: to Equality that reparations should go to people who have
Speaker 1: and I quote, a consistent pattern of identification as a
Speaker 1: black American. And he said a lot more than that,
Speaker 1: Yes he did. Now, I'm not into the degrees of
Speaker 1: blackness or the fractions thing myself. But what's central to
Speaker 1: the criteria that we offer in From Here to Equality
Speaker 1: is whether or not an individual has an ancestral connection
Speaker 1: to persons who were supposed to have received the forty
Speaker 1: acres and restitution for the years of bondage. So essentially,
Speaker 1: we argue that the folks who should receive reparations, and
Speaker 1: the folks for whom reparations always has been intended, are
Speaker 1: the Black Americans who are descendants of persons enslaved in
Speaker 1: the United States. That's the community that bears the weight
Speaker 1: of the intergenerational effects of slavery, one years of Jim
Speaker 1: Crow and ongoing atrocities like mass incarceration, police executions of
Speaker 1: unarmed blacks, and ongoing discrimination and credit, housing, and employment.
Speaker 1: You know, the reparations should have been given to the
Speaker 1: ancestors of the living descendants. The failure to do so
Speaker 1: triggered a chain of events that cripple the lives of
Speaker 1: those who are living today. And if we want to
Speaker 1: remove that burden, that's the community that received reparations. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Stacy Dash no cookies for you. Well, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get into that one. She crossed the line. But
Speaker 1: you know, he says you could use census records, birth records,
Speaker 1: death records, DNA even um I think twenty three and me, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the record keeping has always been so good for
Speaker 1: black folks in America. True, true, but those things will
Speaker 1: certainly be a good place to start. I know another
Speaker 1: place to start. Yvette Carnell, co founder of ADOS American
Speaker 1: Descendants of Slaves, She's been very specific about the who
Speaker 1: of reparations. She certainly has, and you know, Killer Mike
Speaker 1: suggested that we should talk to her, and I bet
Speaker 1: she's got a lot to say. Name me one other
Speaker 1: group that has been oppressed from slavery and then has
Speaker 1: had the entire government, local and federal mechanized against them, right,
Speaker 1: and the citizens three of the United States, like the
Speaker 1: citizens and the KKK that citizens mechanized against us. That's
Speaker 1: internal torture, that's internal terrorism. No other group can claim that. Now,
Speaker 1: some other groups can claim during this period, we got
Speaker 1: discriminated against during this period, some of our people got
Speaker 1: hung or lynched. But you do not have a history
Speaker 1: that stretches from sixteen nineteen. You don't have that. And
Speaker 1: so I think people look at that and say, listen,
Speaker 1: this is four years and we will pressed this group.
Speaker 1: We don't got that kind of money, So we gotta
Speaker 1: kind of paint eid Dolls out as some kind of
Speaker 1: rag tag, controversial, radical group because we're never gonna try
Speaker 1: to pay them. And so I think what you see
Speaker 1: is just powerful people who have decided that they have
Speaker 1: built their lives and they've built America or an injustice
Speaker 1: and it's gonna keep being that way. And a way
Speaker 1: to keep being that way is to just smear eight
Speaker 1: dolls and say we are controversial as opposed to just
Speaker 1: saying listen, okay, you're right, reparations needs to happen, and
Speaker 1: it needs to go to a specific group. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about how we do that. American culture sits on top
Speaker 1: of eight or culture. That's just a fact. It's about
Speaker 1: our inventions, it's about our music, it's about everything that
Speaker 1: you do. America. You don't really have a culture outside
Speaker 1: of us. The people you can't. You brought here and enslaved.
Speaker 1: You have no culture outside of that, So that makes
Speaker 1: us specific. You know, our culture is not Haitian culture.
Speaker 1: Our culture and our contribution is not the name. It's
Speaker 1: not South American, it's not Kingan. It doesn't mean I
Speaker 1: have anything against them or anybody else. We're just different.
Speaker 1: We're just different groups. It doesn't mean better or worse.
Speaker 1: That's what people mix up. I'm not saying I'm superior
Speaker 1: to you. What I'm saying is that we're different. And
Speaker 1: in terms of America, the descendants of Chaddel slavery have
Speaker 1: made a different and a heavier contribution to America than
Speaker 1: anybody else. And we did it unwillingly, and we got
Speaker 1: abused because of it. And we have a specific cost. Now,
Speaker 1: when you have a specific cost, that means a specific
Speaker 1: payment that comes only to me, comes only to you, Erica,
Speaker 1: that's what it means. You have to have that and listen.
Speaker 1: Like I tell everybody, if the Haitians get reparations from
Speaker 1: the French, I'm gonna be the first one that Papabolis
Speaker 1: champagne in the street and celebrate. You deserve it. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say I deserve it. I don't. My people
Speaker 1: don't come from Toussaint's people. It don't. I don't deserve that.
Speaker 1: I should celebrate it, and I will celebrate it because
Speaker 1: I disagree. I oppose oppression anywhere everywhere. So I will
Speaker 1: absolutely salute you, dance in the street with you, everything.
Speaker 1: But I don't deserve that because my people didn't fight
Speaker 1: for that. But everything that happened in this country, my
Speaker 1: people fought for and deserved. And we have a specific
Speaker 1: debt that is old to us that shouldn't be controversial.
Speaker 1: So to be clear, how outside of everything that others
Speaker 1: might define you, how did you find yourself and what
Speaker 1: is ados well? We defined ourselves as American descendants of slavery, right,
Speaker 1: slavery as an institution Slavery was institution in this country.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just something that happened. It was the government
Speaker 1: weaponized against us, and that these people are less than
Speaker 1: These people are slaves, they're designed to be slaves, and
Speaker 1: out of that we created something beautiful. So that's how
Speaker 1: I defined myself. I define myself by my ancestors and
Speaker 1: what they fought through and what they encountered, and the
Speaker 1: fact that I'm still here. That's why the fight still
Speaker 1: happens because I think we have to be freedom fighters
Speaker 1: in this space. That's what our people were and that's
Speaker 1: what we owe to them. There's a certain debt that
Speaker 1: is old to the ancestors in terms of, yeah, you
Speaker 1: gotta fight because we fall, We fought and died. You
Speaker 1: gotta fight too. You gotta keep this fight going. So
Speaker 1: that's how I define AIDS in terms of who we
Speaker 1: are politically and otherwise. My people have been here four
Speaker 1: hundred years, contributing to this country and not getting the
Speaker 1: wealth of this country, not getting the milk and honey
Speaker 1: of this country. Like Martin Luther King said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to be poor, it's another thing to
Speaker 1: be poor in a country of wealth. So we are
Speaker 1: in a country that we built. We built all this
Speaker 1: wealth for this country. America would not be a country
Speaker 1: without AIDS, and we're still a bottom cast in this country.
Speaker 1: That's different. I'm not the same as somebody else. I'm
Speaker 1: not the same as any other person because of melanin.
Speaker 1: Melanin doesn't make us the same. And so I think
Speaker 1: that's the point where people say, oh my god, event
Speaker 1: at also being divisive. But Meldon is a trait, it's
Speaker 1: a biological trait. It doesn't mean we're the same in
Speaker 1: terms of our contributions to America, and it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you should get reparations the same as me can
Speaker 1: A question just on sort of like how you think,
Speaker 1: you talk about specificity, how you think about the mechanics
Speaker 1: of things, because I'm guessing you would also agree that
Speaker 1: whether or not you're ads, if you have black skin
Speaker 1: in this country, you still suffer from the legacy of slavery,
Speaker 1: that even if you're a second generation Caribbean immigrant, that
Speaker 1: you still suffer from the structures that were put in
Speaker 1: place that are sort of built around white supremacy. Would
Speaker 1: you agree on that front, Yes, absolutely right, because America
Speaker 1: is too tiered. They don't ask who you are. They
Speaker 1: just you know, see you black, but go ahead. So
Speaker 1: the question I have is that if there's repreation, do
Speaker 1: you believe that black Americans who have suffered under the
Speaker 1: legacy of slavery also deserve some sort of compensation or
Speaker 1: on some sort of a structure that allows them to
Speaker 1: play and even on an even playing field with white Americans.
Speaker 1: And should that be part of reparations. Do you imagine
Speaker 1: that it's a separate bill or mechanism, or how do
Speaker 1: you deal with that other group of Americans who continue
Speaker 1: to suffer under the legacy of slavery but are not
Speaker 1: necessarily Ito's descendants. Well, let me just point out one
Speaker 1: thing first before I deal with what you just said.
Speaker 1: The meat of what you just said, American descendants of
Speaker 1: slavery came here in slave ships. Every other group came
Speaker 1: here either on foot on a plane. You came here voluntary.
Speaker 1: Voluntary versus involuntary has consequences in terms of reparations. Now,
Speaker 1: you do not get reparations because you came here voluntarily.
Speaker 1: You decided to come here because you will have a
Speaker 1: better life. That was your choice. You don't get reparations
Speaker 1: for that. What I will say is this, we have
Speaker 1: a Black agenda, So you don't get reparations, no, but
Speaker 1: you do get to access this Black agenda that we have.
Speaker 1: The Black agenda is antidiscriminatory, so it is with the
Speaker 1: lived experience of what we deal with in terms of
Speaker 1: racism and discrimination. There's a lived experience of racism. That's
Speaker 1: what a lot of black immigrants deal with, right or
Speaker 1: children of black immigrants. What ADOS deals with is not
Speaker 1: only the lived experience, but the inherited experience in terms
Speaker 1: of the lack of wealth. So you would not have
Speaker 1: access to reparations as a Caribbean person who came here voluntarity,
Speaker 1: but you would have access to our Black agenda in
Speaker 1: terms of our anti racism, anti black policies. Those things
Speaker 1: are part of our Black agenda. We have an ADOS agenda,
Speaker 1: which is reparations and a Black agenda. What black immigrants
Speaker 1: deal with is discrimination, and we have things in our
Speaker 1: Black agenda that mitigate that. What we're saying is that listen,
Speaker 1: as a black immigrant, you absolutely are able to access
Speaker 1: our transformative Black agenda. The only thing that you don't
Speaker 1: access is reparations, because reparations is a delineation between who
Speaker 1: came here in slaveships and who came here on a
Speaker 1: plane or on foot. That's it. So you can access
Speaker 1: this because you have a lived experience of this scrimination,
Speaker 1: and we want to help you take care of that.
Speaker 1: But there's another thing in terms of inheritance, a d
Speaker 1: O S should have far more in terms of our wealth.
Speaker 1: Our wealth has been stolen, were plundered group from slavery,
Speaker 1: Jim Crow and then on. We're taking care of that.
Speaker 1: That is what reparations is for. That is specifically for
Speaker 1: aid us. That is an inheritance that we have been
Speaker 1: robbed of. So the inheritance that we have been robbed
Speaker 1: of were taking care of specifically of a d O S. Now,
Speaker 1: you have a specific experience, a lived experience of discrimination.
Speaker 1: We're gonna try to deal with that, my black immigrant
Speaker 1: ally in terms of our black agenda. But there are
Speaker 1: two different aspects of what we're doing. How do you
Speaker 1: think reparations should be done? Well? Reparations for us is
Speaker 1: very different because no other group in the world has
Speaker 1: come from slavery and been multigenerationally oppressed. No group can
Speaker 1: say that, no group can say that. Listen, we were
Speaker 1: slaves and then the country decided to weaponize itself against
Speaker 1: US local and federal. So, oh, there is no framework,
Speaker 1: There is no blueprint. Now, what I will say is
Speaker 1: that I do appreciate Holocaust reparations in the sense that
Speaker 1: they understand that there are people who stand in the shoes.
Speaker 1: So there are people who stand in the shoes of
Speaker 1: Holocaust survivors, just like in America we have people who
Speaker 1: stand in the shoes of slaves. So that is us.
Speaker 1: So the framework would be to begin a repayment of
Speaker 1: the wealth plundering. Right, that's part of what we have
Speaker 1: to do. You have to do a repayment. There has
Speaker 1: to be a check, but there has to be a
Speaker 1: check for several generations. Because one thing I always say
Speaker 1: is that it takes much more time to repair a
Speaker 1: wound than it takes to inflict a wound. If I
Speaker 1: take a knife right now and slash you, it's gonna
Speaker 1: take much the more time for you that wound to
Speaker 1: heal than it took for me to hurt you. So
Speaker 1: that's the same thing in terms of what we have
Speaker 1: to deal with. Right, Slavery happened, Jim Crow happened, reconstruction happened,
Speaker 1: Mass and conceerration happened, but it's gonna take a lot
Speaker 1: more time than four hundred years to fix what you
Speaker 1: did to us. In four hundred years of reparations is
Speaker 1: just the beginning of the fix. And I think that's
Speaker 1: why America doesn't want to do to fix because they
Speaker 1: know what they did to us, and they know how
Speaker 1: long it's gonna take to fix that, and they don't
Speaker 1: want to make that an American program. But that's what's
Speaker 1: gotta happen. So when you're talking about the Germans, just
Speaker 1: so where we get what you were talking about, what
Speaker 1: did they do specifically that you said you feel at
Speaker 1: least addressed in a way that you think was direct
Speaker 1: in terms of the payments around the world, not just Germany,
Speaker 1: in terms of the payments to Holocaust survivors. They've said
Speaker 1: that this listen, it's not just Holocaust survivors, it's the heirs.
Speaker 1: It's the people who are considered to be standing in
Speaker 1: the shoes of those people who still bear the cost.
Speaker 1: And I think they captured that perfectly, because there are
Speaker 1: people who are still standing in the shoes of Holocaust
Speaker 1: survivors who still bear the cost of that. In that
Speaker 1: very same way, in America, we have American descendants of
Speaker 1: slavery who are still bearing the cost. Because you have
Speaker 1: to understand what's happened in America. Let's just really break
Speaker 1: it down. The weaponization of America and American citizens against
Speaker 1: ads has been very intentional. It's not just because some
Speaker 1: people are racist. That's not what happened. We've had race,
Speaker 1: the creation of race, which is really a construction. It's
Speaker 1: not real. Merlandan doesn't make you a race of people.
Speaker 1: What's happened is that America said that this race is
Speaker 1: going to be on the bottom and they're going to
Speaker 1: eat the failure of American They're gonna be America's garbage disposal.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna put We're not only gonna just put
Speaker 1: you in jail so you can work for free and
Speaker 1: be new slaves. We're also going to put plants in
Speaker 1: your neighborhood that puff out chemicals that kill you. We're
Speaker 1: also going to have you be the ones that drink
Speaker 1: lead water. When the country needs jobs, we're gonna just
Speaker 1: build prisons and how people work in prisons, and have
Speaker 1: construction companies build industrial prison complexes. So we're going to
Speaker 1: use you to feed the rest of the country. You
Speaker 1: are going to not only eat the failure, but you're
Speaker 1: going to provide prosperity to the rest of the country.
Speaker 1: And that has been very intentional from slavery all the
Speaker 1: way to now. And there's a cost that comes with that,
Speaker 1: but that's a very specific cost to us that nobody
Speaker 1: else bears. How do you pay it? Say, everything sort
Speaker 1: of lines up the way you want. And frankly, if
Speaker 1: you say pump your brake, let's wait, it maybe past
Speaker 1: your lifetime, in my lifetime that we will see anything
Speaker 1: that's close to what you're talking about. But who and
Speaker 1: what type of processes is going to be. It has
Speaker 1: to be multifold and multifaceted. And I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: has ever talked about that. I've never seen anybody talk
Speaker 1: about it. So it has to be a redistribution of
Speaker 1: wealth because wealth will stolen, wealth has to be repaid.
Speaker 1: That's number one. The second thing is you have to
Speaker 1: have protections in place. What happened to us during the
Speaker 1: Great Recession was that people were able to come down
Speaker 1: in our communities and take away from us to plunder
Speaker 1: our group. That's always happened. You have to have some
Speaker 1: protections in place for people who have recently received reparation. Now,
Speaker 1: this is just the beginning. Like I said before, this
Speaker 1: is not the end. But you have to have protections
Speaker 1: in place because capitalism can be predatory and one of
Speaker 1: the things that we have seen is the only capital
Speaker 1: that we've had access to has been predatory capital. You
Speaker 1: have to have protected the place saying that you cannot
Speaker 1: target this group with subprime anything. You cannot target this
Speaker 1: group with scams. We have to be a protected class.
Speaker 1: You can protect a spot at our but you can't
Speaker 1: protect AIDS. You absolutely can, and that have to be
Speaker 1: consequences for that. The other thing that has to happen
Speaker 1: to we talk about plugs and outlets. So a lot
Speaker 1: of AIDS come out of school and we're the plug
Speaker 1: and we don't have an outlet. That's one thing an
Speaker 1: Tonio Moore has talked about. We have a plug, we
Speaker 1: don't have an outlet. There have to be places that
Speaker 1: are set asized for us to build. Well, right, people
Speaker 1: can say, now listen, as we know y'all got reparations.
Speaker 1: Y'all want to own land, but guess what, we don't
Speaker 1: want to sail to you, and so you don't have none.
Speaker 1: There has to be something in place that says we
Speaker 1: get a preference in terms of how we go about
Speaker 1: becoming the ownership class. There have to be plugs, so
Speaker 1: they have to be mechanisms and incentives for people to
Speaker 1: kind of bring aidos into what we have been locked
Speaker 1: out of. We've been locked out of wealth in this country,
Speaker 1: and there has to be some kind of incentives to
Speaker 1: bring us back into that. There have to be protections,
Speaker 1: to say Lessen, I'm a fan of quotas in terms
Speaker 1: of ads. You have to sell this much land. You
Speaker 1: have to have this media aid our students, you have
Speaker 1: to have these media aidos who are in this part
Speaker 1: of check. You have to do that. All of that
Speaker 1: is a part of what we're doing. It's not just
Speaker 1: a check because if you make it just a check,
Speaker 1: we become consumers and we try to buy stuff and
Speaker 1: everybody says no. And eventually what happens is that people say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've tried to buy everything. I've tried
Speaker 1: to become everything. There are no protections. Capitalists are still
Speaker 1: weaponizing themselves against me. I'm just gonna take this money
Speaker 1: by Lamborghini because I want to do something with the money.
Speaker 1: The money has to move, and we have to have
Speaker 1: places to plug into. When we have that money, there
Speaker 1: have to be protections and places for us to plug
Speaker 1: that money into to create our own ownership class. I
Speaker 1: want to know again because I got to go back
Speaker 1: to this, because this is where sometimes the reberen met
Speaker 1: the road. How do you figure out the who? Why me?
Speaker 1: Why you? Why not? Nicki Minaj whose people are from
Speaker 1: the Caribbean or Drake from Canada? How do you figure
Speaker 1: out who? If we get what you want? How do
Speaker 1: we figure that out? Do you have one parent who
Speaker 1: comes from American childel slavery and I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: how to best figure that out? If you have a
Speaker 1: parent who's a share cropper, like people say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to do. We can't figure that out.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be really hard. No, it's not. Before the
Speaker 1: Immigration Act of nineteen sixty five, the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: us right, it was mostly black and white. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying oh, but disproportionately, that's what it was. So if
Speaker 1: you have a grandfather, great grandparent who was a sharecropper
Speaker 1: or whatever, you come from slaves, that's just what it is.
Speaker 1: It's not hard to figure out we have records, but
Speaker 1: if you're a black immigrant or if you come from
Speaker 1: black immigrants, no you don't get reparations. This is a
Speaker 1: specific justice claim is sacred. And see, the thing is,
Speaker 1: we don't have any problem understanding that when we talk
Speaker 1: about Native Americans. We understand that when we talk about
Speaker 1: Native Americans and what they get, they get a specific satiside.
Speaker 1: We don't have any problem talking about that. When we
Speaker 1: talk about Holocaust survivors and their children, we don't have
Speaker 1: any problem talking about how that's a specific satiside. The
Speaker 1: same thing happens here. We're a specific group with a
Speaker 1: specific justice claim. Now in terms of the people that
Speaker 1: you talk about who come from the Caribbean and black
Speaker 1: immigrants and their children, because we have children of black
Speaker 1: immigrants who are not Black immigrants, they're Black Americans. What
Speaker 1: we have for them are protections and a Black agenda
Speaker 1: because they have a lived experience of discrimination. They don't
Speaker 1: have the inheritance, the plunder, they don't have ancests who
Speaker 1: came and slaveships, but they have an experience in this
Speaker 1: country which is racialized. So the Black agenda helps protect
Speaker 1: them as well as us against this racialized kind of discrimination.
Speaker 1: So that is there for them, the reparations piece, though
Speaker 1: it's just for us a lived experience of discrimination, not
Speaker 1: the inheritance. Interesting duality. Our lives are all about opposites, Erica.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at you and me doing this talk
Speaker 1: about a lived experience? Yeah, well what what? What? Quick?
Speaker 1: Whitney changed the subject, Erica, did you know? And preparing
Speaker 1: to introduce his reparations bill in the Senate, Corey Booker,
Speaker 1: for instance, he discovered his family came from Sierra Leone.
Speaker 1: Well that spangs of red beans and rice. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that means. But there's also the process
Speaker 1: of elimination. Process of elimination. Well, it's this theory that
Speaker 1: it might be easier and faster to determine which Black
Speaker 1: Americans are not descendants of slaves. Okay, this sounds like
Speaker 1: a get pretty divisive. Okay, how do you do that? Then? Well,
Speaker 1: you start with this, there are very few quote voluntary
Speaker 1: black immigrants, if you know what I'm saying. You know,
Speaker 1: with the exception of students in the United States prior
Speaker 1: to the Immigration and Nationality Act of Hey, chuck out
Speaker 1: the big brain on Whitney. Mind, if I have a
Speaker 1: bite of your tasty burger. I'm just getting started on this,
Speaker 1: so here we go. So what you do is you
Speaker 1: comb through immigration records from then to now. Oh yeah, okay, no,
Speaker 1: I I see where this is going. Go in, okay,
Speaker 1: and you see who wouldn't be eligible for reparations target
Speaker 1: only to American slave descendants, like Kamala Harris, like Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to be the one to say
Speaker 1: but yet like that, like you could remove one set Okay,
Speaker 1: now when you just did say, but when I put
Speaker 1: a name to it, you're back off, all right. Well,
Speaker 1: leaving the people who do get the checks is the point, right,
Speaker 1: And that's interesting. Well, we talked to Mary Francis Barry.
Speaker 1: She's a historian, she's a lawyer, she's an activist. She's
Speaker 1: a former chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
Speaker 1: Let's see what she says. If you are going to
Speaker 1: have reparations for everybody, then one, you're not talking about
Speaker 1: the wealthcare and the disparities and getting rid of it.
Speaker 1: And I have no problem with everybody getting something. What
Speaker 1: I do have a problem with is not directing targeted
Speaker 1: funds towards black people who are slave descendants, who we
Speaker 1: know that right here in the United States were the
Speaker 1: ones to suffer and to be used to prop up
Speaker 1: capitalism all these years. So anybody who was a slave
Speaker 1: here in the United States and is a descendant of
Speaker 1: a slave here in the United States ought to get reparations.
Speaker 1: Other people can argue for their own. What I'm talking
Speaker 1: about is what do we do about the descendants of
Speaker 1: slaves here? People should demand reparations from the ones who
Speaker 1: profited from their labor. It's so interesting America to see
Speaker 1: if there are more sides to this than just whether
Speaker 1: you're a descendant of American slaves or not. No, it's true,
Speaker 1: and we don't talk a lot about class in America.
Speaker 1: But while there are huge disparities and average income and
Speaker 1: an average family generational wealth, the fact is that there
Speaker 1: are poor black people, middle class black people, and there's
Speaker 1: rich ones. I'm not one of them. I'm working on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I mean, so are you saying, does Oprah get
Speaker 1: a check? Does Kanye? I don't know much, but I
Speaker 1: do know this, Kanye has got a check tonight. Oh
Speaker 1: Kanye is good, trust and believe. So where do we
Speaker 1: say the cutoff is is individual income? Let's say over
Speaker 1: eighty thousand a year family income over a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty thousand, Like for the stimulus is that you do
Speaker 1: it that way? It just occurred to me that to
Speaker 1: get some folks behind reparations, we should call it stimmy
Speaker 1: two point Oh okay, agreed, you know, yeah, I like that,
Speaker 1: you know, stimmy two point Oh, let's get it there.
Speaker 1: I like that. Okay, But back to the money here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well money. What if what if while we're at it,
Speaker 1: what if a smart financially nuanced reparations policy could address
Speaker 1: disparities of economic justice and capital formation in the black community?
Speaker 1: What if the who questions could be addressed in a
Speaker 1: smart way by the how? So, how are you going
Speaker 1: to do this? Here's what I mean? And let me
Speaker 1: see if I can tie some of this together as
Speaker 1: we go. We've been talking about, or thinking of reparations
Speaker 1: as a system of direct payments to descendants of slaves, right,
Speaker 1: prove your ancestry, don't be Kanye, get a check. What
Speaker 1: if that's too simple a model. What if we looked
Speaker 1: at uh yeah, separate payments for separate classes of damages. Yeah, exactly, So,
Speaker 1: like small business loans to support black owned businesses, to
Speaker 1: combat traditional bank redlining and black neighborhoods things like that, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: or a program of home loans to combat the longtime
Speaker 1: patterns of discrimination and segregation in housing. What about targeted
Speaker 1: aids to schools in black neighborhoods. Don't forget the schools,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you mean? You know America hates
Speaker 1: its children. You know nobody ever votes for schools. True,
Speaker 1: but let's get back to your larger point. You're saying
Speaker 1: that by tailoring the how reparations, you can finesse the
Speaker 1: who is that what you're saying? Yes? Yes, And by
Speaker 1: doing what I'm proposing, You send a check to the
Speaker 1: descendants of slaves on a hundred and sixty one street,
Speaker 1: You give a small business loan to her next door neighbor,
Speaker 1: the Jamaican dry cleaner, and both of them qualify for
Speaker 1: anti gentrification tax abatements to stay in their homes and
Speaker 1: keep their neighborhood intact. So I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1: You give them housing revitalization grants to keep their homes
Speaker 1: up to market value, and then you give both their
Speaker 1: kids student loan forgiveness so they can pursue graduate degrees. Right, right,
Speaker 1: And support the HBC used. They go to then give
Speaker 1: those kids down payment grants so they can purchase first homes.
Speaker 1: And in all of these things, the who and the
Speaker 1: how interact, all of them could be part of a
Speaker 1: targeted reparations package. I'm very impressed, Erica, But I have
Speaker 1: one question for you. Is you still have no love
Speaker 1: for Kanye? Yeah? I got nothing but love for Kanye.
Speaker 1: You hear me, go Kanye? But what if there was
Speaker 1: a way to see if you qualify for reparations? Ever
Speaker 1: wondered if you qualify for reparations as an American descendant
Speaker 1: of slaves. Let's see if these all stars do. Daniel Kaloya, Killer,
Speaker 1: Mike Mohammad, Ali, Busta Rhymes, Shirley Chisholm, Lenny Kravitz, Michelle Obama,
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Will Smith, Sasha and Malia Obama,
Speaker 1: Holly Berry, Stacy dash Viola, Davis, Clint Black, Cecily Tyson,
Speaker 1: Alfonso Ribiero, Nicki Minaj, Tracy Ellis Ross, Charlie's there on, Drake,
Speaker 1: Nia Long, Notorious b I, g Rihanna. Next time on reparations,
Speaker 1: The Big Payback in Jade, Christian Banking in the Old Testament,
Speaker 1: there was always reparation rations. You never just took from people.
Speaker 1: In fact, every fiftieth year there was something called the
Speaker 1: season of Jubilee, and in that season of Jubilee, all
Speaker 1: slaves were to be free, all debts were to be canceled,
Speaker 1: all people were to be restored. And there was a
Speaker 1: thinking among the earlier Jewish rabbis and all that if
Speaker 1: it ever actually happened, that the Kingdom of God would
Speaker 1: come in its fullness. In the New Testament, Jesus clear
Speaker 1: they taught that if you stole from somebody, you didn't
Speaker 1: just replace what you stole. You had to replace two, three,
Speaker 1: fourfold what you stole and then salvation. And so we
Speaker 1: have to understand the issue of reparation is a serious theological, moral,
Speaker 1: and constitutional issue. This podcast is produced by Erica Alexander
Speaker 1: ben arn On Whitney Down. The executive produced Who's Our
Speaker 1: Charlemaine the God Dolly as the Bishop. The super Busy
Speaker 1: Producer is Nicole Childers, and the lead producer is Devin
Speaker 1: Maverick Robbins. The producer writer is serethe Castle, and the
Speaker 1: associate producers Kevin fam This episode was written by Tony
Speaker 1: per year, with additional research support provided by Nile Blasts.
Speaker 1: Original music by d J d t P Reparations. The
Speaker 1: Big Payback is a production of color Farm Media, I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, and The Black Effect Podcast Network in association
Speaker 1: with Best Case Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.