Speaker 1: I'm Erica Alexander, and welcome to Reparations, the Big Payback
Speaker 1: production of Color Farm Media, I Heart Radio and the
Speaker 1: Black Effect Podcast Network. The world is changed. I feel
Speaker 1: it in the water, I feel it in the earth.
Speaker 1: I taste it in the pot liquor. Much that once
Speaker 1: seemed impossible suddenly is, and much that once seemed immutable unchangeable,
Speaker 1: suddenly is not. If you listen, you can hear a
Speaker 1: river rolling. If you listen, you can hear a river roaring.
Speaker 1: Justice is a river. You may try to damn it,
Speaker 1: try to stop its onward course, but it will go
Speaker 1: where it will, and woe to those who stand in
Speaker 1: its way, shouting go back. This is a story of
Speaker 1: that river. It began with a simple promise, a radical one,
Speaker 1: first proposed at the close of the Civil War by
Speaker 1: a committee of Black ministers to Sherman, Great Conqueror of
Speaker 1: the South, to give formerly enslaved black people forty acres
Speaker 1: of land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida forty acres
Speaker 1: of land a peace as recompense for generations of forced,
Speaker 1: unpaid labor and cruelty, for the separations of families, for
Speaker 1: the barbarism of two hundred and fifty years and more
Speaker 1: there would be land later. There was even talk of mules.
Speaker 1: Sherman kept his promise, and under his Special Filled Order
Speaker 1: fifteen and the first concrete act of reparations for slavery
Speaker 1: in this country, as many as forty thousand freedmen were
Speaker 1: resettled on former slave owner land. The American government under
Speaker 1: Lincoln was recognizing the unique suffering of enslaved black people
Speaker 1: and watering the soil of a suffering nation within a
Speaker 1: nation with justice, with practical physical amends. But it was
Speaker 1: not to be. Under Lincoln's Southern sympathizer successor Johnson, the
Speaker 1: dark forces pushed back. The land was taken from the
Speaker 1: freedmen and given back to the very slavers who had
Speaker 1: kept them in bondage. The river was damned, The great
Speaker 1: battle for reparations for slavery was thwarted, set aside, postponed
Speaker 1: for a generation and more. In the next century, the
Speaker 1: call to battle to repay the children and grandchildren of
Speaker 1: slavery was taken up by bold women warriors like Calli House,
Speaker 1: who sued the U. S Government itself, and by a
Speaker 1: lonely warrior queen Queen Mother Moore, They watered the soil
Speaker 1: of justice with sweat and tears. Still and its bottomless cruelty,
Speaker 1: the power of white supremacy would hear nothing of it,
Speaker 1: insisted there had been no real harm, and even if
Speaker 1: there had been, it was all buried in the unreachable
Speaker 1: mists of time. And what could be done, Nothing could
Speaker 1: be done. The river white supremacy said was fine, just
Speaker 1: as it was. But like the rain, the call for reparative,
Speaker 1: restorative justice, the pain drenched hearts cry from the soul
Speaker 1: of America for reparations, was never truly silenced. New fighters
Speaker 1: picked up the banner in the rushing rivulets of the streets,
Speaker 1: and those mighty fountains of black power, the pulpits, and
Speaker 1: the swift moving streams of the local governments, and in
Speaker 1: the thunderous cataract of Congress itself, until the sons and
Speaker 1: daughters of the Bondsmen could find to hear the unmistakable
Speaker 1: sound of justice coming, just just coming home, Justice roaring, roaring,
Speaker 1: like a river to the sea. It's not home yet now,
Speaker 1: even now, there are those who stand in it's awesome path,
Speaker 1: who shout, go back, Will they stop this mighty river? Wow? Erica. Well,
Speaker 1: we're finally here. We're almost home. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: This certainly has been quite a journey. Yeah, it has.
Speaker 1: It's amazing looking back to think of the places we've gone,
Speaker 1: the people we've met, the different voices we've heard. I
Speaker 1: think it's changes both, don't you. Absolutely? And in the
Speaker 1: time we've been talking America's racial reckoning, reckoning or deflection
Speaker 1: of racial reckoning, or failure to have a racial reckoning
Speaker 1: right in this past what is it five months that
Speaker 1: felt like a year from the insurrection at the cap Battle,
Speaker 1: which was about white supremacy, to the trial and verdict
Speaker 1: on Derek Chauvin, which was also about white supremacy, or
Speaker 1: more to the point, perhaps about the death of the
Speaker 1: white majority and the reassertion of supremacy tactics and terrorism. Brother, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we went on this journey in the midst
Speaker 1: of these momentous times. You go go ahead, try that Whitney,
Speaker 1: say it five times, say it fast, five times. I
Speaker 1: can barely see it one time. But listen, I hope
Speaker 1: the folks who came along with us got something out
Speaker 1: of it as we did. Well, one more thing, Eric,
Speaker 1: before it begin listening to your introductory piece. Here, I'm
Speaker 1: gonnaed a little more info about pot liquor. What am
Speaker 1: I like black google or something besides Whitney have gotten
Speaker 1: your family holiday gifts? You know plenty about pot liquor.
Speaker 1: I do hello to the Dow family. But in this case,
Speaker 1: to get a little taste of my brew, all you
Speaker 1: need is a little imagination. Here we go. Ah, there's
Speaker 1: that word imagination now, Erica. I know I teased you
Speaker 1: initially when you suggest we recreate really Wonka's magical feeling
Speaker 1: in a world of reparations. But you know, I got
Speaker 1: to admit you stuck to your guns, and in the
Speaker 1: end that seat of inspiration gave us this big, colorful
Speaker 1: field to play in. So were you trying to say
Speaker 1: thank you? Erica? Wow, that was a great idea. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry about laughing at you and not believing
Speaker 1: in your mind blowing genius. Next time, I'll just get
Speaker 1: out of your way, laid down the red carpet, and well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't like anyone putting words in my mouth, Erica,
Speaker 1: but in this case, you're welcome with me. It's just
Speaker 1: another day in the life for creative genius like me
Speaker 1: who also writes dialogue by the power and can trick
Speaker 1: you into saying anything I want anyway. Yeah, we fortunate
Speaker 1: to meet some terrific people, warriors who are shining lights
Speaker 1: in the battle for reparations. And every journey needs its fellowship.
Speaker 1: It's frontline, middle and rearguard. That's right for me. Older
Speaker 1: woman Robin Ruth Simmons really stands out, you know, the
Speaker 1: idea that a local level and her case in Evans, Illinois,
Speaker 1: that she could push hard enough to actually make her
Speaker 1: community face the issue of reparations without waiting for it
Speaker 1: to be a national policy or something like that. I
Speaker 1: think that it's really kind of revolutionary, definitely, but addressing
Speaker 1: the need for national policy and carrying on the legacy
Speaker 1: of the great Congressman John Conyers. We had the great
Speaker 1: Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas to join us to
Speaker 1: talk about HR forty, the historic and long overdue resolution
Speaker 1: before Congress to form a commission to study reparations. Slavery
Speaker 1: is the original sin. Slavery has never received an apology.
Speaker 1: The number of Africans who died in the New Passage
Speaker 1: over to million. Number of the slaves who died during slavery, first, second,
Speaker 1: and third generation, over two point five millions, who has
Speaker 1: a history like that. Reparations should be welcomed by all Americans,
Speaker 1: for we are not asking one American to give one payment.
Speaker 1: What we're saying is, it's the only way that slavery
Speaker 1: ended was a governmental action of the Thirteenth Amendment. Governmental
Speaker 1: action and reconstruction failed after twelve years because it was
Speaker 1: imploded by governmental people, and after reconstruction, a reign of
Speaker 1: terror that had never been seen. The hanging fruit, the lynching,
Speaker 1: the oppression of voting, the tearing away of land, and
Speaker 1: the amazing concept of the continuing de jure and de
Speaker 1: facto impact of slavery today. Mega businessman Bob Johnson and
Speaker 1: economist Julianne Melvo and William Darrity broke down for us
Speaker 1: just how much reparations will cost hit It will be
Speaker 1: a whole lot. The debt that's associated with a reparations
Speaker 1: claim for Black American descendants of US slavery is in
Speaker 1: the vicinity of ten to twelve trillion dollars. And that's
Speaker 1: an estimate by examining the magnitude of the difference in
Speaker 1: wealth that is held by Black Americans who find their
Speaker 1: origins in the community of individuals who were subjected to enslavement.
Speaker 1: We set as the target for a reparations plan elimination
Speaker 1: of that gap and bringing the black share of wealth
Speaker 1: into consistency with the black share of the nation's population. Wow,
Speaker 1: how are we going to pay for all our bombers
Speaker 1: and cyber warfare? Uh? With a bake sale? I guess
Speaker 1: I better get started on those cupcakes. I didn't know
Speaker 1: you can bake Whitney. Okay, you do that. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I'll get a vegan recipe from a friend we know. Well,
Speaker 1: I talked to who can really cook, slcense and servant
Speaker 1: Hot Rev and Al Sharpton. He explained why white supremacy
Speaker 1: is in the battle to control the narrative around reparations. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wasn't really aware we were gonna be hearing from
Speaker 1: the Rev. Until after you kind of slipped him in
Speaker 1: their Eraica. You know that was kind of pretty sneaky. Well,
Speaker 1: I learned it from the best whitey, I mean, Whitney.
Speaker 1: They take ownership and some of the the sureminal, but
Speaker 1: it's there that they are more qualified to tell us
Speaker 1: our story and others our story than we are ourselves.
Speaker 1: I was reading this book on Frederick Douglas and how
Speaker 1: when Frederick Douglas was the runaway slave workers way from
Speaker 1: New York to New England, and there was buzz around
Speaker 1: the abolitionists world about this well built slave that could
Speaker 1: read and that we could use him to go out
Speaker 1: there and push our cars. And the white New Englanders
Speaker 1: who were lead the abolitionist movement brought him in and
Speaker 1: they started bringing them around to the various gatherings, and
Speaker 1: then he started speaking, and they were like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we don't need you to talk. We just need you
Speaker 1: to be there, be the slave. We'll do the talking.
Speaker 1: It's like we are really not saying you're equal. We
Speaker 1: sympathize with y'all, but let us do the talking. Let
Speaker 1: us write out the screenplay, let us tell them the
Speaker 1: black experience, rather than allowing us as equals to say,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is our journey, and we know
Speaker 1: our journey better than anybody. And that is a form
Speaker 1: of white supremacy. I run into it even in my
Speaker 1: civil rights political work, where progressives feel that they can
Speaker 1: tell blacks how we deal without suffering body, we get ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying we shouldn't have allies. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying we can't work with people, but you can't take
Speaker 1: ownership of me and you. We can no longer allow
Speaker 1: ourselves to be interpreted by those that do not understand us.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think that we've got to start
Speaker 1: with our authenticity. If I've got to be somebody else
Speaker 1: for you to accept me, then I'm bowing the white supremacy.
Speaker 1: God made me. You don't have to remake me. I
Speaker 1: would find where he made me. Just get out of
Speaker 1: my way, get your need on my name. We also
Speaker 1: got a solid definition of reparations from your pal the Rizza,
Speaker 1: or should I say your son Bobby Diggs. You know
Speaker 1: you guys are a whole American saga unto yourselves. Oh lord,
Speaker 1: Wu tang Okay, that was a shameless plug fear series.
Speaker 1: Wu tang in American saga. Is there gonna be a
Speaker 1: second season? By the way America? Yes, Whitney, thank you
Speaker 1: for the subtle product placement. Yo. I was thrilled the
Speaker 1: Rizzard could join us. Reparations what is it? It is
Speaker 1: the making of amends for a wrong that one has
Speaker 1: done by paying money to or otherwise helping those who
Speaker 1: have been wronged. It comes from two words repair an action,
Speaker 1: and so thus it is the action of repairing the
Speaker 1: damage that one has caused. It is a noun, and
Speaker 1: we need it now. He laid it down. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we got a quick education and white privilege from joy
Speaker 1: read That was a fun game. And Evett Carnell, a
Speaker 1: truly gifted advocate for a very specific definition of reparations.
Speaker 1: She broke it down and showed us how we'd have
Speaker 1: to discuss who gets it. Name me one other group
Speaker 1: that has been oppressed from slavery and then has had
Speaker 1: the entire government, local and federal mechanized against them. No
Speaker 1: other group can claim that. Now. Some other groups can
Speaker 1: claim during this period, we got discriminated against. During this period,
Speaker 1: some of our people got hung or lynched. But you
Speaker 1: do not have a history that stretches from sixteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: You don't have that. Melanine doesn't make us the same
Speaker 1: in terms of our contributions to America, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you should get reparations the same as me.
Speaker 1: American descentis of slavery came here in slave ships. Every
Speaker 1: other group came here either on foot on a plane,
Speaker 1: you came here. Voluntary. Voluntary versus involuntary has consequences in
Speaker 1: terms of reparations. Now, do you have one parent who
Speaker 1: comes from American child slavery and I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: how to best figure that out. If you have a
Speaker 1: great grandparent who was a share proper or whatever, you
Speaker 1: come from slaves, that's just what it is. It's not
Speaker 1: hard to figure out. We have records. But if you're
Speaker 1: a black immigrant or if you come from black immigrants, no,
Speaker 1: you don't get reparations. This is a specific justice claim
Speaker 1: is sacred now in terms of the people that come
Speaker 1: from the Caribbean and black immigrants and their children. Because
Speaker 1: we have children of black immigrants who are not Black immigrants,
Speaker 1: they're Black Americans. What we have for them are protections
Speaker 1: and a Black agenda because they have a lived experience
Speaker 1: of discrimination. They don't have the inheritance the plunder, they
Speaker 1: don't have ancests who came in slaveships, but they have
Speaker 1: an experience in this country which is racialized. So the
Speaker 1: Black agenda helps protect them as well as us against
Speaker 1: this racialized kind of discrimination. So that is there for them.
Speaker 1: The reparations piece though, is just for us that really
Speaker 1: set off the hotline we set up for people to
Speaker 1: call if they wanted to find out if they qualified.
Speaker 1: You know, it's still going Lebron, James, Elizabeth Warren, j
Speaker 1: Edgar Hoover, Carol Channing, The Jackson Five, Steven Tyler, Vin Diesel,
Speaker 1: Mitch Land, Drew, Rachel doll Is All, Michael Jackson, Off
Speaker 1: the Wall, Michael Jackson, The Thriller, Michael Jackson Invincible, Darth Vader,
Speaker 1: Live Tyler, Stacy Dash Come On girl again, Carol Channing.
Speaker 1: Steven Tyler from Aerosmith is part black, I guess partially
Speaker 1: so dude doesn't just look like a lady. He looked
Speaker 1: like a black lady. No, Steven Tyler. We also got
Speaker 1: a fascinating less and in the slavery based origins of
Speaker 1: tipping from Sorrow Garaman. As we say in New Orn,
Speaker 1: there is now mountains of evidence that tipping is not
Speaker 1: correlated with the quality of the service. Tipping is a
Speaker 1: reflection of all of America's biases from the inception of America,
Speaker 1: and what is correlated with is the race and gender
Speaker 1: of the server, her eye color, her skin color, her
Speaker 1: hair color, her hair texture, her breast size, whether she's
Speaker 1: willing to touch the customer or be touched, And so
Speaker 1: that segregation of workers of color into back of house
Speaker 1: versus front of house, which is eerily reminiscent of the
Speaker 1: way in which slaves on plantations or even in reconstruction
Speaker 1: people of color were treated and differentiated. And then on
Speaker 1: top of that, the differential in the way people are tipped.
Speaker 1: All of that results in a five dollar per hour
Speaker 1: wage gap between black women and white men in our industry.
Speaker 1: That differential creates generational poverty. The sub minimum wage exacerbates
Speaker 1: the inequality, and it forces all of these folks to
Speaker 1: live off of tips. The fact that people of color
Speaker 1: earn less in tips even when they have the same positions,
Speaker 1: it is a reflection of still deep seated racism in
Speaker 1: the United States. Even when workers of color make it
Speaker 1: to higher paid positions, they cannot earn the same in
Speaker 1: tips because of this racism. Erica, we really had an
Speaker 1: amazing opportunity to speak and learn from some really, really
Speaker 1: heavy hitters. You know, I'm thinking now of your friend
Speaker 1: Reverend William Barber. He is my dear friend. We lucky me.
Speaker 1: I love me some Bishop Barber and Yeah, he really
Speaker 1: is the pre eminent clergy voice of this century. Bishop
Speaker 1: is carrying the mantle of Dr King's Poor People's campaign.
Speaker 1: He calls the period we're living through now the third Reconstruction.
Speaker 1: He came with that moral authority of his, you know that,
Speaker 1: And he gave us fair warning about the price America
Speaker 1: will pay if it ignores the bill. That's due justice,
Speaker 1: just justice, just justice, established justice. That's all it is.
Speaker 1: And we are to let it roll down like waters,
Speaker 1: and we are to let it come down like a
Speaker 1: mighty stream. And until such time we better remember what
Speaker 1: Dr King said the same thing Amo said six centuries earlier,
Speaker 1: woe to those who are at ease in Zion, woe
Speaker 1: to those who are at ease in America. And then
Speaker 1: Dr King said like this twenty four hours before he
Speaker 1: was killed. He said, we gotta give ourselves to this movement.
Speaker 1: It might cost us, but we gotta give ourselves to
Speaker 1: this movement because we either go up together or we
Speaker 1: go down together. And nothing would be more tragic than
Speaker 1: for us to stop at this point. Another heavy hitter
Speaker 1: who bought his a game, astonishing genius, passion and serious
Speaker 1: commitment for the fight was Killer Mike. Even if his
Speaker 1: message was not a pretty one. Yea, his message was disturbing.
Speaker 1: It was disturbing because it was true. I think we
Speaker 1: called it the ugly truth, you know, a concept that
Speaker 1: racism is a big business, and that business may be
Speaker 1: too big to fail. The ugly truth is racism has
Speaker 1: been extremely profitable for America. We have a problem in
Speaker 1: this country and that we like to use cheap labor
Speaker 1: to create wealth. On the other side, and the community
Speaker 1: that has been used for cheap labor the most are
Speaker 1: black people. I believe that as a country, we can
Speaker 1: be the country we aspire to be, where there's liberty
Speaker 1: and justice for all. But we can no longer do
Speaker 1: this if we are married to the classic capitalistic system
Speaker 1: in which we use and abuse the people that were
Speaker 1: brought here for free or cheap labor, just like we
Speaker 1: do migrant workers now, just like we've done Africans in
Speaker 1: the past, just like they did the Chinese during the
Speaker 1: making of railroads, just like they've done even the Irish
Speaker 1: and the Latino population that came into New York through
Speaker 1: Ellis Islands in the twenties, thirties and nine. This country
Speaker 1: knows that a different way is possible. The question is
Speaker 1: are we too lazy and apathetic to try a different way.
Speaker 1: It is easy to target black, and not only black
Speaker 1: with the poor. Racism is an advent of classism. Classism
Speaker 1: is an advent of the bourgeoisie and the elite, meant
Speaker 1: to oppress the peasant class. If we don't start to
Speaker 1: fight racism right now in this country, then we will
Speaker 1: forever remain an empire that uses the free labor of
Speaker 1: black people to exploit and capitalize off of. We have
Speaker 1: an opportunity in this moment to give people what we
Speaker 1: truly promise as freedom and justice for all. That means
Speaker 1: we must fight, fight, fight, every step of the way
Speaker 1: against racism. And it's not enough to be non racist,
Speaker 1: you must be vehemently anti racist. Killer Mike is the
Speaker 1: man that brother. I would vote for him. I would
Speaker 1: roll with him if he allowed me to roll with him.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm really excited because we got to
Speaker 1: speak to so many different types of people and it's
Speaker 1: not every day that you get to speak to a
Speaker 1: billionaire former presidential candidate. Uh, but that's exactly who we
Speaker 1: got with Tom Steyer. Yeah, he rolled the moneyball to
Speaker 1: expose the financial barriers that continue to limit the economic
Speaker 1: growth of Black Americans. Cat Taylor and I started a
Speaker 1: bank fifteen years ago partially to redress the systemic racism
Speaker 1: in the financial system and the banking system in the
Speaker 1: United States that specifically addressed economic justice, environmental sustainability, and
Speaker 1: supported businesses owned by women and people of color, because
Speaker 1: there was systemic attempt to shut those people out of
Speaker 1: ownership of wealth in this country. And that's what redlining was.
Speaker 1: Don't lend to black people. It's against the rules of
Speaker 1: our bank to lend to blank people. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: draw a red line around African americanighborhoods and you can't
Speaker 1: lend in there, which shut black people out of home ownership,
Speaker 1: which is the basic wealth creation historically for American citizens.
Speaker 1: And so we started a bank from scratch. Basically, we
Speaker 1: measure every loan not just on whether it's profitable, because
Speaker 1: we need to be profitable so we can continue in business,
Speaker 1: but also what is the impact on the community in
Speaker 1: terms of job creations, in terms of who owns the bank,
Speaker 1: in terms of sequestrian carbon And if you can't do that,
Speaker 1: then that's not alone for us. Actions have to be
Speaker 1: taken not just to be fair within the bank, but
Speaker 1: to redress the long time deep racism of the banking system.
Speaker 1: And you know, not trying to be fair, but to
Speaker 1: be specifically pointing out the people who have been discriminated
Speaker 1: against and trying to give them the opportunities that have
Speaker 1: been systemically taken away from them. The Miyror Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 1: Karen Weaver joined us to tell us about the dark
Speaker 1: water story of our city. When you look at what
Speaker 1: really happened, it was about a group of people making
Speaker 1: money and get rich because off of the water supply
Speaker 1: and having taken our pipe from us, because we sold
Speaker 1: water to all of the surrounding cities in our county,
Speaker 1: and they changed our water source and they put us
Speaker 1: on the Flint River. Of all things, I mean growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, we all knew you don't want water from
Speaker 1: the Flint River. You find cars, you find bodies, you
Speaker 1: find all kinds of things in there. And uh, as
Speaker 1: they made that switch, they didn't test our water. How
Speaker 1: do you switch a water source for a city and
Speaker 1: not tested. And when people complained about it and said
Speaker 1: something was wrong, we were told the water was fine.
Speaker 1: But think about this, It corroded the parts for the
Speaker 1: GM cars, and GM got off of our water, but
Speaker 1: corrosion control was never added to the water. So we're
Speaker 1: drinking this water that we're told is okay. For eighteen months,
Speaker 1: we complained, We held up bags of hair, skin rashes,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things, and um our water source had
Speaker 1: been switched. And you know, it had to be a
Speaker 1: cover up, because how do you keep that quiet for
Speaker 1: eighteen months from the rest of the world when we're
Speaker 1: here in Flint, you know, yelling and streaming and crying.
Speaker 1: And I got my water tested while I was campaigning,
Speaker 1: and I got the call from Virginia, texaing on a
Speaker 1: Sunday night, and they said, your water is tested high
Speaker 1: for lead, and they told us not to even use
Speaker 1: it to brush our teeth. But they had never planned
Speaker 1: on telling us and sharing this information because one of
Speaker 1: the things we found out was the state new and
Speaker 1: they were having bottled water sent to their state buildings
Speaker 1: here while the people continued to drink this poisoned water.
Speaker 1: And at that point it was more than lead because
Speaker 1: we had bacteria in there. There was equal light and
Speaker 1: there there was all kind of mess in our water.
Speaker 1: Yet nobody thought to say, let's test it, let's put
Speaker 1: corrosion control in and get the people of the city
Speaker 1: of Flint off of this water. And that's what led
Speaker 1: to the Flint water crisis, was know cutting off our
Speaker 1: access to clean water. And when you talk about reparations
Speaker 1: and what people are old as a result of a
Speaker 1: wrong that has been done to them, Flint has definitely
Speaker 1: not gotten what we deserve. Mayor Karen Weaver is still
Speaker 1: on the job, but as at this moment, Flint still
Speaker 1: does not have the water justice and racial justice she's
Speaker 1: been fighting for. Now, I want to switch gears here
Speaker 1: and talk about something that I really enjoyed that Jurassic
Speaker 1: Park sketch I did with Cree Summer. Hello Whitney, or
Speaker 1: should I say professor, Hello reparations mosquito and please call
Speaker 1: me Whitney. So today we're going to be learning about
Speaker 1: the history of reparations. Indeed, difficult yet worthy conversation told
Speaker 1: within the rich, painful tapestry of a mayor becas failure
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the sin of slavery and the debt owed
Speaker 1: to its formerly enslaved people and their descendants. Here wait,
Speaker 1: that was exhausting. I quit, Oh no, you don't reparations, Mosquito,
Speaker 1: no backing out now. Talking about race in America can
Speaker 1: be exhausting, but trying to get reparations, that's like shake
Speaker 1: up a snow globe in Boston expecting it to rain
Speaker 1: in Cleveland. Sadly, I'm sure they had made perfect sense
Speaker 1: to you, Whitney. Whitney, you sounded like Four's Gump. You
Speaker 1: didn't good job though, man Erica. You know, I recall
Speaker 1: that minstrel song you sang. You didn't exactly sound like
Speaker 1: a wreatha. You know, let's hear little of that race's
Speaker 1: institutions down all vote if you don't pay all No, no, no,
Speaker 1: come on now. I don't think we need to hear
Speaker 1: that again. Brought and I brought the house down, but
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to hear that again. I
Speaker 1: was impressed we were able to explore the powerful story
Speaker 1: of the late Queen Mother Moore through your Back to
Speaker 1: the Future interview with her me too. And one thing
Speaker 1: I've learned and been impressed with on this whole journey
Speaker 1: was how many times it was women black women from
Speaker 1: Sheila Jackson, Lee and Robert Ruth Simmons. Going back to
Speaker 1: CALLI House and to Queen Mother Moore, who have been
Speaker 1: at the forefront of this struggle. Absolutely, Mr Pop, welcome,
Speaker 1: Queen Mother. I'm glad that you're here. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and thank you for blessing us with your story. Yes, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, ma'am. So you've been organizing around the black
Speaker 1: community for a while, but how did you get to
Speaker 1: the liberation movement like your work with the great Marcus Garvey. Well,
Speaker 1: I was sa gro in turned Marcus Corvey. Move went
Speaker 1: by the fact that he I understood that he was
Speaker 1: to come and speak to us in Louisiana. And we
Speaker 1: went to the meeting and Lord behold, he didn't come,
Speaker 1: and we who had the mayor refused to allow him
Speaker 1: to come. So we were very incensed about it and
Speaker 1: got a delegation to go see why. Then it was
Speaker 1: guaranteed that Marcus God It would come. The next night
Speaker 1: the hall was packed with people and everybody went with ammunition,
Speaker 1: had guns. Everybody had guns, Black people with guns. Blue
Speaker 1: Steve Smith and Western's German lugers. Really and uh, I
Speaker 1: had two guns with me. Y'all showed up and showed out,
Speaker 1: that's what's up. Amazing and ammunition everybody had what you
Speaker 1: call a suitcase today because we was afraid the police
Speaker 1: would stop him from coming again and we wanted to
Speaker 1: protect him. Wow, in the night that he did come,
Speaker 1: what happened. Thirty five people was in that hall. So
Speaker 1: when Goviy came, re applauded very much and he said,
Speaker 1: my friends, I wanted to apologize for not speaking to
Speaker 1: you last night. But the reason I didn't speak to
Speaker 1: you is because the mayor permitted himself to be used
Speaker 1: as a stooge by the police department to prevent me
Speaker 1: from speaking to you. And when he said that, the
Speaker 1: police jumped up and said, I'll run you in. And
Speaker 1: when the police did that, everybody jumped up on the
Speaker 1: benches we had benches then and took out their guns
Speaker 1: straight up. The guns were straight up in the air. Speak,
Speaker 1: GOVI sleet and go said and as I was saying,
Speaker 1: and he went and repeated itself, and the police filed
Speaker 1: out of there like little puppy does. Every policemen filed
Speaker 1: out of the hall. Can't forget that speak Garvey speak. Oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I was there. That was amazing, you know, Erica.
Speaker 1: And I'm proud that there were white people who showed
Speaker 1: up people like historians Adam Rothman and Ed Baptist, and
Speaker 1: then of course Katrina Brown, a descendant of the largest
Speaker 1: slaveholding family in America, who bore witness and gave us
Speaker 1: a much trure story about slavery and its aftermath than
Speaker 1: we ever learned in school. The Dwolves, statistically they brought
Speaker 1: more Africans on their ships than any other family north
Speaker 1: or south. They purchased human beings who had been kidnapped
Speaker 1: by force and were in a complete and utter state
Speaker 1: of terror, and it was the most horrific type of
Speaker 1: circumstance one could possibly imagine. And my ancestors did it
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. And as my cousin
Speaker 1: Tom said, they must have known it was evil. How
Speaker 1: could you not when you were hearing people screaming in
Speaker 1: the holds below, And yet they somehow told themselves stories
Speaker 1: to justify that this was okay, and their blood runs
Speaker 1: in me. A huge fortune was amassed from all of
Speaker 1: this that was pretty much squandered by a couple of
Speaker 1: generations later. We wouldn't be able to say we inherited
Speaker 1: money directly from the slave trade, but it's really obvious
Speaker 1: to me that we have been in the elite ever since,
Speaker 1: and it fits the pattern where once you're in the elite,
Speaker 1: you marry other elite families. So I'm like super aware
Speaker 1: of the class privilege that has remained even if we're
Speaker 1: not at like the uber rich level. And I'm super
Speaker 1: aware of how much social capital I have. So they've
Speaker 1: gone to a lot of Ivy League schools, private schools,
Speaker 1: you know, so I've had just the best education, and
Speaker 1: that's a pattern in the family. So just extremely aware
Speaker 1: of how much we were set up to succeed. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to say we heard in money directly
Speaker 1: from the slave trade, but it's really obvious to me
Speaker 1: that we have been in the elite ever since. One
Speaker 1: heavy hitter we spoke to more than once on this
Speaker 1: journey was not only a powerful woman, but with someone
Speaker 1: we keep getting more and more requests for your mother,
Speaker 1: Miss Sammy Alexander, my mom. She's not only lived a
Speaker 1: lot and seeing a lot, she's not shy about telling
Speaker 1: you about it. What you get us started and singing
Speaker 1: about it and singing about it. Heaven help us such
Speaker 1: dark but we oh. We also heard from people speaking
Speaker 1: in opposition to the idea of preparations, Oh, the dark side.
Speaker 1: And when I say dark, you mean black. Now I
Speaker 1: sort of get it. With some white people, they worry
Speaker 1: about a perceived loss of some kind of status or privilege. Right.
Speaker 1: And as to Black preparations opponents, I don't really feel
Speaker 1: comfortable criticizing them. I don't really know if it's that's
Speaker 1: like my place. I don't know fair is fair and
Speaker 1: right or wrong? You're still I think you're thinking of
Speaker 1: Larry Elder. I know he specializes in being kind of
Speaker 1: a black contrarian. Yeah, like the photo negative of what
Speaker 1: most black people think. That's Larry. It's been mentioned a
Speaker 1: couple of times that America has yet to atone for slavery. Well,
Speaker 1: remember that Lyndon Johnson launched the so called war on
Speaker 1: poverty in nine He specifically talked about the need to
Speaker 1: redress path to grievances for blacks. Since then, we've spent
Speaker 1: over twenty two trillion dollars in payments to fight the
Speaker 1: so called war on poverty. That's about personal responsibility. They
Speaker 1: are think tanks on the left, like the Brookings Institution,
Speaker 1: the think tanked on the right, like the American Enterprise Institude.
Speaker 1: And they agree that the way to escape parvetings to
Speaker 1: do a handful of things. Number one, finish high school.
Speaker 1: Number two, don't have a kid until you get married.
Speaker 1: Number three. Get a job, keep a job, and don't
Speaker 1: put that job to get another job in Number four,
Speaker 1: avoid the criminal justice system. And they don't say that
Speaker 1: this formula only applies to you if you're white, just
Speaker 1: say there's a formal applies to anybody. Equal rights and
Speaker 1: equal results are two very different things, and that's what
Speaker 1: I think we're getting confused about here. Everybody's entitled to
Speaker 1: equal rights, but nobody's entitled to equal results. So as
Speaker 1: we talk about who pays who, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: one of the greatest generational transfers of wealth back and
Speaker 1: forth because virtually every people on the face of the
Speaker 1: earth was involved in slavery. So figuring out who owes
Speaker 1: what is gonna be a hell of an achievement. Okay,
Speaker 1: Larry whatever, but you know he's not alone. What about
Speaker 1: the former NFL and Heisman Trophy winner herschel Walker. I've
Speaker 1: been a fan, you know, But come on, reparation, wherever
Speaker 1: the money come from, who is blowing what we're sent
Speaker 1: it's you're blight. Must you be to receive reparation if
Speaker 1: reparation is a fee or a correction for a terrible
Speaker 1: sin of slave owners, government and others. But we punished
Speaker 1: the non guilty party. Is it not creating division, a
Speaker 1: separation with different races reparation? I feel it continues to
Speaker 1: let us know we're still African American rather than just America.
Speaker 1: That's the American way, Scribd everybody, that's America's defining legacy.
Speaker 1: It's hard out. I know that's cold step that Beyonce, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but hey, you know we're talking about Larry and Herschel,
Speaker 1: two black men and their issues. But in the course
Speaker 1: of this journey over and over, I've been struck by
Speaker 1: white people and their reluctance to engage in this discussion wholeheartedly. Now,
Speaker 1: I was the one who said it that I know
Speaker 1: that they have their reasons for white fragility, but I
Speaker 1: saw some reluctance from you to Whitney, and I think
Speaker 1: it kept you at arms a distance and relegated you
Speaker 1: to being a voyeur like watching and commenting, but not
Speaker 1: sacrificing or offering yourself And by that I mean personal testimony.
Speaker 1: That's how I saw it. But it took some time
Speaker 1: for me to realize that although you work and create
Speaker 1: powerful projects in this arena, and I'm talking about race,
Speaker 1: you may have some white fragility and fear too, because
Speaker 1: sometimes in our discussions, however, unconsciously, I thought you were
Speaker 1: trying to protect yourself and I was frustrated. So, though
Speaker 1: you may be way further down the line than most
Speaker 1: other white people, I think your white persons work in
Speaker 1: progress side should always be posted. Well, I think we're
Speaker 1: all work in progress, and these are hard conversations to have.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised you felt that way, No, I and
Speaker 1: I get it with me. I do, but as a
Speaker 1: black woman, I cannot deflect or avoid this conversation. My people,
Speaker 1: my family is all in. I'm all in. I'm more
Speaker 1: exposed and more vulnerable. So that said, so we can
Speaker 1: be clear. I believe the moral states should must be
Speaker 1: higher for you. So your investment must be more significant,
Speaker 1: you know, because y'all got a ways to go, and
Speaker 1: that's the only way you can catch up, and we
Speaker 1: need you all to catch up. But hey, you know
Speaker 1: we're on the road together, brother, Okay, so let us
Speaker 1: keep moving. Some of the places we visited along the
Speaker 1: way made me mad dir matter than usual. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember you with the old slave market New York City,
Speaker 1: right there on Wall Street and the slave burial grounds.
Speaker 1: There you think of slavery. You don't typically think of
Speaker 1: New York, but there it was, the slave market right
Speaker 1: across from the stock Exchange. In other places where a
Speaker 1: mixture of excitement and frustration like in d C. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: it makes me stop and think about the full name Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. I mean to bring it home. Its name
Speaker 1: is a capital city is unique in all the world.
Speaker 1: Our capital, the capital of the Land of the Free,
Speaker 1: is named after a big time slave owner, a slave
Speaker 1: owner who is relentless in his pursuit of one of
Speaker 1: his former captives on a judge. So when you played
Speaker 1: in the movie Arica George Washington, the Forging of the Nation,
Speaker 1: m m m and yeah I did play. Only they
Speaker 1: had Washington put in the paper asking for it to
Speaker 1: be captured and brought it back to him. Said she
Speaker 1: was delicately formed, delicately formed. Wow. Now this was the
Speaker 1: son of Freedom who signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act.
Speaker 1: You know, we were all too in Washington for the
Speaker 1: debate of HR forty and it's just a resolution to
Speaker 1: study reparations. But the pushback against it, you'd think it
Speaker 1: was to put Florida in the water or something. Floor right.
Speaker 1: That's good, I mean, but that was a trip, and
Speaker 1: in a lot of epic journeys, we find ourselves coming
Speaker 1: full circle and that means coming home. Going to visit
Speaker 1: your father's grave was kind of a homegoing it was,
Speaker 1: but kind of a lonely one. That's sad. Remote little
Speaker 1: piece of ground was a sort of karmic reminder of
Speaker 1: his failure to live up to greater expectations. For my dad,
Speaker 1: it was to God, and yet he's not bound to
Speaker 1: a piece of dirt. He let's hope we all are
Speaker 1: saved by amazing grace. But it's hard to say if
Speaker 1: there was any there there. So maybe home is inside
Speaker 1: of us. My father's barely marked grave seems like a
Speaker 1: small thing in the world, but his Black American dreams
Speaker 1: for what America could be. They have their home and me,
Speaker 1: you know, we saw another version of home, kind of
Speaker 1: a starting place that you find yourself returning to our
Speaker 1: visit to the Whitney plantation in Louisiana, and it's just
Speaker 1: a coincidence that it's your name right, Yes, Erica, it's
Speaker 1: just a coincidence. But the Whitney Plantation is unique as
Speaker 1: a historical place and that unlike other slave plantations you
Speaker 1: can visit in the Old South, this one tells its
Speaker 1: story from the point of view of the enslaved Africans
Speaker 1: who lived and worked and died there. That was new.
Speaker 1: That was the gift that keeps giving. And we've had
Speaker 1: a beautiful mix of people of all colors, even the
Speaker 1: Native American couple from the Dakota tribe. And what they
Speaker 1: all had in common was that they were looking for
Speaker 1: a greater understanding of slavery to heal and fortify their
Speaker 1: own lives. Like you and me, Whitney, Patna Camp. I
Speaker 1: am from Curry Island, Minnesota. It's an Accuota community in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Maybe at us you know, our language, our culture. You know,
Speaker 1: we're still fighting that today, bringing our language back. And
Speaker 1: my husband's half Native and half Black, so his struggle
Speaker 1: trying to learn and he'll tell you he's not Black
Speaker 1: enough for black people, he's not Indian enough for Indian people.
Speaker 1: So he's always you know, and for our kids, because
Speaker 1: some of our kids look one way. Some of our
Speaker 1: kids like it's half and half. So their struggles are different.
Speaker 1: So you know, sometimes I'm just black, I'm just Indian.
Speaker 1: They don't like it's hard for them to identify with
Speaker 1: either or because it's you know, we're so colonized you
Speaker 1: can't be both. But you know, we talked about that flag,
Speaker 1: and I said, it doesn't mean anything to me. You know,
Speaker 1: I respect veterans like that flag, and we don't stand.
Speaker 1: We sit, and we have to fight when people when
Speaker 1: we go to games and we have to fight with
Speaker 1: people have arguments and like tell them our point of view, Like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't respect us flag. I just and I teach
Speaker 1: my kids that too. I mean Sammuel Wells from Prairie Island, Minnesota.
Speaker 1: My father is from Camden, Alabama, and he told me
Speaker 1: stories when he was a kid of how they was
Speaker 1: treated back then. This is in the fifties. His daddy
Speaker 1: was a slave. My grandfather was a slave. His name
Speaker 1: was Frank and my grandfather couldn't read all right, but
Speaker 1: he was a great builder and he built houses and
Speaker 1: churches and stuff like that. So for me to come
Speaker 1: here and see this, it's just um, it gives me
Speaker 1: a great appreciation for my father and what he's been
Speaker 1: through because he's he's heard while he was back there
Speaker 1: at home in Campden, he he could hear in the
Speaker 1: distance of things happening. He told me a story where
Speaker 1: he remembered a man was accused of something that he
Speaker 1: didn't do, and so he ran and my dad, I
Speaker 1: could hear the hounds chasing him and the man's chasing him.
Speaker 1: This man ran up a tree and the hounds found him,
Speaker 1: and he refused to come down. So what they did
Speaker 1: was they set the tree on fire. So he was doomed.
Speaker 1: He's either gonna burn up a tree or jumped down
Speaker 1: to these dogs. And uh, my dad told me that
Speaker 1: he could hear the man running and screaming. He could
Speaker 1: hear the commotion of him screaming in a tree while
Speaker 1: I was on fire, you know. And for me to
Speaker 1: think about that, no, excuse me. You know, the things
Speaker 1: my dad went through, the things he's seen, and he
Speaker 1: survived us. We are not that far from this tragedy.
Speaker 1: And to come here and to feel these people's soul,
Speaker 1: because I wonder who soul is still trapped out here,
Speaker 1: the kids to the grandparents. How do we free their soul.
Speaker 1: So the way this is laid out, they put a
Speaker 1: map and they want us to experience a certain way,
Speaker 1: and it says Whitney Plantation. And there's a map key,
Speaker 1: and there's a wall of honor, the big house, the
Speaker 1: plantation store, the kitchen, the overseaers house, the blacksmith's shop, jail,
Speaker 1: the slave quarters, sugar kettles, German Coast, Uprising memorial artwork,
Speaker 1: field of Angels, Ali's Gwendoline mid Low Hall in Antiach
Speaker 1: Baptist Church. That's how it goes. So we heard some
Speaker 1: music playing and some drumming, and we're gonna go inside
Speaker 1: the church. Oh oh, whoa chick here? Man me right? Well,
Speaker 1: we were singing a song called Oh Angel, or Slow
Speaker 1: Down Your Chariot. We were singing that song because it
Speaker 1: just reminded us of home. So we just wanted to
Speaker 1: pay tribute to our ancestors here and we wanted to
Speaker 1: say something that we knew that would give them joy.
Speaker 1: This time means everything. This is another turning point in
Speaker 1: our history, in our lives, and thank god we're here
Speaker 1: to see it. It's and we're still fighting for freedom,
Speaker 1: we're still fighting for equal rights. And we come here
Speaker 1: to this plantation to see where there wasn't any and
Speaker 1: we're looking for Reverend. This is why we asked for reparations,
Speaker 1: because it's all of this free labor that made these
Speaker 1: beautiful grounds. So this means everything to us, this turning point,
Speaker 1: and we have to keep fighting. Thank you for blessing
Speaker 1: us today. Appreciate your time. Ready to go? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, so we are back on the trail. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a pleasant day to day, so it almost looks
Speaker 1: like something that's out of a Sundance catalog. She does,
Speaker 1: doesn't it like it looks quaint? But there's no doubt
Speaker 1: that if you had to spend your life every week
Speaker 1: and hour slaving for white people all day, having kids,
Speaker 1: being sold all and then getting paid nothing for it,
Speaker 1: and then maybe having a piece of corn bread and
Speaker 1: some greens for hundreds of years, I really believe that
Speaker 1: America has held a pay Oh don't you think it's
Speaker 1: already paying? No, but how was it paying? In your opinion?
Speaker 1: This is what you know. I've said this so many
Speaker 1: times that you know, you get you get annoyed with me.
Speaker 1: But I feel like white people are like myself, are
Speaker 1: trying to imagine a future and can't really imagine what
Speaker 1: that future looks like where we actually embrace this past
Speaker 1: and understand it. So it's it's really confusing. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to be like, imagine a positive future, and that's that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So then why don't you imagine the
Speaker 1: future that you both say? What's the future? That's builting?
Speaker 1: Actually want to know what I really think there. I
Speaker 1: don't think that there's actually going to be a reconciliation.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's actually going to be reparations.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that that there's actually going to
Speaker 1: be some sort of unity. I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: that America has really built to grapple with like the
Speaker 1: really hard problems like that, So I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means. So I think there's gonna be bloodshed, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like if there hasn't been already,
Speaker 1: but not you're talking about it on a scale. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some, there's always going to be some.
Speaker 1: There's lots of bloodshed in America, But is there going
Speaker 1: to be you're talking about like on a massive scale. Well,
Speaker 1: now people massively have guns. One thing that your people
Speaker 1: have done. Is they farmed everybody. Yeah, but there's been
Speaker 1: I mean things is that I think that the thing
Speaker 1: you have to be like cognizant of is that's actually
Speaker 1: if you've read the Turner Diaries or any white supremacists. Look,
Speaker 1: that's what they're counting on. They're counting white supremacists. Their
Speaker 1: belief system is that they're praying for race war because
Speaker 1: they believe they can win a race war. So when
Speaker 1: you talk about black people rising up, that's what white
Speaker 1: supremacists greatest dream is that black people rise up because
Speaker 1: they believe that they have the weapons and they have
Speaker 1: the government on the side, that that will actually put
Speaker 1: a final end to the race war by destroying black
Speaker 1: people personally. I don't think there is going to be
Speaker 1: a race war. When you say you say you think
Speaker 1: there's going you think there's going to be something, I
Speaker 1: think that there already is something we're seeing black people.
Speaker 1: You think it's going to go along more of the same.
Speaker 1: You've never seen any country and history, including the Greeks
Speaker 1: or Romans, go along. They all destroy themselves in the
Speaker 1: long run, like all empires, us will fall in the
Speaker 1: short run. I don't think there's gonna be some massive
Speaker 1: I know. But you keep talking about short time and
Speaker 1: I'm not now I go there, You go that there's
Speaker 1: no nation ever that has held themselves if they do
Speaker 1: not put the people together. And that's what you do.
Speaker 1: Know what happens in nations that don't come together, They fall.
Speaker 1: They have always fallen. And it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: the outside to eat you. Doesn't be Russia to communists.
Speaker 1: It's the disease in the cancer that we carry, you know.
Speaker 1: I had to journey even further to see a version
Speaker 1: of home. I visited Ghana in two thousand nineteen along
Speaker 1: with my mother, the famous Sammy Alexander, and I saw
Speaker 1: it close, the slave dungeons where captive people waited to
Speaker 1: be shipped across the sea, in the stinking holds of
Speaker 1: the slave ships. That must have been incredible. It was,
Speaker 1: and I was moved. I was moved in ways I
Speaker 1: expected and didn't expect. And I learned so much Whitney,
Speaker 1: including some of the subtleties of the slavery story. Was
Speaker 1: the existing institution of slavery in Africa, like the chattel
Speaker 1: slavery instituted in America by the Atlantic slave trade or not.
Speaker 1: Africa first and foremost all of you are welcome to
Speaker 1: the Cape Castle Dungeon. I have the privilege and the
Speaker 1: pleasure to be your main guide here through this experience. Today.
Speaker 1: When I say the Cape Coast Castle Dungeon, I say
Speaker 1: that on purpose because, as all of your information has
Speaker 1: informed you, this is the Cape Coast Castle. But many
Speaker 1: of us have also been a part of a movement
Speaker 1: to try to say is the Cape Coast Castle Dungeon,
Speaker 1: because when we just used the term castle, it kind
Speaker 1: of suggests some fairytale images of once upon a time
Speaker 1: and they lived happily ever after. But we know that
Speaker 1: these monuments were named historical monuments by UNESCO because of
Speaker 1: the role they played in the infamous North Atlantic slave trade.
Speaker 1: But today we have not come here to feel sorry
Speaker 1: for ourselves. Today we have come here to celebrate African
Speaker 1: resilience because when we realize what our ancestors went through
Speaker 1: and where they were brought to almost into the bottom
Speaker 1: of hell, and yet they saw within their spirit, they
Speaker 1: garnered enough strength with in their spirit to dare to
Speaker 1: define death and to choose to live, so that we
Speaker 1: can be designed about who he was, even small for
Speaker 1: the pad to the hundreds and thousands that were being occupied,
Speaker 1: and he's done it at the same time. So even
Speaker 1: if our numbers are two hundreds, imagine that the male
Speaker 1: dungeon that we're going into house hundreds animals. Imagine that
Speaker 1: we're two hundreds, and the female dungeons that were visited
Speaker 1: were housed a minimum of three hundred at a time.
Speaker 1: So even though our numbers will be proud and then
Speaker 1: were und the sweating, we remember again the challenges that
Speaker 1: our ancestors went through when we arrived there and we
Speaker 1: weren't incocerated again. This is the door of no return.
Speaker 1: This is the door that we thought that we never
Speaker 1: see Africa again. Those are our ancestors were pressing there.
Speaker 1: They didn't know their destination. Nobody gave them an itinerary,
Speaker 1: Nobody told them the time it would take to reach
Speaker 1: where they were going, or where they were going, or
Speaker 1: the condition. Like the dungeons that they left going through
Speaker 1: this door was still darkness. There was no tall God,
Speaker 1: there was no travel God. Um. Rabbi Khema Tanya how Levi.
Speaker 1: I'm the executive secretary of the kind of Fest Foundation.
Speaker 1: We do a bi annual festival here in Ghana every
Speaker 1: two years, bringing artisans and scholars from all over the
Speaker 1: African world um to come to put forward in that
Speaker 1: for the United the African family, Erica, Alexander and the
Speaker 1: producer in the States, and thank you for one thing.
Speaker 1: You're magnificent, Thank you and spiritual guy. Thank you. Do
Speaker 1: you mind if I ask you a few questions? And
Speaker 1: certainly thank you. We think about reparations, and I think
Speaker 1: reparations is something that is long overdue. It seems to
Speaker 1: only be a strange word when it's applied to the
Speaker 1: African experience. Whenever other any other people have gone to war,
Speaker 1: have been devastated at any conflict, the first thing that
Speaker 1: the international body comes together to talk about is how
Speaker 1: are we going to restore this nation who has been
Speaker 1: ravaged by war, by invasion or whatever. Reparations is only
Speaker 1: a debate when it comes to the African experience, and
Speaker 1: reparations is often a debate because people always quantify it
Speaker 1: and money first. But reparations at the root of his
Speaker 1: world means to repair a serious interruption in the African
Speaker 1: experience and the continuity of the African experience took place.
Speaker 1: It took place over centuries by multiple players, by multiple
Speaker 1: multiple perpetrators, and Africans were victimized, and Africans are more
Speaker 1: than worthy of having their condition addressed and having the
Speaker 1: world come together to talk about how is Africa going
Speaker 1: to be repaired with Africans at the center of that process. Now,
Speaker 1: when you say the Africans will be at the center
Speaker 1: of the process, we are here in Ghana. And then
Speaker 1: we have to have a discussion with so many people
Speaker 1: brought up that the African country itself and different countries
Speaker 1: put different tribes and their own people on those boats.
Speaker 1: Should they have an part in reparations? And what do
Speaker 1: you feel about that? I do feel that everyone has
Speaker 1: a part in that. I think the onus is on
Speaker 1: those who would have been a factors. Africa is truly
Speaker 1: the victim and those who cooperate and collaborated within the
Speaker 1: minority of the African populations. And because we had a
Speaker 1: few people that were part of the collaboration, you cannot
Speaker 1: indicte and blame a whole people, you know, who were victimized.
Speaker 1: There's not a single experience of any African family on
Speaker 1: the face of this earth that have ever been conquered,
Speaker 1: ever been infiltrated without the collaboration of some of their
Speaker 1: own indigenous people. But Africans are the only one blamed
Speaker 1: for their own horrific experience. So Africans should not be
Speaker 1: continue to travel down the false line that Africans just
Speaker 1: sold Africans with a blanket statement. So we must understand
Speaker 1: who would the perpetrators, who would have victims, who would
Speaker 1: have been a factors, and who were those who took
Speaker 1: the loss. So reparations of the broad subject and people
Speaker 1: should be bold enough to discuss it without boundaries. This
Speaker 1: is not just a Black experience on African experience on
Speaker 1: African American experience. This is a human experience. The whole
Speaker 1: world benefited off of Africa being ravage. The whole memorial
Speaker 1: must participate in the healing process. Nobody can be outside
Speaker 1: of the circle of that healing process. We need as
Speaker 1: many forums as possible, but all segments of society to
Speaker 1: participate in the debate. We must find ways to organize
Speaker 1: our forums, our sessions, and our conferences so that it's
Speaker 1: all inclusive, so people come to an understanding of how
Speaker 1: to understand each other outside of conflict, but to understand
Speaker 1: each other in dialogue. As run H Sing song rule,
Speaker 1: of the ring, that the dark past, that's tad sing song. President,
Speaker 1: that's powerful. And your visit there to learn about slavery
Speaker 1: does give a whole new meaning to the word home.
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny? We keep saying home home is so
Speaker 1: important in this discussion, And I keep thinking of Setha
Speaker 1: and Paul d and the other formerly enslaved men and women,
Speaker 1: and Tony Morrison's beloved who had worked and lived on
Speaker 1: a plantation called Sweet Home, which he says was neither
Speaker 1: sweet nor home. I think that idea of home is
Speaker 1: tied up with the idea of justice. If you can't
Speaker 1: get justice there, it's not home, is it? Exactly? Can
Speaker 1: reparations find a home here in America? Slavery and race
Speaker 1: was and is our national wound. By providing a kind
Speaker 1: of closure, will reparations, will this kind of restorative justice
Speaker 1: truly make this country a home for all the world.
Speaker 1: The slave made was not her own, Its wealth piled
Speaker 1: up the reckoning delay. Her children live here, but they
Speaker 1: are not home and will not be until accounts are paid.
Speaker 1: Accounts will be paid at the River Shining River, Muddy River.
Speaker 1: Accounts will be paid at the River Weeping River, Hosannah River.
Speaker 1: The River of Justice runs home to the sea. We
Speaker 1: its tributaries feel and urge it on, damned sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: fast and free for generations yet unborne and generations gone,
Speaker 1: and Whitney for real. Thank you for joining me on
Speaker 1: this journey. You make a good team, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine a better companion. I feel the same way, Erica,
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine a better person to go looking for
Speaker 1: home with. You're welcome a friend of ours. The Analog
Speaker 1: Society and Master Ace wrote a song that perfectly sums
Speaker 1: up our journey. It's a song to take us home,
Speaker 1: Take us home. Let's getting late, man, I want to
Speaker 1: go home, and no time for debate, Man, I want
Speaker 1: to go home. My mind's in the statement I want
Speaker 1: to go home. I'm feeling closed in and I want
Speaker 1: to go wrong through the cotton field Menser back of plants,
Speaker 1: got a fire burning in me like a jack O.
Speaker 1: Land term and look over the shoulders and something. My
Speaker 1: group was looking at you like you owe the money. Reparations, conversations.
Speaker 1: Damn forty acres takes a lot of patience. Land of
Speaker 1: the Free, Home of the brave, Blood of the child soul,
Speaker 1: love the slave strange fruit hanging from a popular screamed
Speaker 1: so loud it's like he's singing in the opera. He
Speaker 1: wasn't guilty of the crime when they locked him up.
Speaker 1: Damn shame. It could have been a doctor, bro You
Speaker 1: should have could have water. But the fact remains, you'll
Speaker 1: always be a threat when you're black with brains. They're
Speaker 1: rather see it on the pavement, The spent and Enslaveman.
Speaker 1: This podcast was produced by Eric Alexander, Ben Arnon and
Speaker 1: Whitney Down. The executive producers are Sharp lamand the God
Speaker 1: and Dolly s. Bishop. The supervising producer is Nicole Childers
Speaker 1: and the lead producer is Devin Mavock Robbins. The Associate
Speaker 1: producer is Kevin fam with additional research support provided by
Speaker 1: Nile Blast. This episode was written by Tony Perrier. Original
Speaker 1: music by d J D t P. The song You
Speaker 1: Just Heard is Home in America by Analog Player Society
Speaker 1: and Master Ace, produced by Ben Ruben. The single will
Speaker 1: be released on all platforms on June eighteenth by Ropodote
Speaker 1: Records Reparations. The Big Payback is a production of Color
Speaker 1: Farm Media, I Heart Radio and The Black Effect Podcast
Speaker 1: Network in association with Best Case Studios. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.