He is at it again. Introducing the Reparations Act Bill to get reparations for slavery descendents again. I call this poor timing.
H.R.40
Title: To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (3)
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Is it because we have an African-American President that Conyers thinks this will pass?
We already have a $700 BILLION bailout for banks, a “Stimulus Package” that is $900 BILLION dollars, now a bill for Reparations for Slavery? When will the Democrats STOP asking for more money? States have apologized for slavery acts. If Obama truly wants to have this as “One Nation”, why is he allowing this legislation to even be considered?
Will Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan re-emerge BACK into picture now with an Obama Presidency?
Barrack Obama’s (former?)pastor not only spews anti-American rhetoric from the pulpit but favors shaking down U.S. taxpayers for “reparations” for slavery. The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright was the keynote speaker at the 2007 annual conference of N’COBRA, which stands for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America.
A reparations plan for blacks could extract several trillion dollars from American taxpayers’ pockets.
But Wright isn’t the only controversial member of Obama’s church. Dr. Iva Carruthers, who describes herself as an active member of the church, is an outspoken advocate of reparations for blacks and was a participant in N’COBRA’s 2004 conference.
Carruthers was identified, along with Wright, as a member of Obama’s African American Religious Leadership Committee. Wright has since been dropped from the group. But Carruthers is sometimes referred to as a spokesman for Wright and works with him closely.
Indeed, Carruthers may be even more controversial, especially on the issue of reparations. She wrote The Church and Reparations―An African American Perspective, which was reportedly “distributed by her denomination” at the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. The conference was considered so extreme that the U.S. delegation, led by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, walked out.
Not only are members of his church involved in the reparations movement; Obama is said to have been politically close to former Chicago Alderman Dorothy Jean Wright Tillman, who led an effort by the Chicago City Council to demand reparations for slavery. “Chicago has become the de facto center of the slavery reparations movement,” noted a journalist for the far-left In These Times.
The Obamas’ just-released 2006 income tax return shows that they gave $22,500 to Trinity United Church of Christ, which they attended with such figures as Wright and Carruthers.
Despite going to the same church, however, Carruthers told me that she has no idea as to where Obama stands on the controversy. “I don’t have any insight at all,” she said, before saying that she had to leave for another engagement.
Carruthers is the General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, which includes Wright on its board and describes itself as a social justice organization. The website of the group includes a statement that “Dr. Wright represents the best among us, one of the best in this tribe of prophetic preachers. He has made his church a place where one could express the centuries-old pain of being Black in America, while finding strength for a brighter day. An attack on this man of the God is an attack on all those of the cloth who believe in the social Gospel of liberation.”
Both Wright and Carruthers were involved in the Illinois Transatlantic Slave Trade Commission, established by the Illinois State Legislature in 2005. Its purpose was to examine the “past and present effects on African-Americans” of the slave trade and it issued a report in 2007. Wright was an “associate” of the commission while Carruthers was the “senior research consultant.”
Its findings included that Christopher Columbus was part of the Catholic Church’s “century of blood” in the establishment of the slave trade system, and that civil war U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, acknowledged to be “the most famous son of Illinois,” didn’t morally object to slavery but only wanted to “restore the Union to white consensus.”
In 2003, Carruthers spoke on behalf of Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ at a “summit on reparations” opened by Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Another group represented at the Farrakhan summit was the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), which seeks the creation of a black nation in the U.S. in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
In 2007, Carruthers endorsed a document urging that “Financial and human resources be identified and made available, in trust and otherwise, with appropriate church, community, and academic entities to effect institutional development and remedies from the Transatlantic slave trade system and colonialism at the local, national and global levels.” The document said that reparations should be “offered for the healing of peoples who were once enslaved.”
Like Obama, Carruthers and Wright have been deeply involved in African affairs. They traveled to the “motherland,” as they call it, where Wright was photographed in Ghana in “full ceremonial regalia” as a “development chief” and Carruthers was elevated to the position of “queen mother.” Obama’s wearing of African garb became a national controversy.
But the more important issue, from a public policy perspective, is how he would handle taxpayer dollars.
While Carruthers said she did not know where Obama stood on the issue of reparations, the Chicago Tribune reported that he was asked in 2004 about the matter and “spoke about how slavery had left a stain on the country that has yet to be eradicated.” Nevertheless, he said that he opposed “just signing checks over to African-Americans.”
During the presidential campaign, the issue came up during a Democratic presidential debate and only Dennis Kucinich said he favored reparations. Obama changed the subject, saying he favored more spending on schools.
Carruthers told AIM that reparations have to include much more than financial payments.
She may have in mind not only an apology from the federal government but some form of spiritual or psychological help for black victims of the slave trade.
In this regard, the N’COBRA conference that featured Wright also included a panel discussion of “Post-Traumatic Slavery Syndrome.” In a variation of this theme, the Philadelphia branch of N’COBRA had advertised a sold-out lecture on the subject of “Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder (PTSD),” described as one of the Psycho-Racial Spiritual Diseases of Americanized Africans (PRSDAA). The speaker, a psychologist, said that black-on-black violence could even be attributed to undiagnosed PRSDAAs.
Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has endorsed Obama for president.
Conyers’ bill to create a “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans” was first introduced in 1989. He praised N’COBRA in a statement he issued in 1999 and sponsored a subsequent event, “Capitalizing on Our Strength―Empowering the Reparations Movement,” featuring a representative of N’COBRA.
One thing is certain: Carruthers is hoping for an Obama win. Federal Election Commission records show that she gave his Illinois Senate campaign $500 and his presidential campaign $2300. She gave contributions to no other candidates.
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/does-obama-favor-slavery-reparations/
H.R.40
Title: To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (3)
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
COSPONSORS(3), ALPHABETICAL [followed by Cosponsors withdrawn]: (Sort: by date)
| Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] – 1/14/2009 | Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] – 1/8/2009 |
| Rep Scott, Robert C. “Bobby” [VA-3] – 1/6/2009 |
What is N’COBRA?
Their website:
What Forms Should Reparations Take?
Reparations can be in as many forms as necessary to equitably (fairly) address the many forms of injury caused by chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges. The material forms of reparations include cash payments, land, economic development, and repatriation resources particularly to those who are descendants of enslaved Africans. Other forms of reparations for Black people of African descent include funds for scholarships and community development; creation of multi-media depictions of the history of Black people of African descent and textbooks for educational institutions that tell the story from the African descendants’ perspective; development of historical monuments and museums; the return of artifacts and art to appropriate people or institutions; exoneration of political prisoners; and, the elimination of laws and practices that maintain dual systems in the major areas of life including the punishment system, health, education and the financial/economic system. The forms of reparations received should improve the lives of African descendents in the United States for future generations to come; foster economic, social and political parity; and allow for full rights of self-determination.
Who Must Make Reparations?
N’COBRA seeks reparations at this time from two groups: governments and corporations. There are individuals, families, and religious institutions that directly benefited from slavery in the United States, and who, if acting in good faith, would contribute to reparations funds for use in assisting in the reparations process. However, we choose to focus on government and corporations because of their particular role in the horrific tragedies of chattel slavery and the continuing vestiges of slavery we live with today. In addition, we recognize that all White people to some extent have benefited from slavery and the underlying lie of White Supremacy that allowed it to exist for two and one-half centuries in the United States. This lie has led to what is commonly called “white skin privilege” and results in significant benefits to White people. The process of reparations would include creating ways to change the culture of “white skin privilege” that was created to sustain chattel slavery and its continuing vestiges.
When will the manipulation of American’s end? Is this just another “stage” of the Cloward-Piven strategy?
Does anyone else hear that aspirating sound attached to your wallets?
