Per usual I was miles ahead of the curve with my posting demanding
reparations for black victims of American oppression several weeks
ago. As much as you wish it to white America, this issue is NOT going
to go away! I for one will fan the flames of justifiable black anger
at racist America every opportunity I am given. Extremism in the
defense of black justice is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of
reparations for them is no virtue! Without apology I am
Keke Goldfeller

Mon Oct 27, 8:48 AM ET

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The recent reburial of the remains of hundreds of
African-American slaves in New York put little to rest aside from some
bones from America's darkest hour, say many who took part in the
ceremonies.

In fact, the historic reburial was a powerful call to action to fight
for respect, resources and, most of all, reparations for black people,
they said. Demands that the United States pay restitution to the
descendants of slaves have long simmered, but the reburial gave fresh
focus to them.

"We are angry and we will be angry today, tomorrow and tomorrow. We
will never cease to demand that this country 'fess up and pay up,"
said the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a New York minister and activist, at a
ceremony this month to rebury the remains of more than 400 free and
enslaved blacks in a colonial-era cemetery rediscovered in lower
Manhattan in 1991.

"There's a day of reparation, there's a day of restitution and that
day is upon us," he said.

The slaves' remains were discovered 12 years ago during construction
of a federal building in New York and the African Burial Ground just
north of City Hall was declared a landmark. The remains and other
artifacts unearthed were sent to Howard University in Washington,
D.C., for study and sent back for reburial earlier this month.

Reparations would pay for centuries of slavery, which ended just a few
generations ago, leaving a devastated people still struggling for
equal footing, some said.

"Slavery still haunts America," said Raymond Winbush, a scholar and
author of "Should America Pay?"

"Its impact is felt in the wealth that white America, and actually the
Western world has, and the poverty of black America," he said. "You
can still see it today in Harlem or the south side of Chicago. I see
it every time I walk the streets of big cities."

Activists point out that in the United States the infant mortality
rate among blacks is more than double that of whites, blacks drop out
of high school at twice the rate as whites, blacks earn two-thirds of
what whites earn, twice as many American blacks than whites live in
poverty and blacks make up a vastly disproportionate percentage of the
prison population.

40 ACRES AND A MULE

They say reparations could come in many forms -- the value of the 40
acres and a mule freed blacks were promised when slavery ended, how
much of white people's worth is attributable to previous generations,
the value of generations of unpaid slave labor combined with a century
of segregation or even the entire cost of slavery and colonialism.

Estimates of the price tag run anywhere from $2 trillion to a whopping
$777 trillion.

While reparations would be "a very healing act for America, Dalton
Conley, a sociology professor and author of "Honky," said: "It's a
pipe dream."

Columnist Thomas Sowell sees seeking reparations as a backward-looking
mistake. In a syndicated column last year he said it would be more
productive for young black people to take advantage of the
"opportunities all around them that most people in the rest of the
world today would die for."

"The ancestors of black Americans were not taken from some Eden, and
there is no Eden for black Americans to return to today. If
compensation were to be paid for the difference between where they are
and where their ancestors came from, they would owe money, not receive
money," he wrote.

At the reburial ceremony, New York City Councilman Charles Barron
suggested reparations in the form of education, property or tax
exemptions. "If you want to honor us, pay us our reparations," he
said.

RESPECT AND DIGNITY



Muntu Matsimela, a local radio producer, is part of a group hoping to
hold a national conference on reparations in New York next summer
during the Republicans' political convention.

"You're talking about 265 years of unpaid labor. You're talking about
trillions of dollars," he said.

Efforts on reparations have been made around the world. U.S. insurance
company Aetna Inc. and railroad CSX Corp. have been sued over their
activities during the years of U.S. slavery, the United States paid
reparations to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during
World War II, Swiss banks agreed to pay Holocaust survivors and Japan
has been the subject of reparations cases over atrocities committed
during the war.

Winbush is confident America will eventually pay too.

"I think it's going to happen. I'm very optimistic. It's a very slow
process. This country usually ultimately does do the right thing," he
said.

But Conley argued that even if the idea of reparations is a pipe
dream, it's valuable nevertheless.

"Even if it's now a pipe dream, it's still important to have that
academic debate," he said. "It's a debate about what the meaning of
history is, it's a debate about how history and economics intersect
and it's a debate about identity."