1222`: Re: 12220: Re: 12218: Reparations; (Saint-vil adds) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jean Saint-Vil <jafrikayiti@hotmail.com>

I applaud Daniel Simidor's attempt to reason with appologists of Global
White Supremacy who would strive to see it get away the most horrendous
crime of the millenium (possibly of human history), but I suspect he will
find very few supporters on this list wishing that France returns the
ransonm (upside down debt of $90M Francs) it collected from Haiti. Because,
as we all know, it is not only the State of France (which by the way still
exists) that built her people's base of prosperity with the blood and sweat
of Africans ... it is all Europe (Britain, Spain, White America, Danemark,
Germany, Holland...).

Obviously, folks who approach the reparations issue from a stand point of
guilt will find it impossible to focus on the need for restorative justice.
People a crime has been committed. Those who benefitted and continue to
benefit from this crime are identifiabe. Those who have suffered loses from
this crime are easily identifiable. Because it was perpetrated on the basis
of a simple visble marker "race". And it is being denied discussion,
coverred up, buttered up by changing the discourse, even by the very words
we now use. For instance, to understand Haiti's poverty, now people use
terms such as "democracy and lack thereof", "chronic analphabetism", "debt
of the South"... As if those who conveniently now refer to themselves as
"the west" or "the north" (since white is no longer a marker to be used
openly). Yes, as if it was with democracy Amerikkka, France,
Britain....EUROPE built its fortune. As if the analphabetism was some
genetic disease like sickle cell anemia. Or some plague that just fell on
black people  from nowhere. As if it is a question of geography that
determined the destribution of wealth we now observe in this world - As if
we have all become suddenly colour blind and - illogical beings.

When one dares to make a comparison between the abuse suffered by an
individual immigrant on her way to America with a 500 year multi-state
sponsored attempted genocide on a whole race of people....obviously,
rationality is not at all on the table.

No wonder at the Durban Conference, the leaders of "the West" (who just
happen to be white - a question of geography) cowered away from the issue of
reparations. No wonder the Congrtional Black Caucus (maybe they should be
renamed Congressional "South" Caucus?) dtands alone in the U.S. government
system as a staunch denouncer of Amerikkka's continued racist attitude
towards Haiti. The longer we deny the pervasive role racial bigotry has to
do with the abject poverty in which 1 billion black people are living on
this planet, the the longer any call for any reparations to black people
anywhere will be put off and the longer will our world miss out on
opportunities to heal and make peace with herself.

Good try Daniel. But, I knowing that the call for reparations is up against
500 years of denial and conditionning, more efforts will have to be made to
move this dialogue away from the demobilising shame and denial arena to that
of restorative truth and justice.


Jafrikayiti

"Up to 1863 Haiti was the sole demecracy on this continent where White
Supremacy was rejected and racial slavery defeated"


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