I have grown-up as part of the post-civil rights baby boom. One of the "cultural tropes" of my generation is that you must engage in electoral politics both as a privilege long denied people of African descent and as a way of honoring our ancestors who made sacrifices of safety, security, life and limb. Ase. Ase. I feel that it is important and appropriate to do so. Not only as an acknowledgment of a debt owed to our ancestors but also as a way of shaping the present and conditioning the future. But we need to be clear regarding what role this practice plays in the development of ourselves, our families, our communities and the society.
It it important to recognize that voting/political engagement is a tactic. It is not the goal that we are striving for. The extent to which we can impact our condition is circumscribed by the political process and the context of the electoral process. We may not (probably not) be able to bring about the changes that we ultimately aspire to manifest through electoral politics but it can be a tool We should use it.
Along this same line we recognize the importance of acceptance of complicity by all the perpetrators in the African Chattel Enslavement System. One response to this need resulted in the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) to have adopted the call for federal participation in addressing the need for repair from the injuries inflicted on people of African descent and their descendants. This call has taken the form of lobbying for federal legislation that has come to be known as House Resolution 40 (HR40). I think there are those who have been so intensely engaged in the fight for reparations that they have forgotten that HR40, or any legislation, is not our goal. It is a tactic. Whether we are successful in passing the legislation or not, there are injuries suffered as a result of African Chattel Enslavement and their vestiges won't be addressed, can't be repaired through legislation.
Even the reparations movement is a tactic. The dehumanization of the African personality in the european imagination was necessary to treat people as property. Reparations means repair. The reparations movement is advocacy to start the process of repair. The reparations movement is a tactic. Most commonly the call for reparations is interpreted in economic terms whether a demand for the value of the labor provided or a share of the profits produced. While this may be necessary it is insufficient to address the harms that were the essence of the African Chattel Enslavement System. A full accounting of the injuries suffered as a result of the African Chattel Enslavement experience would call into account healing for the injured and the injurer. The goal that we seek is not transactional. It is relational.
The idea of people of African descent moving back to the South and populating the Black Belt, i.e., the states where the majority of people of African descent resided in the U.S. before the Civil War. This idea of a reverse migration is a tactic. The idea of the reverse migration includes the potential for political ascendancy based on the principles of democracy. It is suggested that this would give the residents of the Black Belt states access to the resources due to states and municipalities as part of revenue sharing. While this makes sense if the people involved are willing to be sensible. That has not been the case for europeans in the past. We have well known example of attacks on communities of African descent due to economic and/or political ascendancy. It is a tactic that should be explored and utilized but we must not mistake it as our goal.
The strategy that underlies all these tactics is a return to human wholeness/full humanity for people of African descent. That is the strategy. There are some things that can happen through the effort and involvement of those outside our community. But there are also some things that only we can do, We can demand and garner resources for repair from outside our community. But the healing is a function of what we do within the community. No one else can do that for us. Also, there is a brokenness that allowed the european to think that their actions were acceptable and appropriate. That hurt and injury must be addressed as well. They (eruopeans) don't need or deserve what people of African descent may require. We match the remedy to the injury. But we know that we are not struggling around a broken labor contract. We are struggling due to a broken human covenant.
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