Critiquing Harper's Magazine's
'Making the Case for Racial Reparations'
Part II
By Oscar L. Beard, African Reparations Activist

Author's Note: I have been forced to place the International Copyright on these materials due the fact that a party has taken the "liberty" of re-distributing Part I with their own changes. In my view, these changes altered the substance and/or flavor of my statement.

Though we are aware that the term Reparations is in recent use in a number of differing contexts in U.S. Law, there is a dire need for African or Black Reparations Activists to be clear on what the term means in the wake of the DEMAND for Reparations by African People. The usage of the term is now extended to local Courts, an apparent colloquialism for the term restitution. At the same time, African Reparations articles now tend to distinguish between Reparations and restitution.

According to the Harper's article, one of the attorneys identified the recent Class Action Settlement by the Black Farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture as Reparations. But what is meant by Reparations in the context of the abuses of U.S. Slavery and its lingering effects is provided in Black's Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, as "Payment made by one country to another for damage during war." The 'war' context is crucial to the appropriate understanding of what we are about to do in the U.S. and globally regarding African Reparations and in understanding in no uncertain terms that we are still U.S. captives without our liberties as a People.

An excellent explanation of what African Reparations really mean in the context of the European war against Africans, is provided in a video by Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock called, "Black Sovereignty and the 14th Amendment". If you need information on how to acquire this very important video, visit the website of The Self Determination Committee at: http://www.directblackaction.com and e-mail the webmaster. An additional source of information regarding the war context of African Reparations may be found at my website, listed above, at the link near the bottom of the home page called Did We Sell Each Other Into Slavery?.

The recent global phenomenon of the payment of Reparations in International Law deals with the payment by one Nation to another Nation or State, for abuse(s). So that the Black Farmers' Settlement would not be Reparations in this classic sense of the word as it applies to African Reparations. The problem that The Honourable Silis Muhammad of The Lost Found Nation of Islam and The National Commission for Reparations experienced in 1996 in seeking Reparations for African Slavery and its lingering effects via Due Process in International Law through The United Nations Commission Human Rights Commission protocol in Geneva, Switzerland is this. There was no existing category by which even to discuss the problem of Reparations to African slave descendants in the U.S. and the Diaspora because we, the Plaintiff(s) have no International Identity. Our Human Identity in terms of the three Human Rights in International Law, Mother Tongue, Religion and Culture, were all stripped from us by force of arms and brainwashing during slavery. This presented a tactical problem.

The problem was that since Reparations is a transfer of payment(s) from one State or Nation to another State or Nation (The United NATIONS) for abuse(s), only the Defendant, the accused U.S. Government and others, could be identified as a State or a Nation with a government that is recognized by the International community. Where is the Diaspora Negro State that has international recognition? Who is its president? What is its Gross National Product? Where is its military? On what land is the Negro State located?

The problem of a category by which to discuss the matter of Reparations to African slave descendants in the Diaspora was solved in Geneva in May of 2000 by an expert in The Working Group on Minorities within The United Nations Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (a mouthful), which comes under the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The Subcommission is a primary arena in which problems in Human Rights may be presented to the 188 member-Nation States of the World while they are in session.

So what occurred this August in Geneva is that the paper which, for the first time, gives us an human or International Identity by which Reparations can be discussed in Due Process in International Law, was, in the short run, stopped by the U.S. Our new International Identity comes under the concept of Ethnogenesis.

And what is Ethnogenesis? There are a wide range and permutations of Crimes Against Humanity. Bringing these crimes to a least common denominator for our purposes we could speak of two situations. There are those People, Nations or States who are being dominated or subjugated by some of other Nation(s) or State(s) on their own land, but who still have their Mother Tongue, their traditional Religion and original Culture, though both their Religion and Culture may be under threat from the presence of the alien Culture. They still have their Human Rights, though not their liberties. Then there are those People(s) who have been removed from their land by force of arms to a forced jurisdiction, but who still have their Mother Tongue, Religion and Culture. In our situation, we were removed from our land by force of arms (our Common Law Domicile(s) of Origin) and also stripped of our Human Rights and Human Identity by force of arms and brainwashing. This is a very unique situation for which, until this past May 2000, the International community had no category. Literally, we now exist as a People in International Law for the very first time in U.S. and Diaspora History!

So Ethnogenesis refers to a People(s), a Nation(s) or State(s) illegally removed from their Common Law Domicile(s) of Origin into a forced jurisdiction and who were stripped of their Human Identity, but who have been experiencing a return or a rediscovery of that Human Identity, Mother Tongue(s), original Religion(s) and original or traditional Culture(s), but who continue to be dominated, eclipsed by a popular and more powerful Nation(s) or State(s) or People(s) under whose forced identity they are identified as opposed to their own Human Identity which was stripped from them by force and brainwashing. Well, this describes us quite nicely!

So it is extremely important at this juncture as African and/or Black Reparations moves into the mainstream media locally, nationally and globally, that we are clear on these issues.

Respectfully,
Oscar L. Beard
African Reparations Activist

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