- Jul 2, 2003
- 5,990
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Today, looking through some pages of history. I stumbled across the great writings, speeches and thoughts of Fredrick Douglas... during school I always wrote my book reports on Black Americans. When I attended college I asked to take some black history courses. I was told that I needed to complete four years of American History, and then be given limited permission to look in the archives kept in the basement behind heavy locked doors. I declined the foolish notion that I needed another year, or second of American History. I had that every year, up thru high school. Still the truth hadn't surfaced.
This past July we celebrated the independence of the United States. While I participated. I never get into flag waving. I know I have reserved feeling of saying “My country tears of thee, sweet land of liberty " These songs still sound weird to me. I moved my lips, in school. I found out that if you didn't pledge, or participate. You were punished by the teacher, (sent to the office for lack of class participation) and scorned by your class mates. The following words orated by Fredrick Douglas still holds many truths.
Last night I was looking at the work that the National Black Law Students Association is doing related in the fight for reparations. The argument now is there are serious holes in the entire argument. While on the surface I agree. It is a ruse, and must be over come and the matter pushed forward. Here is the ruse. If any points come to mind, while reading this. Comment and share them. Together as a whole we become one.
http://www.nblsa.org
“In an article called "The Achilles' Heel of the Reparations Lawsuits"
Henry Mark Holzer points out four legal flaws in current reparations
lawsuits: 1. There are no legitimate plaintiffs, i.e. the reparations
lawsuits have been brought by people who were not slaves, and thus
have no grievances; 2. There is no recognizable legal claim, i.e.
slavery was legal; 3. There are no legitimate defendants, i.e.
plaintiffs can not trace a causal connection of present damages to
specific defendants; and 4. There are no provable damages. "
I sent an email to this group, and listed some alternatives. Just to jump start the open mind. I know they are stumped by this Achilles Heel ploy. On the surface it is numbing.
The records and names are locked away in archives. Doctors can prove that memory is genetic, and can prove that there is suffering in economic, education, health, and housing.
My mothers great grandfather was a slave. He was alive in 1862. My mother picked cotton. She was born in 1929. She was limited to a six grade education, because she needed to help support the family. She must have been ten years old. They were making access to a higher education beyond that expensive and hard to obtain in Tenn. My father suffered simular degrading incounters. The practice of breaking familys up in the fifties and sixties deserve reparations. The civil rights citizens that died. Their families deserve reparations. The list is unlimited. Next July... I won't be waving a flag, on the 4th. My children don't understand, like many they have bought into the exploitation. They have our youth. The music and media blitz making them robot consumers. I'm not cruel, I won't tear their world apart because they see and believe in an untruth. No one can tell you about discrimination. Injustice. It is something you have to experience, and come face to face with. I do let them know that Hypocrisy abounds.
Enjoy the poetry, and orations of Mr. Fredrick Douglas.
==========================
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/douglass.htm
Frederick Douglass - July 4, 1852
Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
This past July we celebrated the independence of the United States. While I participated. I never get into flag waving. I know I have reserved feeling of saying “My country tears of thee, sweet land of liberty " These songs still sound weird to me. I moved my lips, in school. I found out that if you didn't pledge, or participate. You were punished by the teacher, (sent to the office for lack of class participation) and scorned by your class mates. The following words orated by Fredrick Douglas still holds many truths.
Last night I was looking at the work that the National Black Law Students Association is doing related in the fight for reparations. The argument now is there are serious holes in the entire argument. While on the surface I agree. It is a ruse, and must be over come and the matter pushed forward. Here is the ruse. If any points come to mind, while reading this. Comment and share them. Together as a whole we become one.
http://www.nblsa.org
“In an article called "The Achilles' Heel of the Reparations Lawsuits"
Henry Mark Holzer points out four legal flaws in current reparations
lawsuits: 1. There are no legitimate plaintiffs, i.e. the reparations
lawsuits have been brought by people who were not slaves, and thus
have no grievances; 2. There is no recognizable legal claim, i.e.
slavery was legal; 3. There are no legitimate defendants, i.e.
plaintiffs can not trace a causal connection of present damages to
specific defendants; and 4. There are no provable damages. "
I sent an email to this group, and listed some alternatives. Just to jump start the open mind. I know they are stumped by this Achilles Heel ploy. On the surface it is numbing.
The records and names are locked away in archives. Doctors can prove that memory is genetic, and can prove that there is suffering in economic, education, health, and housing.
My mothers great grandfather was a slave. He was alive in 1862. My mother picked cotton. She was born in 1929. She was limited to a six grade education, because she needed to help support the family. She must have been ten years old. They were making access to a higher education beyond that expensive and hard to obtain in Tenn. My father suffered simular degrading incounters. The practice of breaking familys up in the fifties and sixties deserve reparations. The civil rights citizens that died. Their families deserve reparations. The list is unlimited. Next July... I won't be waving a flag, on the 4th. My children don't understand, like many they have bought into the exploitation. They have our youth. The music and media blitz making them robot consumers. I'm not cruel, I won't tear their world apart because they see and believe in an untruth. No one can tell you about discrimination. Injustice. It is something you have to experience, and come face to face with. I do let them know that Hypocrisy abounds.
Enjoy the poetry, and orations of Mr. Fredrick Douglas.
==========================
http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/douglass.htm
Frederick Douglass - July 4, 1852
Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.
Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.