Black People : How the Native Americans got Their Reparations

[Blackbird]

Peace!

Many of the groups who were able to come up, per se, did so for a variety of reasons: oil, land trusts, coal, and treaty payments to name a few. Some industrious groups were able to parley those stipends and dividends into casinos, international contracts and resorts.

All attempts are aimed to keep us as neutralized as possible and when you are playing a game where the rules are written and rewritten by your rival, you must come up with ingenious ways of countering and then going on the offensive. We need to write our own rules, but first we must come to identify with our goal is, what our strategy will be to achieve that goal and constantly revise to accommodation shifting of factors. We have yet to come to a consensus and perhaps that may be the beauty and advantage of the First Nations fragmentation. Each group work its own course out for itself, negotiate its own terms and then convene at a National Convention instead of seeking some national overall platform that doesn't tolerate dis uniformity of purpose yet fails to articulate any feasible and achievable objective. Being able to have the flexibility and efficiency to operate in smaller groups may be advantageous for us and could possible fly in the face of conventional adage of strength in numbers. But whatever we decide, we must be able to codify and culturalize our aims and objectives like the Jews.



Blackbird

Here is some information. You can take it for better or for worse, depending on your perspective.

Recently, back in the area where I'm from, there has been much ado frenzy about a discovery that has the potential to transform my "home" radically: the Haynesville Shale. Although the area has been mapped by the government years ago and the actual resource discovery known for over 80 years, the possible impact of the Haynesville Shale has become greater than anyone previously suspected. The Haynesville Shale, in layman terms, is a deposit area of natural gas. It is possibly the largest deposit of natural gas in the country and the 4th largest in the world.

There is a conservative oilman, by the name of T Boone Pickens, who is currently investing up to $58 million of his money to finance a personal campaign to get the current presidential candidates to consider promoting wind power and increase natural gas use to compensate for oil. It is said the Haynesville Shale can remedy the nation's energy "crisis" and fuel cars and other industries.

What's the relevance to Black folks and reparations? Earlier in a previous post, I stated how First Nations people were able to parley their resources for an economic windfall, converting "raw" resources to tangible economic enterprises and endeavors such casinos, telecom companies, international contracting projects and so on. Well, many Black people own a fairly significant share of the acreage in this natural gas play. My fam has about 200+ acres. When interest first came to this area back in February, the average cost of leasing an acre for natural gas expulsion was about $200-$500 an acre. This figure has increased exponentially in a course 6 months to an average of about $15,000-20,000 an acre, with some isolated reports of in excess of $25,000 an acre. The royalty percentage is currently set about 25-28% over the life of a three year lease.

This discovery has made some people and families instant multimillionaires overnight. At the going rate, my family alone is set to receive $3 mil just off the lease bonus. One of the issues facing many local Black landowners is the lack of information of what they can lease their land for so many are getting robbed or are signing for paltry amounts less than $10,000 an acre. A few conscious minded people from back home are banding together to create a coalition to ensure ecological integrity and negotiate the best deal for their acres. I'm watching with baited breathe and hoping that we can parlay this opportunity into an actual blessing for those involve and a benefit the Black community overall.

Blackbird