Why we need Reparations
Hello All! I hope this message finds you all happy and well. You know, May is mental health awareness month, a thought not lost on me a few weeks back. I believe really strongly if we really start to understand mental health and how it affects us, we can construct public spaces, especially workspaces in which we can mutually benefit. In an environment filled with diverse perspectives that we can learn from. When we have trust and removal of stigma, we have safety- conveniently a goal of every company. To continue to grow this awareness, we need more communication- it's a great place to start. So, with that in mind, Happy May!
There are underlying mental health epidemics in this country that we do not discuss as such. I think we should begin, because at its feet, lie a lot of our disfunction and dissonance as a Nation. For today, let's about White Supremacy and consider it as a Mental Health Epidemic. The state of mental health in America is at its worst now, in some ways more, than it's been since the end of the Civil War. They didn't have that term then, but it's hard to imagine, that a war that pitted brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor didn't cause severe trauma. The war had brought death and destruction to so many for so long. I'm sure that many were broken, BUT Slavery was over in America.
But it didn't end there did it?
In Lincoln's second Inaugural address, March 1865- He refers to a bible verse Matthew 18:7 wherein Jesus says "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come..." Lincoln in his very short address replies; "If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure..." from the word of God? He blames the war on Slavery directly, says in fact that it was our inability to stop enslaving each other that brought this war upon us. He then says, do we dare to defy God any further? He closes with a plea, that we must now do all in our power to "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
He asked this and the response was a few months later he had been killed. Andrew Johnson, a man with no connection to Lincoln or the Abolition movement, was now in charge of the country AND WE NEVER HAD PEACE. The planned promise of 40 acres and a mule, was denied. The Klan, Jim Crow Laws, and soon the second-class status of Segregation all appeared in the south. The Great Migration to the north did not happen with open arms and integrated communities. To this day, the Civil Rights movement must Persist, simply to realize Lincoln's promise, and the intent and promise of the 14th Amendment, which is as much a part of our constitution as the right to bear arms.
Many better voices than mine can tell that story, I would strongly encourage that you actually experience the full 1619 Project. Approaching slavery and its ongoing, catastrophic legacy the way a journalist would approach a story, with evidentiary information told from impartiality and great writing.
American culture has been divided from its outset, but that dream no longer needs be deferred. The instruments of equal power is the founding ideal of this country, and yet it seems further away than ever. We can collectively choose a better future; I cannot think of a more apt example of this then Germany. Societies and cultures need to heal when they have done terrible things to each other and to themselves. For Germans, there was a chance that there would never be Art after Auschwitz. The youngest country of Europe had plunged the planet into two world wars, killed nearly 80 million people in 50 years including the systematic murder of 2/3 of the Jews in Europe. There is always a tendency as the victors to want to punish until they are all dead. To cancel them, to destroy all Nazi's and all that represent them. But Nazis had children, and a nation had to move forward. You may have noticed that picture on the top there. That is Willy Brandt, he was the Chancellor of West Germany at the time that picture was taken, about 25 years after the end of the war. That's not his real name lol- He was a German leftist journalist who escaped after the nazi's took over and he took the pen name Willy Brandt to throw the nazi's off his track. He grew to like it, the name stuck. He was never a Nazi, but he represented the nation during the first German delegation to Poland. On seeing Auschwitz, to the surprise of everyone, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head in silence. No world leader at the time, certainly not a German one had acknowledged the horror of this site before, and he claimed responsibility for it on behalf of his people. It's a beautiful moment, a genuine one and although sparked quite the uproar in Germany, has in time become a watershed moment for the Germans to grow. This same country is the heart of the EU now and is so unwarlike, it took the invasion of the Ukraine for them to gradually start to increase the size of their military. They lead the world in many green initiatives and took the humanitarian lead in many situations over the last 30 years. They are far from perfect or healed, but they are functioning at a much higher level than we are in America. It's important to note that Germany to this day is still paying Reparations to the survivors of the holocaust, some 82 Billion dollars since the 1950's, mostly to citizens of Israel. Willy Brandt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 "in recognition of his consistent politics of peace... and his endeavors to minimize the political tension in Europe." Germans helped themselves by doing the right thing, by openly acknowledging their failures, by admitting their crime.
In America, we are still locked in a war over race, over gender, over culture- Over what is American. The problem is that so much of what is "American" is also white supremacy. Germany defeated had to submit and in the process found a new identity Because THEY CHOSE TOO. White supremacists in America lost their war, but at the 11th hour were allowed to escape, reform and recreate an American society that consistently and virulently protects its power by maintaining racial and gender-based discrimination. It is normalized for us and has been for so long that it can cause an emotional reaction when you are presented with the truth. It's more than just the confederate statues everywhere, or normalized historical inaccuracies or commercials about purity and snow and beauty etc. etc. Your potentially loving home you grew up in is the one of those sources of "truth". And that doesn't mean it wasn't loving, it just means that, like all things, its considerably more Nuanced and complicated than we want it to be. White people have every right to say- We were not responsible for all of this. In most cases they aren't- directly! But they often help perpetuate it, even just living in their privilege. And that is the part that is hard to swallow- White people are participating in white supremacy simply by living in white privilege. You don't have to be a KKK member, you only have to allow the benefit of white privilege to wash over you to perpetuate it. Your example teaches your children, and they teach theirs. The majority of those perpetuating these means of power are doing so unconsciously. This system will not change, until we change it. To those of you that think this isn't that a big of a deal or the slavocracy is long over, I submit to you this.
This day, like every day, is our opportunity to do something different. Reparations are not a tax, or something that is owed- It should be thought of more like a tithe. Your voluntary support of something greater than yourself that you want to see survive and thrive. This is what the Black people freed from the chains deserved then and NOW. It's not something to be avoided or ducked- it's to be embraced. People should want to help people, in giving we are enriched.
It is also self-serving to want to provide Reparations, because it will help heal you. Mental health issues often come from Trauma, the trauma of living in this divided country is real; our unconscious perpetuation passes along the trauma as well as the benefit. We want to heal this wrong, because in the act of doing so, our life will have purpose, and our sacrifice will help us connect to the pain we created.
Another part of providing Reparations is setting a better example for your children, this is an action you can take in your life to break the cycle. As a parent, we can provide Reparations in part by not raising our children with the same attitudes, beliefs or limitations that we were raised with. I give neither the benefit nor the trauma. You can as well.
We deserve to have our government provide a real system for this, but we do not need the government to do what is right. It is in our power to provide support to the goals of realizing Equity in this nation, a "dream, a dream deeply rooted in the American dream". I don't think there is a limit on ways that we can support Liberation. I do think it requires action every day.
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I hope for a day when we can live in a world based on service, mutual respect and understanding and can work together to achieve a better world for our children.
Be well all and Happy Mother's day if it is not too difficult of a day for you.
Best