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Title: Fragments Against Reparation Author: Anonymous Date: winter 2022 Language: en Topics: black liberation, anti-blackness, reparations, insurrection, identity, white guilt Source: Retrieved on 2/5/2022 from https://haters.noblogs.org/post/2022/01/31/fragments-against-reparations/ Notes: Written and designed anonymously in Philadelphia, occupied Lenapehoking. Released winter 2022. No copyrights
This text is written with the intent to provoke critical discussion
about reparations. Most of the criticisms of reparations that have been
circulating have come from an anti-Black and often pro business as usual
perspective. This text, instead, aims to criticize reparations as a way
of moving towards Black liberation.
Oppression of Black people is as old as (and synonymous with) the
American economy. Since day one it’s been insult, indignity, and death
for Black people here in the USA. Our history here is a history of
getting ripped off over and over again, for centuries. The society we
live in is built on Black suffering, literally and figuratively.
More and more lately, people are discussing reparations for Black
people. Some people think we — Black people — should get paid, as a way
to fix all we’ve been through. The word reparation comes from repair,
and the way we’ve been treated can’t be repaired. That’s too late. What
has been taken from us is gone, maybe forever. We can move forward, but
we can’t undo what’s been done to Black people. Getting some free money,
land, or social programs from white people or the government is nice,
but it’s not reparations.
How can someone pay us back when they haven’t stopped hurting us and
taking from us? What kind of sick math can measure how much suffering
costs? Is any amount of money, land, or stuff enough to make our
ancestors rest easy? What kind of reparation could make sure
anti-blackness stops and nothing like it ever happens again? How much
money would it take to make you feel alright about how society treated
and continues to treat Black people? Trying to put a dollar amount on
this kind of thing is cruel and offensive.
Reparations aren’t going to make Black people free. The path to freedom
is a lot more nasty and difficult than getting a check or a deed to some
land, and a lot more dignified than begging and filing applications. We
should think bigger and fight harder because Black liberation is too
expansive to fit into something as narrow and limited as reparations. We
can aim so much higher. We can consider what it is about reparations
that won’t free us, and also consider better ways to get free as Black
people.
form of begging. We rely on showing how good and worthy we are. We use
our oppressors’ way of seeing to show how deserving we are. This kind of
submissive attitude toward freedom is disempowering.
leave it up to other people whether we get what we want. Since the
people we are begging have a long history of anti-Blackness it doesn’t
make sense to rely on or center them.
we can get ourselves, they rely on someone else giving them to us and
are not based in what we can do for ourselves.
peopleReparations are only going to go as far as how guilty or generous
a non-Black group or individual is. Once they feel they have given
enough or feel better about themselves they can stop giving, regardless
of whether Black people are liberated.
reparations, that wouldn’t challenge let alone bring down the anti-Black
structures that made them desirable in the first place. Reparations
won’t destroy slavery, policing, capitalism, colonialism, or any other
anti-Black structures.
for non-Black people to calm us down and put an end to our struggle.
They create a narrative that justifies ending our struggle. Reparations
is a way to appeal to Martin to avoid dealing with Malcolm.
reparations we assume that the economy and the society that the
reparations are coming from are worth being involved in. The
anti-Blackness we’ve endured and still endure is coming from the same
source as the reparations we would receive — an anti-Black society. When
we seek reparations we’re digging ourselves deeper into a set of systems
that benefits from our suffering.
done and continues to doAnti-Blackness runs deeper than any amount of
money or land can repair. Reparations won’t end or fix anti-Blackness,
for that we need to aim much higher.
direct conflict with and taking what we need and want from anti-Black
groups and individuals builds up our confidence and come from our own
decisions.
and attacking anti-Black groups and individuals we choose what we need
without having anyone else decide for us. We know what’s best for us and
decide for ourselves.
and taking from anti-Black groups and individuals comes from our own
choice and ability. We don’t rely on those who oppress us. We start from
relying on ourselves.
only limits to what and how we can attack and take are what we want and
what we are able to do. The more we acquire and destroy the more
capacity we can develop to do more taking and attacking.
structuresThe destructive nature of attacking and taking opens up the
option of getting rid of anti-Black structures. Police can be
interrupted, prisons can be emptied and destroyed, economies can be
crashed and expropriated, colonizers and their institutions can be
robbed and pushed out, etc.
those responsible for anti-Blackness we are taking cathartic and
therapeutic action. Actively working to end anti-Blackness on our own
terms gives us confidence, self-determination, and life.
won’t have to complain later about what we really wanted to say or do if
we confront anti-Blackness honestly. If we want to get rid of
anti-Blackness attacking and looting it is a straightforward way of
trying to do that.
with Black people who are doing the same builds confidence and trust as
we accomplish things together.
anti-Blackness physically is not only a way to actively work against it,
it is also a way of spiritually moving away from socialized anti-Black
ways of being.
alongside non-Black people, our proximity, mutual understanding, and
common struggle offer us the possibility to move past the socializations
that create race.
anti-Blackness)Moving alongside Black people one has common cause with,
against anti-Blackness that one has personally made themselves the enemy
of, is a rare opportunity for honesty in a society that funnels people
toward dishonest relations toward Blackness.
complicity, we bond over a shared goal, as opposed to guilt which only
binds non-Black people further to their non-Blackness.
Disclaimer: The scenario described below is an incomplete and unfinished
exploration of financial repair for Black people. The meaning of the
word reparations below is stretched and distorted. The reparations in
the scenario below are not freely given by (formerly/) anti-Black groups
and individuals to Black people. Instead the word is used to mean any
financially equalizing measure. It is not meant to cover social,
psychological, cultural, spiritual, or other damages resulting from
anti-Blackness. The reader is invited to imagine the reparations
necessary to account for non-financial oppression of Black life. The
scenario described is not meant to be a model to follow, rather it is a
sarcastic one, one of many less than liberatory conclusions one could
arrive at by imagining Black freedom via a hierarchical and economic
perspective, such as reparations.
A commission of Black mathematicians, psychologists, economists,
researchers, historians, lawyers, intelligence and security specialists,
and other experts forms to do an in-depth financial assessment of the
economic costs of Black people’s oppression and to publish financial
measures that would enable reparation be paid to Black people. The
commission is equipped with state of the art computers, a vast library
of the least biased encyclopedias and history books on the planet,
twelve floors in a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, and a near limitless
budget. Satellite offices are opened in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Dakar,
Capetown, Panama City, Algiers, Moscow, Tokyo, Port-au-Princes,
Kingston, and an undisclosed number of field offices are opened across
the planet. The commission is given carte blanche to research as they
see fit and secured against legal consequence.
Initially not much changes, black researchers are a common sight at
archives and libraries, and canvassers and census workers continue to
have the door shut in their faces. As weeks turn to months the research
takes a dark turn. Subtle at first; young girls complain their diaries
have pages torn out, some Western European nations report a slight
increase in the thefts of laptops and cellar phones. Later backdoors are
discovered in a couple large corporations’ computer networks.
Politicians and police officers begin discovering hidden cameras and
microphones in their cars and workplaces. Eventually white people begin
disappearing, some turn up months later, some don’t turn up at all.
Financial audits become increasingly common and aggressive, auditors
arrive unannounced at 7AM accompanied by armed escorts who prove more
than capable of violence. Americans reminisce fondly about the good old
days of the Patriot Act. Anger grows as dissidents begin protesting the
commission’s invasive and at times brutal information gathering
campaign. The commission’s security forces thwart at least four
attempted bombings of the Manhattan offices, attempts on the lives of
researchers become commonplace and a number are successful. The
research, however, continues.
Months become years. Atrocity becomes mundane. Thousands are scarred for
life, mentally and physically, not counting members of the commission.
Many researcher lose their minds. Not a few researchers have taken their
own lives or been killed, a few have become mass murderers. New forms of
racialized PTSD are discovered among the a significant portion of
commission. The commission releases their financial assessment in six
volumes and their economic reparation proposal in ten. The publishing is
delayed; the first two publishing houses retained to print the documents
buckle under pressure, and eventually go under as their worker go on
strike. Both the assessment and the proposal are also made available for
free online in PDF form.
A couple million white people are disappeared to ensure a more equal
distribution of financial opportunity. All public and private grade
schools are banned from teaching whites for the next two hundred years,
universities are banned from teaching whites for the next four hundred
years. During the four hundred year education ban, teaching a white to
read or any knowledge deemed unnecessary for work is punishable by
immediate asset redistribution of the teacher and cranially invasive
surgery on the white to correct the learning. A three hundred fifty year
moratorium on weapon ownership by white people is enacted, to be
followed by a decade long review period and pilot program. The next
dozen generations of white people are required to double their work
output and forward all proceeds to black people.
Approximately one third of white people in Europe and the Americas are
relocated all over the planet to undo generations of financial
consolidation based in Black exploitation. Relocated whites are
instructed to assimilate into local cultures despite being barred from
paying employment and education, additionally in many places whites are
forced to live on non-arable land. Local governments are strong-armed
into outlawing all unauthorized or unsupervised gathers of more than two
white people, permits are issued on an as-needed basis for work or the
formation of family units. Un-permitted gatherings of whites are broken
up, the punishment for possession or use of a false permit is summary
beating or whipping. Cell phone and computer usage among non-Black
people is only legal with the proper paperwork from an employer.
Latinx, Arab, and Asian people are subject to stringent financial
history examinations, anyone unable to provide documentation that their
assets come a source other than Black exploitation is drowned in debt.
Global financial markets crash, thousands of CEOs and politicians are
given forced lobotomies to prevent the financially anti-Black attitudes
they have upheld from spreading further, most never recover their motor
skills. All police officers are executed, including Black police
officers. The production or sale of hip hop, rock, techno, house, blues,
reggae, soul, R&B, and countless sub-genres by non-black people is
criminalized. The labeling of any genre of music originating outside of
Europe as “world music” is punishable by the seizure and redistribution
of one or both eardrums of the accused.
A task force is created to phase out the use of the English language
everywhere except the island formerly known as England over the next
hundred years, task forces are also appointed to phased out the
international use of French, Spanish, and Arabic. White riots and
attempts at looting are met with the security forces using live rounds,
the dead are buried in unmarked graves, their names meticulously
scrubbed from all records to make difficult any accumulation of
generational social capital or lateral social capital resulting from
martyrdom. Assassinations of European heads of state with anti-Black
financial policies becomes commonplace. Europe, Eastern Asia, and much
of the Middle East descend into civil wars as new borders are drawn
through longstanding ethnic and cultural groups. Black owned
corporations move into the new nations and take advantage of the
instability, cheap labor, and natural resources.
Within the first five years of the reparations implementation Black
poverty rates plummet. Black cultures thrive as financia barriers fall
away. Anti-Blackness is completely eliminated.