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          "The African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I'll have yours," are the words the challenger said on 8, November, 2020 to an audience at the Chase Center in Delaware. Then doubling down on his intention to give America’s former slaves a fighting chance in the American Republic he continued by saying, “I said from the outset I wanted a campaign that represented America, and I think we did that. Now that’s what I want the administration to look like.”

          Some polls indicated that President Donald Trump actually did better with Afrodescendant voters, but Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were won specifically with the help of Afrodescendant votes to the tune of 87 percent with 91 percent being Afrodescendant women happy about the choice of Sen. K. Harris as the V.P. nominee. History shows that the incumbent did fall to the challenger and on Jan. 6, 2021 an insurrection took place at the Congressional building where law abiding Caucasian Christian voters showed their displeasure in the newly elected President who assumed office with the help of Afrodescendant votes. Its sanctity was violated by them breaking into its hallowed chambers, and killing a Capitol police officer. Gallows for a hanging were erected while calling on outgoing V.P Pence to come out to face their distorted sense of justice. Their displeasure in losing the Presidential Election of 2020 was very apparent.

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          The real story is how a person who wins because of Afrodescedant participation has amnesia?  Or for that matter, Afrodescendants who heard the “I got your back” statement seemed to have forgotten it was issued by the winner of the contest.

If this was a photodrama, it could be understood? This is real life and Afrodescendants we have a 466 year history of death and suffering associated not only with the slave masters, but with the actual government of these United States.

The U.S. government compensated slave masters for the loss of us as their “Chattel Property” was a topic Larry Elder, controversial talk show host expounded upon as a California Gubernatorial candidate. He had the disrespect to all Afrodescendants to suggest that “Reparations” should have been given to the former slave masters for the loss of their property which he resembles? He said, “When people talk about reparations, do they really want to have that conversation? Like it or not, slavery was legal,” Elder said. “Their legal property was taken away from them after the Civil War, so you could make an argument that the people that are owed reparations are not only just Black people but also the people whose ‘property’ was taken away after the end of the Civil War.”

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           Reparations are paid to victims of war. “Reparations” are due to us who were damaged.  Have we not been in a “War” for our survival from the very first footstep here in America of our ancestor’s? Mr. Elder’s catering to a voting public he thought would elect him made apparent what America has at its very core its opposition to “Reparations” for Afrodescendants. April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill emancipating enslaved people in Washington; easing slave owners’ financial pain, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid loyal Unionists up to $300 for every enslaved person freed.

 

          1849 as a congressman Abraham Lincoln advocated abolition of slavery and as President, he encouraged the border states to voluntarily end slavery and chose Delaware as an ideal place to take the lead in late 1861. Full circle, President Biden gave his victory speech in Delaware promising to have the backs of Afrodescenants for helping him secure the Presidency in 2020. Nevertheless, “Emancipation” of slaves was brought about by a war with financial enumeration to the slave masters. This contingency was discussed and condemned as far back as the National Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia in 1833. Famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison said, “If compensation is to be given at all, it should be given to the outraged and guiltless slaves, and not to those who have plundered and abused them.” The District of Columbia Emancipation Act was headed by the North Carolina abolitionist and New York Times reporter Daniel Reaves Goodloe. This board reviewed more than 1,000 slaveholders’ petitions to claim more than 3,000 enslaved people. The largest individual payout was $18,000 for 69 slaves to a former slave master. Manumission as it is called is release from slavery. It supposedly happened in 1862, but as Afrodescendants have we experience real liberty and the right to pursue life liberty and happiness? Since the Revolutionary War, slave owners have received compensation from local, colonial and state legislatures, when they had a loss of slaves. Whether they fought for the British, or as in the case of the Civil War, for the North, or ran away, were killed in an accident or just died, British insurance companies secured monies to compensate the enslavers as did American ones.

 

          1808 brought the outlawing of the importation of slaves and with it, the increasing value of a slave became apparent, especially those that were skilled. Slavers still brought slaves to America, but it was not as widespread as it had been, but the fact that insurance companies had the indecency to provide polices on slaves, certain industries that involved skilled labor and life in general of the slave does not change the fact that insurance companies wrote policies on the lives of slaves. This shows that there is no way that even the government would allow the slave owners to lose their investment. We were reduced to “Chattel,” a people without “Inherent Human Rights.”  Returning to the present and the thought of “Reparations” for Afrodescendants, we now turn briefly to a plan by the Biden Administration with the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to award payments of approximately $450,000 to each person separated from their family at the southern borders of America while seeking to claim asylum in 2017 and 2018 as part of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.  Mexican immigrants have not had near enough the damage done to them as Afrodescendants. It looked terrible to see the children segregated from their parents  in holding cells, but how awful is it to sell a mother here, a father there and a child to another place altogether?

 

 

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           Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in the 1830’s supported our claim for compensation. We were kidnapped, and transported to America in the vilest of conditions through the “Middle Passage.” Stripped of our basic “Human Rights” we were placed into chains before embarking on a journey that would end only in death from the position of our being reduced to “Chattel.” Lawyers representing immigrant families and the U.S. government are continuing to negotiate a settlement and aim to reach an agreement by the end of November on paying these people for this single atrocity. Did not the entire planet adopt the slogan “Black Lives Matter”? As far away as Australia, the aboriginal people there began to assert themselves due to the death of Mr. George Floyd, this generations’ Emmett Till whose massacre shocked them into understanding that Afrodescendants are not yet free. We ask here at Muhammad Speaks who really has our back? We also ask someone qualified to say it that is not an Afrodescendant.

 

          Modern Day Abolitionist Ida Hakim who has been at the forefront of the “Reparations” movement along with the Honorable Silis Muhammad weighed in on what this news story meant to her and the question of who actually has the back of Afrodescendants. She said, “Whether Democrat or Republican, we see the politician dangle a carrot to gain a vote and snatch it back once the office is won. There are very few politicians with courage or integrity. The current administration, well aware of the call for Afrodescendant reparations, shockingly has offered reparations to illegal immigrants! This is a slap in the face to Afrodescendants – a profoundly disdainful message and a wake-up call! I would take that message to heart. I encourage Afrodescendant leaders to gather together, make collective decisions and solidify the reparations demands. Put your effort into each other and believe in the power of your unity. And then, if in the future there is a politician who sincerely supports reparations, give your united vote to that person, whichever political party they claim.”  

 

In the end, it is up to us as Afrodescendants to reach out one to another and demand our “Reparations” not in a violent manner, but just like we stirred the world to say, “Black Lives Matter.” Do we have enough courage, enough fortitude, and really enough love for ourselves and our posterity as well as what our ancestors went through to get us to this moment in time where we have the wherewithal to stand by ourselves as in independent nation on the “World Stage”?

 

We at Muhammad Speaks ask for your opinions your comments, positive and negative. We cannot hesitate any longer. We want you to want a “Nation.”