American Freedmen; reparations task force meeting talking points
(This post is catered to the CA state reparations task force that is prepared to make recommendations to the state in the summer of 2023. Talking points can be used for other local & state task forces as well and is encouraged. Creating your script beforehand can help with clarity. Please Please use this time to be clear & concise, please be respectful to task force members & focus on our collective purpose which is direct repair for Black American descendants. Please leave all drama, personal beef, etc. outside of your time to make comments on why repair is owed today!)
It is understood & respected that some Black Americans do not want to partake in the position to restore the Freedmen’s Bureau. We encourage those Black Americans that don’t want to restore the Bureau to request that the task force support the option for the CA Treasurer to make direct cash payments to descendants like the Treasurer did for some CA residents that received the CA Stimulus payment. Please keep in mind, though the Treasurer did issue the CA stimulus payment to some residents, they did pay Money Market, a company based in WI, over 25 million to pay out 13 million in stimulus to residents via a debit card. So without connection to the Bureau and/or Black bank networks, it is possible that the state will outsource some of the work to another non-Freedmen entity again when it comes to reparation payments. The position to restore the Bureau is for reasons beyond direct cash repair & is specifically for the Freedmen that want to reconnect & secure Black American networks such as schools, hospitals, & incorporated Freedmen townships.
Intro script;
“Hi my name is ___________________ and I’m calling today to support reparations for African/Black American Freedmen, descendants of U.S chattel slavery, the U.S emancipation, and/or Freed Blk persons in the U.S prior to the 19th century. Repair is owed at the local, state, and federal levels in the U.S and we encourage the task force to create a clear breakdown of what each level of government owes so that it can be used as a framework across the U.S.
Talking points;
• As a reminder to the task force, reparations is DIRECT CASH PAYMENTS to descendants, is land & housing back, and community investments that are guided by Black American Freedmen. For the community investment portions of reparations, American Freedmen want to see direct policy implementations that are carefully crafted & guided by local Black American communities with provided live oversight of all spending & measures of accountability.
• There is no question about whether or not reparations are owed, they are owed and we encourage the task force to send a demand letter to the United Nations to request resolution for American Freedmen from the United States Federal Gov’t for crimes against humanity.
• On March 24th 2023, António Guterres Secretary-General of the UN said & I quote;
“The evil enterprise of the transatlantic slave trade lasted for over 400 years, and its legacy haunts us to this day. Let’s #RememberSlavery & stand united to #FightRacism & build a world in which everyone, everywhere can live a life of liberty, dignity & human rights.”
If it is known that the negative impacts of slavery are still felt today among Black American Freedmen, why hasn’t the UN introduced a resolution to demand reparations to survivors? to descendants of the enslaved?
• (2022) “For the first time, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is calling on the U.S. government to begin the process of providing reparations to descendants of enslaved people.” https://ccrjustice.org/un-committee-report-slavery-reparations
• (2016) “The United States owes African-Americans reparations for slavery, a recent report by a United Nations-affiliated group said. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said that compensation is necessary to combat the disadvantages caused by 245 years of legally allowing the sale of people based on the color of their skin. The U.N. group warned that the U.S. has not confronted its legacy of “racial terrorism.” https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/reparations-african-americans-un
What seems to be the hold up?
• Repeating, this claim is lineage based for African/Black American Freedmen, if other supposed marginalized groups are owed repair, they can bring forth their own claims. For those that are preparing to ask “What about the Native Americans?” Yes, what about the Native Americans? If anyone with Native ancestry has a repair claim to make, they can bring forward their claim with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As a reminder, the DNA of African/Black Americans varies greatly. We are generally (not always or all of us) an admixture of African, European, and Indigenous Americas with the latter two not specific to any one sub racial group. And to be even clearer we exist beyond the created concepts of “race”.
• Though the U.S Federal Gov’t owes the largest portion of direct cash reparations payments to descendants, repair is still owed at the local & state levels where systematic violence is still highly relevant today. We encourage the CA state task force to create a breakdown of what each level of Gov’t owes so that it can be used as a road map for other states that have lineage based repair claims that must be paid out to descendants. In Los Angeles specifically there are 21,000+ homeless Black American residents, a population that is only 8% of the total population but over 40% of the homeless population. In the fall of 2022, heard of audio was the former Latina Los Angeles council president, descendant of an immigrant, making the comment of not supporting a candidate’s work because the candidate supported Black Americans. We must bring charges against localities & the state to implement & begin immediate repair to a Native Black American population.
• Request to the task force to continue with reconstruction, special field order 15; “January 16, 1865, during the Civil War (1861-65), Union general William T. Sherman issued his Special Field Order No. 15. The order redistributed the roughly 400,000 acres of land to newly freed Black families in forty-acre segments. The order explicitly called for the settlement of Black families. Sherman also authorized the army to loan mules to the newly settled farmers. The Freedmen’s Bureau, as it came to be called, was authorized to give legal title for forty-acre plots of land to Freedmen.” https://thefreedmensbureau.org/special-field-order-no-15
CA residents are requesting a resolution from the CA task force to begin the process of land & housing distribution to American Freedmen by the Fall of 2023 via the Bureau with the understanding that it is likely that the Bureau will need additional support from internal/external American Freedmen led agencies to process claims.
• Request support from the task force to support predominantly Black neighborhoods (those that want to) in CA with the process of withdrawing into intentional desegregated incorporated American Freedmen townships. Hold a special election/vote for said neighborhoods.
• Our claim is lineage based but to be clear, we will not allow anyone to tell us that we cannot bring claims/testimony forward based on the created concepts of race. Abusers don’t get to tell the people that they abused what information they can use in their case against said abuser. Black/African American have been both racial & ethnic identifiers for American Freedmen, we will not allow anyone to erase the perceptions of what Blackness has been for us as a real lived experience from our perspective. Another reminder that some of these slaves were mulattos born to enslaved Negro women aka the children of the white male slave owners who sold their mulatto children as slaves. (It is understood & respected that this topic is controversial and that opinion on the topic may vary)
• Until full repair is made, American Freedmen would like to request support from the CA state task force in creating a secure trust account to begin the process to bill the state & federal gov’t for crimes against humanity. We want to collectively & voluntarily withhold taxes at the state and federal level, or at least a portion of, until full repair is made. If for some reason this trust is compromised, if fair & equitable use of the dollar is continually denied by the same systematic violence that American Freedmen have been dealing with for generations now, we will create a new means of exchange including resource based systems. https://www.thevenusproject.com/
• A portion of the CA Cannabis sales tax should be also going into the secure American Freedmen’s trust account until full repair is made.
• At this time, American Freedmen are not interested in connecting the Freedmen’s Bureau to any outside privately funded entities, investment firms, or non-profits.
• Refusing to hold the U.S accountable at the root for genocide & slavery has allowed the establishment to continue on with crimes against humanity/militarized violence across the globe.
Please reach out if you have any questions.
CA American Freedmen task force talking points
