|
Books by Amiri
Baraka
Tales of the Out &
the Gone
/
The Essence of Reparations /
Somebody Blew Up
America & Other Poems
/
Blues People
Autobiography
of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka /
Selected Poetry of
Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones
/
Black Music
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Review of
Amiri Baraka's
The
Essence of Reparations
By Deborah D. Moseley
Mr. Baraka's book
on Reparations gives a thorough explanation on what
Reparations is all about and a blueprint on how to best
realize it. First and foremost, Reparations is not just
a mere paycheck; it is about a wronged peoples' right to
Self-determination, at long last manifesting the
Emancipation Proclamation, reversing the damage done by
President Andrew Johnson who succeeded President Lincoln
and eliminated the Freedman's Bureau and allowed the
seditious South to re-enter the Union without pledging
allegiance to it thereby setting a precedence for the
Confederate Flag to remain atop public buildings and to
impose a brutal proto-fascist regime upon Afro-Americans (which
is how Mr. Baraka refers to Black people), establishing
an Afro-American Central Bank to deposit the myriads of
much entitled monetary compensations to be collected for
the humiliating and de-humanizing wholesale free
labor, murder, theft, character assassination, rape,
kidnapping, and enslavement heaped upon the ancestors and
descendents of said people and dispersing those funds
to rebuild and repair their communities and
infrastructures, making their existence whole and
rendering them finally emancipated.
His prescriptions
hearken back to Malcolm X who advocated
internationalizing the struggle of Afro-Americans along
with other people worldwide who were and still are
oppressed by American and European Capitalism,
Imperialism, and Institutional Racism, e.g., Africans,
Mexicans, Native Americans, and the people of India.
Along with Afro-Americans, these are also people who are
due reparations, and it would behoove them to unite. He
quotes Chairman Mao Zedong who proclaimed the unity of
the many to defeat the few. Like Malcolm X, he
recommends allying with working class poor who have
been and are still being exploited by elite Corporatists
and Imperialists who have co-opted and corrupted the
Labor Unions.
And like Malcolm X,
he has deduced that all oppressed people, Black and poor
White, have a common enemy, that being the egregious
Capitalists and Imperialists who have kept the Whites
psychotically inebriated with White Supremacy in
order to keep them from uniting with dark-skinned people
who suffer similar ignominies. Certainly, Reparations
for Afro-Americans can not come about within a
Capitalist and Imperialist system designed to keep the
masses oppressed, brainwashing them into believing they
are living in a democracy and the best system ever
created, and Mr. Baraka has shown with admirable
precision how Americans have been grossly mis-educated
with regards to this concept.
"Democracy" is a
Greek word, literally meaning "People rule," and to have
Mr. Baraka expound upon it so explicitly, the people
definitely do not rule; the Corporate and Imperialist
Oligarchy does, usurping and depleting the wealth and
other earthly resources that belong to the people,
draining the people emotionally, mentally, physically,
and monetarily. In other words: the masses are being
robbed blind as the Oligarchists and their venal
political partners in crime who we elect have convinced
us to function within the parameters of that system that
was never designed to liberate the masses. Mr. Baraka,
quite justifiably, does not advocate maintaining the
status quo. The present Capitalist and Imperialist
system must be replaced by a system that is just and is
designed to benefit the populace. In Mr. Baraka's
erudite estimation, such a system would enable the
manifestation of Reparations.
If anyone wants to
understand the full meaning of Reparations and why
"Reparations Now!" is an imperative for the 21st
century, this miniscule, concise exposé
is the book to read. Coming from an intellectual, the
reader can acquire some exotic vocabulary, e.g.,
"comprador," and a novel way to use the term
"dictatorship." The prose gets a bit complex at times
and may require some dissection to get the meaning, but
still the "essence" is not lost: "Reparations Now!"
posted 19 January 2007 |
