[ by Kamm Howard ] Today N COBRA stands in support of Reparations legislation for torture survivors and their families. On many occasions, too numerous to count in this country, either at the federal, state or local level, legislators are confronted with choices that will either side with justice or not. The majority of times, when the beneficiaries of the justice are people of Afrikan descent, the notion of fairness and justice escapes the leadership.
Chicago has its own historical track record of unfairness, injustice and continued
inhumanity in relationship to this population.
A recent example is the case of N’COBRA’s push for an amendment to the Slavery
Disclosure Ordinance. We sought legislation that would mandate 6% of the cost of any project developed by an entity with a positive slavery disclosure report,
(meaning that that entity had an active or complicit role in the enslavement of
Afrikan people), be deposited into an economic enhancement fund for community's development use.
Norfolk Southern Rail Road, a company seeking a contract with the city for its $285
million dollar rail yard expansion, would have been the first corporation effected by this reparative legislation. It would have netted the Englewood community, one of this city’s poorest, $17 million dollars in development equity. This money could have been used to leverage over $100 Million dollars in real development to this community. By inking the deal with the City, the injuring corporation, Norfolk Southern, increased its value by $2 Billion dollars. It stock went from $77 a share to $111 a share, a $2 Billion increase
in value. Not $2 Mil or $200 M, but $2 Billion dollars in the course of a year. In exchange, it offered the Afrikan Descendant community $20,000 - to be divided among four schools. One hundred thousandth of one percent of what it eventually gained (.oooo1%) That’s like taking a penny and chopping it up in 100,000 pieces and giving the community one those useless pieces.
This is the type of gross and violent mis-leadership that is the norm in this city when it
comes to people of Afrikan descent.
So NCOBRA is here, suggesting that this council enact reparations legislation for torture
victims. . It is fair, it is just, it is in accord with international human rights conventions, and it is a break from the Chicago norm.
(We caution
however, that in doing so, that you also break from past neo-ghetto-colonial
polices where authentic Afrikan voices and issues are only heard through the
filtering by non-Afrikan handlers)
In addition, we suggest this council amend the Slavery Disclosure Ordinance now!
And, finally, we suggest that this Body resolve to recognize and commit to the observance and Program of Action of the UN declared International Decade of People of Afrikan Descent, beginning Jan 1, 2015 and extending to Dec 31, 2024, under the theme
Recognition, Justice and Development.
In doing all of these things, Chicago can make a clean break from its injurious past in
relation to people of Afrikan descent, be on the right side of reparative justice and, in the words of Atty. Standish Willis of Black People Against Police Torture, initiate the work to becoming a world class “human rights city.”
A Luta Continua - The Struggle Continues
Kamm Howard
Amos N Wilson Institute GB2B
N'COBRA www.ncobra.org
"Power concedes nothing without a demand." Frederick Douglass
Black Is Back Coalition Blackisbackcoalition.org
Chicago has its own historical track record of unfairness, injustice and continued
inhumanity in relationship to this population.
A recent example is the case of N’COBRA’s push for an amendment to the Slavery
Disclosure Ordinance. We sought legislation that would mandate 6% of the cost of any project developed by an entity with a positive slavery disclosure report,
(meaning that that entity had an active or complicit role in the enslavement of
Afrikan people), be deposited into an economic enhancement fund for community's development use.
Norfolk Southern Rail Road, a company seeking a contract with the city for its $285
million dollar rail yard expansion, would have been the first corporation effected by this reparative legislation. It would have netted the Englewood community, one of this city’s poorest, $17 million dollars in development equity. This money could have been used to leverage over $100 Million dollars in real development to this community. By inking the deal with the City, the injuring corporation, Norfolk Southern, increased its value by $2 Billion dollars. It stock went from $77 a share to $111 a share, a $2 Billion increase
in value. Not $2 Mil or $200 M, but $2 Billion dollars in the course of a year. In exchange, it offered the Afrikan Descendant community $20,000 - to be divided among four schools. One hundred thousandth of one percent of what it eventually gained (.oooo1%) That’s like taking a penny and chopping it up in 100,000 pieces and giving the community one those useless pieces.
This is the type of gross and violent mis-leadership that is the norm in this city when it
comes to people of Afrikan descent.
So NCOBRA is here, suggesting that this council enact reparations legislation for torture
victims. . It is fair, it is just, it is in accord with international human rights conventions, and it is a break from the Chicago norm.
(We caution
however, that in doing so, that you also break from past neo-ghetto-colonial
polices where authentic Afrikan voices and issues are only heard through the
filtering by non-Afrikan handlers)
In addition, we suggest this council amend the Slavery Disclosure Ordinance now!
And, finally, we suggest that this Body resolve to recognize and commit to the observance and Program of Action of the UN declared International Decade of People of Afrikan Descent, beginning Jan 1, 2015 and extending to Dec 31, 2024, under the theme
Recognition, Justice and Development.
In doing all of these things, Chicago can make a clean break from its injurious past in
relation to people of Afrikan descent, be on the right side of reparative justice and, in the words of Atty. Standish Willis of Black People Against Police Torture, initiate the work to becoming a world class “human rights city.”
A Luta Continua - The Struggle Continues
Kamm Howard
Amos N Wilson Institute GB2B
N'COBRA www.ncobra.org
"Power concedes nothing without a demand." Frederick Douglass
Black Is Back Coalition Blackisbackcoalition.org
Tue Dec 16, 2014 3:50 pm (PST) . Posted by:
"Kamm Howard" khoward.amenta@sbcglobal.net
| From: | Reparations_For_Africans@yahoogroups.com |
https://theblacklist.net/
Replies
one of the biggest problem with black people because they allow themselves to be influence by the thoughts of people of different cultures other than theirs is they allow these people to tell them what they should be thinking about life in this world instead of they the black themselves finding a way to be thinking about what really should matter as far as they are concern in the matters of the world. therefore black people,following the other people ideology about how they the blacks should be acting and thinking about things in this world will always find themselves beggars to those people, never doers, they find themselves listening to the people who told them how to think that way, UNTIL THIS pattern of thinking STOP among them, black people will always be looked down upon for not taking the opportunity to think for themselves and where it is they themselves want to be headed within the five senses, see, hear, touch,taste and smell it is said that the blacks do not see nor do they hear, therefore they are rated three fifths human when they are really divine people not human at all so this to must stop.. TO ALL I SAY FOR THE BLACK PEOPLE OF AMERICA: "REPARATIONS NOW!"
$1 Trillion dollars and we are still begging? How about this to get their attention:
Wes Bernard and family