Reparations: the way forward

Why they must be configured differently & the discovery of how brutal slavery was in New Amsterdam (NYC)

Photo by Søren Harbel, harbel.substack.com

For years I’ve said reparations are due. But it must not about blame or race — it is about healing civilization. Prophet Brandon Biggs confirmed, God wants reparations for one simple reason: “People need to be paid for the work they do.” Period.

This goes for everyone of all races everywhere, of course.

For the best outcome, reparations could to be given to all since all have been harmed by the institution of slavery. Perhaps it could be given in conjunction with a universal basic income (UBI).

Once psychology better understands how to heal the harm of Post Traumatic Slave Master & Slave Syndromes (which it does not seem to take seriously enough yet, psychology being too new a field) reparations could help people actively heal both sides of this unfortunate coin.

Descendants of slave masters

The descendants of slave masters have perhaps been harmed most of all since the harms and lessons are far more subtle and difficult to understand, and therefore more difficult to heal. Hence, on one hand, there’s a lot of guilt out there with no real resolution in sight. There’s also a lot of dismissal of the real issues that affect each of us.

The psychological harms caused by slavery require work to overcome since they are baked into civilization itself:

• Your worth as a person is not tied to how much money you have, but many have the illusion that it is. This is the terrible illusion that caused people to jump out of windows after the stock market crash of 1929, a real Achilles heel that manifests in many ways researchers prefer not to advertise. This is the most devastating aspect of Post Traumatic Slave Master Syndrome and it is cultural. White people and others are socialized into this illusion through osmosis, even if their ancestors did not actually own slaves.

Descendants of slaves

The psychological harms and lessons for former slaves are far more straightforward:

• Value yourself, develop your talents, invest in and value your children, heal the predator-prey mindset. I do believe we see Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome in the abusive and self-debasing violent crimes of P. Diddy and his initial funder and enabler Clive Davis as well as in Bill Cosby’s and the Tate brothers. The self-destructiveness of these talented men makes no sense otherwise.

A motley collection of circumstances

Lady Colin Campbell makes excellent points in the video below about why she is against reparations as currently configured, including that it could seriously harm race relations. Her own white ancestors were sent by Oliver Cromwell to Jamaica as slaves along with tens of thousands of mostly Irish, Scots and some English people (60,000 white slaves were sent to Barbados) until King Charles II freed them and gave Lady C’s mother’s family land (which apparently was not usually done).

And Wanda Sykes, the famous comedian, found out on Harvard historian Skip Gates’ PBS show “Finding Your Roots” that through a fluke of history her own black ancestors in Boston were never slaves at all. They actually owned black slaves, to which she quipped, Hey, don’t say that too loud, I don’t want them coming after me for reparations!

People have forgotten that Native American tribes like the dreaded Comanche were known for brutally kidnapping all kinds of people to enslave them.

And Hispanics including my own family, as we discovered in the records, also owned slaves. But it adhered to Roman law, which explains why there’s no guilt and far more intermarriage and harmony among the races in the Hispanic world. There was never a Spanish wild west; things were done in an orderly fashion very much from the top down. All the stories I’ve heard of people treating their slaves like family have been among Hispanics, including in the Caribbean, where you find slaves buried alongside their masters like family members. I’ll let AI explain why:

• The Law: Spanish law viewed slavery as an unfortunate accidental condition rather than a permanent biological state. Slaves were recognized as legal persons with certain rights, such as the right to marry, own property, and take their masters to court for excessive abuse.

• The Church: The Catholic Church insisted that enslaved people had immortal souls and must be baptized. It recognized 85+ religious holidays and Sundays as days off, which enslaved people could use to work for wages.

• Manumission (Freedom): The Spanish system had a built-in process which allowed slaves to gradually buy their own freedom. As a result, Spanish America had much larger populations of free blacks than the U.S. South.

At the other extreme, were the Dutch. In the 90s, the truth about the unusual brutality of slavery in New Amsterdam (NYC today) came to light when skeletons were discovered under Wall Street (of all places), so named for the trench slaves dug across the width of Manhattan in anticipation of the British attacking. “For years it was thought nothing could shock a New Yorker…” until this discovery was made.

PBS’s “Slavery’s Buried Past in NYC” uncovers New Amsterdam’s brutal Dutch past. The skeletons of Africans show that slaves, both men and women, were overworked, many overworked to death as they built New York City. Bones analyzed starting at minute 40:20:

Beginning at minute 13:00:

Answered Prayers: Evanston, Illinois & Tulsa, Oklahoma announce reparations

In 2021, Evanston, Illinois became the first city in the U.S. to implement a reparations program, initially offering housing grants of $25,000 funded by the cannabis taxes, which later expanded into direct cash payments.

And exactly 1 year ago the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma announced $105 million in reparations for its Black community in response to harms resulting from the devastating Massacre of 1921 when thousands of white people attacked an affluent Black community known as “Black Wall Street.” Up to 300 black people were killed, over 1,200 homes across 35 city blocks were destroyed, and 314 additional homes were looted, which had a devastating impact on Tulsa for generations.

The “Road to Repair” plan set aside $24 million for housing assistance, $60 million for cultural preservation, and $21 million for small business and scholarships. The current trust includes no direct cash payments to descendants.

Photo of Tulsa after the massacre: