Reparations: A Collaborated Overview
Submitted by Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Michael Covington, Ali Gibran
On behalf of the Georgia State Black Studies Department (Dr. Akinyele 0. Umoja)
July 2003

As a result of America's crime[s] against humanity, regardless of the direct or indirect victimization, we, as a people, suffer and will continue to do so until there is psychological, economical, educational, and monetary atonement.

It is imperative that as a nation we reap the benefits of the blood, sweat, and tears that our ancestors poured into this land.

(1) the efforts of Minister Louis Farrakhan and Brother Conrad Worrell to unite existing formations will be helpful in focusing our regional strategy;

(2) the crime against humanity, resulting in the capture, enslavement, and brutality of African people has no other parallel;

(3) the crimes against humanity inflicted upon African people changed the course of human existence; therefore, the resolution of this crime will have global implications;

(4) where there exist any crime, especially a crime against humanity, in a period where no domestic law existed, to remedy such crime international law must be used;

(5) post official slavery didn't end in 1865. In fact, the condition of slavery and the continued acts of genocide as interpreted and developed in international law still exist;

(6) the use of the Japanese reparation resolution in the United States is not applicable to the slavery of Africans in America;

(7) the internment against the Japanese during World War II was inhumane, unjust, and in violation of the United States Constitution;

(8) the crime of African slavery was distinctly a crime against humanity and falls under a clearly different standard of proof than the legal language articulated in the Komosotus case;

(9) the distinction is the reparations we pursue are based on the acts of genocide, not internment. The Japanese internment was for four years, ours was for four hundred years;

(10) crimes against humanity have no statue of limitations. The New York Treaty of 1785-1789, signed by George Washington was a predicate act to violate then existing international law, which prohibited the transportation of slaves. Said treaty was the first predicate act to turn a race of people into property;

(11) continued acts that superseded the classification of our race, as property was the passing of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. These amendments manipulated international law by creating a law that authorized the continued enslavement of our race by the use of criminal codes. Thus, creating circumstances where the violation Of domestic law was our only means of survival;

(12) there lies sufficient law and evidence to establish the harm done to our people that are directly connected to the act of slavery. Genetic and hereditary science establishes slavery to be the cause of the physical and social condition of our people;

(13) along side the tremendous enlightment offered through the study of genetics and other behavioral science, it can no longer be held that descendants of slaves are not directly harmed. In such the same way that our collective gene pool contained a gene that made us less susceptible to malaria, during slavery our ancestors soaked up all the knowledge of how to be a slave, and as a conditioning mechanism to ensure our survival, the information was encoded in the structure of our ancestors DNA and passed on. In a sense, that is a prime example of DNA performing it's function of fitting us for survival in an environment where it would have been impossible to exist without the proper coping devices. So, the death of our ancestors does not vindicate the slave masters because the gene of slavery still exist within us, and our thoughts and ideas and attitudes clearly demonstrate this;

(14) if forced to prove the survivors direct causation, we, in a scientific presentation, can show through genetic test that lack of certain enzyme can be found in children who have abusive parents will have an emotional reaction, which demonstrates a lack of control of anger. Clearly, there are other prevailing medical phenomenon that points to hereditary traits - ills associated with emotional and physical contradictions;

(15) the search for DNA markers for disease would be a realistic evidentiary hearing to prove direct causation. We should understand the potential of political philosophy of DNA genetics. When pushed to prove a crime against humanity - of such proportion - we must at least review science theory on both sides, such as James Watson, Dr. Francis Wesling, Jewel Pooqua, and Naim Arkbar;

(16) the United States and the corporations they support use international law to enforce it's particular system of property rights to maintain racial hierarchy, which generated the illegally gained wea1th they have today;

(17) the struggle for reparations is clearly not the conventional dispute mechanism. Because of the complexity of the legal questions raised by the Japanese president for reparations, legislation in cases such as Komosotus - which has the potential of becoming standard in civil law - which is a proposition we must reject as not applicable as outlined in the Natsu Taylor Suito essay on race and property in international law;

(18) the intersection of critical race theory which endeavors to analyze the influence of race and racism in the legal system and international law, although these bodies of law and theory are usually regarded as separate disciplines, when we look at race and racism in American law and the relationship of the U.S. government, domestic legal system to international law, how we shape and promote, as well as disregard the global rule of law, we see that these two areas not only intersect but have been inextricably related throughout history.

Atlanta, Georgia July, 2003

Mutulu has designed a great poster that he offers for use by all people doing reparations work. Download and print a copy for free. Or buy a larger poster or t-shirt from his online store. Free all political prisoners and prisoners of war!