I wondered what Rod might have written back to that guy. I know what I would have said, but then I'm not an editor or a damned diplomat.

Didn't think I'd know what to say to this guy from Texas, either:

Well, what the hell. I have mixed feelings. Clearly slavery in America was an abomination. As was the genocide of the Native Americans and--according to the definition in the article you supplied--the Irish, the Italians, the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Japanese, and you get the idea. The only ones who suffered more and who continue to suffer more are the Native Americans. But reparations -- well, I think there are better ways to address the racism in America. Reparations are divisive and ultimately unsatisfying. You can never give enough and you can never get enough. It will be a constant source for poormouthing. Do you really think justice served this late will be considered justice? There is suffering and there will always be suffering. Like I answered Kady, who asked me the ages old question: If there is a god, how can he let suffering go on. I answered that there is no answer to that because she is asking the wrong question. Wrong because it is beyond our ability to know. The better question is this and it too is at least as old as Buddha: since there is suffering, what can I do to ease that suffering?

In answer to your obvious retort of: give me money and I'll suffer no more, I say that unless you are starving to death it is not money that ends your suffering and even then it is not money.

That historically certain white MEN have benefitted from the oppression of WOMEN and other "lesser" classes, I would agree. (Women's slavery--now there are reparations for you--and children?) I would also say that the current economic and political structure favors holders of power to the severe detriment of those outside the power web. Give us unions, give us fair taxation and treat corporate criminals proportionally to the crime . . . .

Well, like I said, go for it, but I think it is a sidebar that avoids the harder to address and the more rewarding struggles that we need to confront. In short, I think it is childish. Another form of patronism from massah. Fuck the white man. Make your own goddamn millions. Maybe this law suit is working the man, but I think it isn't. It's just another ugly sign of the greedy and litigious nature of American culture. The suits in Japan and Germany involving manual labor and prostitute "slaves" paid the surviving victims, not their offspring. Unless we treat slavery like you would a copyright . . . . Christ, sounds like a Vonnegut novel.

Anyway, my public stance would be, if you can get the money, get the money. Will it help the world be a place where there is less resentment and more tenderness? No. If you think it will, well, I'm listening.

But here's what Rod said: "The point of any political action to raise public awareness and public consciousness. The polis must be able to accept *the concept* of social justice before there is a chance for social justice."

(Pontifical bastard, ain't he?)

A woman in Europe had this to say:

I saw the article.

Slavery, invented by the Europeans and implemented few hundreds of years in the US is disgrace to the human race which mustn't be forgotten or forgiven ever. BUT.... Dr W. gives no answers to some very important questions:

1. Who is to collect reparations?
2. Does he really believe that the US government will eventually pay for it now, when all the money is aimed to the future war adventures?
3. The most important is - how much money suffering, humiliation, degradation and pain are worth? Can it be compensated with the money or a simple excuse?

According to the Austrian and German politicians, the price of suffering, degradation, pain and humiliation in the labor camps during WWII is 5000 German marks or $2500!

We talked a lot about races and my believes about only ONE human race to which we all belong. There's no need to write it again.

Holocaust and the slave ships were the same attempt to reduce human beings to the level of a piece of meat with the price tag. I doubt that $2500 can compensate broken lives, murdered families, nightmares, traumas, eternal pain and anger which those people had to endure during the lifetime. I doubt that any reparation can change the facts about slavery in the US. Are we able to understand that pain and suffer[ing], or feel the same one today? I don't think so. We can only TRY to imagine it and it is not even close to the truth. Not even the most imaginative person can really feel what those people felt at the time. And what's left for us except hate and remembrance on what happened once. The memory of the most horrible dark side in human nature which is present today also, making people ... commit atrocities to the other human beings without remorse. The hate which is result of those memories can divide people. I'm not sure that marching and demanding reparations (I doubt that it'll be ever payed) -- instead collecting the money which can be invested in education of the talented young people will give results.

Nelson Mandela is a living proof that awareness about one's own value, about cultural values and [the] power of knowledge and educating ... can change the reality and overthrow the myth about white supremacy.

I remember Bill Clinton apologizing to the surviving victims of government experiments with syphilis germs in 1995. When I saw 2 old, sick Black man in the wheelchairs and heard that over 400 members of their community died because of deliberate infection with the syphilis germs in the 40 years long experiment and heard Clinton saying *In the name of US government I apologize....* I was personally humiliated.

How can anyone apologize for a deliberate crime? How can anyone forgive it or forget it? How can anyone believe that Clinton and the government are really sorry for it? Or that [the] offered money would change what happened? And what happened after that? Nothing. It was just the end of one accidentally reveled scandal from the past which the politicians managed to get rid of.

That is what bothers me about this March. It won't change anything but only give the government chance to attack *potential internal enemies which tend to question true American values*. And fill the prisons with new meat.But if I were there, I would join the March. Some things mustn't be forgotten.

A guy up in the Great Lakes area of the United States added this:

You really want to draw me into this, don't you? HAH! You have learned the games that divide, well, grasshopper. Personally, I am much more worried about the possiblity of somebody popping off an atomic "device", than I am about reperations being paid(or not paid) or even shit like Sept.11. Pick a major metropolitan area - 1 million+ dead in less than 3 seconds? "Device" - sounds like we are talking about a sex toy, eh?

IMHO, the biggest stumbling block to reperations for African-americans will be the need to establish a "cut-off line" - i.e.,how black is black enough? Unlike all the other examples of recent reperative payments, the group to be paid is not distinguishable from those who would be ineligible. Am I eligible just because I have a black ancestor 6 generations(genetic splits) back? Do I get 1/64th, the theoretical maximum amount of African genetic material that would be present within me, or do I get a full share, just like someone who apparently thinks they are "all black", like that dockworker/writer in California? I've met a few brothers from the motherland - now those m.f.'s are BLACK! Maybe it's something in the water.

So I thought: Hmmnn. The only people who responded at all to what Rodman had to say were all WHITE and mostly American. I know what a lot of brothers would have to say..

What got me most about all the commentary was that none of it directly addressed the issue of the Geneva Convention, and the right of Black people as human beings to take recourse in the prescription(s) for remedy provided therein. That seemed a moot point, for most, compared with a) their own impressions about Black people and slavery and b) their notion that Black folk speaking up for themselves would be "divisive."

What's so "unionifying" about condoning (if not supporting) the on-going white practices and policies of reinforcing their own privileges per force?

Just asking.

Sure the Indians have it bad. But they have sovereign nations --- even if they are in stinking deserts. Black folk have only what white folks grudgingly choose to break them off in America. Forget your damned forty acres and a mule. Givenus the fair pay for all those years of free labor. You can even forget the criminal psychological and physical damage, pain and suffering! Just pay up, America, and we'll call it even.

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