Opinion

A Letter For Reparations!

Published

6 years ago

July 12, 2019

Dear Political Representative,

I would like to let you know that reparations for descendants of enslaved Black people in the U.S. is necessary to Make America Great, not Again, but for the first time.

As you know, the Portuguese set sail for the coasts of Africa in 1444 and negotiated the transportation of 235 Africans to Portugal. It was never expected that the total extraction would reach 5.8 million, and most of these Africans found their new place of labor in South America.

In contrast, a ‘mere’ 600,000 found their way to North America. So, when we look at the total number of Africans that made their way to the Americas, that number comes to 12.5 million.

In 1807, Britain outlawed the importation of Africans, and in 1808 so did the U.S., though slavery itself continued in the U.S and some British colonies.

It was just around that time, on the heels of the Industrial Revolution, that King Cotton catapulted America into an economic global powerhouse.

Had the U.S. had a stronger Navy, it may have been able to thwart international law and continue to import a labor force. But there was really no need. North America’s domestic slave trade, supported by U.S. law, created the work force King Cotton needed by forcing the enslaved people to breed, even further stripping them of their human dignity and deliberately robbing them of any sense of family or community when those children were sold away for profit.

In their book, “The American Slave Coast; A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry,” authors Ned and Constance Sublette, show that the economic benefits of slavery went well beyond the actual slaveowners. “To provide capital for those loans, the banks sold bonds to investors from around the globe — London, New York, Amsterdam, Paris. The bond buyers, many of whom lived in countries where slavery was illegal, didn’t own individual slaves — just bonds backed by their value.”

In other words, investors created an instrument that would allow slave owners to not only derive wealth from the labor of slaves, but harnessed a financial contract, called them bonds, and sold them to anyone who had the money.

According to an essay written by Brendan Wolfe for Virginia Humanities, “the estimated value of the labor performed by black slaves in America between 1619 and 1865, compounded at 6 percent interest through 1993 is $97 trillion dollars.”

So, please, Political Representative, accept the fact that African Americans are owed a certain store of value for the harm that slavery has caused.

I hope that this communication finds you in good health, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Signed,

Curtis O. Robinson, Sr.
A concerned American citizen.

Curtis O. Robinson, Sr.

Posts by Curtis O. Robinson, Sr.

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025

Published

22 hours ago

May 4, 2025

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.