If you are not talking about the repair of a people that have been demonized and destroyed you are not talking about anything. You are simply protesting. It starts with repair.
1. Reparations of Land Grants & Monies to Build Real Estate upon those lands. An example of this is the Homestead Act. This very act was for freed slaves but the powers that be including Native American Tribes, White Nationalist Groups, and the police did not allow for the transfer of land to Black People. The first of the acts, the Homestead Act of 1862, opened up millions of acres. Any adult who had never taken up arms against the Federal government of the United States could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible. The 1866 Act explicitly included black Americans and encouraged them to participate, but rampant discrimination, systemic barriers and bureaucratic inertia slowed black gains. Historian Michael Lanza argues that while the 1866 law pack was not as beneficial as it might have been, it was part of the reason that by 1900 one fourth of all Southern black farmers owned their own farms. IN OTHER WORDS: We had no choice but to own our own shit because we literally had to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Former slaves and sharecroppers had not choices when laws were put into effect to keep them on the master's plantation. Black-Codes were put into effect to stop Black people from succeeding. Jim Crow laws were placed upon us. And the stereotypes of us being murders and rapist, the very thing Trump called Mexicans happened to us first. Every possible thing you can do to a people to keep them down was done to Black people but still we rise and that is what makes us the most resilient people on this planet.
2. Allow us to Police ourselves! While Blacks can be our own worst task-masters, I would rather have an African American policing my community than a White, Mexican, or Asian Officer in the case of George Floyd policing our community. They lack compassion for our Women, and they don't understand our movements. They consider us hostile if we get loud, they consider us angry if confrontational, and they look for excuses to provoke rather than deescalate.
3. JUSTICE! In this case JUSTICE is defined in accountability. Fire the Officer that has made the offense. Cause their unions and pensions to pay for their defenses rather than tax payer dollars. And lock them up right away when the obvious occurs. If I assault a man I am locked up. If I threaten a person it is considered a terroristic threat, I get locked up. The same should go for everyone across the board. Especially police that abuse their power.
4. Repent and meet people where they are. Police should be marching with protestors, not counter protesting and thinking you can place curfew's on folks and lock them up. You can't lock your way out of this! You can't fine your way out of this! Reconcile with people and meet them where they are without controversy. I assure you the people will follow suit if they see you understand their cause.
History of reparations in the United States
Reparations—a system of redress for egregious injustices—are not foreign to the United States. Native Americans have received land and billions of dollars for various benefits and programs for being forcibly exiled from their native lands. For Japanese Americans, $1.5 billion was paid to those who were interned during World War II. Additionally, the United States, via the Marshall Plan, helped to ensure that Jews received reparations for the Holocaust, including making various investments over time. In 1952, West Germany agreed to pay 3.45 billion Deutsche Marks to Holocaust survivors.
Black Americans are the only group that has not received reparations for state-sanctioned racial discrimination, while slavery afforded some white families the ability to accrue tremendous wealth. And, we must note that American slavery was particularly brutal. About 15 percent of the enslaved shipped from Western Africa died during transport. The enslaved were regularly beaten and lynched for frivolous infractions. Slavery also disrupted families as one in three marriages were split up and one in five children were separated from their parents. The case for reparations can be made on economic, social, and moral grounds. The United States had multiple opportunities to atone for slavery—each a missed chance to make the American Dream a reality—but has yet to undertake significant action.
