The Seattle Medium’s Post

The history you won’t learn in school...During the 1921 Tulsa Massacre and destruction of Black Wall Street: 1. A predominately white mob destroyed more than 1,200 homes across 35 city blocks, and another 314 homes were looted. In a matter of hours, white looters eradicated Black wealth in Greenwood. 2. Direct property damage from the massacre is estimated to be over $200 million in today’s dollars. 3. Some Black families from Greenwood became American refugees in America, living in Red Cross tents. 4. The massacre stifled Black innovation, the repercussions of which are still felt today. 5. Challenges persist when it comes to reconciling the past with the economic imperatives of today. #blackhistorymonth #equaltiy #democracy #policymakers #systemschange #themoreyouknow #forall https://lnkd.in/ebC8aBHP

I am reaching this network ask you to support and share our 2024 project the 4-40-400.net project. This is long but needs to be said. We are asking faith congregations, followers and athletes, business, philanthropist, celebrities, social influencers and people who know that not paying for our ancestors labor was wrong. We ask you to join us in making an impact to support black communities. Our celebrities live lavish lifestyles because we support them it makes us feel good but does not pay bills. We are asking for their support and influence in this project which gives back Black community members a hand up and reprieve from financial struggles between the black community and others. Get involved reach out to us at [email protected]. People are openly hating anything black, fighting to erase black progress, creating laws to silence us in education history books all while saying we all the same while not treating us as such. The same people are saying no to reparations in their circles denying our ancestors are owed pay for forced labor. It is time we speak up for their dignity as humans. If we let it go, we are denying our own humanity tied to their lineage and personhood. If the government can go back and charge people for historical sexual exploitations to hold them accountable, they can hold themselves legislatively accountable for harm done in slavery and beyond which includes rape and more. That harm lingers in our lives in our finances our psyche. Since we do not have reparations and until we get it, I say we build using our own strategies. We start by investing in ways that reminds us why we fight why it is necessary to fund the fight for their dignity. All we ask is for people to give in any multiple of 4- just $4 as a reminder of our ancestors toils, $40 for the 40 acres and mule which was promised as pay but denied or $400 for each year financial reparations is yet to be paid, all while the government funds everybody and everything else except the nations black person's debt. A debt withheld because it subconsciously denies our ancestors dignity of not being people not human enough to have the same benefits human dignity afforded others harmed. It silently says is they still consider them and us none human without value. In silence and inaction they have slandered our humanity in 400 yrs of suffrages and counting.... We are asking you as individuals or fans of influencers to join the project to began to invest in the dignity building and wealth gap closing of the black community.

FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES ON REALITY The fundamental difference between us is our respective perspectives on reality. You see this as an opportunity for “stimulating discussion” and business as usual. I see it against the backdrop of history, as a matter of the survival of democracy, as an assault on the continued progress of people of color in this country, and of OUR survival. For me, this is the most important election in the nation’s history, since Mr. Lincoln barely squeaked by prior to the Civil War. Agent Orange has been unceasing in his efforts to do Everything he claimed he would do. That will only accelerate. He, Bannon, Miller, et al, and the other MAGA cultists of the Apocalypse, have made it clear that should they regain power, they have NO intention of Ever relinquishing it again (see Project 2025 and publications, plans and pronouncements of like ilk), and that they will do whatever is necessary to assure that, including political violence. Their goal has been vastly abetted today by the most corrupt and unabashedly ideologically partisan Supreme Court in the nation's history. The danger they pose and the potential for destruction with regard to individual rights, governance, and the American way of life, implicates a spectrum vastly beyond the limited scope of Roger B. Taney and the Plessy v. Ferguson court. In My opinion, if we lose this election, there Is No electoral future. For those who gainsay that, My response is that I live in the Present, with the immediate Present specter of Mother Emanuel AME Church, of Charlottesville, of Buffalo, of January 6th, of the predations of the successors of slave catchers, who every day in this country validate the fact that they have license and liberty to do whatever they damn well please, and illustrate it with the continuing and ongoing parade of caskets containing Black bodies, rolling to the cemetery amid the institutionalized lack of accountability or a shred of redress for the victims. I have not lost touch with my knowledge or present sense of deja vu of the history of the 1930s, and how it is playing out in the messaging in this country, and the pervasive global trend towards the furthest fringes of the right wing and authoritarianism. Sadly, some (including a lot of Black people who are bereft of knowledge or amnesiac about their own history in this country and damn well ought to know better), will not get it until it's too late. A lot of us learned Nothing from those kids ripped from their parents and placed in cages at the border by Agent Orange’s policies, and they won't until this inexorable march back to an 1860s mentality/reality is complete; I.e., until it is too late. I’ll be damned, If I will be in their number, having dawdled away my efforts to resist in self-serving rationalizations. Damn that. Ron Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone

FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES ON REALITY The fundamental difference between us is our respective perspectives on reality. You see this as an opportunity for “stimulating discussion” and business as usual. I see it against the backdrop of history, as a matter of the survival of democracy, as an assault on the continued progress of people of color in this country, and of OUR survival. For me, this is the most important election in the nation’s history, since Mr. Lincoln barely squeaked by prior to the Civil War. Agent Orange has been unceasing in his efforts to do Everything he claimed he would do. That will only accelerate. He, Bannon, Miller, et al, and the other MAGA cultists of the Apocalypse, have made it clear that should they regain power, they have NO intention of Ever relinquishing it again (see Project 2025 and publications, plans and pronouncements of like ilk), and that they will do whatever is necessary to assure that, including political violence. Their goal has been vastly abetted today by the most corrupt and unabashedly ideologically partisan Supreme Court in the nation's history. The danger they pose and the potential for destruction with regard to individual rights, governance, and the American way of life, implicates a spectrum vastly beyond the limited scope of Roger B. Taney and the Plessy v. Ferguson court. In My opinion, if we lose this election, there Is No electoral future. For those who gainsay that, My response is that I live in the Present, with the immediate Present specter of Mother Emanuel AME Church, of Charlottesville, of Buffalo, of January 6th, of the predations of the successors of slave catchers, who every day in this country validate the fact that they have license and liberty to do whatever they damn well please, and illustrate it with the continuing and ongoing parade of caskets containing Black bodies, rolling to the cemetery amid the institutionalized lack of accountability or a shred of redress for the victims. I have not lost touch with my knowledge or present sense of deja vu of the history of the 1930s, and how it is playing out in the messaging in this country, and the pervasive global trend towards the furthest fringes of the right wing and authoritarianism. Sadly, some (including a lot of Black people who are bereft of knowledge or amnesiac about their own history in this country and damn well ought to know better), will not get it until it's too late. A lot of us learned Nothing from those kids ripped from their parents and placed in cages at the border by Agent Orange’s policies, and they won't until this inexorable march back to an 1860s mentality/reality is complete; I.e., until it is too late. I’ll be damned, If I will be in their number, having dawdled away my efforts to resist in self-serving rationalizations. Damn that. Ron Sent from my iPhone Sent from my iPhone

THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN: How much has changed since George Floyd? I remember learning in Primary School about those who ‘discovered’ Africa. There was Henry Murton Stanley meeting up with Dr. David Livingstone after a difficult journey and exploration, and greeting him with those famous words: Dr. Livingstone, I presume? There was Mungo Park exploring the Niger River and writing a travel book. And Richard Lander. The images on the pages of our history books were often of a group of African natives, usually men, bearing a White man on a rigged hammock. Sometimes, it would be a brawny Black man with a White man sitting astride his shoulder and neck as they forded a river. The artist might take the liberty of sketching in some crocodiles and snakes. Since it was the natives that were bare-feet in the swamp, they were the only ones in danger from those critters. The generic name for those images was ‘the Black man’s burden’. A Minneapolis policeman on George Floyd’s throat, even to the death. That was not the burden. Before Mr. Floyd and Minneapolis, there was Eric Garner and New York. “I can’t breathe!” That is not the burden. Amy Cooper in Central Park recognized her privilege and that she can get a Black man arrested or worse, by feigning fear for her life. She is not the Black man’s burden. African Americans dying in disproportionately high rates from disease, (remember Covid19?) is not the Black man’s burden. Those are just snakes and crocodiles. There is a system in place at the bank that means a Black person cannot get the same loan that a comparative White person gets. There is a system in place at the job that means an equally qualified Black person does not deserve the position or the advancement. There is a system in the doctor’s clinic and the hospitals whereby a Black man’s pain is not as painful and his emergency is not as emergent. There is a system engrained where I work whereby I am not considered as smart or as hardworking by reason of the color of my skin. There is a system in place on the street and the courts; they place a lesser value on the life of a Black man! America is still the Black man’s burden. The crocodiles and snakes of under-employment, poverty, poor health, disrespectful treatment, and loss of liberty and life prey on African Americans daily. Some Amy Cooper Americans, cognizant of their advantage and privilege disgracefully seize upon them. Think back to the images on my Primary School history books. If the crocodiles bite off the legs of the natives bearing the White man and the snakes strike his heels, what happens to his burden?

April 15, 2024 Reparations: Three Fundamental Questions for White People by Jimmy Fleming and Marc Wurgaft, Co-founders, Paying Reparations Now As soon as we closed the file on our essay, “How Two White Men Became Reparationists,”  about our journey as white reparation advocates, we knew we had to go further. How do we, as European Americans, explain why it is crucial to demand reparative action for African Americans? Why now? How do we demonstrate that reparative action is restorative justice? We knew the objections that our friends and family would raise against reparations. But we also believed that their resistance- in part- is based on false impressions and misconceptions. That got us thinking! Why is it difficult to talk about reparations with non-POC?  It appears simple enough–race issues are deeply rooted in the United States. And race in our country is framed by our history, most explicitly by our ties to chattel slavery. Slavery brutally commodified black people as property. The labor of the enslaved was thus available to white enslavers at the nominal costs of maintaining their human property. Black people were stripped off their individual identities and personhood. Means of establishing families and communities and owning land, which are the main vehicles for wealth accumulation, were denied.    Read the full blog:

As we close out #BlackHistoryMonth, it's crucial to highlight America's complex racial history marked by injustice, exploitation, and broken promises. This history is social and economic, as, by 1860, slaves represented one of the largest capital assets in the U.S., worth between $2.7 and $3.7 billion. This wealth was concentrated in the hands of slaveholders, underlining the profound economic disparities that have carried on till today. The issue of reparations brings this disparity to light. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “When we get to Washington, we are coming to get our check.” Yet, the promises made, like “40 acres and a mule” to formerly enslaved Black Americans after the Civil War, were left unfulfilled. Contrarily, substantial government subsidies like the Homestead Act served as windfalls for many white Americans. Fast forward to 1976, when the Homestead Act ended, over 1.6 million applications had been approved, gifting nearly 287 million acres across 30 states. The value of this wealth transfer today would measure in the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars. If the promise of “40 acres and a mule” had been kept, estimates indicate that it could be worth $640 billion today. It would have allowed Black Americans to participate in agriculture, leading to stable income and wealth accumulation over generations and significantly altering the economic status of Black Americans. It’s time we addressed these historical injustices and begin discussing reparations. Do you think reparations could serve as a first step toward economic equality? #Reparations #RacialEquality #EconomicDisparity #BlackWealth https://lnkd.in/gbJYKwzK

This is so needed and necessary at this moment.

At #BlackRootsAlliance, our mission is the liberation of all Black people. We organize around five key areas: #safety, #economicsecurity, #healthandwholeness, #education #justiceanddemocracyengagement. This #Juneteenth, we want to bring awareness to a crucial aspect of our journey towards justice—#reparations for Black people. Since the end of slavery, conversations about reparations have been ongoing. We believe there must be multiple paths to reparations because our experiences and needs are diverse. Reparations are about making amends for the atrocities inflicted on oppressed communities. They are a form of apology and a step towards repairing the deep-rooted damages caused by systemic racism and oppression. These reparations should address structural inequities and provide a plan for a more just future. We want to hear from you! What's your biggest money issue? Tell us about your perspectives on Chicago, Economics, and Reparations. We will be at a Public Library near YOU in June and July! #Reinvest2Repair Learn More Here: https://lnkd.in/gyYynYHD

Black Wall Street FACTS: 🖤 The community was made up of over 600 thriving businesses. 🖤 BWS had its own ecosystem made up of Black-owned libraries, airplanes, newspapers, churches, and recreation centers. 🖤 the dollar circulated within the Greenwood district for up to 1 year. According to the NAACP, the dollar currently stays in the Black community for 6 hours .😩 🖤 A young girl named Sarah Rector was allotted a plot of land under the Treaty of 1866. She was given what was considered to be an inferior plot of land, only to find out that it was bursting with oil. 🛢At the time, the discovery made Sarah the richest Black girl in America. 👧🏾💰 🖤 The Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed $200 million in Black wealth and survivors recounted seeing their attackers wearing their furs and jewelry. 🖤 Although the few remaining survivors and their descendants have asked for reparations, so far, that hasn’t happened. Click the 🔗 below to get your copy of The ABCs of Black Wall Street https://lnkd.in/gRj4FsRP * * * * * #justiceforgreenwood #blackwallstreet #blackwallst #blackbusiness #blackentrepreneurs #blackwealth #blackwealthmatters #theabcsofblackwallstreet #hbcuprepschool #blackhistory365 #blackhistoryfacts #blackhistory #blackconsciousness #blackcommunity #blackauthors #reparations #tulsaoklahoma #americanhistory #generationalwealth