Forty Million And A Tool proposes the use of Information Technology in all its power to secure for African Americans our birthright of wealth through a movement called “Self Reparations.”  The cornerstones of this movement are Rationale, Recognition and Reality. Atop this tripod sits the vision that African Americans have always had of what freedom, justice and equality could look like in America, once achieved.

RATIONALE

Our ancestors were the labor force that produced the wealth of America and built its infrastructure.  As this labor was forced from us America now expresses regret for what many call “our shameful past,” but offers little in the way of true compensation.  Were our ancestors equal partners and beneficiaries in this enterprise called America they would have passed on enormous wealth to their generations of descendants, including us, just as many other Americans of past eras have done.  This clearly establishes that our true birthright is indeed wealth.  Whatever else comes along with our particular American birthright, be it our African essence or peculiar traditions, the centerpiece of our birthright is still immense wealth.  This understanding must galvanize African Americans and must remain a permanent part of our vision.  Let not our struggle any longer be couched in terms of a poor minority people striving for middle-classdom or as the country’s impoverished citizens perpetually in need of handout after handout and program after program. Today, these are merely smokescreens that keep our vision blurry and us expending our creative and wealth building energies at anything and everything but our birthright as a people.

RECOGNITION

Recognition #1 is that America will never give African Americans monetary reparations for slavery.  No amount of begging or legal maneuvering will ever produce such an outcome, despite a few piecemeal (isolated) initiatives being called reparations, such as with the Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School or the City of Evanston, Illinois.  Serious upcoming leaders need to recognize that any more agendas that feed our people false hope, especially around an issue so sensitive to us as reparations, are agendas we need to kick to the curb with the quickness.  Holding America to account and peddling unrealistic expectations are two entirely different things.   Recognition #2 is that the American government cannot truly give us our birthright.  It never has and never will be America’s to give.  That was the job of our ancestors, but we know why they couldn’t do it.  We also know that the wealth our ancestors produced still circulate throughout this country.  The question now is are we men and women enough to take what’s ours?

REALITY

Remember “forty acres and a mule?”  Do all of us know that land was actually given to ex slaves (Freedmen) and then taken back by order of an American president?  It was that “take back” that signaled to white Americans that we were not to be allowed to have wealth in America.  The whole reparations question could’ve been settled right then and there.  Ex-slaves were fully motivated to build wealth for themselves the same way they did it for others; ready even to forgive the treatment they received as long as they were free to pursue a life for themselves on equal footing.  This was not to be.  Instead, our ancestors were met with every kind of resistance, swindle and intimidation you can imagine, particularly anytime they sought to build wealth as a people.  Tulsa and Rosewood stand as two monumentally abhorrent examples of the hatred displayed at the mere thought of us having wealth.

We have been beaten back into submission so much that our collective psyche, it seems, won’t allow us to even dream the dream of wealth.  Still, we live year in and year out with a giant gaping hole in our existence; a nagging and inescapable awareness that something is terribly missing, yet ever so close.  “It’s the economy, stupid.”  Truer words were never spoken, for our birthright sits smack dab in the middle of the American economy just waiting for us to own it.  That reality is not new, but here’s what is: we can now step right up in plain open view and take our birthright without any repercussions at all.  No Klansmen will ride by to burn anything down and no slick talking financial institutions will move in to swindle us.  More importantly, there are no laws to stop us; certainly no United States president to take it back.

This is the reality that many of our people have died for and that the rest of us have been waiting for.  All African Americans won’t embrace a concept like Forty Million And A Tool.  Many will take a look see approach; some may even denounce it outright, fearful of making waves.  Well, that’s nothing new.  All slaves didn’t get down with escape attempts or insurrections even though all such moves were freedom seeking moves.  It wasn’t because they didn’t want to be free; they were either too scared or truly believed that failure was certain.  They wanted to live to see a better day.  That better day is NOW!   I call it Self-Reparations, and I trust that my people have not abandoned our ancestors dream of wealth and true freedom.

SELF REPARATIONS

Self Reparations is African Americans taking their birthright of wealth out of the American economy and placing it in a fund that serves to enrich African Americans eternally.  This will require African Americans to contribute $1 per week or $5 per month to the African American Slave Descendants Reparations Fund (AASDRF) for all the days of their lives.  These monies will be managed by a Leadership Council, comprised of recognized and highly trustworthy African Americans, to achieve goals including, but not limited to:

1. Devise positive strategies to build and maintain wealth.

2. Negotiate voluntary reparations payments from corporations and governments abroad.

3. Acknowledge Whites For Reparations and establish a mechanism for their support, monetarily and otherwise

4. Make Forty Million And A Tool an Internet Service Provider (ISP), bringing low cost cable and/or broadband access to all African American households.

5. Provide assistance to elderly African Americans.

6. Establish at least four (4) full-service insurance companies to serve African Americans nationwide.

7. Acquire holdings and/or properties where appropriate and lawful.

8. Restore African Americans to good credit backed by AASDRF funds.

9. Provide entrepreneurial assistance to African Americans.

10. Provide emergency assistance to African Americans.

11. Move every African American household to financial security.

12. Provide for the education of African American children and eventually guarantee African American children at least one million dollars upon their 25th birthday, with conditions.

Clearly there are many prominent African Americans who could comprise dozens of leadership councils and so the standing Leadership Council, whatever the make-up, will certainly call upon others to advise, assist and otherwise commit resources in furtherance of Self-Reparations.  In addition to any such leadership council(s) there will necessarily exist an ever growing Council of Elders, consisting of those who have long been engaged in our struggle and who yearn to pass the legacy into capable and unified young African American hands.  I am confident they will support and lend their best guidance to the pursuit and attainment of our birthright of wealth.

Self-Reparations begins with the formal establishment of such a Leadership Council and with the creation of Forty Million And A Tool as its Not-For­-Profit administrative entity.  Once the Leadership Council decides where our funds will reside we can then set our sights on the American economy.  I understand there’s an interesting new banking initiative called Greenwood that should be looked at as well.  Appropriate public service announcements and web sites should accompany these initiatives, with official written notification to African American households to follow.  Each outreach shall contain contact information for further registration and involvement.

Self-Reparations Education and Resource Centers (SERC) will be established in strategic geographical locales.  Each center will honor past freedom fighters, abolitionists and victims by bearing their names prominently (i.e. The Emmett Till Education and Resource Center).  The primary functions of each center are to ensure basic computer literacy, to teach the use of information technology within the philosophical framework of Forty Million And A Tool, to provide free computers and to give each person direct informational and contribution access to the AASDRF via the internet and otherwise.  Centers will not provide money, pass out checks or engage in any form of financial services.  Manuals will be made available at centers and in PDF form that clearly spell out the center’s function and service hours.

VISION

Envision an American society where every African American is looked upon as a millionaire or potential millionaire rather than a potential rapist, robber or murderer.  At the very least women wouldn’t clutch their purses in elevators and department stores wouldn’t make full length movies of us as we shop. More significantly our presence on college campuses wouldn’t be met with bitter scorn, anger and suspicion.  We’d no longer be the last hired and first fired.  Traveling abroad wouldn’t be a hardship, only dangerous due to terrorists threats against Americans everywhere.  We’d have health care, life insurance, wills, trust funds, property and lifelong financial security.  We could fund black colleges or any entity we deem still viable or necessary.  These and many more are the dreams and visions we and our ancestors have had. Practicing Self-Reparations can not only nurture and embody this bold vision, Self-Reparations can ensure its realization in our lifetime and for as long as we occupy this planet.

Let’s be honest about something.  If America really and truly wanted to change the conditions under which African American descendants of slaves have lived it would’ve been done already.  Everything else America really and truly wants to happen comes to pass.  We’ve watched America wish and want everything from nuclear weapons to landing on the moon.  No people know better than us that America gets what America wants.  The problem has always been that when it comes to what to do with us America becomes divided among itself. Slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Civil rights Movement are all testaments to the fierce (sometimes life and death) battles fought over how much wealth, power and input we’ll have as it pertains to the governance of America.  Consequently, crumbs and promises is where we always land. When reparations is mentioned the sentiment in white America becomes defensive and resentful, with many pointing to all the crumbs as evidence that equal opportunity is the American reality.  We know better and it’s time for us to do better.  It’s time to give ourselves more than crumbs.