Something I Wrote During the Presidential Campaign Last Year

A Message for Reparations Supporters for Obama

by Robert Oliver

What is the matter with you all?

Reparations supporters in Illinois knew that Barack Obama did not support reparations back in 2004 when he ran for the U.S. Senate. Even his opponent Alan Keyes advocated a form of reparations. Therefore your movement did not have a friend in the Senate. Yet they supported Obama anyway. You still did not get reparations. And you all still support him. And you are really expecting reparations still?

There is a definition for “insanity”: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the different results.

Obama still does not support reparations. Can I repeat that? Obama still does not support reparations. I am amazed that there is a well-known black woman who is running for President of the United States who openly supports reparations. You ignore her. Yet you support a black man for President who does not support reparations. You expect the government, when Obama is in charge, to give you reparations? You cannot say it is the “white man’s government” anymore.

Cynthia McKinney is running for President on the Green Ticket. I’m not cheerleading for McKinney, but it amazes me how she is being disrespected by her own people as well as the black media. A radio DJ in the New York area said she represented the “Collard Greens” Party. He would not allow discussion of McKinney’s candidacy because he said the “brotha” had to get into the White House. Of course the white media, that supports Obama, pretends she is dead.

The website http://www.greenpartywatch.org said on July 30, 2008: “Yesterday’s vote by the House of Representatives to apologize for slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws may provoke a discussion on reparations for descendants of African slaves. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente are on record in support of such reparations, and the Green Party platform has the following to say on the subject:

“‘People of color in this country have legitimate claims to reparations in the form of monetary compensation for centuries of discrimination. We also uphold the right of the descendants of African slaves to self-determination, as we do for all indigenous peoples.’

“There can be no question that Greens have been at the forefront of the fight for racial justice. A national discussion of reparations would give the Green Party a platform from which to articulate a clear and progressive reparative policy, so we need to think about how we want to approach the subject of reparations. I think there are at least two ways we can do that.”
(http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2008/07/30/greens-and-reparation/)

Why have not the masses of black reparations advocates gotten behind the “sista”? Check out the Democratic Party platform. It is freely available on the Internet. You see anything in it about reparations? No. There is absolutely nothing about reparations in the Democrat’s platform. Yet you ignore the candidate who is openly on your side, and you support a candidate who is not on your side and will be your opponent on the reparations issue as President of the United States. Why do you want to make things harder on yourselves?

When Obama becomes president, is not your movement killed?

The next time you yell “They Owe Us!” and “Yes We Can!” in the same breath, how will I know you are sincere? Do you really expect any reparations at all? I don’t think so. President Obama chooses his Secretary of the Treasury. You want to go after the Treasury to get “reparations”? It is Obama’s treasury you are going after. It is your black president’s treasury you are going after. You cannot say you are going after “the white man,” can you? You will vote for this black president so you can fight him later? I don’t understand that. He has made it clear he does not support reparations for years. You all knew his position, didn’t you? You want “change” instead of reparations? Will you have to pack up your movement because an Obama administration will nail the reparations coffin shut? Did you vote your reparations away after all these years?

So don’t yell to Obama, “They Owe Us!” Like Sergeant Carter on Gomer Pyle, your President Obama will say “I can’t hear you, but thank you for voting for me!”

Seems like you should get behind your friends and not your foes, shouldn’t you?