Often, when justice and repair is sought for such crimes, it is tagged by many “Europeanized” and “Americanized” Africans as “playing the race card” or the “victim card.” To counter this rebuff, the “context card” must be used. The “context card” is America’s violent God complex and history of enslavement based on race.

The “context card” outlines and describes the defining elements of the economic legacy of Americanized Africans. In essence, my point is public policy and terror in America is still based on race, and, therefore, it must be challenged and re-constructed based on race, in the context of enslavement, and not the condescending notions of an inherent curse of God, and permanent social, economic, political pathologies, or civil rights.

I am using the word “context” as defined by Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition meaning., the whole situation, background, or environment relevant to a particular event; circumstances in which an event occurred or occurs; a setting.”

There is no card in the human capital development deck that can beat the context card because it is the core element of our moral universe. Like “deuces are wild” the context card out ranks all cards in the human capital development deck. Also, the context card is a key resource to be used at an opportune time to contend with and beat back assaults on our capacity as a people. The context card is not an excuse, it is posited as the cause and the reason for our status in America as a group unlike distinguishes our experiences from any and all immigrant groups in America. Please know and understand that we are not to be compared to any immigrant group.

Thank you

I pay the highest homage to and have the highest admiration for Mrs. Michelle Obama, the First Lady of the United States. As the Northeast Regional Representative, and Board Member, for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), I hope and pray that she starts a national dialog on a reparations accord for Blacks in America.

This national dialog must be firmly rooted in the historical context of the “trans-Atlantic slave trade” and the “holocaust” of African enslavement in the United States which is anchored in chattel enslavement, de facto and de jure racism, the destruction of life, culture, and human possibilities. These crimes against humanity were not that long ago as opponents of truth and justice would lead the voting public to believe. As a distinct people in America, Americanized Africans, with a pre-determined social, economic and political status, have been “free” for only 146 years (1863-2009). This also means that 102 years of our so-called freedom (1863-1965) were spent trying to repair ourselves and seeking recognition as humans.

The “system of enslavement” defined by Orlando Patterson (Slavery and Social Death, 1982) as the “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons,” distinguishes the experience of African Americans from those of any and all immigrant groups in America, including “Neo-African Americans” as the surge of continental Africans into America increases daily.

The system of enslavement — domestic terrorism — codified in the Constitution of the United States by America’s founding fathers and reinforced by religious institutions, corporations, and units of government included, amongst other horrific acts, identified by Kenneth Stamp (Peculiar Institution, 1965), splitting up families, placing in private plantation jails, whipping, torturing, mutilating, raping, washing wounds in salt, skinning and boiling Africans alive, quartering them by tying their legs and arms to one horse each and pulling their limbs apart in four directions.

The late, great Dr. John Hope Franklin, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, in recognition of his scholarship and service, told the nation when President Clinton appointed him in 1997 to chair a seven-member panel for the president’s Initiative on Race:

“If the house is to be set in order, one cannot begin with the present. He must begin with the past.”

Under the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, our ancestors were “freed” dead broke, without brick, bread, or thread, despite, the promises made, while the enslavers were compensated for the loss of their “chattel.” Still, today, even with the election of her husband as the President of the United States of America, there is no discussion for a process of restitution to achieve justice for an enslaved people. Without such a process, the obvious conclusion is that African descendants are not viewed as worthy of justice.

Therefore, a true national dialogue on a reparations accord for Blacks in America is appropriate within this founding context of America. Reparations are the cross-road solution to these historical injustices and the current undeveloped human capital of America. This past due debt, left unpaid, will forever contradict the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Holy Bible Mrs. Obama held and on which the President placed his hand to take the Presidential Oath of Office.

I remind her, as encouragement and strength to take on this project, that she has the God-given words of our beloved servant-leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on her side, spoken boldly in 1963, on the steps of our nation’s capitol, in his “I Have a Dream” speech:

“So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Dr. King’s 1963 speech, 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is indelible as truth, and now is the time for Congress and the President to come up with a stimulus check to pay for the damage done to Blacks in America. This is “the urgency of now.”

I trust she will realize that God brought her to the White House, as First Lady, for such a time as this, to start, amongst other projects, a dialog for a reparations accord and support for House Bill H.R. 40, sponsored by the Honorable Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. There is no greater love she can show or cause she could take on as The First Lady of the United States of America.

.KENYA AND IT MADE HIM LOOK BAD. THAT WOULD BE MY GUESS.