by Tyson Amir
If we personify America, I believe the experience of realizing its wrongs would trigger a psychotic episode. The mind of America would literally break. The body of America would be relegated to a vegetative state. America would lie comatose under the weight of understanding his/her role in the creation of this country at the expense of indigenous natives, blacks, other immigrant minority populations, and the environment. The guilt would be of epic proportions, causing America to choke on the guilt of what it has done. This is why America cannot afford to allow this to happen. Everything that is America and by extension Western civilization is at stake if a true accounting of history were to ever take place.
What would America and Western civilization be if they truly apologized and paid reparations for their crimes? What would happen if they compensated the native peoples for the lands they stole? If true compensation were to take place for the exploitation of resources (bodies, lands, minerals, agriculture, and labor), they would quite possibly be no more. America wouldn't be able to prop up its military-industrial complex, which it believes keeps it safe. It would not be able to support its parasitic capitalist economic system because it would no longer be able to strong arm for cheap resources and production. Its political institutions would implode because the weapons of control would no longer be present. The entire system would collapse upon itself. It is important to understand that and maybe I'm off in my prediction of possible ramifications of America's accounting but offsetting any of these potentials sheds light on very real reason why America and western civilization will fight with every ounce of its being to keep the game how it is.
When analyzing law and crime, investigators give attention to motive, the reason why an act was committed. The motive behind the rape and pillage of blacks and indigenous people is fairly clear. By doing so, America became the most powerful and profitable country on the planet. What would the motive be for not holding itself accountable for the various malicious crimes it has committed against the black and indigenous communities, as well as other communities? Simple. Money and power. In 2015 Professor Thomas Craemer of the University of Connecticut published an article in the Social Science Quarterly entitled, Estimating Slavery Reparations: Present Value Comparisons of Historical Multigenerational Reparations Policies, in which he put a price tag between 5.9 and 14.2 trillion dollars on reparations for blacks.
His formula for arriving at these numbers was as follows.
Craemer came up with these numbers by adding up the total hours worked by all slaves, men women, and children during the period of 1776 until 1865. This 89-year period was used because according to Craemer, "this is the time the United States could have abolished slavery but failed to do so." Focusing on slavery in that period Craemer multiplied the average wage prices of the day by the total amount of hours slaves worked. To give the amount a modern valuation he compounded an interest rate of 3% per year.
Professor Craemer's work is extremely important. In his research he also compared and contrasted instances when the United States participated in the payment of reparations to other parties to further establish a context for reparations. Craemer developed two different scenarios to account for reparations owed, and based on his finding, "If the number of slave descendants is estimated based on the number of people who identify as African American or Black in the U.S. Census of 2006–2008 (37,131,771 individuals), per capita reparations would amount to $159,737.50 in Scenario 1 and $383,497.32 in Scenario 2."
Keep in mind that payout is only for 89 years of slavery. Professor Craemer made the decision to analyze that era of slavery because it was sanctioned under United States law.
If we were to truly attempt to calculate a total reparations payout we'd have to include the 150 plus years of slavery and indentured servitude that preceded this era in British colonial America. We also could not ignore calculating costs for black bodies killed, raped, brutalized; nor the cost of families forcefully separated by the institution of slavery. Although privatized chattel slavery came to an end in 1865 we'd have to include the hundreds of thousands of blacks who were victims of convict leasing, share cropping, tenant farming, and debt peonage. These were black men, women, and children who were re-enslaved legally in post 13th Amendment America. We'd also have to include black property that was stolen or destroyed by white society or agents of the government. We'd also have to account for the black bodies lynched in 19th and 20th century America.
This is not to belittle Craemer's research at all. His work establishes an important baseline for thoroughly analyzing the cost of reparations. His work is an important first step. The second, third, and subsequent steps would have to account for all the other harms to blacks in America that didn't occur specifically under the umbrella of chattel slavery. If we were to do all of that, then we'd be looking at the very real cost of black reparations. We haven't even began to attempt to calculate what reparations might look like for indigenous populations.
Still, the numbers Craemer provides gives you an idea of what is owed and also sheds light on why America would not be interested in reparations. Who is willing to pay out 14 trillion dollars? That number could possibly double or triple if we included some of the other historical injuries the American society has inflicted upon blacks. Fourteen trillion would be a bargain. The monetary loss would be astronomical but that wouldn't be the only loss, America would also suffer from a loss of prestige and power that it has accrued by showing a self-righteous face to the world while systematically controlling, enslaving, and exterminating its own people on the home front.
This is why the lie is so important for America to maintain. It has to keep the lie alive in order to sustain itself. The lie has evolved to the point where it has produced related lies that serve as "reasons" and "justifications" for why the theft, murder, and torture were necessary. This type of logic and reasoning is representative of what Dr. Joy DeGruy would identify as "cognitive dissonance." Keeping it to the American context, how do they explain away the slaughter and violent removal of indigenous natives? The cognitive dissonance response is, “Manifest Destiny,” meaning that it was ordained by God that America destroy the various native civilizations. Why was slavery legal in early American history? "Founding Fathers" drafted Article I Section II, the 3/5 compromise, and later in the Dred Scott case Chief Justice Roger B. Taney elucidated, "The black man has no rights that the white man is bound to respect." More cognitive dissonance. Then when America appears to possibly change with some sincerity during reconstruction, America returns to form with various black codes and eventually legalizes segregation and Jim Crow via Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the cognitive dissonance again shines bright.
Justice Henry Brown, who wrote the summary decision, said:
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."
It was a 7-1 decision against Homer Plessy who was classified in society as "black" but was so light that he could almost pass for white. And the "Justice" had the audacity to claim that it was the "construction" of black people that separate public accommodations marked blacks with a badge of inferiority. The sheer genius of that cognitive dissonance is expert level. Seriously, sometimes you have to sit back and admire the dedication and innovativeness with which they masterfully deflect personal accountability. It's events like this that give credit to oft repeated refrain in the black community, that white people are crazy. This man was saying it's not the society but the blacks themselves who made up this badge of inferiority stuff so they are claiming a phantom injury. I hate using the example of rape but this Supreme Court opinion is the equivalent of a man who rapes a woman and then is able to legally blame his rape on her because she asked to be raped by dressing or acting a certain way. It's completely her fault t
hat she was raped, and according to Brown it was the fault of blacks that they felt some kind of way about being segregated. That's so wrong, and so hideous, but it's the American way.
The Purpose of “Between Huey and Malcolm”
I love this poem for the simple fact that I know that if I never have the chance to write or recite another poem, at least I was able to give this one to the world. Thinking of “Between Huey and Malcolm” and the larger body of work, Black Boy Poems, has created in me an even more peculiar feeling. None of us know when our time is up. Our physical life is a finite mysterious experience that we witness through emotions, thoughts, and senses. I'm fully aware of the consequences of the message of my work. I never anticipated a long life and fairly early on I tried to rid myself of the fear of death. This mindset made me appreciate the time I had to use it for the benefit of my people. In conversations I've had with my hero and mentor Elaine Brown, former chairperson of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, she's reflected on the totality of her life and has said if she were to pass, she'd know she gave all she could for her people and would be at ease with that. Sista Elaine is a legend and I'm honored and humbled every time I have the blessing of an audience with her. She is unmatched in revolutionary authenticity and still wakes up every day to carry on the fight. I have done nothing that approaches a fraction of a percent of her contributions but completing “Between Huey and Malcolm” and Black Boy Poems was the first time I felt that if I were to die, that I was able to leave something of value behind to help support my people in their fight for freedom and liberation.
I rarely write poetry anymore. I joke with a close friend of mine Amir Sulaiman, who I believe to be one of the best poets on the planet, that he ended my poetry career. I don't even think I am the best poet in my family. That honor goes to my cousin Prentice Powell. Even before I met Amir and before my cousin took up poetry, the best poet I had heard was my dear friend and brother, Ise Lyfe. I had focused primarily on writing music, but you cannot stop creativity when it is swelling up and forcing itself to the surface.
I don't know exactly how I conjured it, but it appeared. It thrust itself onto pages. I was in Rome, Italy, asleep in my hotel when I dreamt the first lines of the poem. I woke up and found the first piece of paper I could write on and began to jot down the lines from the dream. It is possible that the physical distance from the borders of America gave me a mental reprieve, which allowed me to access all of the emotions, pain, and hurt of the past few years and hurl it at the page. I don't know what the catalyst was; inspiration is its own universe and I was thankful that I was once again within its gravitational pull and I threw those words at that page as hard as I could.
If we trace the arc of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, we have to go back to Trayvon Martin and then to the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. That brings us from 2012 to the summer of 2014. These deaths and many similar executions of black bodies by law enforcement agents became more commonly displayed on social media and news networks over the following months. There's never an easy day to be Black in America and this past year and a half has been especially challenging. I personally know two men and a woman who were killed by law enforcement agents in 2015-16. All were students of mine, Alvin Haynes, Mario Woods, and Jessica Williams. There is no place to turn when you know that you and your people are devalued and deemed expendable in your society. That lesson has been ever present in America since 1619, but reinforced in multiple gruesome jarring ways over the past eighteen months. About a year after the murder of Mike Brown, in my hotel room in Rome, the floodgates broke open. My soul yearned to yell back at the chaos my people are living and dying in.
From the very beginning, I knew this piece was going to be a major statement. It didn't all come to me linearly though. I received bits and pieces that found their place toward the end of the poem and others that found a home in the middle of the poem. Sometimes my writing is more linear and sequential, and other times what needs to come out comes out and its proper position reveals itself over time. The two minds I've probably benefitted the most from on a "revolutionary" thought level are Dr. Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X. As I was writing the piece, words from both Huey and Malcolm called to me. I knew parts of their message needed to be present in the piece, but I didn't know where. Ultimately the idea of making their statements bookends to the piece seemed the most appropriate. To allow their words to stand alone and let my writing be the meat of the sandwich between their wisdom.
“Between Huey and Malcolm” is emphatic and powerful, but it is filled with tragedy. Our existence in America is tragic for the simple fact that black survival constantly puts you at odds with the system. The system cannot afford to include us properly. Every attempt at inclusion has been token in nature or so short-lived that we can only theorize about the historicity of it. America chooses cannibalism of its black inhabitants instead of granting them their rightful place. This is why I used so much symbolism of cannibalism in the piece. I reference The Walking Dead and the "meat of fleshy mangoes stuck in teeth." America is fine with eating us alive and is getting fat off of our pain and suffering.
Fighting for America to place value on the black life is outside of the paradigm of what America is capable of. The die is cast; we will always keep fighting for our worth, which will elicit the system's response of upholding its power by any means necessary. America and my people are locked in a never-ending struggle for power and position in society. It's a position we demand, and a position that America cannot afford to assign us. So we fight today, tomorrow, and all other days we will have on this planet. We will not lose. You will not win. This is why the poem ends with Malcolm who said it so clearly:
“In essence it only means we want one thing.
We declare our right on this earth to be a man,
to be a human being,
to be respected as a human being,
to be given the rights of a human being
in this society,
on this earth,
in this day,
which we intend to bring
into existence by any means necessary!”
Out (2005)
He was born out of wedlock
In and out of the arms of his pop
Who was in and out of trouble until he got shot
His mom in- between jobs
She in and out of relationships
He starts sliding in and out of the house quick
At school lessons go in one ear out the other
outside his window he sits to watch the gangsters and hustlers
jump in and out of new cars and new shoes
cash go in and out of their pockets to keep em looking brand-new.
He's just a youth
easily influenced
so he's intrigued
by these cats with no job
getting money without a degree
now he
starts cutting classes
drops out of school
Now his hands are in and out of his pockets with rocks like them other dudes
He's a pawn in this game that's hard to break out
He hangs out on the block
as this new scene plays out
the decision’s laid out
it's either you in or you out.
Without a doubt he jumps in
scene one fade out.
His moms is out of his life now
because she's living right now
she told him to stop hustling
that's the same path your pop went down.
He can't hear her he blocks it out
back on the block where the cops is out
staking him out because now he's got clout.
An undercover approaches to buy
he had a notion something was strange
but he ignored it because he's out of his mind
he's drunk and he's high
Product and paper exchange hands
PD jump out of three gray vans
with guns drawn
he's told
hands out your pockets better keep them high
his mom's prophecy comes true ain't no escaping this time
he's now property of the state
and can't wait to get out but on the outside life doesn't wait
he finds out his woman is late