It is important that we place the issue
of the current discussion of racial profiling in its proper historical
context. Racial profiling started in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade where
European nations captured millions of Africans in one of the most brutal
crimes against humanity in the history of the world.
The issue of racial profiling is an updated
use of language that has been part of the western white supremacy system
for over four hundred years. That is, target African people for whenever,
wherever, and for whatever reasons that the white power system deems it
necessary at a particular time in history. Now the targeting is centered
around "driving while Black."
In Nkombo Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1975
in an article titled, "Black Capital," explained that African peoples "introduced
to the West was in the form of a commodity raped from Africa to be used
as labor, capital, chattel and currency to build a nation for someone else."
In fact, we became the property of the western hemisphere, which is the
foundation for "racial profiling."
Not only were African people used to build
nations such as Portugal, Spain, France, England, and the United States,
we were used, in many instances, to build the economic foundations of those
countries.
This has been recently documented in the
ground breaking research of New York based Attorney Deadria Farmer-Paellman
who has added a "new prong to the reparations agenda -- political pursuit
of corporations and private estates that have been unjustly enriched by
slavery."
Attorney Farmer-Paellman completed her
law degree in January 1999 when she earned her Jurist Doctorate degree
from New England School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts.
Over the past fourteen years, Farmer-Paellman
has received significant training as intern clerk for various community
organizations and agencies such as the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressman
Edolphus Towns, State Assemblyman Roger Green, the National Coalition of
Blacks for Reparations in America/N'COBRA, and the Center for Constitutional
Rights.
As she describes, "I began my restitution
research in the winter of 1997 while a student at the New England School
of Law under the supervision of Professor Robert Ward. As an African American
descended from slaves, I learned from my grandparents of the nation's broken
promise of forty acres and a mule to emancipated slaves."
Farmer-Paellman said, "I was determined
to see delivery on that promise and that prompted me to begin research
on the legal case for Black reparations."
Continuing, she said, "I recognized that
litigation attempts against the government were being frustrated by procedural
hurdles like sovereign immunity and statutes of limitation, and legislative
efforts are being blocked by the tabling of bills, I realized a fresh approach
was required. That's when I decided to design a political strategy to encourage
corporations and individuals who benefited from slavery to apologize for
their role in slavery and pay restitution into a trust fund to benefit
the heirs of Africans enslaved in America."
Those of us in the Reparations Movement
have always discussed developing a strategy to focus on the private sector
side of the reparations issue, but we lacked the resources to focus our
research collectively in this area.
Attorney Farmer-Paellman has helped open
up new doors for the Reparations Movement. Her research has successfully
exposed Aetna, inc., the number one United States Life and Health insurer
in challenging the company to make an unprecedented public apology and
restitution payment over profits it made from insuring slaves in America
150 years ago.
Her research reveals that "The life insurance
policies, issued in the 1850's, were one of the first lines of business
underwritten by the Hartford, Connecticut--based insurer, which now has
47 million customers worldwide and annual revenues of $26 billion. Payments
on the policies were due to slave owners, not the slave's families."
Further, she says that, "These profits
(from slave policies) have helped Aetna to become a multibillion dollar
corporation today -- they have a moral obligation to apologize and share
that wealth with the heirs of the Africans they helped maintain in slavery.
In talking with Farmer-Paellman she indicated
that her research has identified at least forty other United States Corporations
who benefited and are still benefiting from unjust practices during the
slave era.
This far, Aetna, Inc. has only chose to
deliver on part of their promise by making unprecedented apology for their
role in slavery. However, at this time the official position of Aetna,
Inc. is that "they have no plans to pay restitution."
As we continue our work in the Reparations
Movement to initiate legislation like the Tulsa 1921 Riot Commission, the
East St. Louis Riot of 1917, the Chicago Riot of 1919, and other significant
attacks by whites against African people in America, we should now also
join forces with researchers like Attorney Farmer-Paellman and demand Aetna,
Inc., and other corporations that benefited from the slave trade industry,
pay restitution.
At the same time, we must continue our
struggle to get Congressman Conyers HR40 Study Reparations Bill passed,
while we develop expanding strategies in the Reparations Movement.
It is obvious that we have only scratched
the surface of our organizing efforts in the Reparations Movement. Stay
tuned!