Black Agenda
As a specific group with a specific justice claim, the #ADOS movement demands a specific agenda with policy prescriptions that address the losses stemming from the institution of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, convict leasing, mass incarceration and immigration.
We demand a New Deal for Black America which includes, but is not limited to:
- We need set asides for American descendants of slavery, not “minorities”, a throw-away category which includes all groups except white men. That categorization has allowed Democrats to use programs like affirmative actions as “giveaways” to all groups in exchange for votes. The bribery must end. That begins with a new designation on the Census with ADOS and another for Black immigrants. Black immigrants should be barred from accessing affirmative action and other set asides intended for ADOS, as should Asians, Latinos, white women, and other “minority” groups. In addition, ADOS hiring and employment data must be demanded for all businesses receiving tax credits, incentives, and governmental support. As well as all governmental agencies national, state and local. It is our belief that this will show that there are minimal if any ADOS professionals in fields including but not limited to engineering, medical, legal and tech.
- Once affirmative action is streamlined as a government program only and specifically for ADOS, the program should be fully reinstituted.
- The Supreme Court decided wrongly when it gutted the Voting Rights Act. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution article “It’s Time to Solve the Mystery of the 100,000 Mystery Votes” indicates, the protections outlined in the Voting Rights Act are essential to protecting the rights of ADOS in America. Reinstituting the protections of The Voting Rights Act is a key part of our agenda.
- We seek a multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan targeted to ADOS communities, including, but not limited to, the Black Belt, Flint, Michigan. A Reuters examinationpublished in 2016 found 3,000 cities with poisoning rates higher than Flint.
- Residents of majority ADOS areas that have been poisoned under the federal, local and state government’s watch, such as not only Flint, Michigan, but Denmark, South Carolina, and others, must be financially compensated for the benign neglect of the Environmental Protection Agency and the government in general. The Justice Department must also institute protections which exact heavy fines and federal criminal prosecution for future offenders.
- Mass incarceration has wreaked havoc on Black American families. By some accounts there are literally more black males imprisoned than all women are incarcerated on the planet. To give context there are 20 million black males, and they largely descend from slavery. While there are 4 billion women globally, both groups producing the same number of incarcerated. The reinvention of slavery through use of the 13th Amendment is chronicled by Douglas Blackmon in his PBS documentary “Slavery by Another Name”, it is our position this must be corrected. We demand a immediate assessment of the numbers of the #ADOS prison populations at the state & federal level. We also demand that there be review if punishment (bail amounts, sentence lengths, amount of time served before parole) is being levied at unfairly high levels on #ADOS based on gender and race for similar crimes to other groups. We demand that there be real prison reform in the form of investment into counseling, job training, and rehabilitation for our incarcerated.
- Former President Ronald Reagan committed to “strengthen the capacity of historically Black colleges and universities to provide quality education” in Executive Order 12320. President Obama undermined that commitment with changes to the PLUS Loan requirements. We call for legislation to triple the current federal allotment to HBCUs. Schools like Georgetown, built by slaves, have an endowment of over a billion dollars. This is a transfer of wealth from ADOS to whites. Our agenda demands that the federal government fully endow our remaining HBCUs in a dollar amount that meets the budgetary needs of each institution. In addition, ADOS students who attend HBCUs should receive a discount in the form of a 75 percent tax credit, given that our inability to pay the rising cost of education is directly tied to the racial wealth gap coming from slavery. ADOS who choose schools outside of the HBCU network should receive a 50 percent government funded credit.
- Findings published in USA Today concluded that top universities graduate ADOS in tech, but those graduates can’t find jobs in Silicon Valley. Only 2% of technology workers at seven Silicon Valley companies are Black, according to the report,and many of those are Black immigrants, not ADOS. And according to a study by Rutgers Professor Hal Salzman, American colleges graduate more tech workers than tech companies need, hence the H1-B program reduces opportunities for ADOS searching for careers in technology. The government must strictly limit the number of H1-B Visa workers tech companies that flow in each year.
- Audit the banks to see if there are patterns of racial discrimination in lending, and require these banks to extend loans to ADOS businesses. These banks received bailout from taxpayers and owe a debt to all taxpayers, regardless of race. In addition, banks such as Wells Fargo used predatory schemes historically, not just during the Great Recession, to eviscerate Black Wealth. Lending to Black businesses and institutions would be a beginning for banks to redress the harm they’ve caused to the ADOS community.
- Mandate that the government’s advertising budget include Black media. There is no ADOS community without our own media. Incentivize through legislative action that all major companies spend 10% of their advertising budget with ADOS media in exchange for tax credits. In addition, mandate that 10% of government advertising for governmental agencies, armed forces and other ancillary programs go to majority ADOS owned media companies.
- ADOS college debt should be forgiven in the same way losses were forgiven for the banks on Wall Street. Those executives oversaw the evaporation of billions in global wealth. ADOS graduates bought into the idea that the key to success in life was an education, and there was a place for us in America, only to find after graduation that we were locked out. We can’t afford to bear the burden of a lie.
- A health care credit to pay for medical coverage for all ADOS. This would cover surgery, pharmaceutical, and counseling needs. As an example we would like to see a Lineage Therapy, whereby #ADOS leadership, in co-operation with licensed therapists and psychiatrists, develop a therapy curriculum to help members of the ADOS understand and manage their ancestral traumas. This therapy should come at no cost to the ADOS community.
- America has never atoned for its original sin of slavery in the form of reparations. It is our position that H.R. 40 be passed, and additional supportive measures implemented. We need to gather the data on the level of wealth that was lost as a direct result of slavery, and the era of Jim Crow that followed. In the paper “40 acres and a mule in the 21st century” Economist Sandy Darity of Duke University assessed the value today as:
If we also take as a conservative estimate the total number of ex-slaves who had attained emancipation at the close of the Civil War as 4 million persons, 40 million acres of land valued at $400 million should have been distributed to the ex-slaves in 1865. The present value of that sum of money compounded from 1865 at 6 percent (5 percent for interest earned and 1 percent as an inflation adjustment) would amount to more than $1.3 trillion. If there are approximately 30 million descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States today, the estimate based on 40 acres yields an allocation of slightly more than $400,000 per recipient.
#ADOS demands that there be a real review of direct payouts needed to be made to eligible recipients from gathered data, and progress be made toward making #ADOS families whole.
Without these measures being instituted, ADOS are locked out of the country our ancestors built during chattel slavery. Without reforms through transformative government, we will be left to continue living a third world life in a first world country.
HOW DO SOVEREIGNS HAVE CLAIM TO REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY, WHEN THOSE SOVEREIGNS OWNED SLAVES? 
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