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Quote by Nikki Giovanni

“The South lost ... and that is good ... and that hateful flag needs to come down ... and reparations need to be offered and if none of that can happen ... well ... let there be poetry”

Quote by Nikki Giovanni

Book:Acolytes
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Acolytes

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Author

Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni is an American poet, writer, and activist, born on June 7, 1943. She is renowned for her poignant and evocative poetry that frequently tackles social and political issues. Giovanni's writing has had a profound impact on the African American literary community and beyond, earning her numerous awards and accolades for her literary contributions. more

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“And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckon us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans. Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history”

Reparations
Book:We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
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“There are pragmatic as well as moral grounds for the United States to follow Germany's lead [in dealing with it's past human rights crimes]. American media may have largely ignored the reasons we decided to destroy Hiroshima or oust the democratically elected governments in Iran or the Congo. Other nations' media has not. Few Americans are quite aware of how little credibility we retain in other parts of the world.”

MoralityMemoryGermanyReparationsLost Cause
Book:Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil
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“Abraham Lincoln was correct when he said that less than one-half day's cost of the Civil War could have purchased the freedom of all the slaves in Delaware. The Civil War cost the two sides a total of $6.6 billion in 1860s dollars, enough to buy the freedom of all the slaves at their 1860 market value, give each slave family 40 acres and a mule and make $3.5 billion in reparations to former slaves in lieu of 100 years of back wages.”

SlaveryAmerican Civil WarReparationsDelawareLincolnAbraham LincolnCivil Ware
Author:Claudia Goldin
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“The wealth of the imperial countries is our wealth too. On the universal plane this affirmation, you may be sure, should on no account be taken to signify that we feel ourselves affected by the creations of Western arts or techniques. For in a very concrete way Europe has stuffed herself inordinately with the gold and raw materials of the colonial countries: Latin America, China, and Africa. From all these continents, under whose eyes Europe today raises up her tower of opulence, there has flowed out for centuries toward that same Europe diamonds and oil, silk and cotton, wood and exotic products. Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The wealth which smothers her is that which was stolen from the underdeveloped peoples. The ports of Holland, the docks of Bordeaux and Liverpool were specialized in the Negro slave trade, and owe their renown to millions of deported slaves. So when we hear the head of a European state declare with his hand on his heart that he must come to the aid of the poor underdeveloped peoples, we do not tremble with gratitude. Quite the contrary; we say to ourselves: "It's a just reparation which will be paid to us.”

WealthJusticeHistoryLegacyReparations
Book:The Wretched of the Earth
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“Sec. 10. Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation from him that has done it: and any other person, who finds it just, may also join with him that is injured, and assist him in recovering from the offender so much as may make satisfaction for the harm he has suffered.”

JusticeSatisfactionInjuryReparations
Book:Second Treatise of Government
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