THE EDITOR, Sir:
THIS LETTER is a response to Queen Elizabeth II, and the response she gave the Rastafarians request for reparations. The Rastafarians were only asking for what the Jews asked for, and what they received after the Holocaust. Reparations. Repayment and an apology for the loss of lives and mistreatment of a race.
Black people were sold into slavery by other worthless black people in Africa. They were put on merchant ships like cargo and sometimes thrown overboard as shark bait to lighten the ship. We endured the bite of the whip. Our women were brutally raped. Our families were torn by separation.
Tribesmen and women were separated and the logs are still not all given to us, in order, to locate the missing family members.
There are still issues that plague us to this day such as the stuffing of buses, as if we are still on those cargo ships.
The 'Baby Mother Syndrome' is still there for men still breed women and leave them as if they are studs on a horse farm. The range of multi-coloured persons due to the rape of our women by the white (British) man. All of this is why the Queen is being asked for reparations.
Her government never did the deeds, that is true, but her great-great grandmother and the system in her day did. We should be compensated for the system's cruelty to us. Give the Rastafarians compensation, give us as a black race our just dues for all 12 million persons the system took from us. We want reparations. Not tomorrow, but today.
I am etc,
ARLENE P. KIRTON
Student Teacher
frenchgirl203@hotmail.com
