THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE BLACK man has suffered greatly through the corridors of time. We were displaced from Africa by white men, and a number of greed-driven Africans. Well, we cannot deny the fact that we cannot ever forget, but are willing to forgive, the whites who played a major role in the establishment of the black diaspora. Some of my fellowmen are seeking compensation in the name of Rastafari. Many seek for repatriation (some seek for reparation), others seek for both. Just as the Jews suffered at the hands of the diabolic hatred of Adolf Hitler who killed six million Jews in World War II, gained compensation for the Holocaust, we deserve compensation for the injustice meted out to us in chattel slavery.
In recent times the Rastafarian community representing the black diaspora intensified the pressure on the monarch of our colonial motherland to secure reparation for the senseless injustice our predecessors suffered. We have lost our names, many of our traditions and we have even lost the modern civilisation established at Timbuktu. Our culture has been devoured in its entirety, raping us both mentally and physically.
Queen Elizabeth II with her flimsy excuse is afraid to give us the remuneration for even the inhumane Middle Passage which dehumanised us and turned us into property. It is unfortunate that the Queen stifled her conscience and embraced the wrongs inflicted by contemporary politicians to slavery. Most of the 20 million Africans who came to the New World via the Middle Passage are in a vacuum as it relates to their cultural heritage.
We need to congratulate the Rastafarian community and work in collaboration with them for negotiating consciously for the lost ones in the black dynasty. Why is it that we are not going to be compensated for the dispersal of black people to all ends of the globe? Is it because the population of the diaspora is too big? This is not a racial issue; this is something we deserve. We don't need the money in our hands literally. We need it to build schools and other infrastructure, to counter the misinformation and miseducation we were subjected to during slavery. Slavery was wrong, not because the British House of Lords and the House of Commons felt it was right. The truth is outside of us, one philosopher says. We can distort the truth, but the truth will still be the truth.
The black man can be triumphant over miseducation, prejudice, discrimination, marginalisation and be a primary force to reckon with in the 21st century.
Young people, remember, you are "young gifted and black and there is a world waiting for you."
I am, etc.,
PARIS TAYLOR
Greater Portmore
St. Catherine
