(formerly known as the African American Slave Reparations Team)
An Investment In Justice.
MISSION STATEMENT
AASRT, Inc. seeks in Christian faith to economically heal Black America through the elimination of the Black-White racial net worth gap over the next 100 years. We also work to facilitate White America's liberation from "the shackles of shame" of a racist past and "the fetters of fear" of a minority-majority future through the collaborative collection, and prudent distribution, management, and monitoring of private monetary and asset donations, free from Federal governmental provision or oversight.
AASRT: An Investment In Justice
How did AASRT get started?
My wife Shelia was the one who started it all.
As a young adult, she had canvassed her hometown of Gary, Indiana garnering signatures to demand Reparations for the descendants of the slaves of African descent. She is one of these “justice this, justice that” people. Whenever there was an impasse involving Black people due to their financial state, she would always bring up “we didn’t get our forty acres and a mule!” I listened and I sympathized, but as far as I was concerned, it was just a pipe dream. I didn't see a way forward. I didn't see a way past.
And then came Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations” essay in the June, 2014 edition of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine is, in my opinion, the finest piece of essay writing that I have ever read – comprehensive yet clear, compelling with the right mix of statistical and technical information undergirded by spiritus rei (the spirit of truth). It didn't tell me how Reparations should be done, but it forced me to conclude that it HAD to be done. It wasn't an option, something that could or should be ignored or passed by, because anything that is essential in God is possible for men who have faith in Him.
We started raising $13 trillion over 75 to 100 years in a pickle jar on a prayer altar Shelia had in a spare bedroom in our house. How crazy is that? (Faith crazy.) $40 dollars a clip – for “40 acres and a mule.” We figured we’d start by petitioning the only One we could depend in 400 years to make good on Reparations – the Lord - and we figured He’d take it from there. He has.
“The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.”
Exodus 12:35-36
What is AASRT's role in the Reparations effort?
AASRT seeks to declare the urgency and essentialness of American slave Reparations to the well-being and long-term survival of the American Experiment and the centrality of God in achieving it. It seeks to provide a tangible and measurable remedy to this horrid injustice of long-standing in a manner that will effectively and sustainably right the wrong of Slavery. And finally, it seeks to liberate the descendants of the slave and master alike from the pain of the enslavement and the shame of the enslaving respectively, so that, by the grace of Almighty God, this long and sad chapter in world history can at last be closed as it was for the Hebrew when reparations were paid in Egypt, and the Red Sea was crossed. (Genesis 12:35-36.)
“…Red for the blood, flow like a river.
Green for the land - Africa. Yellow for the gold that been stole. Black for the people they looted from…” - lyrics from “Worth His Weight In Gold (Rally Round)” - Steel Pulse
Why are Reparations important to America?
Because we have to fix this. We can’t wait for the government to pay Reparations – we have to ALL make a contribution to this effort - an effort we can grow, reinvest, and innovate to close the racial net worth gap. ALL. OF. US. White. Black. Hispanic. Asian. American born. Immigrant. Private citizen. Corporate citizen. Sovereign state actor. We don’t have to pay Reparations individually because any of us owe them, because none of us do. We have to make our contribution for one simple reason: if we don’t make this wicked wrong right, we just won’t have much a country for much longer. We have to pay them because it is right for them to be paid, not only to reparate Black America financially, but to liberate White America spiritually, and neither one is more important to AASRT, Inc. than the other.
THE OVERVIEW
Revolutionary change requires revolutionary thinking; and make no mistake – obtaining slave Reparations in the United States for the descendants of those slaves is true revolutionary change.
In order for the Federal Government to close the racial net worth gap, even over the 100 year period that we have projected to get it paid, would require a mobilization of $131 trillion dollars per year for one hundred years to Black America from the Federal budget. We can have no expectation that that the Federal government will commit to that amount of money on any semblance of a consistent basis. Even fiscally minded Blacks might balk at such a number. But Black America needs what it needs and deserves what it deserves.
But what if we changed our thinking? What if we stopped asking a government who has declined for centuries to act justly on our behalf and started asking people and organizations who are ready and willing to pay, simply based on their desire to see justice done in this matter? What if we stopped asking “White people” to pay Reparations and started asking “right people” – the just, the willing, the spiritually compelled, and the enlightened – to pay what the ignorant, the racist, the blind, and unjust will not?
This is the central tenet of AASRT, Inc. - that those who will never seemingly do what is right should no longer be asked to. We should not beg from the unjust to obtain less than what the just are able and willing to provide when asked and inspired.
AASRT Inc. looks beyond the social and political challenges of Reparations, seeing the challenge in a revolutionary way.
Government does have a role to play in Reparations - mainly by not getting in the way of just, non-governmental interventions and by not taxing the Reparations received. But we need to stop our greatest source of oppression to lift us up. We must find another way. We must engineer a better way.
Black America shall be satisfied. We will receive our Reparations due. We will end the racial net worth gap. But this will not be accomplished by cajoling the unwilling; rather, it will be done by the convening of the good, the true, the blessed, and the willing of every hue and nation to do what should have been done long ago: namely, what is right.