The issue of reparations for Blacks has long been avoided in this country, although there are countless reasons that validate the need. U.S. jurisprudence and history have honored the tradition of paying victims for damages and suffering. U.S. history is replete with instances of U.S. support for payment of reparations to individuals and communities wronged by the government. The United States has even apologized at least once for mistreating some of its citizens of color. The only thing unusual about a discussion of reparations, or payment of damages, in the American context is the outcry against reparations being paid to Black people. The very outcry itself, given history, is a sad indicator of how far away this country really is from the One America that we all want to see and live in.

The treatment of Blacks in this country has historically been deplorable. While steps have been made to better the racial climate, nothing has been done to compensate those wronged in the process. President Bush does not want to talk about reparations because he opposes paying compensation to Black Americans for slavery. That is what Ari Fleischer, his spokesman, had the nerve to categorically state at a White House briefing. I hope that is a mischaracterization of President Bush�s attitude, especially given the facts surrounding the November 2000 elections.

The ignoble 1857 Dred Scott decision saw the United States Supreme Court rule that no Black man could be regarded as an equal, and therefore had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. Not even the 14th Amendment, which was the constitutional rejoinder to the Dred Scott decision, could effectively protect Black women and men from the deep-seated racism, which produced Jim Crow at the end of the Reconstruction Era. The Supreme Court nailed apartheid into the fabric of America with its 1892 Plessy vs. Ferguson decision which legally enshrined "separate but equal" as U.S. custom and law. Segregation would remain the law of the land until its demise three-quarters of a century later.

Blacks were legally barred from access to employment and public places such as restaurants, hotels, and other facilities. ... These laws were not overturned until the 1954 Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the subsequent passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Millions of Blacks who lived and worked in America�s completely segregated society, suffered a century of terror and lynchings at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan and the general public, and the complete failure of the state to protect them. Human Rights Watch recently issued a report stating that the U.S. should pay reparations not only for slavery, but for segregation, too.

A recent and commendable Wall Street Journal article reported that in the early 20th century, tens of thousands of convicts, most of whom were Black men, were snared in a largely forgotten justice system rooted in racism and nurtured by economic expedience. Alabama was perhaps the worst offender, but certainly was not the only one. ... Nearly two decades after slavery was abolished in America, men were dying as slaves in a prison work scheme that benefited southern states and businesses. Alabama�s forced labor system generated nearly $17 million for the state government alone, or between $225 million and $285 million in today�s dollars.

Unfortunately, slavery, Jim Crow segregation and prison slave labor were not enough for the purveyors of state-sanctioned racial discrimination of the American sort. The Federal Government of the United States used all its available resources to thwart the call of Black Americans for respect for their basic human rights. Thus, the COINTELPRO program was born. COINTELPRO was the FBI�s secret program to undermine the struggle for freedom from racism and discrimination that was led by Black, and later Native American, Latino, and progressive white organizations. Though the name stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies. In an infamous FBI memo, the stated purpose of COINTELPRO was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of Black nationalist" organizations as well as "their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters."

Today the vestiges of racial discrimination, which began during the days of Black race hatred and slavery, are still visible.

Black women and men are haunted by the reality that "Driving While Black" in many states makes you a prime target for police harassment. The Justice Department admits that Blacks are more likely than whites to be pulled over by police, imprisoned, and put to death. And, though Blacks and whites have about the same rate of drug use, Blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites and are more likely to receive longer prison sentences than whites.

Twenty-six Black men were executed last year, some probably innocent; 2001 was begun by executing a retarded Black woman.

Government studies on health disparities confirm that Blacks are less likely to receive surgery, transplants, and prescription drugs than whites. Physicians are less likely to prescribe appropriate treatment for Blacks than for whites and Black scientists, physicians, and institutions are shut out of the funding stream to prevent this. As a result, Black American males and females experience shorter life expectancy rates than do their white counterparts. A Black baby boy born in Harlem today has less chance of reaching age 65 than a baby born in Bangladesh.

In the U.S. education system, 40 percent of all public schools are racially exclusive, meaning that fewer than 10 percent of their students are children of color while 40 percent of public schools in large cities are "intensely segregated," meaning that more then 90 percent of the students are children of color.

1998 statistics reveal that 26 percent of Blacks and 25 percent of Latinos live below the poverty level while only 10 percent of whites live below the poverty level.

The entire world watched the debacle of the Year 2000 Presidential election in which countless Black women and men were denied their constitutional right to vote, suffering the same disfranchisement that their grandmothers and grandfathers struggled to overcome half a century earlier. ...

It is evident that the United States has not adequately addressed its problem of race. Additionally, it has failed to even account for all its transgressions against its Black citizens. ... I believe the United States is in long-standing violation of international treaties that it has signed and ratified. Participation in the World Conference Against Racism is but one step needed to reverse the deep-seated appalling conditions and present-day treatment for people of color in this country. The United States could and should also apologize for its participation in the slave trade and the long history of racism against Black people that participation fostered and supported.