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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	510
Proposal	PLATFORM: Reparations
Presenter	Platform Committee presenter, Green Party of Georgia and Green Party Black Caucus sponsors
Floor Manager	Theresa El Amin
Phase	Closed
Discussion	07/19/2010 - 08/01/2010
Voting	08/02/2010 - 08/08/2010
Result	Adopted
Presens Quorum	31 0.6666
Consens Quorum	52 A Majority of Yes and No Votes

Background

6-4.6 BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

GPUS Bylaws Article IX. Platform

9-1.1 The GPUS Platform represents policies upon which most Greens
would agree and serves as a basis for Green Presidential and
Congressional campaigns. The Platform may only be amended as provided
by this Article.

9-1.3 In even numbered years in which there is no Presidential
Nominating Convention, the National Committee shall be the
decision-making body responsible for amending the platform. The process
shall be as established in the GPUS Rules and Procedures.

9-1.4 Amendments to the Platform may be submitted for consideration by
any accredited state party or caucus, or any committee whose Mission
Statement authorizes it.

Proposal

Revision of GPUS Platform, Chapter II, Section: Racial Discrimination

6-4.7 PROPOSAL:

Amend the 2004 Platform of the Green Party of the United
States in Article II., related to "Social Justice"; Section
A., related to "Civil Rights and Equal Rights"; by retitling
Section 2., related to "Racial Discrimination", as "Reparations
for United States Afrodescendants (i.e., Black Americans,
African Americans)" and further by redesignating paragraphs
a., b. and d. through h., as e. through k., respectively and
by striking paragraph c., which reads:

c. People of color in this country have legitimate claims to
reparations in the form of monetary compensation for centuries
of discrimination. We also uphold the right of the descendants
of African slaves to self-determination, as we do for all
indigenous peoples.

and by inserting the following new paragraphs a. through d., to read:

a. The community of people of African ancestry whose
family members were held in chattel slavery in what is
now the United States of America have legitimate claims to
reparations including monetary compensation for centuries of
human rights violations, including the Transatlantic slave
trade now recognized by the United Nations as a 'crime against
humanity'. As our Nation has done in the past with respect
to the Choctaw, the Lakota, the Lambuth, and more recently
for Japanese Americans and the European Jewish community,
Reparations are now due to address the debt still owed to
descendants of enslaved Africans.

b. We commit to full and complete reparations to the African
community of this nation for the past four hundred plus years of
genocide, slavery, land-loss, destruction of original identity
and the stark disparities which haunt the present evidenced
in unemployment statistics, substandard and inadequate
education, higher levels of mortality including infant and
maternal mortality and the practice of mass incarceration.
We recognize that reparations are a debt (not charity) that
is owed by our own and other nations and by the corporate
institutions chartered under our laws to a collective of people.
We believe that the leadership on the question of what our
nation owes to this process of right ought to come from the
African American community, whose right to self-determination
and autonomy to chart the path to healing we fully recognize.

c. We understand that until significant steps are taken to
reverse the ongoing abuses; to end the criminalization of the
Black and Brown communities, to eradicate poverty, to invest
in education, health care and the restoration and protection
of human rights, that it will be impossible to repair the
continuing damage wrought by the ideology of white supremacy
which permeates the governing institutions of our Nation.

d. While consensus is still evolving on what would constitute
full and complete reparations, we support the following
initial steps.

* We support the creation of a claim of action and a right to
recover inherited wealth and other profits accumulated from
the slave trade for the benefit of a reparations trust fund.

* We will initiate the repeal of the slave clauses that survive
today in the U.S. Constitution.

* We will work to restore lands stolen through a variety of
tactics including: violence, terrorism and the discriminatory
access to operating capital which together has robbed Black
Farmers and the broader community of their lands.

* We support the release of all political prisoners held by the
USA. It is time that the political frame-ups, the prosecutorial
misconduct and the racist application of police power which pass for
justice in our country be buried and those vicitimized by these abuses
of state power be given their lives back.

* We will support existing Historically Black Colleges and
Universities, as well as new and existing Education and
Development Funds.

Here is the 2004 text of the section being amended:

The development of the United States has been marked by conflict over
questions of race. Our nation was formed only after Native Americans
were displaced. The institution of slavery had as its underpinnings the
belief in white supremacy, which we as Greens condemn. In slavery's
aftermath, people of color have borne the brunt of violence and
discrimination. The Green Party unequivocally condemns these evils
which continue to be a social problem of paramount significance.

a. We support efforts to overcome the effects of over 200 years of
racial discrimination.

b. We call for an end to official support for any remaining symbols of
slavery and specifically call for the removal of the Confederate battle
flag from all government buildings.

c. People of color in this country have legitimate claims to
reparations in the form of monetary compensation for centuries of
discrimination. We also uphold the right of the descendants of African
slaves to self-determination, as we do for all indigenous peoples.

d. We condemn the practice of racial profiling by law enforcement
agencies, which are guilty of stopping motorists, harassing
individuals, or using unwarranted violence against suspects with no
other justification than race or ethnic background.

e. We favor strong measures to combat official racism in the forms of
police brutality directed against people of color.

f. We support effective enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, including
language access to voting.

g. We oppose discriminatory English-only pressure groups. We call for a
national language policy that would encourage all citizens to be fluent
in at least two languages. [See section K. Immigration / Emigration in
this chapter]

h. We strongly support the vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws,
the aggressive prosecution of hate crimes, and the strengthening of
legal services for the poor.

Resources

None

References

Visit the Platform Committee webpage for this proposal at:
http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/comments/?p=564.

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