Hip-hop mogul Ice Cube isn’t giving up on his reparations plan. In July, Cube unveiled his “Contract with Black America,” which got the attention of presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Biden reportedly wanted to meet with Cube. That wasn’t enough for Cube. He is now demanding that politicians sign the contract before they can get the support of the Black vote, otherwise, he and others will hold the vote hostage.
“Politicians are introducing programs to help minorities, diversity, and people of color. Upon further review, Black people usually get an average of only 3 percent or less from these programs. It’s word play. Make them address us specifically as Black people. What’s being done for us?,” Cube tweeted.
His tweet sparked lot of response.
“The power is NOT in the politicians hands, nor has it ever truly been,” KRISTIΔNCLOUD @Kristian_Cloud tweeted. “They are puppets. The real power and actual sovereignty is in the Moorish peoples hands. This is all ours, everything the light touches. They won’t give help us, ever. It’s not in their character, never has.”
Magnum BoomBX @KWashingtonBX tweeted, “Now can you PLEASE go get that contract BACK and get it rewritten.In it’s current form, YOU wrote up a contract that’s doesn’t MAKE SURE BLK ppl interests are protected… Basically what you just complained about.Get that contract back Cube.”
Ronmc @Ronmc999 tweeted, “You can’t say “black” anymore cube you have to specify #ADOS. Just like the native American has specific terminology and parameters to identify them. We need the same. Any policy with out specifics is not policy for us.”
However, Cube does go into specifics in the contract.
“The problems facing America are too deep and wide to simply reform one area or another. Long-lasting solutions demand a comprehensive thorough ‘rethink’ of America so that each new approach in each area supports the success of the others. This Contract with Black America will provide conceptual approaches in several areas,” Cube said in a press release about his Contract with Black America.
Cube has enlisted the expertise of economist Darrick Hamilton, executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, who wrote the preface to the contract.
“This Contract with Black America strikes at the heart of racism and presents a blueprint to achieve racial economic justice,” Hamilton wrote. “It was written in the backdrop of the killing of George Floyd, which set off a wave of protests not seen since the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and ’60s, and a global pandemic in which the Black mortality rate is more than double the White rate and in which 45 percent (nearly half) of Black-owned businesses closed. This Contract with Black America is a patriotic pathway to promote our shared prosperity and achieve racial economic justice.”
Ambassador Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta, has weighed in with support of Cube’s contract. “The pandemic has revealed to us the importance of the essential worker of which many are minorities. We can grow no stronger without improving the sustainability of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The Contract for Black America is a comprehensive step toward an action plan that addresses the future stability of minorities and essential workers across the nation,” he wrote.
The Contract with Black America sets out an agenda that calls for a plan of “ceo-reconstruction” to redress past wrongs systematically imposed on Black Americans economically, bank lending reform, federal funding of “baby bonds”, Federal Reserve and government pensions for qualified Black Americans, finance oversight to overlook and report on Black and minority lending, and housing ownership and mortgages among other financial initiatives.
The contract also calls for police, prison and judicial reforms.
It touches on “Black responsibility.
“As we begin to gain social and economic equality, it is our duty to clean up ourselves and our community. This contract is a 2-way street. As we gain social and economic equality, we must begin to dissolve any bitterness in our hearts for past wrongs. We must become better citizens who are more productive on all levels of American society,” Cube wrote.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 73: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin makes the case for why this is a multi-factor rebellion vs. just protests about George Floyd. He discusses the Democratic Party’s sneaky relationship with the police in cities and states under Dem control, and why Joe Biden is a cop and the Steve Jobs of mass incarceration.
In May, Biden finally released a plan for Black America called “Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan for Black America. While it does touch on judicial reform, it makes no mention of reparations.
“It does strike me as pandering,” said economist Dr. Julianne Malveaux, president emerita of Bennett College for women, in an interview with The Final Call. “I mean, I think that there’s nothing wrong with anything (Biden) says, but we all know that with the disparities that we experienced, the answer to closing the gaps is targeting.
“(Rep.) Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has done a good job putting that out there. The thing about Joe Biden, you know, we’re going to vote for him. He’s a Democrat and he doesn’t mean Black folk any harm, but he’s not going to be aggressive about racial economic justice.”
