Artist Poses Nude in Streets of New York to Remember Slavery and the Violence and Racism that ‘Still Scars America’

By Danette Clark:

WARNING: CONTAINS NUDITY

Buck naked (with the exception of a pair of white pumps), Nona Fuastine poses with both hands pushing against one of the two massive columns that frame the front door of City Hall in New York City, as though attempting to topple the massive building. The caption beneath the photo — ‘They Tagged the Land With Trophies and Institutions From Their Conquests.’

According to The Guardian, Faustine posed naked in the streets of New York as a reminder of the vulnerability of the slaves once sold there and “the violence against humanity that still troubles the nation today”.

In another photo, Faustine is seen standing nude on a wooden box, reminiscent of an auction block, in the middle of an intersection on Wall Street. This photo caption says ‘From Her Body Came Their Greatest Wealth’.

Admittedly, Faustine’s “White Shoes” series is intended to serve as more than a just a reminder that individual racism exists. It’s a public declaration of her belief that America’s “financial systems are founded in blood“.

These kinds of public statements, this narrative that the American system is inherently and systemically racist, have become increasingly common in recent years. But why?

According to reparation activist Charles Ogletree, this is a narrative that must be, not only introduced to, but incessantly imposed upon society so that the reparations movement, specifically reparations lawsuits, can succeed.

Last week, I wrote about the new Slavery Memorial and Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University and how they contribute to the advancement of this narrative.

Specifically, as Charles Ogletree wrote in Tulsa Reparations: The Survivor’s Story, in order to succeed in obtaining reparations for African-Americans, there is a need to “promote the convergence of interests between reparationists and the reluctant majority population by forcing the majority population to confront past and present injustices against African Americans. ” It’s a strategy being used to literally, in the words of Ogletree, “transform the American debate about race” and “re-orient the public’s perception”.

According to Jon Levin at mic.com, Nona Faustine says the white heels she wore in each of her photos symbolize “the white patriarchy that people of color can never escape”.

Levin goes on to suggest that:

Much of that patriarchy can be seen in the practical manifestations of race in America. Slavery and the cruelty of the Jim Crow era left a staggering wealth gap between black Americans and their white counterparts.

Apparently, Levin too got the memo from the reparations movement that says the majority population must see inequality and disparities all around them and then come to believe that those disparities exist as a direct result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, or else African-Americans won’t get paid.

To read more on the reparations movement in America, start here.

Part 3 – The Reparation Agenda: More Obama Appointees Conspiring for a Massive Payout

By Danette Clark    July, 2012

In previous articles in this Reparation Agenda series, I named several religious appointees to President Obama whose work it is to guilt white America into believing it is our moral obligation to pay reparations for slavery. There is also a great deal of pressure being placed on churches across the country to make reparation for their ‘complicity in slaveholding’ more than 200 years ago.

I had originally planned to discuss, among other things, the push for reparations through the social justice education that our president is so fond of — a form of education that teaches our kids to loathe their country and promotes the idea that white supremacy is the cause of ‘achievement gaps’ between whites and minorities. However, there are more immediate issues surrounding this agenda that should be brought to light before it’s too late.

In addition to those chosen by Obama to White House appointments, several others very close to our president have conspired to squeeze billions out of universities, corporations, and even the government because of their supposed ‘ties to slavery’. I will discuss those pit bulls next in the series and then move into the meat of this agenda by showing the work being done to twist previously failed reparation lawsuits into claims that will better fit the rule of law. This work includes attempts to change history, selling lies as the truth, and bullying corporations and government entities into submitting formal apologies.

I will also reveal steps President Obama has taken as well as those he appears dangerously close to taking that could ensure future reparation claims will be successful.

But first, here is a rundown of a few more appointees, White House fellows and/or nominations and their connection to the reparations movement:

. Ruth Simmons, former president of Brown University and chair ex officio of the Annenberg Institute’s Board of Overseers. As president of Brown University, Simmons created a Committee on Slavery and Justice to investigate “Brown’s historic ties to slavery; arrange seminars, courses and research projects examining the moral, legal and economic complexities of reparations and other means of redressing wrongs; and recommend whether and how the university should take responsibility for its connection to slavery.”

. James Wagner, president of Emory University. Last year Wagner issued a formal ‘statement of regret’ over Emory’s historical involvement with slavery and hosted a national conference titled Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies.

Emory University, under Wagner’s leadership, is home to and participated in the creation and launching of Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and The African Origins Project. These projects are used to track slave trade voyages, “trace the geographic origins of Africans transported in the transatlantic slave trade”, and to locate the names of slaves. President Obama’s friend, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (think White House beer summit) was instrumental in obtaining initial funding for Voyages. The relevance and importance of these projects to the reparations movement will be discussed later in the series.

. Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and former Mayor of New Orleans, is a regular participant of the State of the Black World Conference. The conference is held annually to push further discussion on the issue of reparations and other issues relevant to the black community. Participants and speakers include Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jessie Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Obama friends Conrad Worrill and Charles Ogletree. The conference is sponsored by the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, an organization founded by reparations activist Ron Daniels.

Although it has been said the group avoids the word “reparations” as too vague and highly charged, the National Urban League has always been a strong advocate for reparations.

The National Urban League publishes an annual report titled The State of Black America, which measures disparities between blacks and whites in areas of economics, education, health and social justice. With regard to those disparities or gaps outlined in it’s 2008 report, Marc Morial stated that he “expects his members to press Obama on how he intends to close those gaps….”.

. Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor of Chicago and former Chief of Staff to President Obama, stated last year that he would support slavery reparations.

. Cynthia Hale, founding and senior pastor of Ray of Hope Christian Church, was chosen by then-Senator Barack Obama and the Democratic Party to give the opening invocation at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Hale’s Ray of Hope Christian Church is a “partner in ministry” with President Obama’s church of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ.

Hale is chair of the 21st Century Vision Team of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which is an anti-racist/pro-reconciliation ministry. See the first article in this series for more about Disciples of Christ.

Hale also served as co-chair of a social justice organization, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference. The conference, which was co-founded by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is led by Dr. Iva Carruthers, a long-time reparations activist. A current trustee of the conference is Father Michael Pfleger, who, along with Rev. Wright, made headlines in 2008 for his outlandish and crude racial comments against whites and America. Conference partners include George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the Gamaliel Foundation, where Obama worked in community organizing.

. Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California, believes in constitutional welfare rights, including affirmative rights to “education, shelter, subsistence, health care and the like, or to the money these things cost”. In other words, reparations should be made part of the Constitution.

In 2008, while discussing the issues of racial justice and reparations at the screening of Traces of the Trade, a PBS documentary on the transatlantic slave trade, Liu said he believes every person who inherits this nation has “a personal responsibility” and “a moral obligation to make things right” and that “it’s going to require giving up something”.

Every person mentioned in this series should be taken very seriously. They are all pieces of a puzzle, each doing his or her part to fulfill an agenda, that if successful, could bring down hundreds of American corporations, result in the loss of land, and even threaten our national sovereignty.