The Black Mental Health Emergency and Reparations
"It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"
--James Baldwin, interview with Marvin X, NYC, 1968
As Murphy's law states, things go from bad to worse, and things have certainly gotten worse since James Baldwin told me those words a half century ago. Our mental condition has deteriorated severely from the traumatic slave syndrome effects that has persisted 400 years. America's drug war bombarded our community with toxic chemicals in the form of Crack and germs in the form of STD and HIV/AIDS with the concomitant economic loses in housing and population due to so-called urban renewal, i.e., Negro Removal, that has now morphed into gentrification and dislocation. And mass incarceration has most certainly exacerbated the problem, along with persistent mis-education and ever pervasive racial discrimination in all phases of life.
Dr. Nathan Hare told us housing is the first need of persons suffering mental illness and/or drug abuse, if they are to recover their mental equilibrium or a modicum of sanity. Dr. Frantz Fanon taught us in Wretched of the Earth that the only way the oppressed man and woman can regain their mental health is through the process of revolution. But even revolutionaries need housing. Even slaves had housing, although not much better than the tents occupied by today's homeless throughout San Francisco and the streets of America.
Today, on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, Supervisor Shamann Walton held a press conference that called for reparations from the City and County of San Francisco. He demanded reparations in the form of decent housing, living-wage employment, proper education. A speaker from the SF Board of Education noted 2020 will be the first year Black History Month will be celebration in the San Francisco Public Schools. Supervisor Walton demanded reparations for police abuse under the color of law, in short, a holistic package of reparations. Another speaker noted that reparations is restorative justice for 400 years of crimes against humanity.
The press conference was attended by a multi-cultural group of supporters from the Latinox, Asian,
and white community. They were in full support of reparations for North American Africans. With such broad unity, we think it is about time for the San Francisco North American African leadership to unite. If there are mental health issues, ageism or sexism, we say our condition is an emergency and we must come together and talk shop, as Malcolm X told us. There is no reason aside from mental health issues that keep us from solidifying on an issue that is bigger than any individual, any politician, preacher or teacher. Young Turks must reach functional unity with the elders and the elders must submit to the energy of youth by offering guidance and direction. The hour is too late to be on an ego trip. Surely we see perennial racism is unabated, flowing from the Right and often from the Left. We need only recall Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, "...I'd rather be with the KKK than phony white liberals...."
But all too often our enemy is internal rather than external, although often they may be both! We cannot continue with the slave mentality in modern dress. What did Ancestor Harriet Tubman tell us, "I could have freed more slaves if they had known they were slaves." Often we are unconscious of our behavior that is the residue of slavery. Supervisor Shamaan Walton said a leadership and community meeting on reparations will be held soon. We urge all those sincerely interested in reparations to be present.
Immediately following the press conference on reparations, my editor, Amelia Ashley Ward, asked me to accompany her to Mayor London Breed's office to observe a private meeting she was having with a faith group
advocating for senior housing. Before the meeting began, we chatted with the Mayor in her private office.
Amelia introduced me to Mayor p Breed, but I told Amelia I knew the Mayor from the African American Cultural Center on Fulton Street. She was the director when my Recovery Theater performed One Day in the Life, the docudrama of my addiction to Crack. Mayor Breed reminded me she grew up in the OC housing projects, OC for Out of Control. She said none of her friends would come there to visit her because it out of control! The only friends she had were those who lived there. I told her I was quite familiar with the OC projects as I had bought Crack there many times. On one occasion I gave a dealer short money by mistake but as soon as I realized it, I rushed back to make it right because I didn't want any problem with the OC brothers. The Mayor laughed because she knew it could have been a serious problem.
Amelia and I went into the conference room with the interfaith group. Soon the Mayor entered and the meeting began with a prayer. The group had taken over the Mayor's office some time ago, demanding to meet with her, occupying her office for two hours. She refused to meet with them under duress but agreed to meet today.
After introductions, they demanded the City of San Francisco charge seniors no more than 30% if their income for rental housing. After listening to testimonials, Mayor Breed said she could not promise them what they desired. It would take time.
She told them she fully understood the problems of seniors since she was raised in the projects by her grandmother whom she had to care for when she developed Alzheimer's.
My point is that this group was unified in their demands and the Mayor was forced to listen. As per reparations, North American Africans must come as a unified group, not divided by intergenerational conflict.
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Reparations Multi-Ethnic supporters
photo Adam Turner
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"It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"
--James Baldwin, interview with Marvin X, NYC, 1968
As Murphy's law states, things go from bad to worse, and things have certainly gotten worse since James Baldwin told me those words a half century ago. Our mental condition has deteriorated severely from the traumatic slave syndrome effects that has persisted 400 years. America's drug war bombarded our community with toxic chemicals in the form of Crack and germs in the form of STD and HIV/AIDS with the concomitant economic loses in housing and population due to so-called urban renewal, i.e., Negro Removal, that has now morphed into gentrification and dislocation. And mass incarceration has most certainly exacerbated the problem, along with persistent mis-education and ever pervasive racial discrimination in all phases of life.
Dr. Nathan Hare told us housing is the first need of persons suffering mental illness and/or drug abuse, if they are to recover their mental equilibrium or a modicum of sanity. Dr. Frantz Fanon taught us in Wretched of the Earth that the only way the oppressed man and woman can regain their mental health is through the process of revolution. But even revolutionaries need housing. Even slaves had housing, although not much better than the tents occupied by today's homeless throughout San Francisco and the streets of America.
Today, on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, Supervisor Shamann Walton held a press conference that called for reparations from the City and County of San Francisco. He demanded reparations in the form of decent housing, living-wage employment, proper education. A speaker from the SF Board of Education noted 2020 will be the first year Black History Month will be celebration in the San Francisco Public Schools. Supervisor Walton demanded reparations for police abuse under the color of law, in short, a holistic package of reparations. Another speaker noted that reparations is restorative justice for 400 years of crimes against humanity.
The press conference was attended by a multi-cultural group of supporters from the Latinox, Asian,
and white community. They were in full support of reparations for North American Africans. With such broad unity, we think it is about time for the San Francisco North American African leadership to unite. If there are mental health issues, ageism or sexism, we say our condition is an emergency and we must come together and talk shop, as Malcolm X told us. There is no reason aside from mental health issues that keep us from solidifying on an issue that is bigger than any individual, any politician, preacher or teacher. Young Turks must reach functional unity with the elders and the elders must submit to the energy of youth by offering guidance and direction. The hour is too late to be on an ego trip. Surely we see perennial racism is unabated, flowing from the Right and often from the Left. We need only recall Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, "...I'd rather be with the KKK than phony white liberals...."
But all too often our enemy is internal rather than external, although often they may be both! We cannot continue with the slave mentality in modern dress. What did Ancestor Harriet Tubman tell us, "I could have freed more slaves if they had known they were slaves." Often we are unconscious of our behavior that is the residue of slavery. Supervisor Shamaan Walton said a leadership and community meeting on reparations will be held soon. We urge all those sincerely interested in reparations to be present.
Immediately following the press conference on reparations, my editor, Amelia Ashley Ward, asked me to accompany her to Mayor London Breed's office to observe a private meeting she was having with a faith group
advocating for senior housing. Before the meeting began, we chatted with the Mayor in her private office.
Amelia introduced me to Mayor p Breed, but I told Amelia I knew the Mayor from the African American Cultural Center on Fulton Street. She was the director when my Recovery Theater performed One Day in the Life, the docudrama of my addiction to Crack. Mayor Breed reminded me she grew up in the OC housing projects, OC for Out of Control. She said none of her friends would come there to visit her because it out of control! The only friends she had were those who lived there. I told her I was quite familiar with the OC projects as I had bought Crack there many times. On one occasion I gave a dealer short money by mistake but as soon as I realized it, I rushed back to make it right because I didn't want any problem with the OC brothers. The Mayor laughed because she knew it could have been a serious problem.
Amelia and I went into the conference room with the interfaith group. Soon the Mayor entered and the meeting began with a prayer. The group had taken over the Mayor's office some time ago, demanding to meet with her, occupying her office for two hours. She refused to meet with them under duress but agreed to meet today.
After introductions, they demanded the City of San Francisco charge seniors no more than 30% if their income for rental housing. After listening to testimonials, Mayor Breed said she could not promise them what they desired. It would take time.
She told them she fully understood the problems of seniors since she was raised in the projects by her grandmother whom she had to care for when she developed Alzheimer's.
My point is that this group was unified in their demands and the Mayor was forced to listen. As per reparations, North American Africans must come as a unified group, not divided by intergenerational conflict.
San Francisco Supervisor Shamman Walton
photo Adam Turner
Sun Reporter political columnist Marvin X, Sun Reporter Editor Amelia Ashley-Ward,
former San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell
photo Adam Turner
Marvin X on Reparations![]()
SF Supervisor Shamann Walton and Marvin X
Firstly, we, North American Africans, must give ourselves reparations in the form of love and forgiveness, in the form of unity and trust. Such actions are worth trillions of dollars. We are already a multi trillion dollar nation, 16th richest nation in the world. Check the stats.Secondly, in any business transaction there is a buyer and seller. Who bought us and who sold us? Whomever they are, both must pay, yes, Africans, Europeans and Arabs. Let all these Nations dip into their sovereign funds and compensate descendents of Africans kidnapped into the European and Arab slave systems that continue to this day, even as I write!Let America empty Fort Knox of the gold and deliver it to an elected body of North American Africans that can destribute such funds in an equitable manner.There is no question that European Americans benefitted from the accumulated capital of the slave trade. See such classics as Capitalism and Slavery by C. Eric Williams and How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Dr. Walter Rodney.