Yes

Don't have double standards for us (ex. black 15yr old boy is a "man" while a nearly 30yr white man is a "boy/young man" )

Don't seek to impoverish the areas we live in

Don't seek to disenfranchise the areas we predominantly live in

Don't choose to allow the areas we predominantly live to be poisoned

Don't create special reasons to imprison us

Don't deny us equal, and unfettered, access to means of educational and economic advancement

Don't assume our successes somehow comes at your expense

Don't brutalize us

Don't rationalize our brutalization by others

Don't denigrate our culture and use it against us while simultaneously "borrowing" as much as possible from it

Don't make policy on the surface to "protect us" while simultaneously thinking up new ways to exploit us below it

Don't expect less of us

Don't expect more of us

Don't ignore us

Don't denigrate us and expect us to gloss it over

Don't gloss over the negative history of this country in relation to us

Don't play with statistics to create special "facts" to rationalize your hatred of us

Don't attempt to turn our anger at endemic and imperialistically proven racism into rational for your mistreatment of us

Don't create special reasons to imprison us

Don't make us into your personal boogie men

Don't try to blame us for the reasons why you choose to mistreat us

Don't condone/ignore/let slide any of the above because it's done by people "that wouldn't hurt a fly"

Don't ask us to "get over it"


Imagine, if you will a group of people that endured centuries of slavery followed by another century of systematic denial to the baseline economic and educational opportunities given to white folks, including those "fresh off the boat".

We as a people have only been "free" for perhaps 65-70 years, and that freedom as it stands comes with a number of caveats. A number of special unwritten rules that we must abide by to ensure we are granted the illusion of unfettered freedom.

Imagine if you will reparations took the form of us simply being left alone to grow without any of the don't s I listed happening every single day. The best part is that it would be absolutely free and the country would be better off for it. A win-win situation if there ever was one.

It's too bad that the mindset of certain folks in this country will ensure that it never happens. Instead we'll keep wasting time, money and effort spinning wheels while they stoke hate and fear within their ranks to win elections and explain away their own self created disenfranchisement.