Rasheed, Muhammad. "The Numbers Guy." Cartoon.
26 Jun 2021. Pen & ink w/Adobe Photoshop color.
This #MRasheedCartoons image was created as the cover to a quasi-waste of time Twitter argument I had earlier (see below) with some 4chan-ish troll pretending to want to know about Reparations out of an expressed faux-curiosity. Despite his initial insisting that he was only asking to learn, he promptly failed every single basic test of someone sincerely wanting to learn about something new from a blank slate of respectful curiosity.
Marcus ADOS - If Pan Africanism was truly what people like to pretend it is, we’d have unwavering support from the Diaspora as we try & secure our justice claim here in America. Hopefully this is my last tweet on the topic bc I’m ready to move on entirely from fantasy.
Muhammad Rasheed - Exactly. As a member of Gen-X, I was raised to be on that Pan-African stuff and it was a major cognitive dissonance to see them not only speak for us by saying "we" didn't need Reparations, but then to actively go on the attack on behalf of white racists.
Art Vandalay - I think the biggest issue non-black non-ADOS people have is no one can agree on what a fair and just amount would be to be paid to people who were never slaves themselves, paid by current day tax-payers who were never slave owners. How do you parse such a thing to an agreement?
Muhammad Rasheed - The idea that something worked out 3 years ago at the beginning of the #ADOS movement is "the biggest issue" to someone who sits on the outside of the argument tossing rocks at us is comical.
Should I have this discussion and take you seriously, or as a troll? Choose.
Art Vandalay - Have a discussion. I’m not making fun of anyone. I’m in favor of some form of reparations especially the kind that addresses the confirmed loss of generational wealth to those who are confirmed ADOS.
Muhammad Rasheed - Okay, then good. I would love to have the discussion.
Please understand upfront that it's been a long three years of active arguments with political enemies & rivals who want only to keep us subjugated for continued exploitation/plunder. People say a lot of nonsense to us.
Art Vandalay - What “worked out 3 years ago”? As in an agreement on reparations? Is that what you mean?
Muhammad Rasheed - I mean activists, economists, scholars, etc., engaged in the discussion to work on the plan of action using the data to determine what the solution to the problem is...
...as opposed to talking as if this never happened by people who only dismiss the topic from a bar.
Art Vandalay - Do you personally have an opinion what a confirmed individual ADOS should be specifically paid monetarily for reparations and over how long of a period of time? An actual dollar amount… ??
Muhammad Rasheed - Sure. My personal opinion of the matter sits well inside of the informed facts of history and had transformed as I learned more about the topic. I did not stubbornly hold on to my previous ignorant opinions once the facts were known and processed.
Art Vandalay - Ok great thanks I will re-read the page at that link to re-familiarize myself with the specifics… Thanks
Art Vandalay - You are allowed to have an opinion on what is just and fair and an appropriate amount in direct cash payment(s) and to whom aren’t you? I have seen the different widely varying amounts thrown around by the scholars and such. I’m interested in what M. Rasheed thinks.
Muhammad Rasheed - I think that the root cause of the artificial impoverishment imposed upon my ethnic group is the fact that the white political identity group has refused to share wealth, land & rule with the former slave class.
Muhammad Rasheed - Whites genuinely resent that it's no longer as easy to build wealth from the old free slave labor economy, when America was "great," and do everything in their power to keep us in a position in which our wealth is siphoned off into white coffers.
This fact is why inheritance wealth has better returns for the white community, who control 90% of the national household wealth, than labor does.
Muhammad Rasheed - So for me personally, it's not a matter of a definitive dollar amount per person that clever disingenuous whites can possibly use as a hush money scam, but a robust program designed to close the racial wealth gap.
That robust Reparatory Justice program needs to have multiple components -- which includes massive cash infusions into ADOS households, of course -- as well as wealth management training and an educational program for Americans in general to massage the national consciousness.
Muhammad Rasheed - In fact, it wouldn't be much different from the 'whites only' homesteading acts and the New Deal that lifted the poor whites out of poverty in the lest two centuries. They came up with all kinds of creative programs to gird them with an economic floor.
Muhammad Rasheed - In addition to the economic repair in having my stolen inheritance wealth returned, I think we must have a protected status as a wealth-building ownership class. It is through our direct exploitation that the great wealth of the West was built, and we deserve to be an elite here.
Art Vandalay - What does that mean? 0 income and capital tax rates?
Muhammad Rasheed - You see how the most elite whites perform? Get lucrative government contract deals at will to make unlimited wealth to do whatever with no one f*cking with them?
Like THAT.
Art Vandalay - Oh ok
Muhammad Rasheed - As Gen-X, I was one of those kids who were to be bussed to white schools so we could get the higher quality of education hoarded from us. When I got there as a small child, the only whites were the principal and two teachers of the bunch. The rest had fled with their stuff.
Art Vandalay - Also no one in the USA is on the outside of this “argument” as it will be ALL current taxpayers in the US regardless of color or creed who will be paying for reparations through their tax dollars. This is why I ask what a fair and just amount would be paid to individual ADOS.
Muhammad Rasheed - As the American descendants of slavery, we're the only group here who didn't come here on purpose looking for a better life. We are surrounded by a sea of hostile immigrants and their descendants who used us as the vehicle for their economic come ups.
That makes our fight an inherent uphill battle, because clearly not only does no one give a sh*t about our struggle, but you all genuinely resent that we just don't accept subjugation and abuse from our immigrant class rivals.
Muhammad Rasheed - So when I hear any white person eager to get to a definitive dollar amount they can pay out and pretend it is the Alpha & Omega of the entire discussion, it sounds like a preparation for a grift scheme trying to play out at my expense while pretending to "work with me."
"Here's your money, n1993r, now let's not hear anymore about that! Get back out to the cotton fields!"
Please note that you are by no means the first white person to ask such a question in such a way. I see you.
Muhammad Rasheed - A robust Reparatory Justice program includes not only the economic repair and inclusion into a protected wealth-building ownership status, it it also includes leaving us in Peace. Any further repeats of predatory behavior will require MORE Reparations.
Leave us alone.
I know it'll be hard. You lot have what you have, drive what you drive, live where you live because of the last 400 yrs of accrued discriminations against my people. I am your preferred prey. Reparations includes you deprogramming yourself from the white supremacist mindset...
...hence the need for the nationwide educational component to the #Reparations program.
Art Vandalay - That sounds like a gulag.
Art Vandalay - I’m half Asian and not particularly white and I can guarantee you no white person, not the sane, normal everyday white folk even slightly think the way you think they think. It is a self-imposed roadblock you will have to figure out how to get past if you want white friends
Muhammad Rasheed - You can guarantee nothing since that's the only angle they ever take across all social media in these arguments. As I said, it's been a long 3 years of the same anti-#ADOS nonsense repeating on a loop.
Muhammad Rasheed - I'm sorry that you've been sitting outside of the argument all this time and are now giving the impression that you just discovered something new to plant your flag into. That must be your manifesting white half, amirite?
Art Vandalay - Man you are racist!… Does it serve you well?
Also I never said the other half was white… Flushed face when we ASSume and all that jazz… am I right?
Muhammad Rasheed - lol How am I "racist?"
Need I remind you that you have been arguing the classic position of my white supremacist opponent throughout this thread and even display Retweeted bullets of his on your wall? Does it matter if you are of the white aristocracy or of his loyal "POC/BIPOC" support class?
No.
Muhammad Rasheed - Art wrote: "That sounds like a gulag."
I need my wealth returned to me and my traditional enemy to [finally] stop attacking/exploiting me.
If that sounds like the fruit of a gulag, then so be it. Bring the sh*t on. Sooner rather than later.
Muhammad Rasheed - If whatever my people reasonably need to be healed from 400 yrs of white racist terror is going to be negatively spun into
Pat Robertson's "monstrous evil" from someone who felt the need to proclaim he WASN'T a full white, then how are you not a troll?
Art Vandalay - If you want to believe I’m a troll so be it. If you want to believe that I think the way you think I think so be it. If you want to believe that all white people think the way you think they think so be it. I can tell you as an observer to this it is clearly a road block for you
Muhammad Rasheed - My only road block is that the immigrant class are in direct opposition to my economic inclusion goals and do a poor job showing that they really want me back in slavery so they can get rich off me faster.
If you were sincere, why not start off assuming I didn't mean "gulag?"
If you were sincere in just wanting to understand in a spirit of good fellowship, why assume out the gate that I mean what my most rabid white racist enemy says I mean from bitchute or whatever?
Muhammad Rasheed - I am the wealthless bottom caste in this country I built. If you were really sincere, why not approach me with a clean slate and not a white racist leaning bias?
Muhammad Rasheed - Telling murderous, domestic terror white supremacist that in order for the country to heal they need to change their thinking means "UNLEASH THE GULAG!!!" by default, right?
Because white supremacist are just good people who really don't need to change their thinking, amirite?
Muhammad Rasheed - Anyway, the nationwide educational component to the #Reparations program would be little different in function to the "Never Forget!" campaign of the children of Israel Holocaust thing. So relax.
Art Vandalay - Ahh OK, well thats a lot less gulag sounding
Muhammad Rasheed - If you want to assume the absolute WORST of my position the way white racists routinely do, why bother saying you are 'half Asian' at all?
You tell me what is it supposed to mean when you go out of your way to point that out to me?
Art Vandalay - The way you initially described it sounded like a gulag. When you clarified, it no longer sounded like a gulag. Not anything to read into it beyond that.
Communication is a 2 way street. That said, how you’re communication is received is at least 50% your responsibility.
Muhammad Rasheed - Well, the very fact that I referenced a very famous example of the program I was talking about, but your mind went straight to "gulag" by default instead when I said that white supremacists need to change their thinking...
lol
Muhammad Rasheed - This is far more here than just "communication is a 2 way street."
There's a wall of anti-Black American bias between us, too. That's actually why you are here with that particular list of Reparations questions you Tweeted.
Art Vandalay - There is no “anti-black bias”. There is anti-wanting-to-collapse-the dollar-by-printing-more-money-than-currently-exists-on-the-entire-planet bias for sure though.
Muhammad Rasheed - Nah. They spend massive sums of money all the time and just hand it to corporate ALL the time and none of the people involved care. They just recruit the best & brightest minds into the finance sector to figure out how to keep it all afloat. They can just toss mine right on top.
Art Vandalay - Maybe it’s the way you describe it initially? Yah think? So no taking any responsibility for your communication and how its received?
Muhammad Rasheed - You're racist. And an a$$hol3.
That's why you defaulted to "It's just evil leftist revenge against us whites!" the way every bitchute racist scumbag in the universe defaults to.
Muhammad Rasheed - Tell me what you originally intended to convey by proclaiming you were 'half Asian,' please. How was I supposed to feel about that, especially considering you were arguing my traditional foe's position at the same time.
Art Vandalay - I have no clue how you were suppose feel about that. I only told you that because you assumed twice in a tweet that I was white before I told you. There is not anything there more than that. Not everything has hidden or deeper meaning than what is right on the surface.
Muhammad Rasheed - You were arguing the classic white supremacist anti-Reparations position. Why would it matter if I assumed you were personally fully white or not?
Why was it important that I not think you white while you argued on behalf of 'whiteness?'
Muhammad Rasheed - Art wrote: "Not everything has hidden or deeper meaning than what is right on the surface."
What's on the surface is that whites want to maintain their dominant economic position, the "POC/BIPOC" immigrants have agreed to partner with them in it, and I'm attacked for being sick of abuse.
Art Vandalay - M. Rasheed wrote: "HIM: 'SHUT UP, N1993R! No!'"
Yeah and that is not what was said by either of us. That sounds like the same “emotionalism” you accuse me of.
Muhammad Rasheed - You're only saying that because you see the n-word in there when you squint. I'm an editorial caricaturist, so I'll need you to try a little harder than that. #satire
Muhammad Rasheed - My entire point is that my people need to be made economically whole FOR REAL not not as yet another fake-out grift scheme that will end up enriching whites again (see: affirmative action, etc.), but you are fighting me at every bullet.
Art Vandalay - M. Rasheed wrote: "Whites genuinely resent that it's no longer as easy to build wealth from the old free slave labor economy"
Ahh that’s not true… I can guarantee you that a majority of your normal everyday white people are not thinking their ability to generate wealth would be easier if slavery still existed. Believing that will skew your thoughts on anything that would realistically help your cause.
Muhammad Rasheed - The "majority of your normal everyday white people" do not want their political identity group to lose their artificially maintained economic dominance over government & industry by becoming economic equals with ADOS.
Art Vandalay - Interesting thought experiment, but I still don’t think that’s a thing…
Muhammad Rasheed - You "don't think it's a thing" based on what exactly?
Muhammad Rasheed - You mean you don't 'FEEEEEL' it's a thing.
Because to confront the truth of our nation's actual history triggers you, hence the backlash against the 1619 Project and anti-racism curriculums.
Art Vandalay - No. I don’t THINK it’s a thing based on no evidence and only your assertion.
Muhammad Rasheed - Well, since there actually is evidence aplenty and you not only assert that there isn't any because you are triggered, but also to protect your dedicated white supremacist worldview, I think we've now come to the end of our discussion.
Muhammad Rasheed - Can we at least agree that there's a difference between asking for proof versus proclaiming "There is no proof of that ever and stop talking like that!!!!"?
Art Vandalay - Ok I want you to prove that your everyday sane white folk *think about* ADOS in terms of economic dominance and not wanting to be equal economically with ADOS, as you asserted… I’ll wait.
Muhammad Rasheed - This is a good challenge and your first original question. I'm trying to figure what series of links I can provide to give a snapshot so an actual objective lurker would get it. Let's start here:
Economist Barak Orbach and
investigative journalist Matt Taibbi each independently discovered the grifter culture usurpation of American business practices, so it'll help to watch this
"How Property Law Is Used to Appropriate Black Land" clip through that lens. Specifically it will shine the spotlight on the diabolical greed on display as the goons preying upon my people start trying to justify their slimy actions.
Muhammad Rasheed - Now along the way, note that each of these controversial links has legions of triggered "everyday sane" whites dismissing the findings and pretending systemic racism isn't real at all.
The most popular members of the Intellectual Dark Web (and your boy Joe Rogan) routinely propagandize it's not real, too, and the "everyday sane" white person LOVES those guys.
Muhammad Rasheed - (note that "gulag" is one of Jordan Peterson's go-to terms when he rants against the terrors of the Left in the 20th century)
Muhammad Rasheed - This is a good mix.
Combine these findings with the triggered and dismissive attitudes of numerous white people who are every bit as triggered and dismissive as you are here, and the true thoughts of "everyday sane" whites are clear: You don't give a f*ck and you resent me.
Art Vandalay - Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. You have to really do some mental gymnastics to proclaim that these are the thoughts that are contained in the minds of all white people. Does this belief you have serve you well?
Muhammad Rasheed - Art wrote: "Correlation does not necessarily mean causation"
1) Southern planters tried to expand the enterprise further south into Central/South America and Lincoln refused
2) Planters decided to secede and do it anyway, initiating the Civil War
3) Lincoln freed the slaves as a desperate & controversial war strategy and won the war
4) Southern planters shot Lincoln, replacing him with pro-Confederacy Andrew Johnson who restored the planters to previous power but left out formal slavery, replacing it with convict leasing slavery.
5) The descendants of the very anti-ADOS Confederates maintain the restoration of power from Andrew Johnson, continue the trend of hoarding the wealth of industry from the former slave class, and perform all the mental gymnastics you described to justify why it's okay.
Muhammad Rasheed - Our American culture and it's peculiar lineage based "race relations" come directly from the slave economy era and the successful efforts of the dominant political identity group to maintain that economic dominance.
To claim this analysis is only "mental gymnastics" is racist.
Art Vanderlay - Ahh Racist. As is everything that disagrees with your assertion from a person that does not share your skin tone I presume?
Muhammad Rasheed - I just pointed out that the nature of the problem is my specific lineage as the former slave class. Since the Black immigrant figure is not treated this way in the USA, obviously "does not share your skin tone" is just another disingenuous white conservative talking point.
Muhammad Rasheed - So are you going to start providing any kind of actual counter-argument, or were you just going to continue saying "Nuh unh!!!" a lot and dismissing my links and stuff while putting on an impotent air of biracial superiority or whatever your shtick is? You called me out, remember?
I'm pretty sure you're the one who said communication was a two-way street and all of that, right? Okay, so, your turn.
Throw down your rod.
Art Vandalay - I did not call you out. I asked you a question and for your opinion. I was looking to learn from you and possibly be convinced by you. Not everything is meant to be a fight. I’m not in a war against you or your fight for reparations that is fair and just.
Often opponents will try to isolate me away from the movement and ask me specifically what do I personally think about Reparations and what do I personally think the number should look like, etc.
Muhammad Rasheed - When they do that, like you have here, I recognize they themselves may not be there for battle, but they are certainly doing it on behalf of my greater foe.
The point is to get a bead on what my personal price is, to tempt me into betraying the #ADOS movement. #NoNewTricks
Then she received the 'genius grant' and mysteriously abandoned her signature project. And then she attacked ADOS and in the doing, won another coveted prize.
Muhammad Rasheed - We all have our price, as they say and it's true.
My price is Reparations for ADOS -- full closure of the lineage wealth gap with economic inclusion into a protected wealth-building ownership class, in the Name of God.