The Editor, Sir:

What we need is not debates about reparations, but about how to move on and uplift the race. Debating reparations keeps us in a slavish mindset, which shackles our creativity and drive for self-reliance. What's done is done. We need to face the solid reality that we are never going to be recompensated for the horrors suffered by our foreparents.

The real debate should be about the future of the diaspora. How can we as a people move on? How can we pool our resources and become a formidable economic force, like the Japanese and the Koreans?

Another take. There is enough money in these industrialised nations combined, to pay for all the centuries of free labour, stolen natural resources, underdevelopment, murders, mental and physical anguish that they collectively have caused. For them to pay us for all that, they would have to reverse roles, give up their money and power. They won't.

So, while I believe that we are owed something, I believe that it's a mistake to keep looking for handouts. The black race has shown itself to be very resilient, so why not unite and rely on each other? Didn't Marcus Garvey teach us that? We need to build black businesses and reinvest the profits in our neighbourhoods. That would be a good start, not reparations.

I am, etc.,

PETER BURCHENSON

Burch3rdbn@yahoo.com

Aberdeen, Maryland

Via Go-Jamaica