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Vol. 30, Issue 4 QUEENS/LONG ISLAND/BRONX/MANHATTAN Jan. 25–31, 2019
SWISS WERE
INVOLVED TOO
Caribbean
reparations
fight takes
new turn
By Bert Wilkinson
GEORGETOWN, Guyana
— Research and evidence are
beginning to emerge that Switzerland,
known more for its
banking system that allows
the world’s criminal rich to
hide their billions in numbered
accounts there, was involved
in a relatively big way in the
transatlantic slave trade and
the umbrella organization that
regional governments have
established to win compensation
for slavery will soon add it
to its defendants list.
A recent video conference
meeting involving representatives
from 12 of the 15 national
reparations commissions
heard stunning evidence from
a Swiss researcher who has
in recent years been reviewing
Switzerland’s role in the trade
that brought hundreds of Africans
to the Caribbean and the
Americans in general to work
on agricultural plantations
without a cent in payment.
Dr. Hans Hassler argued that
the region needs to know that
while the northern European
MLK Tribute
In honor: Mayor DeBlasio speaks to the audience during the 33rd Brooklyn Tribute to
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Monday. See story on
Page 38. Photo by Caroline Ourso
Advocates
celebrate
census
victory
By Alexandra Simon
This month a federal judge
in Manhattan ordered President
Trump’s administration
to remove a controversial
citizenship question on the
forthcoming 2020 census.
U.S. District Judge Jesse M.
Furman rejected the Department
of Commerce’s decision
to add the question.
The contentious question,
which asks aboutthe citizenship
status of each household
member, has come under
fire since the Census Bureau
announced its inclusion early
last year. Many immigration
advocacy groups have largely
opposed the question citing
that requiring respondents
to state their citizenship status
will lead to further miscounting
— in communities
already undercounted due to
fear. Such groups, like the
Queens-based organization
— Desis Rising Up and Moving
(DRUM), have worked
tirelessly to raise awareness
in neighborhoods with high
concentrations of immigrants
from Asia and the
Caribbean, informing them
to speak out.
Not since 1950 has a
question on the census form
asked its takers about their
citizenship status. In his
opinion, Furman said reviving
it, “would depress the
count for already “hard-tocount”
groups — particularly
noncitizen and Hispanics
— whose members would
be less likely to participate in
the census for fear that the
data could be used against
them or their loved ones.”
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