This nation is poised for a battle that will divide us like never before. We have endured the destruction reaped by welfare, affirmative action, Rodney King and the L.A. riots, and O.J. Simpson, but this is one battle that I'm afraid we may not recover from as a nation. That battle is "reparations" for slavery. The whole idea of reparations is racist and divisive in and of itself. It is racist in that it unfairly burdens white America with the mistakes of the past-of which they have nothing to do with! It is divisive in that it foments rage that should have been discarded years ago. Simply, reparations is another misuse of slavery by the civil rights establishment to gain power and wealth.

Have you ever noticed that in the last forty years the black leaders in this country seem to have grown in wealth, power, and fame, while the grievances and complaints of average black America have only escalated?

What needs to be realized is that these so-called leaders are not working for the black community, but against it. By keeping blacks enraged at whites their status continues to grow. But if blacks were to yield their rage these "leaders" would no longer be necessary. That is why these "leaders" drum up insidious ideas such as reparations-a plot which I believe will be the most destructive blacks have ever faced. And the sad part about this is that the leaders aren't going to suffer like the average black will suffer: The black community is headed for a huge backlash brought on by a populace tired of being labeled "racists" every time they disagree with a black person.

Despite all white America has done, black complaining has worsened. We asked for welfare-they gave us that. We asked for jobs-they gave us that. We asked for their schools-they gave us that. We asked for their communities-they gave us that. We asked for affirmative action-they gave us that. We asked for their women-they gave us that. Now we want reparations? This giving has only increased our anger, perpetuated our rage, and held us back. The only ones who seem to be succeeding among us are our "leaders" like multi-millionaire Jesse Jackson. This is how it will continue if we are given "reparations."

Who will pay for reparations? I'll tell you who it will be. It will mostly be people who don't have a racist bone in their body. It will be people who immigrated to this country after the Civil War. It will be people struggling to support a family. It will not be the Klansmen. It will not be the slave owners. Those who will pay for the problem will be those who never had anything to do with it. Another consideration: when blacks receive reparations, will they go back to Africa? Certainly shipping blacks to America as slaves was wrong. If we undo one wrong, shouldn't we undo other wrongs as well? I know it sounds crazy, but so does the idea of reparations.

I grew up on a plantation near Montgomery and Tuskegee, Alabama, in a time when laws were against black America. I remember going to the marketplace and seeing separate black and white bathrooms. I remember every year, when it was time to plant and gather the crops, I had to stay home from school to work. And yet black Americans were able to do better then than they are now. There were good black schools, fine black universities, safe and well-groomed black communities, and intact families.

I grew up until the age of 18 never having heard about a drug addict or a drive-by shooting. Despite the seemingly worse conditions of this time there was no racist attack on white Americans as we are seeing today. My parents, my grandparents, their parents, and their grandparents worked the same plantation and never once did I hear them accuse white Americans in such a hateful tone as I hear today, and if anyone had a just cause for anger it would have been them. It is interesting that we didn't have the leaders or the anger that we have today, and we were successful. Yet today we have nothing but "leaders," and at the same time nothing but complaints, anger, and demands. And the demand for reparations is the latest in a downward path since the abandonment of independence and the influx of black leadership.

This whole idea of reparations is being headed by racist leaders of the black community such as Randall Robinson, executive director of TransAfrica and author of The Debt, U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan), who, since 1989, has unsuccessfully presented legislation calling for a study on reparations, Leonard Jeffries, a political science professor and a racist to the core, and Ebony magazine Editor Lerone Bennett, Jr., an outspoken proponent of reparations, who said that "[reparations] has been an idea that has been around for a long time. . . America owes us some money."

These are just a few of the black liberal "leaders" of this country who would rather keep blacks angry than demonstrate to them how they themselves became successful in life. As we are going to hell these men are becoming wealthy and powerful and not thinking twice about us. If-God forbid-blacks were to receive so-called reparations the money would end up in the hands of these black leaders, politicians, lawyers, and many of the black ministers. In addition to not solving anything, the anger of the black community will only continue because reparations will be another failure just as affirmative action and welfare have been. White Americans are not guilty of the sins of the past and must be careful not to fall to the anger of these socialistic, destructive black leaders who want to racially divide and conquer us. Black Americans must drop their anger and realize that it is not white America who is causing their destruction but their own so-called leaders, to whose evil there is no end.

All Americans must say "no more!" to groups like the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), the National Black United Front, and the Republic of New Afrika who have led grassroots efforts to keep this issue alive over the past decades. America is the greatest country in the world. All men and women are free in this country to succeed or fail, and we will no longer cave in to racism.

Reparations was a wrong idea years ago and it is a wrong idea today. It will destroy us if we don't stop it.