Firstly Mr Deon D. Jenkins, what is your philosophy on life in general?
Deon D. Jenkins: Everybody was put on earth for a reason. Everybody has a specific calling, and it is our job as human beings to find out what that calling intels and pursue it until we reach the goal.
What sets you apart from the other candidates currently in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination?
Deon D. Jenkins: I am a people’s candidate. I may be the only candidate who is not a millionaire. I bring a level of authentic representation that is lacking in the race right now, and I am the only candidate who have a plan that will annihilate the racial wealth gap, and it is a reparations package entitled D.M.L.G..DEFENSE. MONEY. LAND. GRANTS. I am also a hip hop artist who use my art as a platform to articulate my messages, and both my mom and dad can trace lineage back to the plantations, so this type of representation is not only a passion, but a birthright. I just had a birthday on August 24th, three days after the 400th year of the first slave arriving on this land, and even my name, Deon D Jenkins, have the stench of American slavery. I remember being told as a kid that it was going to be harder to find work with a name like that because any white employer will already know that he is looking at the application of a Negroe. There is no candidate who can represent the struggle of black americans more than I can.
What is the slogan of your presidential campaign?
Deon D. Jenkins: My slogan is “Hip Hop For President”, because hip hop represents a lifestyle that I am part of, and a certain demographic of black expression that has been popularized in American culture. Hip Hop was an expression for black people trying to find ways to have a voice in the late 70s and early 80s when corporate America was trying it’s best to silence expression of art in black society.
What are the key points of your presidential campaign platform?
Deon D. Jenkins: DEFENSE. MONEY. LAND. GRANTS., which is a reparations package breaking down all of the elements of what incorporates true reparations. Defense starts it off, because Black Americans who descended from the slave trade received unalienable rights with the establishment of the fourteenth ammendment, but those rights are not protected under the law the same way as our co-citizens of White Americans, and it is a paradigm of inequality and a Constitutional breach. We must repair this breach with federal, state, and local legal enforcement that will go after white terroristic actions against Black Americans. There is evidence that proves that the legal system does more protection for White Americans, and it targets Black Americans with mass incarceration and police brutality. Black Americans have been excluded out of the American process garnering any level of protection for our humanity, and the establishment of the fourteenth ammendment was an establishment specifically for Black Americans who were freed from chattel slavery. The fourteenth amendment had to get created because of the lacking of these unalienable rights given to White Americans. MONEY is the second element, and this is relatively based on the population size of Black Americans from the slave trade in relations to America’s annual Gross Domestic Product which is $20 trillion dollars a year, and also a lump sum of the calculation of every G.D.P since 1865. Two checks: One check given every year as long as America exist, and the other given as a lump sum. LAND is the next element because we were promised 40 acres and a mule, and GRANTS is the final element, and this will be free money given to the building of Black American infrastructure.
You ran on the presidential ballot in 2016 as well. You are the first candidate to raise the issue of reparations on a presidential level. What are some of the reasons why you should be at the forefront of the reparations discussion?
Deon D. Jenkins: I should have the forefront because I have the only plan that tackles the racial wealth gap on a serious level, and because I am a true representative of black people who descended from the slave trade as a Presidential candidate. If anybody will vote for a candidate speaking on reparations then that should be their criteria. You want somebody in there who you know will follow through not just because of pressure of not getting your vote, but because it is also part of their same passion and lifestyle.
Why do you feel that foundational Black Americans deserve reparations?
Deon D. Jenkins: I feel that way because we built the country with free labor, and because there has been and still is coverted and overted methods to keep us as a bottom caste. White supremacy cannot work without an exploited class, and white supremacy cannot work without blacks being at the bottom of that class system, so there must be efforts to reverse these methods of excluding us out of American life, and because America allowed this exclusion to happen, America must allow its reversal of these damages as well, and the reversal of doing damage is repair. Reparations is only an extension of the word repair.
Many conservatives say that reparations are handouts. What would you say to those people?
Deon D. Jenkins: I would say that white supremacy is the biggest hand out ever. I would say that free labor was a hand out. I would say that The Homestead Acts was a hand out. I would say that the New Deal was a hand out. I would say that Obama’s bank bail outs during the recession was a hand out. I would say that free prison labor is a hand out. Getting more “privilege” for being white is a hand out, but repaying for what is owed is a debt that must get paid back, and compensation for damages created.
Many White Americans say that they never owned any slaves and Black Americans living today were never slaves. What would be your response to them?
Deon D. Jenkins: Anybody living in America reap the benefits of the long history leading up to the America we know today. There is a beneficiary inheritance given to whites in this country. This is the wealthiest country in the world, and being white in this country gives a certain level of better opportunity for life than somebody who is black in this country. Blacks in America have inherited a legacy of bottom caste extended from the slave trade. America was established by the slave codes of the seventeenth century that clearly stated the Separation of Beneficiary Americanization between blacks and whites, and even those laws were abolished during the reconstruction period, and there were policies implemented even until this day that create this Separation of Beneficiary Americanization that allows certain people to benefit from American life more than others and this separation can get proven on racial lines of black and white.
A myriad of folks say that Africans sold Black Americans into slavery and that there is still slavery taking place in Africa today. Hence, they question why don’t Black Americans ask Africans for reparations first. What are your thoughts on this point?
Deon D. Jenkins: I spoke about sending troops to Libya to end the Arabian slave trade over there, but I think that these folks who ask these types of questions are trying to lead the conversation away from the debt that America owes. We are Americans, let’s take care of the debt that we owe. That’s like if I owed somebody money, and I know that somebody else owe that same person money, and I tell my debtor not to collect my debt because Bob from around the way owe money as well. That is a very pathetic and weak argument, besides, slavery and black oppression in America took a different level of dehumanization. There was an entire establishment of civilization based on slavery and dehumanizing black people as property that was brand new in world history. The creating of a caste system based on race is something brand new, not just being a prisoner of war, but property. Your children and their children will be property as well and will serve your master’s children and their children.
Should every Black person in America today be entitled to reparations? If not, then who should get reparations?
Deon D. Jenkins: There was only one slave trade, and it was garnered throughout the entire diaspora, however, I think that every country who benefited from slavery should deal with reparations based on their own history of it and their own citizens who were impacted by it, because every country have a different legacy associated with it. A descended from the slave trade in Brazil is different from the U.K. or the United States, however, when I am President, one of my foreign policies will try to establish help for blacks around the diaspora to receive reparations as well by speaking with the leaders of these nations and using diplomacy for a diaspora reparations strategy.
What would be an approximate dollar amount for reparations and what would reparations consist of? Would it only be in the form of free education? What would be the breakdown?
Deon D. Jenkins: Reparations does not have a limited dollar amount. Let’s say that there are 10 million black people who can prove that they descended from the slave trade, then that equates to 3 percent of the population, so 3 percent of America’s GDP of twenty trillion dollars a year is $600 billion dollars a year. If you distribute a $600 billion dollar a year check, then it will get distributed to black people descended from the slave trade in a form of annual equity based on inflation which will be ($60,000) sixty thousand dollars a year for every black person descended from slavery that will go up in equity because of inflation, so when the GDP go up, so will that check. This is a check that will be given every year. The other check is one lump sum of money that adds up ever single G.D.P..since 1865 and counting, which will make these 10 million black people billionaires establishing generational wealth eradicating the lack of resources for this group.
What is your stance on immigration and health care?
Deon D. Jenkins: I think health care should be free and immigration should be used to help America and not exploit America. I am against illegal immigration and any type of immigration used to displace American citizens, but I am for any type of immigration that will recognize that Black Americans were bottom casted in this country and any immigration that will stand with us on reparations.
How would you eradicate poverty?
Deon D. Jenkins: By raising the minimum wage to 35 dollars an hour and creating a universal income for adults who cannot find work. I will also set governmental policies preventing collective efforts by the corporate powers to raise prices that will cause severe inflation after such of a policy. The powers at be would cause this inflation by trying to keep the position of the bottom class. That is one of the causes of inflation. Everytime the minimum wage rise, so does the cost of living. That is not by accident, but by design to keep the people at the bottom in that same position.
What is your message to the millennials?
Deon D. Jenkins: My message is let’s unite America in a way that we never did before. What if we lived in a country that allowed everybody to have access to resources. New generation stuff.
How would you defeat Donald Trump in 2020?
Deon D. Jenkins: America needs a representation of their own, and not some privileged billionaire, and my message and lifestyle contrast Trump’s message of division and access for only white folks.
Mr Jenkins, you are also a Hip Hop artist. What is your strategy as it relates to your music and the campaign?
Deon D. Jenkins: I will soon drop a single that will demand that I get on the debate stage. It is going to be big.
What is your website and how can people donate to your campaign?
Deon D. Jenkins: My website is www.reparationsforpresident.com, and they can donate to my gofundme at www.gofundme.com/defensemoneylandgrants
What are your final words for the people?
Deon D. Jenkins: Vote Deon D Jenkins for President in 2020
