After all these years we all have been through together, we think it's appropiate for us to show our gratitude for all you have done for us.

We have chastised you, criticized you, punished you, and in some cases even apologized to you, but we have never formally nor publicly thanked you for your never-ending allegiance and suppoet to our cause.

This is our open letter of thanks. We will always be in your labor. You built this country and were responsible for the great wealth we enjoy today. Upon your backs, laden with the stripes we sometimes had apply for disciplinary reasons, you carried our nation.

We thank you for your diligence and your tenacity. Even when we refused to allow you to even walk in your shadows, you followed close behind believing that someday we would accept you and treat you like men and women.

We publicly acknowledge Black people for raising our children,attending to our sick, and to our sick, and preparing our meals while we were occupied with the trappings of the good life.

Even during the time when we found pleasure in your women and enjoyment in seein your men lynched, maimed and burned, some of you continued to watch over us and our belongings.

We simply cannot thank you enough.

Your bravery on the battlefield, despite being classified as three-fifths of a man, was and still isoutstanding. We often watched in awe as you went about your prescribed chores and assingments, sometimes laborings in the hot sun for 12 hours, to assist in realizing our dreams of wealth and good fortune.

Now that we control at least 90 percent of all the resources and wealth of this nation, we have Black people to thank the most. We can only think of the sacrifices you and your families made it all possible.

You were there when it all began, and you are still with us today, protecting us from those Black people who have the temerity to speak out against our past transgressions.

Thank you for continuing to bring 95 percent of what you earn to our business.

Your super rich althletes, entertainers, intellectuals, and business persons (both legal and illegal) exchange most of their money for our cars, jewelery, homes, and clothing. What a windfall they have provided for us!

The less fortunate among you spend all they have at our neighborhood stores, enabling us to open more stores. Sure, they complain us, but they never do anything to hurt us economically.

Allow us to thank you for not bogging yourself down with business of doing business with your own people. We can take care of that for you.

You just keep doing business with us. It's safer that way. Besides, everything you need, we make anyway, even Kente cloth. You just continue to dance, sing and distrust and hate one another.

Have yourself a good time, and this time we'll take care of you. It's the least we can do, considering all you've done for us. Heck you deserve it, Black people. For all your labor, which created our wealth for resisiting the messages of trouble making Blacks like Garvey, Tubman, Delany, Newton and Khallid A. Mohammad, for fighting and dying on our battlefields, we thank you.

And we really thank you for not reading about many Black warriors that participated in the development of our great country. We thank you for keeping it hidden from the younger generation. Thank you for not bringing such glorious deeds to our attention.

For allowing us to move into your neighborhoods, we will forever be grateful to you. For your unceasing desire to be near us and for hardly ever following through on your threats due to lack of reciprocity and equity -- we thank you so much.

We also appreciate your acquiescence to our political agendas, for abdicating your own economic self - sufficiency, and for working so diligently for the economic well being of our people. You are real troopers.

And, even though the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were written for you and many of your relatives died for the rights described therein, you did not resist when we changed those black rights to civil rights and allowed virtually every other group to take advantage of them as well.

Black people you are something else! Your dependence upon us to do the right thing is beyond our imagination, irrespective of what we do to you and the many promises we have made broken. But, this time we will make it right, we promise. Trust us.

Tell you what . You do not need your own hotels.You can continue to stay in ours. You have no need for supermarkets when you can shop at ours 24 hours a day. Why should you even think of owning more banks? You have plenty now. And dont waste your energies trying to break into manufacturing. You worked hard enough in our fields.

Relax. Have a party. We'll send you everything you need. and when you die , we'll even bury you at discount. How is that for gratitude?

Finally the best part. You went beyond the pale and turned over your children to us for thier education. With what we have taught them, it's likely they will continue in a mode similiar to the one you have followed for the past 50 years (since school desegregration). But with two generations of your children having gone through our education systems, we can look forward to more years of prosperity. Things could not be better -- it's all because of you. For all you have done, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts, Black Americans. You're the best friends any group of people could ever have!

Sincerely,

ALL OTHER AMERIkkkANS