Reparations for African Americans

[Trigg]

I was talking with a diverse group of friends the other day and somehow reparations came up. I'm wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on it.

Here is why I'm against it. Share your thoughts of the subject.

1. Sins of the father. There is no one living today who endured slavery in the US.

2. No other group has gotten compensation (that I know of) for decendents. This includes the Japanese in the internment camps. Compensation was given to the people who were in the camps, but if the person had passed away no money was given to their decendents.

3. 40 acres and a mule. How much is that translated into todays money. With millions of blacks in america it would bankrupt the country.

4. Black slave owners. There were 15-20 large plantations (50 or more slaves) that were black owned. There were also innumerable blacks who owned just 2-3 slaves especially in New Orleans. Their decendents definitally shouldn't get compensation since they were part of the problem.

5. Finally with the abundance of shady lawyers in the US how long would it be before everyone was suing everyone else for a wrong done to their great-great-great grandparents by someone elses.

 

[5stringJeff]

If reparations are ever passed (which will be a cold day in hell), I'm claiming to be 1/8 black. They could never tell, and I would get some free cash from the government! Woot!

 

[Mr. P]

My thought..short an sweet...

BULLSHIT!!
How's that?

 

[no1tovote4]

My family wasn't even in this country until 1907. Should I have to pay reparations for the sins of others?

What about African-Americans whose families came here after 1863? Are they due reparations?

 

[Trigg]

My family wasn't even in this country until 1907. Should I have to pay reparations for the sins of others?

What about African-Americans whose families came here after 1863? Are they due reparations?

Exactly what I thought. Half of my family is Cherokee with the other half being from the North. Also fought in the civil war for the north.

 

[krisy]

I don't know when my family arrived here,but I do know know that reparations are one lousy ass way of trying to make money that you don't deserve. Let them try,there would be so much red tape to go through Jessie Jockson and others would be gone before they go what they wanted!

 

[manu1959]

personally i think the europeans and africans that started the slave trade in africa should pay reparations......futher the yanks fought and died to free the slaves so they have already given.... so that leaves dixie to cough up with the french and the congo

 

[Merlin1047]

Anyone wanting reparations should first seek redress of their grievances at the source - the African continent. It was their own people who SOLD slaves to white buyers.

Seems to me that just as we place more emphasis on pursuing drug dealers than users, those who seek reparations should start with the supplier, not the buyer.

But could it be that these morons are just smart enough to figure out that the end result of any such effort to seek reparations in Africa will only end up with their throats cut - or, irony of ironies, with them sold into slavery?

Talk about poetic justice.

 

[freeandfun1]

personally i think the europeans and africans that started the slave trade in africa should pay reparations......futher the yanks fought and died to free the slaves so they have already given.... so that leaves dixie to cough up with the french and the congo

whoa there big fella. I was with ya until you mentioned Dixie....

My great-grandfather, a Southerner, fought for the North and spent a couple of years in Andersonville Prison, where he contracted "black lung" which eventually killed him. So he has paid the dues for this Southerner.... Furthermore, his brother, a Captain in the Union Army, was killed at the Battle of Vicksburg, so not all Southerners were supporters of slavery. So don't try to lay it off on Dixie.

The civil war was not fought over slavery anyway. It was fought over State's Rights. There were plenty of Yanks that had slaves too.

 

[Gem]

Reparations is a ridiculous notion, and if ever legally instated would start a firestorm of peoples demanding what was taken from them.

To start with, the last time I checked, the African-American community in this nation was a huge, thriving minority. Yes, they have problems and issues that are serious and need to be dealt with, but their options in life and the possibilities they have are better that they have ever been before.

I live in an area that has numerous Native American Reservations and I can tell you that, on the whole, the Native American community is NOT doing well...and CERTAINLY has a better argument regarding how the white man's occupation hurt them in the long run. They have historical documentation regarding how our government lied to them, massacred them, broke legally binding treaties with them, tortured them, and cheated them out of land that they had lived on and, arguably, owned, for decades, if not centuries before the white men arrived.

Surely, if we are going to discuss reparations...the African American community would support starting with the community MOST harmed by their unfortunate past, the Native American community...and after the US Gov't, and anyone with relatives who took part in the campaign against the Native Americans has paid dearly for their ancestors mistakes....THEN we will turn to the NEXT most harmed and so on...


I, for one, can't wait to go back to England and demand my ocean-front farmland in Ireland back from the families whose ancestors who starved and harrassed my familiy and many other peoples families to the point where many of my familiy members died of malnutrition and disease and several others were forced off the land that was rightfully theirs.

 

[manu1959]

whoa there big fella. I was with ya until you mentioned Dixie....

My great-grandfather, a Southerner, fought for the North and spent a couple of years in Andersonville Prison, where he contracted "black lung" which eventually killed him. So he has paid the dues for this Southerner.... Furthermore, his brother, a Captain in the Union Army, was killed at the Battle of Vicksburg, so not all Southerners were supporters of slavery. So don't try to lay it off on Dixie.

The civil war was not fought over slavery anyway. It was fought over State's Rights. There were plenty of Yanks that had slaves too.

just being silly about the dixie thing............serious about the french and the congo though....states rights to own slaves

 

[Merlin1047]

Reparations is a ridiculous notion, and if ever legally instated would start a firestorm of peoples demanding what was taken from them.

To start with, the last time I checked, the African-American community in this nation was a huge, thriving minority. Yes, they have problems and issues that are serious and need to be dealt with, but their options in life and the possibilities they have are better that they have ever been before.

True. And it comes to mind that we have been paying reparations for at least thirty years. Except that it was called equal opportunity and welfare.

The demand for reparations is simply another method for shameless charlatans like Jackson, Sharpton and Young to get publicity and keep their hold on power.

 

[manu1959]

Reparations is a ridiculous notion, and if ever legally instated would start a firestorm of peoples demanding what was taken from them.

i seem to recall that the us government has paid reparations to the japanese interned during WWII......and there are those that say legalized gambling for the native american is a form of reparations....my guess is that the black comunity is disapointed that they picked rap and crack (sarcasam)

 

[Gem]

For those who say the "Indian Casinos" are reparations then I would suggest they do some investigation into who is getting the profits from those casinos (especially the ones that are the most popular...always in areas of very low Native American population).

And the reparations that were paid to the Japanese-Americans were done immediately...not to their family members today.

 

[manu1959]

For those who say the "Indian Casinos" are reparations then I would suggest they do some investigation into who is getting the profits from those casinos (especially the ones that are the most popular...always in areas of very low Native American population).

And the reparations that were paid to the Japanese-Americans were done immediately...not to their family members today.

i was joking

 

[Gem]

I know, "I sense your sarcasm."

 

[freeandfun1]

just being silly about the dixie thing............serious about the french and the congo though....states rights to own slaves

figured you were just being silly.....

It was more than slavery. The entire question was, is the federal government allowed to tell states what to do? Before the Civil War, it was clear they could not. Not saying that slavery wasn't an issue, but it was not the central issue. It was after the Civil War that the federal government was able to consolidate its power and that is why we are having all the problems we have today with gay marriage, abortion, etc.

 

[manu1959]

figured you were just being silly.....

It was more than slavery. The entire question was, is the federal government allowed to tell states what to do? Before the Civil War, it was clear they could not. Not saying that slavery wasn't an issue, but it was not the central issue. It was after the Civil War that the federal government was able to consolidate its power and that is why we are having all the problems we have today with gay marriage, abortion, etc.

mum's family is from tennessee....owned a plantation....and slaves....hid the family silver in the root cellar from the invading yanks .... freed all their slaves...gave them land and money to get started

 

[Hobbit]

figured you were just being silly.....

It was more than slavery. The entire question was, is the federal government allowed to tell states what to do? Before the Civil War, it was clear they could not. Not saying that slavery wasn't an issue, but it was not the central issue. It was after the Civil War that the federal government was able to consolidate its power and that is why we are having all the problems we have today with gay marriage, abortion, etc.

It's true. Before the Civil War, "United States" was plural. We were a set of independant states (look up 'state.' It means the same thing as 'country.') that united under a centralized rule that regulated interstate trade and national defense, nothing else.

Now, back to the reparations thing. First off, I'm over 1/8 Native American. I don't claim it because I don't live on a reservation or anything, but if people like Jesse Jackson want reparations, let's start with the "Injuns." Second, anyone who thinks descendants of slave owners owe reparations to descendants of slaves, especailly if they think they'll actually get much, is sorely misguided. Reparations has the root word "repair." Reparations are meant to repair the damage done. Frankly, I fail to see the damage. If their ancestors hadn't been slaves, they'd be in Darfur getting killed or in the jungle dying of AIDS or something. I'm not trying to be rascist, but Africa is a craphole of a continent, full of cruelty, malice, and horrible diseases. They're much better off here, but if they want to go back to their homeland to repair the damage, let's send them there (with, of course, a coming back plan for after they've learned their lesson). Now, onto a condition that does need repairing. During the Civil War, my family was rich and had a plantation. We owned slaves, but there was never any evidence of abuse. However, when the first wave of Yankees reached the plantation, they slaughtered everyone (I'm descended from the ones who weren't there at the time) and burned everything we ever owned. My great grandfather worked at a lumber mill for $.10/hour. I'd say that was definitely something of note when considering what needs repairing.

Also, let's talk Reconstruction, which is, in my opinion, the most inappropriately named era in history. Most of the South, outside Sherman's infamous march to the sea, was still intact. Recovery should have taken a couple of decades at the worst. However, the carpetbaggers and other "reconstructors" came down not with the notion of restoring things to the way they were before the war, but making things like they were in the North. Thanks to their twisted ideas, assumptions that they were smarter and better than us, and economic sanctions used as punishment for a war that we were in our rights to fight (look up Fort Sumpter, the first battle. Union troops hung on to their own self-righteousness to the point where they refused to leave a fort located in South Carolina, claiming it was still theirs, although, at the time, it was state property), the recovery took the better part of a century.

Now, if anybody reading this still thinks that blacks and blacks alone need reparations, do me a favor and jump off a bridge.

 

[no1tovote4]

Now, back to the reparations thing. First off, I'm over 1/8 Native American. I don't claim it because I don't live on a reservation or anything, but if people like Jesse Jackson want reparations, let's start with the "Injuns." Second, anyone who thinks descendants of slave owners owe reparations to descendants of slaves, especailly if they think they'll actually get much, is sorely misguided. Reparations has the root word "repair." Reparations are meant to repair the damage done. Frankly, I fail to see the damage. If their ancestors hadn't been slaves, they'd be in Darfur getting killed or in the jungle dying of AIDS or something. I'm not trying to be rascist, but Africa is a craphole of a continent, full of cruelty, malice, and horrible diseases. They're much better off here, but if they want to go back to their homeland to repair the damage, let's send them there (with, of course, a coming back plan for after they've learned their lesson). Now, onto a condition that does need repairing. During the Civil War, my family was rich and had a plantation. We owned slaves, but there was never any evidence of abuse. However, when the first wave of Yankees reached the plantation, they slaughtered everyone (I'm descended from the ones who weren't there at the time) and burned everything we ever owned. My great grandfather worked at a lumber mill for $.10/hour. I'd say that was definitely something of note when considering what needs repairing.

Also, let's talk Reconstruction, which is, in my opinion, the most inappropriately named era in history. Most of the South, outside Sherman's infamous march to the sea, was still intact. Recovery should have taken a couple of decades at the worst. However, the carpetbaggers and other "reconstructors" came down not with the notion of restoring things to the way they were before the war, but making things like they were in the North. Thanks to their twisted ideas, assumptions that they were smarter and better than us, and economic sanctions used as punishment for a war that we were in our rights to fight (look up Fort Sumpter, the first battle. Union troops hung on to their own self-righteousness to the point where they refused to leave a fort located in South Carolina, claiming it was still theirs, although, at the time, it was state property), the recovery took the better part of a century.

Now, if anybody reading this still thinks that blacks and blacks alone need reparations, do me a favor and jump off a bridge.

There is no way to tell what would have happened on that continent had people not been willing to own another person and treat them as an animal. If people were unwilling to purchase other people nobody in Africa would have sold slaves. There is no way to tell that a composite of Napolean who could have united the entire continent under one rule wasn't turned to fish food along the way to the US to be sold to another person. We cannot assume that everything would be equal if slavery hadn't existed and the continent would be exactly in the same condition as it is now.

That being said, I still don't think that several generations too late is the time to start paying reparations. The reason that those in internment camps received reparations is because they were the ones that were treated such. If they were not in a camp, as in born later, they received none of the reparations. Since there is no person alive today that was a slave in the US there is no longer a way to pay the reparations. We must learn from the mistake and never make it again, but it is too late to seek forgiveness.