One of the primary reasons I support the congressional bill to study the feasibility of reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans is the need to acquaint Americans with the devastating effects racial slavery has had on African-Americans. That need was never more apparent than during national discussions of the Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action rulings. In a 5-4 vote, the… return to article
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Reader Comments (39)Page 1 of 1 pagesNothing happens in a vacuum. I am very sensitive to the plight of enslaved peoples across the globe. The issue of reparations & this article appears to ignore the fact that it was Africans, perhaps rival tribes, that sold Africans into slavery. There may still be slavery in W. Africa. The “deep pockets” approach is obvious & may result in some economic benefit, but the culture of slavery (that relating to this reparation initiative) did not get its start in Europe or their colonies. The market was created right there in Africa. As commentators, writers, historians, etc., it is imperative not to get caught up in what is politically correct or expedient when identifying responsible parties, nor to limit the available context.
Thanks for this story & keep up the good work with this publication!
Posted by steve miller on Jul 15, 2003 at 9:22 PM Nothing happens in a vacuum. I am very sensitive to the plight of enslaved peoples across the globe. The issue of reparations & this article appears to ignore the fact that it was Africans, perhaps rival tribes, that sold Africans into slavery. There may still be slavery in W. Africa. The “deep pockets” approach is obvious & may result in some economic benefit, but the culture of slavery (that relating to this reparation initiative) did not get its start in Europe or their colonies. The market was created right there in Africa. As commentators, writers, historians, etc., it is imperative not to get caught up in what is politically correct or expedient when identifying responsible parties, nor to limit the available context.
Thanks for this story & keep up the good work with this publication!
Posted by steve miller on Jul 15, 2003 at 9:23 PM This is an excellent analysis because it addresses the roots and on-going ramifications of the problem. I would also like readers to be aware that since 1998 notable African-American scholars and activists have been making interventions before diverse U.N. bodies in Geneva, Switzerland, including the Human Rights Commission, concerning the long-term and on-going practices of ethnocide and forced assimilation imposed upon Afro-Descendants by the U.S. government. These practices constitute blatant violations of U.N. Covenants and justify the placement in the near future of a Reparations Sanction upon the USA.
Sincerely,
Malik Al-Arkam
www.AllForReparations.org
Posted by Malik Al-Arkam on Jul 15, 2003 at 9:24 PM nothing happens in a vacuum….the issue you raise of black on black slavery is not the end of the argument. The United states benefitted greatly from the work of the slaves, and the economy of the US was built on slavery. Whether Africans enslaved each other is not the question, but whether the US and other countries that benefiitted from this labour and continued to suppress the freedom of the people must pay up for their end of the bargain. Hitler may have put the Jews in concentration camps, but those that took advantage of the plight of the jews also had to pay up following the war.
The US and other imperialist countries cannot hide behind the fact they acquired their goods from the local market…they still have to address what they did to the children of the goods and their grandchildren irregardless.
Posted by grace on Jul 15, 2003 at 9:52 PM A related problem, and one with huge implications, is that, were the US to muster the political will and the funding to pay reparations of, say, $100,000 per person to all those who could support a claim of at least once ancestor who was enslaved, the problems of poverty would not disappear. In fact, a fair argument could be made that they would actually be made worse.
Those who today own land, and in particular, well-located valuable downtown land, be it in midtown Manhattan or the central business district of even a medium-sized town, are the ones who, 20 years later, would be the ones who benefited the most from reparations—and most of those people are not descendants of enslaved persons.
Worse, the sudden inflow of such a large amount of money into the housing market would raise the purchased prices and rental costs in every town in America, leaving the next generation with a higher cost of living.
Henry George called our attention to this mechanism 125 years ago in a book called Progress & Poverty. He recognized that maintaining private property in land—that is, privatizing land rent in the pockets of the landowners—was and is the cause of our nation’s poverty.
(The game of Monopoly, originally known as The Landlord’s Game, was created to teach these ideas.)
The answer, if we care about peace and justice, is to collect the land rent, instead of taking a portion of our wages.
Once we do that, if we still have a poverty problem with a racial tilt, then reparations are the right next step—and they won’t enrich the landowners, but instead feed the common treasury.
But collecting the land rent is the first big step to creating a level playing field and creating opportunities for real entrepreneurs (not land speculators).
If this idea intrigues you, you might check out henrygeorge.org or google “henry george.” The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation website has useful materials.
Posted by Wyn Achenbaum on Jul 16, 2003 at 12:14 AM RE: Nothing happens in a vacuum… Thus it is important to not stop your comments at, well Africans invented it so… You must include the fact that America’s enslavement of African peoples was a departure from any other “slavery norm” known to date, and the invention of race, or racializing humankind has served to justify and sustain a lasting imbalance of power in this country. Slave culture developed here with lynching parties and with a sociopathic vigor in the violent suppression of Africans.
Pointing the finger at groups for enslaving Africans in this country is almost moot. We ALL were (and still are a part of it), if your roots are in the United States before the 1860ís, not to say that Africans were not victimized in this country because they were. The fact is that the United States of America under the Constitution denied persons of African descent, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Private individuals as well as public institutions engaged in the ethnocide and genocide of Africans in this country, and abused their human, civil and religious rights, which are supposedly protected under the Constitution and later Amendments.Now specifically, America benefited economically from slave labor of Africans. And the blood, sweat and tears, literally, of persons of African descent in this country built America economically, physically and emotionally. American corporations benefited immeasurably from the enslavement of Africans and Africans were guaranteed property after Emancipation, which was never furnished. Now that we have established the fact that America and its inhabitants profited from denying human, civil, religious and economic rights to persons of African descent for over 200 years, then we need to assess an appropriate remedy, and I think in the form of reparations. Other cultures have been compensated for having their civil, economic and human rights abused, as they should. What makes people of African descent DIFFERENT?
In addition, American enslavement of Africans also devastated Western Africa by removing its most valuable resource, its people. It is also convenient to allude to slavery in W. Africa, and E. Africa (which some of is at the hands of Arabs and some from formerly enslaved persons of the US who were sent back to West African countries. Not to say that this represents all modern slavery in African countries), when it was and is not anywhere near the form of slavery we had in this country.
Posted by Likoau on Jul 16, 2003 at 1:29 AM Slavery is over in this country and has been for over a century. MOVE ON! You can sit around and bitch all you want but nobody alive today had any hand in it so let it go. If anything be thankful slavery put you in this country. Would you rather be in Africa? Do you really think blacks are any better off there? Blacks will remain on the bottom in America as long as you continue to believe that the world owes you something.
If you really want the black community to move ahead maybe you should first address the problem of bastardy? Do you think there is any one thing that cripples the black community more than the fact that 70% of black children are born out of wedlock? Are affirmative action, racial profiling, and this half-baked reparations nonsense really more pressing issues than the wretched family structure in the black community? By the way, cops wouldn’t “profile” blacks if blacks didn’t give them a reason. Nobody ever succeeded by blaming their problems on others.
Posted by Ted on Jul 16, 2003 at 9:27 PM http://blackcommentator.com/49/49_cover.html
worth checking out people. thanks for the web link malik. good job to you all.
Posted by kg on Jul 17, 2003 at 7:01 AM Ted, just because slavery was ‘over’ a while ago, doesn’t mean that it’s time to forget about this. All it means is that we should be ashamed for not doing something earlier, and then move as quickly as possible to fix it. Were the victims of the Holocaust, or their surviving family members, not deserving of something in the form of reparations? And what about slavery was that different? We took people from their homes, transported them in horrible cramped (to say the least) conditions, and then put them into forced labor, always with the threat of death and/or severe physical punishment. All for the great gains of the upper class, and the building up of a country. Even after we said we were done, we merely changed the name and institutionalized the practice. Take the criminal justice and prison system. They made up some funny laws to arrest black people, and threw them in jail. Then there was the practice of the jails leasing these people out to corporations or plantations for slave labor. The labor was so hard though that many didn’t even make it to the end of their time, but all the owner had to do was call up the local jail and get himself another slave…oops, I mean inmate. We could go into Jim Crow, segregation, profiling, the current prison complex with companies like AT&T or Victoria’s Secret using inmates for slave labor, anything really, and see where black people have been screwed by the country. Who wouldn’t want what was due to them? And where exactly do you suggest anyone ‘move on’ to? There’s no where to go.
Posted by Toby Fraser on Jul 17, 2003 at 2:26 PM Toby, the key difference between slavery and the Holocaust is that there are Holocaust victims still alive. The last slave died I don’t know how long ago. If there were still some living slaves I would be all for paying them reparations. But there aren’t, so LET IT GO. And don’t bemoan the plight of the prisoners. It’s their fault they’re incarcerated, so don’t add that to your laundry list of how blacks have been “screwed.” And the Jim Crow and segregation laws are gone so quit begging for handouts. If you’re a descendant of slaves, would you prefer that your ancestrors had been left in Africa so you could have been born there? If you’re white, does it make you feel good about yourself to sit around and atone for the sins of the white man? If you really think the legacy of slavery is the reason for the black community’s problems you are deluded. Even if they were feasible, do you really think reparations would make a difference?
Posted by Ted on Jul 17, 2003 at 6:08 PM I think Ted is an angry, angry man. But he’s revealing a lot more than he writes in his extremely vigorous reaction against all things reparatory. In terms of taking our hard earned dollars through taxes, maybe Ted should focus more anger toward massive corporate subsidies and handouts while the government simultaneously privatizes risk. Or, should I not blame them either?
Saying that blacks are poor because of something “inherent” to the black community is just silly, even though its said all the time by angry dudes like Ted. Bastardy? Ted uses this argument as if its the causus primae. But what causes bastardy? Once again, is it something inherent to blacks, or is it coming from a different direction? Anybody who removes essentialist thinking from this line of questioning will then probably understand why some type of real look at poverty in America needs to happen, whether black or white. And most reparations advocates, like the Great Salim, talk about this all the time; that reparations would not come in the form of a check to Black Man, inc. Instead it would involve a process of great-society type public discussion, and then attempt to address the racism that is institutionally based. Remember when the public used to discuss things? But no, some people choose to see the issue like they’re about to get mugged by 14 million black people. And perpetuating that myth will continue to hurt the reparations cause. Ted, keep up the good work!
Posted by Kevan Harris on Jul 17, 2003 at 8:50 PM Ok, well it wasn’t just the people that were directly victims of the Holocaust that got reparations, it was their surviving family members as well (quite similar in fact to what this would be). Also, just because it’s been so long does not mean that we should just move on and forget it, it means we should rush before it goes even longer. When you do something horribly wrong, ignoring it for longer does not make it right, it makes you wrong for a longer period of time. As for prisoners being there because of their own doing, that is just plain ignorant. I try to stay away from name calling, but that’s just so blatantly ignorant I could say nothing else. Minorities are arrested at such high rates compared to their percentage in society, to say that all minorities are violent or criminal is nothing but ignorant. As in a previous discussion somewhere on this website I pointed out how it is known that more whites than blacks use drugs in New York, yet over 90% of arrests for drug use in this state are arrests of black people. But, I suppose that’s their fault, right? Whether or not reparations with miraculously solve all the ‘race’ problems in America or not, is not the issue. Of course this won’t fix everything, but it’s a small step in the right direction. Even if correcting your wrong does not make it 100% better, isn’t it better to have tried, to have done your best to correct your wrongs, to apologize for your actions that you admit were horrible (you do agree slavery is wrong don’t you), than to say “move on”, you don’t deserve anything to make it better? While slavery does not stand alone for our current societal problems, it plays a part. Slavery along with, Jim Crowe, segregation, the KKK, profiling, etc… too many things to list, are the reasons for most of our (societies) problems. America is the most segregated country in the history of the world, minus South Africa during apartheid. That’s a problem, and a step to correct those wrongs should be taken, whether is the end all solution or not.
Posted by Toby Fraser on Jul 17, 2003 at 8:55 PM Do you really think people should be paid for wrongs done to their long-dead ancestors? And by people who had nothing to do with it? As wrong as slavery was, none of its victims or perpetrators are alive today, so there is nothing that can be done about it. So quit wasting your time on non-issues. I’m not going to pay a red cent for something that I had no part in, especially to some fourth or fifth generation descendant playing the victim. Do you want to help the black community? Tell your people to quit producing bastards at a rate of 70%. And don’t try to suggest that this is the white man’s fault too, Kevan Harris. It’s the fault of no one but the parents who recklessly have children out of wedlock and provide them with no family structure.
And Toby, I didn’t “say that all minorities are violent or criminal.” I said that the people in jail deserve to be there. Obviously there are a few innocent people in jail (very few), who don’t deserve to be there, but the rest do, minority or not. If most of them are minorities, it is probably because minorities commit more crime, which they do in many areas of the country. It’s not that hard to stay out of prison, tell your people to do it themselves, don’t blame it society.
Posted by Ted on Jul 17, 2003 at 9:24 PM Perhaps the problem is more of a naive thing than an ignorance thing. I can see that some people would like to trust their government, it would be nice to be able to, to know they are always doing the right thing. However, in this case (police and arresting black people) that is surely an incorrect way to think. The facts do not add up to come out and say that black people just plain commit more crimes. As I said, in NY, drug use for whites and blacks is the same, yet the arrest rates are insanely different. How do you explain why over 90% of the drug arrests in NY are arrests of black people, when just as many whites use drugs. Perhaps it has something to do with who the police arrest, or who society gives them to arrest, “There is as much cocaine in the Stock Exchange as there is in the black community. But those guys are harder to catch. Those deals are done in office buildings, in somebody’s home, and there is not the violence associated with it that there is in the black community. But the guy standing on the corner, he’s almost got a sign on his back. These guys are just arrestable.” ~ Chicago Police Department Narcotics Division Chief. Well now, isn’t that different? It certainly is sad to admit that my ‘race’ has been screwing another since before this country was a country, that’s how it is. I don’t care how long it’s been, we should all express our sorrow and apologies for what we’ve done to black people, and do anything we can to fix it. Reparations are a step, but we can also stop the profiling (the only reason for it now being ignorance of the facts), end our segregation, perhaps we could even help out with impoverished areas, get some better education into the schools that are predominantly black (we need better education everywhere too though). Society is churning out these young people who have nothing but to be angry at what made them. We tell everyone that to be rich is the only way, and then for most of society we take away the legitimate means to get there, or at least make it quite difficult. What do you expect a group to do that is told to act one way is ideal, and told how to get there, and then shoved back and trod upon when they try and do it? Our society is prejudiced and racist and there’s no way around it, whatever it takes, we NEED to do to fix this.
Posted by Toby Fraser on Jul 18, 2003 at 12:57 PM Toby, if you’re so overcome with guilt for the sins of your ancestors, then give all the money you want to the reparations cause. Maybe that will make you feel better about yourself. But don’t talk down to the rest of us, telling us how horrible we are and what we should do with our money. Just for the sake of the argument, can you point out a black individual and explain precisely how he is still suffering from the fact that his ancestors were slaves? I don’t buy it. Plenty of people’s ancestors were wronged, but that doesn’t make them entitled to anything. Give up on this reparations idea and spend your time on something productive if you really want to help the black community. Maybe you could tell those poor drug dealers in New York to be less violent so they won’t end up rotting in jail where they belong.
Posted by Ted on Jul 18, 2003 at 2:18 PM ted has obviously had some bad experience with black people. Maybe he lost his girlfreind to one or something. But I do agree and so do my few african-american friends, that personal reparations are not a good thing. Discussing this topic on several occasion it was admitted sure free money would be nice, but would some sort of public trust for better education in the still segregated inner cities would be better. Often the greed factor they admit would just result in a lot of people who got the money blowing it on things that are not good or important to themselves. Reperations should only come in a form of help to the entire community. We have got to face facts cream rises to the top and if more African american were give the chances that a lot of white Americans are there would be more of them succeding. At the same time you have to see that no matter what slice of society you come from they are morons and lazy people every-where. Yes I do think in some areas blacks are being discriminated against but then again so is everybody else no matter who you are in some way or another. Sure blacks might have it worse but I think a lot of people have it hard in life and when they hear of one group they are not a part of getting special treatment it only segments society more and they hold it bitterly against people. One last thing, do reparatinos go on forever or does only this generation get to try a squander the suffering of there ancestors?
Posted by e on Jul 18, 2003 at 2:50 PM are there black folks discussing personal checks and stuff, e? mm, thought they were just talkin’ ‘bout education for one. oh, well. guess ‘um listening to the wrong folks. so who did you hear discussing cutting personal checks? brother jess? you know no one’s really listening to him any more right? did ja get the memo on that one?
Posted by kg on Jul 18, 2003 at 3:44 PM Sorry kg for my ignorance about how it was going to be payed out. Being a young white man of the hip-hop youth and living near chocolate city I do have a fair share of young black, white,asain, and hispanic friends. I think my crew of friends are pretty unique and I checked out the website you posted and I got some decent knowledge from that. I don’t any of my friends who knew that reparations we not going to be for the individuals even my black friends had made jokes about getting a check from SAM. I’ll be sure to pass it along, the website. It seems like this issue really got turned on its head and there is no clear path to victory with out more people understanding the issue better. Even then like I said before there would be to many rednecks and Clarence Thomas’s trying to stop it from coming true because they would be bitter about being left out. I just wish the country would get better. I have never felt so political as I do now about many issues. I’ll do more research before talking like I know next time. By the way kg suck it. Thanks for slamming someone instead of trying to explain.
Posted by e on Jul 18, 2003 at 5:23 PM I could point to a majority of black people that are still suffering from it. I can’t speak for anyone since I’m not black, but I could point out a bunch if you were here. It’s the mentality that it was a long time ago, get over it, that perpetuates the wrongs we still have now. You don’t move one until the past is made right, or at least an attempt is made. By telling people that they’re out of luck, too bad it happened way back when, but get over it now, does nothing, shows no remorse, shows no change in mindset. To go through with reparations (in whatever form, quite an interesting idea e), shows that we’re taking steps to correct our wrongs, rather than ignore them. But slavery certainly plays a role in our society today, it’s more complex than a paragraph or two though. Alas, I am only a poor college kid, making enough to pay rent and eat, not quite enough to pay off our debt to an incredibly large group of people. If only I was a capitalist I could dream of making enough to do it someday. However they manage to break it down though, if it ever happens, I’ll pay whatever you share is along with mine so that you can sleep easy.
Posted by Toby Fraser on Jul 18, 2003 at 5:34 PM Ted,
like it or not, the US growing to have the worlds’ strongest economy was aided no end by the fact that there were thousands upon thousands of people imported to work for free. The quality of life you enjoy now was built upon the backs of those people.
Posted by jan on Jul 18, 2003 at 6:05 PM Using lots more money to upgrade black education. Very good idea. Individual reparations. Very bad idea.
Let me understand this. Even though my ancestors all came from the American far North and even though my ancestors fought and died to free their ancestors, the African American population of the U.S. wants me to pay them money to atone for the sins of the people my ancestors fought against! History is soaked in manís inhumanity to man. We should also pay native Americans for land the whites stole. (My ancestors would be liable in this case) We should compensate Mexico for Texas. Closer to our times, we should evict the Israelis and give most of that land back to the Palestinians. Every day is a new day in the rest of history. We should forget blaming, thereís more than enough to go around, and go on from here, doing the best we can.
Consider these practical problems also.
1. Who is morally liable? Not me, for the above reasons. Not the Americans (the great majority) whose ancestors came to this country long after slavery was abolished. Perhaps we can employ a troop of psychics to interview pre 1860 Americans from the other side and bill the ancestors of those who were pro slavery. .
2. Who receives the money? Who is an African American? There could be a run for the bucks as happened to the Pequod Indians when they decided to build a casino. Suddenly a tribe of a few dozen numbered in the thousands! Perhaps the standard will be more than 50% African blood. In that case, some prominent people who are often called At-Ams, people like Colin Powell and Tiger Woods will have to be excluded, and I suppose, also dropped from the roles of Af-Am role models.
Individual reparations are good for one thing, though. The Republicans! If you guys keep forcing the issue, in the next Presidential election, the Democratic nominee have to pay attention to his (her?) base and be for it. George Bush will have no problem rejecting the idea, and 70% of the people will be with him. Letís throw in gay marriage for good measure. Again the progressives will self destruct and weíll have four more years of the national embarrassment.
Posted by James on Jul 18, 2003 at 6:34 PM We tend to pluck bits of history out of context and judge them by the very different standards of today, ignoring the huge chain of causation that surrounded that event. Here are some quotes from Brittanica. Slave Traders actually saved people?! The reviled white colonists were the ones who stopped the practice?! It shows how foolish we are to think we understand the past when our tools are only slogans and snapshots.
ìSlaves have been owned in black Africa throughout recorded history…Slavery was practiced everywhere (in Africa), even before Islam.î Brittanica states that most slaves were taken in raids on other tribes. ì(Black) African slave owners demanded primarily women and children for labour and lineage incorporation and tended to kill males because they were troublesome and likely to flee. The transatlantic slave trade, on the other hand, demanded primarily adult males for labour and thus saved from certain death many adult males who otherwise would have been slaughtered outright by their African captors.î ì...African slavery only came to an end when it was outlawed by European countries who colonized the continent.î
Posted by James on Jul 18, 2003 at 6:52 PM Slavery in America was a horrible crime against humanity, and the governments support of it is more than inexcusable. I say, rather than that forty acres and a mule crap, give every surviving former slave $10 million dollars so he or she can get a condo and a porsche. And, since slavery was such a horrible thing, I think there should also be some reparations for the children of slaves who were never slaves themselves. They should all get free residence in a nursing home, if any are still alive. As for all other descendants, they can get an “I sought reparations for slavery and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirt for the apologetic price of just $12.00. Act now, because these reparations won’t last forever!
Posted by common sense guy on Jul 18, 2003 at 7:05 PM “The quality of life you enjoy now was built upon the backs of those people.”
Jan, that may be true, but it does not entitle black Americans to any special privileges. Are you American? The United States would not exist had people not died in the American Revoltion, but I don’t see a bunch of Boston bluebloods demanding “reparations” because their ancestors did us all a great favor. Americans owe a debt to their predecessors, and slaves are certainly no exception. But when you start awarding special privileges to people because of their lineage you are buying into the exact mindset that built aristocracies.
The distinction that the European nobles inherited their privileges from their warrior ancestors, while blacks would inherit their privileges from slaves does take away from the fact that reparations amount to a legally recognized, hereditary privileged class. If that doesn’t fly in the face of everything this country was founded on then I don’t know what does. Toby, take your sob stories up with another country.
Posted by Ted on Jul 18, 2003 at 7:25 PM This absolutely resonates with me. I lived through the 60s. I saw walls crumble, but it only opened me up to the fetid racist core inside America. Every American is tainted by it. Affirmative action has matured to the discussion of slavery and reparations. This must be pursued on every level. The success of the “American Experiment with Democracy’ hangs or falls on the full equailty of African Americans and the end of racism as a relevant part of our culture. Reparations, yes! Racism, no!
(Rev.) Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
St. Moses the Black Priory
Jackson MS 39209
Posted by Jeremy Tobin on Jul 20, 2003 at 6:45 PM This absolutely resonates with me. I lived through the 60s. I saw walls crumble, but it only opened me up to the fetid racist core inside America. Every American is tainted by it. Affirmative action has matured to the discussion of slavery and reparations. This must be pursued on every level. The success of the “American Experiment with Democracy’ hangs or falls on the full equailty of African Americans and the end of racism as a relevant part of our culture. Reparations, yes! Racism, no!
(Rev.) Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem.
St. Moses the Black Priory
Jackson MS 39209
Posted by Jeremy Tobin on Jul 20, 2003 at 6:45 PM Look Ted, you not only inherit the wealth that came with slavery, you inherit the guilt and crime of it as well.
Posted by Greg on Jul 21, 2003 at 4:38 PM “Recast the past…” is a term you use in this article.
You’re trying to recast my past. My family were immigrants who came to the United States in the early 1900s. So how is my paying taxes to give money to the descendents of slaves suppose to right that wrong?
I know, you make the argument it’s about learning the history of what slavery does to humans. But I had nothing to do with it.
What will I learn other than they get money. It’s not government money, it’s my money as a taxpayer. Lord knows somehow if monetary reperations happen the taxpayers will foot the bill, not the companies and corporations who profited from slavery.
A second point. I could be mistaken but didn’t the largest percentage of African slaves end up in Brazil and other countries in that part of the world? Will they pay their fair share?
Posted by Chris Stevens on Jul 21, 2003 at 8:42 PM Here here Father Tobin. I was in your neck of the woods a couple of years ago (I’m a yankee). I taught summer school in the Mississippi delta. That’ll really open your eyes, eh. Anyway, message on point.
Posted by kg on Jul 22, 2003 at 4:18 PM To the progressive readers of In These Times: It’s vital for us all to know that the wealthiest early inhabitants of this country created racism to drive us apart, to prevent servant/slave up-risings and later to prevent labor solidarity. Reparations may be the only way to heal this scourge, which infects us all in various ways. Acknowledging the debt is the first step. No, maybe an apology will have to come first, and it should start with the 1 percent of the population who have been milking us all to become super-rich bilionaires! They need to be the first to acknowledge that this “blessed” country gained its advantages by being built on the backs of slaves and the land of American Indians. Free labor, free land: what a way to build up inheritances for their spawn, who are now accumulating more and more at all of our expense!!! Clear-eyed acknowledgement is so much better than emotional guilt and hand-wringing—better than denying history and current facts. It’s about business—-just like slavery was.I hope to see reparations in my lifetime, because it would go a long way to create a real level-playing field. It’s tragic that most Americans—black and white—do not know how much slavery and Jim Crow devastated people and brought us to our present situation. Somehow, we need to learn more about these things. It’s so important to keep learning with open minds, refusing to comply with the ultra-rich, who continue to gain wealth by greedy tax laws, by sending jobs abroad to non-unionized, impoverished workers, by eradicating governmental safety nets (“downsized” and laid-off workers are beginning to find how tough it is to have no welfare to turn to!) and by continuing to drive us “races” apart. Let’s turn our anger to the perpetrators who are hurting nearly all of us, not to fellow victims!!!
Posted by Ann Cader on Jul 25, 2003 at 11:59 PM There are models in the world for social reparations. In India, a certain percentage of university slots and government jobs must go to Dalits (untouchables). This is one model to follow.
Another model is to give each family descended from a slave the equivalent value of forty acres of good southern farmland and a mule. That was the commitment, and its worth a lot of money today. The slave-descendents could use this value in the form of vouchers for school and university tuition, decent health insurance since so many African-Americans are uninsured, decent housing (not slum housing), or income support (since most black men never live long enough to claim their social security payments—let them retire early), etc.
What I am trying to get at is invest in the social goods that African-Americans have not had all these years. Forty acres and a mule was about economic and food self-sufficiency, and the capability to grow some extra crops for cash. It was also about giving blacks an ownership stake in the country, like saying ‘please stay here and join our society as a free and independent family’. Remember how important land-ownership is, and was.
I grew up in the south and I am of southern descent. These people who claim the legacy of slavery ended years ago are wrong.
Posted by Kathleen Muro on Jul 28, 2003 at 6:10 PM It’s very interesting how people are so vehemetly opposed to the prospect of giving their hard earned taxes to"bastards” & “criminals” as Ted calls Af-Am’s.
Posted by Likoau on Jul 29, 2003 at 2:01 PM In todays world, slavery is rampant. Examples are Chinese prison labor producing goods for the US and the legions of third world slaves making tennis shoes for 50 cents a pair that black teenagers can buy or $200 or just kill for. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and others are paid millions to create demand for goods produced by slaves. Black people benefitting from the slavery of others…..........hmmm. Maybe it’s time for someone to put the whole thing in perspective. It’s ALL about money. Why not do something really good for black people and demand the return of our factories to the USA?
Posted by mcpat on Jul 31, 2003 at 8:21 PM Don’t forget the Irish were sold as
slaves also. So lets give reparations
to any ethnic group that was pissed on. Lets also recognize slavery still excists today(the chocolate trade).
Posted by Michael Callahan on Aug 2, 2003 at 5:58 AM well toughie for the irish eh. there’ll always be a job in the police department, to continue great granpa pateroller’s job. the massive injustice done to descendants of slaves in this country has never been addressed and must be.
Posted by kg on Aug 6, 2003 at 12:06 AM Great article! My comment is White America needs to atone for their ancestors role in slavery. After all this country was built by slaves, and while my ancestors were building this country, white people were reaping the fruits of their labor. Whites are economically ahead of Blacks because of an uneven playing field. I feel that reparations would help Blacks catch up. Affirmative action, which was the closest thing to reparations, has been all but abolished, so why not reparations.
Posted by Joyce Oliver on Aug 6, 2003 at 5:26 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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