Why Reparations Have Already Been Paid, With Interest
by John T. SimpsonI may get in a lot of trouble for this, but that’s the risk you take with bold statements. And the bill on slavery reparations, currently before a Congressional committee, requires the boldest. Even President Obama stated he was against this a year ago. Why is this bill even in committee?
Well, if he isn’t going to say anything, I am. By the way, this is an old song. Never liked it.
The issue of reparations for slavery, once a hot topic of political speculation and conjecture among pundits everywhere, not to mention political agitation and racial tension, is fast becoming a possible source of yet even more crushing financial drain on an already shaky American economy.
It is called H.R. 40, submitted by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) with three co-sponsors, and its exact title is “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.” It was introduced on January 6th of this year, and has since been referred to committee.
A report by the committee is pending. Here is the bill’s foreword:
“To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”
I really don’t like that “and for other purposes” clause. It’s a blank check. In any bill. Like the one Massachusetts throws into all their ballot referendums. Five pages of fine print on how proposed tobacco taxes will be going straight to children’s health insurance programs, finished off with “or as the Legislature so designates.”
Ironically, this type of bill, if passed, could actually wind up hurting black Americans.
Example. If a longstanding company’s business can be traced back to pre-Reconstruction profiteering off of slavery by the Committee, and the company is ordered to pay millions in compensation as a result, who pays the price when that company lays off whole work forces for financial reasons? Or closes its doors for good, because the tab for a crime against humanity no living human being in America has suffered for generations is just too goddamn high?
And the American people are already wrung dry enough as it is. Yet given the makeup and track record of our current government, I would hardly expect common sense and reason to prevail here. Just the opposite, in fact. Ergo, I feel compelled to do the math on this subject myself, and H.R 40 just does not add up. My solution to the equation of reparations may be considered blasphemous by some. Fortunately, blasphemy is not a stoning crime in America. Yet.
Though I do expect legislative action soon. On top of this dangerous backdoor tax, that is.
My Fellow Americans, Reparations for Slavery by the United States Government, and the People of the United States of America, have been paid in full. With interest. But before we go back to the Dark Age of Slavery, let us look at America today. Or, more specifically, Americans. You can call them African-Americans if you like. I prefer the short form.
We’re all just a bunch of mutts anyway. Hardworking, hard-drinking, hard-dancing, music-loving, movie-going, sports-playing, pot-smoking, TV-watching, video-gaming, karaoke-singing, flame-blogging, barbecue-throwing, book-reading, church-going, internet porn-watching, tail-chasing mutts! And proud of it.
On that note, My Fine Fellow Americans, let us look at some of our other Fine Fellow Americans, both past and present. George Washington Carver. Scott Joplin. Hattie McDaniel. Billie Holiday. Louis Armstrong. Muddy Waters. Bo Diddley. Little Richard. Skip James. Robert Johnson. Buddy Guy. Martin Luther King. Sidney Poitier. Muhammed Ali. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Diana Ross and the Supremes. James Brown. Marvin Gaye. Jimi Hendrix. Sly Stone. Billy Preston (one Beatles, one Stones). George Benson. Ben Vereen. Billy Dee Williams. Clarence Williams III.
Two links for Clarence. I really like him. Have my whole life. From Mod Squad to Tales From The Hood to American Gangster, Clarence Williams III is the Bomb. My Man!
Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, who play better blind than most anyone of any color that can see. Curtis Mayfield. Isaac Hayes. The Brothers Chambers. The Brothers Johnson. No, the Dark Brothers are white. Spike Lee. Chris Rock. Denzel Washington. Bill Cosby. Eddie Murphy. Beyonce. Michael Jordan. Shaq. Halle Berry. Good sport, Halle. Wil Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith. Samuel L. Jackson.
Tina Turner and Donna Summer, who I REALLY had the hots for back in the day! Who didn’t? The list is really endless. Other than knowing I’m a total Blues and Funk freak now, you get the point.
And if you don’t? President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle.
I didn’t mention Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte because they’re palling around with Hugo Chavez, who kicked Human Rights Watch out of the country. For starters. But it’s not a Black Thing. I strongly disapprove of Sean Penn for the same reason.
But even for Harry and Danny life has been grand here in America, despite their bitching. They’ve both spent more money on clothes than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. Hell, the combined wealth of all the above rivals entire nations! And that’s my major point.
America has paid whatever debt it owed to Americans who were once slaves. In fact, America has done more that just pay back that debt with money. It has paid it back with the realization of dreams no price can be put on, even fulfilling some of my wildest dreams in the process.
And nowhere else on Planet Earth could those same dreams have been realized with the same phenomenal magnitude and impact for all involved. In fact, that is why I linked the hell out of all the above. To show just how far and wide that impact and magnitude really extends.
Despite lingering racial problems, which are hardly America’s province alone, and are most likely a tragic part of the human condition, nowhere on Earth can Americans of ANY color enjoy anywhere near the degree of happiness, success, fame, fortune and yes, even safety, as they do here in the Good Ole USA. I know James Brown felt good about Living in America.
Let us imagine for a moment that slavery never happened. That there was never any slave trade between Americans and African tribes, and no mass emigration of native Africans to America. With the notable exception of such outstandingly great nations as Ghana and Morocco, Africa today is a very troubled continent, and has been for some time. Sudan. Somalia. Algeria. Libya. Liberia. Zimbabwe. Uganda. Rwanda. Ethiopia. Nigeria. The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Tens of millions have died from war, disease, famine, massacre, even genocide in my lifetime. They die even today. Even Egypt, the Cradle of Civilization, has its modern-day troubles.
In America, the sick, racially motivated murder of James Byrd, Jr. in Texas was considered a national outrage, and rightfully so. No human being deserves to be brutalized like that! Two of the three Klan-like perps have been sentenced to death, and I would like nothing better than to plunger the needles myself. Though I would much rather drag them from chains behind my truck.
Yet on any average day in troubled Africa, hundreds of innocent James Byrds die violently, and in the worst possible ways. Even entire families. Even entire populations.
Some Americans may misinterpret those words as spiteful and racist: “well if you don’t like it here, go back to Africa!” That could not be further from the truth. My words mean exactly the opposite: where would most Americans of African origin really have been better off the past 140 years, given all the facts on the ground on both continents?
You could ask the same of Americans of Armenian descent. Or Jews who fled Europe for America. Yes, there have been many racial wrongs in America since the Civil War. The Klan’s cross-burning and lynching horrorshows. Rosewood. Tuskegee. Racial segregation. America has a very dark and tattered past. What nation doesn’t?
But that is not the America we live in today. We live in an America today that is so egalitarian, our exceedingly white-majority population just elected Barack Obama president in an electoral landslide. And he was elected to that highest of offices based on Americans’ perceptions of the content of his character, not the color of his skin.
Despite our flaws, we live in an America today that is the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream. Can anyone doubt rivers of tears would have streamed from Dr. King’s eyes at Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States? He would probably still be weeping tears of joy even now. And for a while to come.
But that is not enough for some Americans. And never will be.
For many, the past will always cloud the present, and our future as well. To some, it is their mission in life to keep those dark clouds hovering. Some Americans are constantly looking for racial trouble where none exists. Some of those troublemakers may even interpret my words to mean that slavery was a good thing. Doesn’t mean that at all.
But it may mean that a very good thing came out of a very great evil. It happens. Think of how much poorer our treasured American culture would be without all the above. And they’re all just scratching the surface. I for one believe that if Dr. King were alive today at the age of 80, he would be standing in an America which, despite its many flaws, he could not be prouder of.
And Dr. King knew the right way to go.
That main point seems to escape Rep. Conyers, Spike Lee and Al Sharpton, among many others. Or worse, they choose not to see, in order to maintain their own racial and political grudges despite how they have succeeded in, and profited immensely from, majority-white America.
I for one am sick of being beat over the head with the Slavery Club, or being called racist by birth. Am I to be judged by the color of my skin or the content of my character? Besides, not only did the Civil War end nearly 100 years before I was born, I’m a Northerner! I grew up poor in a mean housing project outside Boston! My Scottish-Irish great-grandfather came over from Edinboro in 1899!
I got nothin’ to do with it! And neither do tens of millions of immigrants since. Why should our tax dollars go to pay for some idiotic reparations bill that has already been paid in full, and more? We’ve already got minority scholarships, minority job fairs, minority business grants, minority hiring preferences, the Congressional Black Caucus, all of which my tax dollars support.
And all to which I am ineligible for admittance. And why? Because of my race.
My Fellow Americans, this constant racial fracturing, and digging up of the moldy corpse of slavery by grievance-mongering gold-diggers, in order to squeeze, browbeat and punish relentlessly their Fellow Americans on the issue of race, is Balkanizing us. E Pluribus Unum is out the window. Hell, I feel like an Irishman from Boston! Wait a minute…
Anyway. Enough said. I hope. Oh, and one last thing. Mostly white Americans shed an ocean of blood and treasure to rid this country of the scourge of slavery. Cost President Lincoln his life. You want I should put a price on all that? And what price should I demand for being terrorized in my youth by three black racist teenage thugs, who thought it would be funny to see how far I could suck in my white stomach as they pressed a knife blade into it?
Should I charge all black Americans for that egregious racially motivated offense, and two others? What price do I put on it? What does my nephew get for his broken jaw, and being beaten, stabbed, and nearly killed by four black Michigan Wolverine gang members in Cambridge, because of the color of HIS skin? What does Reginald Denny have coming to him?
Pursuing long-past racial grievances only nullifies any chance of racial harmony in the present and, more important, the future. The racial hatred and violence I and my nephew experienced personally was a hell of a lot more recent than the Civil War, yet I have let it go long ago. Even my nephew has let it go. It’s a shite-happening world. I only bring up my own racial brutalizing here, after thirty years, to show how dredging up the past on the matter of race gets us nowhere.
Time to put a lid on it, people. We must either bury the moldy corpse of slavery once and for all, or it will bury us. And our future as well. Not to mention our wallets. There are far more forums and mechanisms in place to address racial grievances in modern-day America than for any minority in any nation on earth.
In fact, the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction, is it now I, and millions of other Americans, coincidentally born in white meat suits, that are now being unjustly shut out of many societal benefits and opportunities because of the color of our skin, even as we pay for those same benefits out-of-pocket!
I am now a shut-out Irishman in Boston once again. How is that progress, I ask you?
Call all this White Rage if you will. But if the circumstances were reversed, I would be slamming white Americans just as hard. Probably harder, since I’m white myself. It is the idiocy, gold-digging and racial grievance-mongering I despise. It ain’t helping the matter of racial harmony in America any. Not one bit. Just the opposite, in fact. Resentment breeds resentment.
And I would say the same thing to them as I have said to today’s Nirthers, and now say to today’s reparations-seekers: Get Over It!
The Bar is Open for comments. So is Congress.
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169 Comments
Reparations were paid indeed…with the blood of hundreds of thousands of soldiers 1861-1865 along with everyone else who fought for civil rights from the Reconstruction through the 1960s. This is only going to cause more problems, not solve them. 70% of black Americans have at least one white ancestor. Do they pay reparations? If so, do they just pay them themselves? What about black Americans who, like President Obama, are not descended from Southern slaves but are children or grandchildren of immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean?
Reparations will not end gang violence, 70%+ out-of-wedlock births, addiction, dependency on entitlements, and other problems poor blacks experience. More blacks than ever before are middle class to wealthy. Blaming whitey for something no American today has done is not only a waste of time but will needlessly exacerbate racial tension.
The Great Society was reparations enough—and look at what that did to black families in America—destroyed them.
This strikes us as more of a 'show trial' (a much loved device of the Left) than an actual hard move towards repaprations. Much like Sen Leahy's 'Truth and Reconciliation' hearings (Marxist bromides abound!) this gives the victors their chance to sound off and look important; more important for them, raw red meat for the Spike Lees of the world. Lee, who in his Katrina MocDoc posited that' W' himself was sneaking around the levies with C4- and his nutjob friends will be happy with this nonsense.
One suspects even Obama will find this radioactive; he already has started his 'stealth' reparations with $4 billion for ACORN…
Hey, my mom's parents were driven out of their home by the Nazi's. Does Germany owe me a check? Hope so, I am a bit short of funds.
This mentality needs to be shown up for what it is. Lazy ass folks who don't want to work. Of course, I am talking about the Congressman who sponsored this bill.
Oh, lets drop the American Indians in their too. We MUST owe them something.
"Bold words" are needed for bold times, good story. Reparations? If the Black community is deserving of reparations, they along with all Americans are owed reparations for the enslavement of all peoples, caused by the fallacies of the "Great Society" and the "New Deal"
I know that in many cases American Indians have been paid as well. When I was a kid I lived in Klamath Falls Oregon and the Klamath Indians got a ton of money. I'm not sure how it worked or how much they got, but man, you never saw so many Indians driving (and crashing) Trans Am's in your life. In a way it was sad. Most of them had never had that much money all at once and didn't know what to do with it. We went to school with kids from these families and we saw a lot of families spin out with rampant alcoholism, drug use and profligate spending. From what I saw, just handing people a big check doesn't mean they're going to automatically be better off. Kind of like the lottery winner syndrome in which most people who win end up broke.
Why, brucelee, thanks for the nod!
I'm interested in the mechanism of such a bill – would I be awarded some % of your incomes? Would I be able to file some sort of "native" exemption? Would such an exemption be prorated on the % of my proven DNA? (yes, I've been tested)…
Pass the popcorn
Leave it Mr. Conyers to concoct a reasonable proposal. I propose we put em in those foreclosed 500K houses, give em two Lexus' from the Govt. Auction. Give each of them a million dollar trust fund and still, you wouldn't spend a 1/4 of the proposed stimuli. And give them all the Govt cheese they can eat. Can't you just feel the happiness, the gratefulness and the hardening if the arteries – that cheese will kill ya.
My problem with the idea of "reparations" is that NO ONE ALIVE TODAY IN THE US HAS BEEN SUBJECT TO SLAVERY. If they had, then I might consider it a fair idea.
But if we are paying cash to those who had it rough in this country then maybe we should give some to the Irish as well? After all, when they first came here they were often thought of as being even less human than blacks.
And what of indentured servants who were largely white and pretty much slaves themselves, sans the actual word-They were bought and sold, they could be lashed, even hung for running away, They often could not marry without permission. So if I can trace my family back to immigrants who were indentured servants, I imagine the same logic and reason that applies to black reparations would also apply to me.
Oh, and not to mention the many blacks who immigrated to the US post Civil War. Would they be culled from those who receive reparation money? Somehow I doubt it…
I think, in part, that Rep Conyers' proposed law is merely one more step in the Left's unceasing attempts to rend this country apart and I would suggest that the representative from Michigan should weigh carefully his grandstanding. Perhaps he has never heard of the law of unintended consequences. While he might represent a protected district, I daresay there are enough other members of Congress who could be voted out of office if this proposed law ever were enacted.
Let's just set up a Department of Victims, with smaller offices all called "The Holocaust of ____________", fill in the blank. of Gay Oppression, of Undocumented Farmworkers, of Depressed Nonorgasmic Housewives, of Kids without Cars, of LBGT Preteens without Appropriate Gender Neutral Toys, of Spurned Promdates, of Nonfiltered Cigarette Butt collectors on UCD campus, blah blah blah………….
It cheapens victims, it cheapens achievement, it cheapens all people. It better be way across the Mall from the Holocaust Museum, because it relies on a much greater crime to euphemize it's faux-suffering.
To the Left, it's not about the principles of our free, democratic society.
It's about whose ox is being gored.
Historically, white people — at least in America — have been privileged, while black people have been oppressed. The Leftist simply looks at who is more privileged and declares them to be evil precisely because of that privilege — and conversely, the oppressed class can get away with any heinous act. To deal with the reality of privileging, one must articulate why denying rights to non-whites is bad, then act on it. One cannot correct the past by taking those who aren't responsible, even if they are privileged.
Just my $0.02.
If former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York were still around, he would agree with your statement.
Welfare was reparation. 11% poverty at the beginning of the war on poverty – 11% poverty at the end of the war. The 2 Trillion was not for helping the poor as much as a big giant "I'm sorry" to the great, great, great grandkids of slaves. In the process the Gov replaced daddys with paychecks and nuked the great american black family structure.
Welfare was reparation. 11% poverty at the beginning of the war on poverty – 11% poverty at the end of the war. The 2 Trillion was not for helping the poor as much as a big giant "I'm sorry" to the great, great, great grandkids of slaves. In the process the Gov replaced daddys with paychecks and nuked the great american black family structure.
Ah, the right wing view of "boldness" — to come onto a right wing site and state an opinion that you know 99% of your readers agree with. That's almost as brave as sitting in your basement and writing blog posts demanding that other people fight wars that you feel are necessary.
Re your citation on Darfur – read a new book titled "Africa's World War" by Gerard Prunier(Oxford University Press, 2009). It chronicles events in Central Africa following the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and it's one of the most depressing books you'll ever read. 'I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet.'
Me too! My genetic code has Cherokee, Irish, English, Dutch, (maybe African too) probably others I don't know about. It's not about what happened to me. It's about what might have happened to my ancestors. I know my parents were discriminated against because they had southern accents when they moved up north to find jobs. That's gotta be worth something. As for my Cherokee ancestors – hey you mean white people killed them and ran them out of their land. So on that one part of me can write a check to another part of me?
Or how about getting reparations back from all my tax dollars that were spent on welfare checks that funded drugs or booze? And yes, i am including whites and blacks in that one. Reparations are the manifestation of the Delusional Church of Victimhood. Wah Wah something bad may have happened to my ancestors so PAY ME MONEY. It is utter nonsense and as the article explains, this country has given more opportunity to its citizens that any other country in the world. Instead of reparations, how about free or nearly free education? Oh yeah, we already do that if you are a certain skin color. No, not for my kids by the way, but it is OK for other kids. Or how about an instruction entitled "Secrets to Success" by Bill Cosby. remember that one?
How very typical of politicians of a certain skin color (which one would that be?) to encourage anger and entitlement instead of hard work and diligence.
African-Americans signed a blood oath with the Democrats back in the 60's and look what it got them. They're told over and over again that only they (the democrats) can save them and make their lives better.
You'd like to think at some point every minority who has been told they're oppressed will wake up see what handing your life over to the state has done to them…but I doubt it will happen anytime soon, sadly.
African-Americans signed a blood oath with the Democrats back in the 60's and look what it got them. They're told over and over again that only they (the democrats) can save them and make their lives better.
You'd like to think at some point every minority who has been told they're oppressed will wake up see what handing your life over to the state has done to them…but I doubt it will happen anytime soon, sadly.
African-Americans signed a blood oath with the Democrats back in the 60's and look what it got them. They're told over and over again that only they (the democrats) can save them and make their lives better.
You'd like to think at some point every minority who has been told they're oppressed will wake up see what handing your life over to the state has done to them…but I doubt it will happen anytime soon, sadly.
I think you might find that most on this site would actually take action to defend this country if and when necessary. I sincerely doubt that can be said of the Left.
Part of it is about covering up the Democrat Party's racist past and transferring blame from them to the whole country.
So did you write your response from Iraq or Afghanistan?
I was with you until you said this – 'And he was elected to that highest of offices based on Americans’ perceptions of the content of his character, not the color of his skin.' Alas, I wish that was the true motivation for voters, but I don't think so.
I don't know any black Americans who want reparations. That's because the people I know have jobs and ambitions, and want charity from no-one.
Reparations were paid by everyone but Democrats who dragged the country into fratricid to preserve slavery and never acknowledged thier involvement, nor apologized for slavery.
This is were real issue of reparations resides and its n isuue if taken by Republicans can expose the oppressive nature of democratic party that has only changed the strategy of enslaving black Americans.
http://www.modernconservative.com/newwideawakes.p...
That's right, you are the brave one. The problem I have with some is that they do not explain their views. We never know why you believe what you believe.
Set us straight with you thoughts on this subject of reparations without name calling and cheap cliches. Make us believe you – this is what the people on this site want from you.
Government taking money at gunpoint from a second-generation Asian American in order to hand it over (minus the obligatory administrative cut) to a Kenyan immigrant: reparations for slavery, yay!
The spectacle of rather European-looking people claiming African ancestry (just takes one drop of Black blood, right?) in order to receive their government check: thank you, slavery reparations!
Increasing tribal, group identity-based thinking and racial animus: another fine result of reparations!
Reconciliation, understanding of the history of slavery worldwide, a decrease in present-day slavery, the execution of anything resembling justice, reinforcement of the reality that Americans of all colors are as able to change their lot in life as any people in the history of the world: all things that would be NOT result from reparations.
I do not have to pay for something I didn't do. Period.
Dave Chappelle already did a sketch on what would happen if reparations were paid out. That was some funny crap.
John Conyers wife Monica has been collecting her own reporations in brown paper bags while sitting on the Detroit City Council for the last few years.
Racist past>/b>? I know a senator from West Virginia who doesn't realize he's been removed from office.
I'm rich beeyotch! *BEEP BEEP*
Thats all you got out of the article? really?
If the Dem's were so concerned about Black's they wouldn't have taken away the vouchers for those DC children for that private school that now only rich Black children of the President can attend. What was Obama's concern for his kids? Was it them going to school with low income black kids? What a fraud. This smells from the top on down.
If the Dem's were so concerned about Black's they wouldn't have taken away the vouchers for those DC children for that private school that now only rich Black children of the President can attend. What was Obama's concern for his kids? Was it them going to school with low income black kids? What a fraud. This smells from the top on down.
I don't understand why those on the left are always hating. This article is not about that. It is about emphasizing that some good has occurred in America over the decades since slavery was ended (and some bad). It also wants to see Americans get along better, because race is a painful issue that is continually paraded around by the left. The left hates the idea that someone could love America and simply want people to live in harmony and prosperity. Am I wrong, wr?
If I'm to be held liable for the crimes of my ancestors, I should be given credit for their achievements as well. My great, great grandfather was a hero of the civil war, yet not one single person has offered me so much as a "thank you".
Obama is only half black, so does he only get half a check? If so, who gets the other half?
Ever since I walked the Gettysburg battlefield, reading the memorials for those heroes North and South, I've known that reparations for the evil of slavery were PAID IN FULL with the lives of 600,000 Americans.
good point. Would one wade into the morass of the Daily Kos to see if there is any principled conservative opposition? Most of these people are one timer Agent Provocatuers who enter, toss about cliche's and unsubstantiated assertions, become vile and redundant, and then leave. If somehow you are not on active duty in the Sandbox you should have no right to speak. Ridiculous.
Maybe I should consider suing the French government and the Province of Normandy for having conquered and enslaved my Anglo-Saxon ancestors 1000 years ago….
You make a good point. Not all black Americans are descendants of slaves. Just consider the effort required to determine who would and would not be eligible under those terms. As you say, reparations would not end poverty or the violent behavior associated with it. Just look at some of the Indian reservations to see what government dependence looks like. Their situation is a direct result of reparations and entitlements.
I've got a question about reparations.
I'm white. My Father's family first came over in the late 1600s, so they've been here a while. My mother's family came much later (between WWI and WWII), but somewhere on her side there's a marriage that puts me distantly related to William Wilberforce.
As far back as there was such a thing, my family were staunch abolitionists … I have several ancestors that were part of John Brown's Militia and fought at Pottawatomie and Harper's Ferry. Several other of my ancestors volunteered for the Union Army preciously because of the issue of slavery (a few died).
I have relations that still own property that were stops on the Underground Railroad.
So if there's reparations, I don't believe I owe any. Will there be some "good whitey" exemption I can get? Or heck, is there any way some of that reparation money can flow my way to make up for the lives and property that were lost by my ancestors fighting to free the black slaves?
Yeah, I know the answer; shut up whitey!
This isn't about reparations, this is about modern hatred and racism coming from the black side.
"to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans"
Notice how the proposed bill proclaims " racial and economic discrimination" as being "subsequent" as if it were a consequence of slavery. In this way they can blame all the economic and social disparities as being a result of slavery. They wish to equate racial and economic discrimination to slavery and in so doing they are contemplating reparations not only for the ancestors of slaves but any who have suffered "racial and economic discrimination".
Meanwhile they willfully disregard the many black Americans who overcame adversity and prospered. Those who did not view the color of their skin as a handicap and who were determined to disprove the popular stereotypes. They met life's challenges head on and did not treat the rest of the world as though it owed them something. THEY were real Americans.
It's completely bold especially knowing people like yourself cant resist an opportunity to correct someone you disagree with.
Asks the anonymous poster.
Like many here, I have a question as to how this might work. My ancestors to a man and woman were "relocated" by the US government from Georgia to Oklahoma in 1839. despite somewhat shabby treatment, my immediate ancestors and their borthers fought for the Union in 1861-65 in the misnamed civil war. Do I have to pay?
I ask this question because the Bureau of Indian Affairs stated a couple of years ago that it would be "too much trouble" to determine what amounts of money that was agreed to by the US government in payment for indian lands has not been paid. Not a single treaty between the US government and any native nation was ever unbroken by the US. Monies agreed to were not paid.
When the US government can determine how to pay up its bills to us indians, then they might start to consider "reparations for slavery". That problem is much more comples since it involves millions of people rather than perhaps a million of us who had legal claims that were never honored.
I wore the uniform of this nation for six years, WR. I'm one of those 'other people.' And that gives me the right to say what I believe needs to be said. Even gives you that right, too. That's what I defended, see? Free speech for all. I only wished liberals like you believed in that, too.
Given President Obama's personal crusade against Rush Limbaugh from the Oval Office, and the latest DHS report on 'right wing extremists,' which is as general and non-specific as Hitler's Night and Fog decree, I really have my doubts. But you can say what you like. Free country. Last I checked.
Will keep you posted on that last one.
Not just the black side but eternally guilty liberals ready to see Imperialist America to apologize to every person and nation that we have offended.
A continuation of my previous post: What do we do with whites who came to this country after slavery was abolished? Another question: What about descendents of union soldiers who fought in 1861-65? How would one handle the many families who had members on both sides of the conflit?
If e "treaty problem" is insoluble though it was deined in real estate, other property and money, how much worse is the slavery reparations issue whereexact prices can't be established? This business is rubbish. There are no words in my native language equivalent to the proper Anglo-Saxon terms and I should not use terms I don't truly comprehend like swear words. My native language is deficient in that respect.
I ssume Obama's new tax code will provide deductions for those of us whose families weren't even in this country prior to 1900, who never owned a slave, or fought for the North. I am also seeking reparations from the bigots who trashed my grandfather's shop twice during WW I for using German in his window signs. I have been deeply wounded and financially disadvantaged by what those people did forty years before I was born.
Okay, then I guess I'm due some reparations as well. You see, I can trace my lineage to a Continental Army solider that spent EIGHT years with General Washington. From Boston to Yorktown. He was there at Valley Forge, the crossing of the Delware, the rout from Brooklyn Heights, the Battle of Monmouth Court House and all the rest. The way I figure it my family is due the veteran benefits, with interest, that he never received after our War for Independence and well as proper compensation for his years of service, There is also the "founding fee" my family is due as it was part of the founding of this country. Then there is the little matter of another of my ancestors who serviced in the Union Army, was captured and spent six months at Andersonville. Figure my family is due, with interest, for his pain and suffering. Then my maternal grandfather was wounded in France in WWI. Aren't reparations due for that? As well as those due for my beloved uncle, killed while flying for the Marine Corps. Where do I line up for my reparations check?
Well said.
The reparations movement is just an off shoot of liberal America hatred. Rather than take pride in such a young country correcting a wrong within 100 years of its founding, liberals are always more apt to dwell on the wrong as being somehow uniquely American.
Slavery was not American. Abolishing slavery was American. Slavery was a European/African import and it didn't survive our first Centennial.
That's an accomplishment all Americans should be proud of, and the rest of the world has been slow to emulate even 140 years later.
I love how white americans try to rationalize themselves away from the truth.
One day, this country will have to say out loud the horrors it committed against both
Native American peoples and African Americans. Deal with it!
" And he was elected to that highest of offices based on Americans’ perceptions of the content of his character, not the color of his skin."
I suppose you felt compelled to say this, which is too bad — but it is hardly the case if you check voter statistics.
The content of his character was never revealed during the campaign unless one dug very hard into his relationships and previous speeches, the very things the media went out of its way to hide. So much for most people voting on content of character.
Its all about that F*&king welfare check!!!
Only half of my family was in the US before 1910, do I only have to pay half?
Why is it that you never actually add any new insight to the conversation?
Surely one with the name " Princeton Scholar " knows that African Americans were sold to the states by their fellow tribes. It's not like the ancestors went over there with bear traps.
I'll admit though that the Native Americans were screwed over by the " whites ", but I have no more sympathy ( assuming I ever had any at all ) for the African American community. I believe the white community has been kissing Jesse and Al's butts long enough.
I believe that if reprations ever actually happen (which is not as far fetched now as it was a few months ago), the protests we're seeing today will look like kindergarten classes. I have no idea how I'd do it, but I would do everything in my power to stop paying taxes, and I think a lot of people would do the same. Let's see how the federal government survives with a massive shortfall of tax revenue.
I grew up poor and white, and I was never given college scholarships because of my skin color, I was never given a job because of my skin color, and I've never been promoted because of my skin color. The big difference is; I never expected any of those things, I just assumed I had to work for what I wanted. As our current president proves every day, when you're given everything your whole life, you don't know what to do with all of it.
Since my ancestors were Normans, I guess I owe you some reparations!
To bad Sen. Moynihan's lackey and shoe shiner Cwissy "I feel a thrill up my leg" Matthews didn't get that memo.
I have my own theory on past injustices, also not likely to be popular. Here's the rule, if it didn't happen to you personally, then you have no right to be upset about it. Period. If the actual victim is dead, and the actual victimizer is dead, end of story. God will deal justice in the end after death if not in life. I came to this enlightened view after spending five months working on a job where a white Jewish woman and a black woman argued constantly about which of their people were history's ultimate victims. The funny thing was both of them were middle-upper class, families all educated, had good jobs, and neither of them went to the gas chambers or the slave block themselves, though you'd never know it to hear them whine all the time.
Watch ANY T.V. commercial. African Americans are very well represented. There you go, pay back.
Laur, Notice I included the word 'perceptions.' Though many may have voted for Barack Obama based on skin color, I believe most pulled the lever for Obama because of their perceptions of the candidate as better suited to steer the helm of America at this point in time.
The way the GOP was tanking leading up to the election, anyone short of Dukakis or Kerry probably could have pulled it off. Lot of discontent with the status quo. That's how elections go. My perceptions were different. So were those of millions of other Americans. Regardless, Barack Obama won the White House. Our candidate lost. So it goes.
Princeton Scholar, You said I rationalized myself away from the truth, yet you give no examples. You're the scholar. Please tell me where I'm not being truthful. As far as not hearing it, we white Americans get beat over the head with the Slavery Club every day. Repeatedly. You're doing it right now. Where HAVEN'T we heard it?
If Martin Luther King was really the great man of character everyone says he is, I highly doubt he would still be crying tears of joy over the election of a black man as president of the United States. If he did so, then he would be denying his own words about judging a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. We knew next to nothing about Obama prior to the election, because the media made sure of it. Millions of black people voted for him simply because he was "one of them". Millions of white people voted for him because of the liberal guilt that has been heaped upon them for decades via the media and the government school system from grade school through college.
Despite the fact that many of those of voting age today were not alive during the time of Jim Crow, we have nevertheless been made to feel like racists all our lives even if we have not done one thing that was any proof of that.
You obviously have no idea what the definition of "reparations" is.
The concept of reparations centers around the repayment of back wages, pure and simple. Some historians and social scientists have attempted to calculate this number. I can't claim that a definitive number has been reached.
But what is plain to see is that you don't have even the slightest idea what "reparations" should/would actually constitute.
Reparations aren't some panacea for all of Black America's ills.
They are wages owed for labor performed, nothing more.
Invoking the white ancestor argument – largely a product of rape – isn't doing much to advance your cause either.
This ignores the wage-based claim for reparations. Poorly reasoned comment.
Your ACORN allegations are simply untrue. How did you expect to get away with that?
It was the Dutch who originally sent slaves here anyway, so take it up with them.
And just who would be the beneficiary of this giant windfall? The government? Don't they steal enough of our money already? Black people? Oh, yeah, those who can actually prove their heritage in this country for over 200 years will take from those terrible white people who have barely been here a generation? That would be "justice", wouldn't it?
The whole idea stinks from the top down. But if the goal is to re-introduce a level of racial hatred not witnessed in this country for over 100 years, then feel free, bring it on.
Bad analogy. Not really worth addressing.
not sure what bothers me more, the sarcasm or that you're comflating two very serious but separate issues.
I find it insulting that you compare chattel slavery and the murder/rape/enslavement of millions with the Great Society and New Deal.
What a disgusting lack of perspective.
This is really the best argument against reparations- that it would be logistically impossible.
Snarkiness is a great cover for your lack of a coherent and reasoned argument. you certainly fooled me.
Okay, Jay, I'll address it:
"The wage-based claim for reparations is, from a legal perspective, utter crap."
There. Happy now?
Okay, Jay, I'll address it:
"The wage-based claim for reparations is, from a legal perspective, utter crap."
There. Happy now?
The basis of your argument betrays and ignorance of history and law. It is common for descendants of a given party to be compensated what was owed the antecedants.
Easy to say when you don't have to contend with the fact that one of your great great grandparetns may have worked their entire life, only for the fruits of that labor to end up in some other familiy's coffers.
This doesn't address the legal basis for a claim of wages owed.
you're equivocating to a degree that is almost laughable here. no need to address this seriously.
you're equivocating to a degree that is almost laughable here. no need to address this seriously.
Pick one or both; your choice as it is your bother.
BTW-There is nothing that stops you from paying money to either AA or American Indians. This is called freedom. I for one, will keep my dough to myself.
it's not about "something" happening. it's about real hours worked, without pay.
Don't know. I am sure some smart Harvard Law student could come up with a formula.
If you have to choose sides, better the Dems than the openly racist Repubs
Since when is being paid wages owed for work performed considered chairty?
Um, does the phrase "statute of limitations" mean anything to you? How about "ex post facto law?"
You also don't understand reparations. At all. There are many potential models, it's not necessary that money be taken form you specifically.
What has boldness have to do with this topic or courage for that matter. What is your point, or do you have one?
John T. Simpson,
My reply is far too long for your comment section. I will instead be posting it on my blog Black Entertainment USA. I hope to hear back from you.
And again I thank you for citing my blog.
It's not "paying for something" – it's a debt owed for work performed.
Thanks?
What do you want, really? You're missing the point.
nonsense.
that blood was spilled to preserve the union. nothing more, nothing less.
if you can put together a reasonable estimate of how many hours they were forced to work without pay, you might have a case.
Maybe they're using the tactic that if you keep throwing money at them, they'll go away.
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