Posted on 05/19/2017 11:54:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
ALBANY, N.Y. >> Legislators rolled out a bill Tuesday to create a state commission on the impact of slavery on New York and what kind of reparations should be made to the descendants of freed slaves.
“We’re always being studied,” said one of the bill’s sponsors, Assembly member Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn). “Every time I turn around we’re being studied... so here’s one, how about studying the history of slavery in New York State.”
“Most people believe that slavery was a southern thing, it was mostly southern states,” he said, but most do not know New York City had more slaves than any city in the U.S. beside Charleston, S.C.
The bill calls for a one-year study of all historical aspects of slavery in New York and its residual impact today. Five of the 14 members of the commission would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, with the rest picked by The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, the December 12th Movement, and by Dr. Ron Daniels of the Institute of the Black World. The three groups are black cultural and nationalist groups.
Barron said the bill is new and he decided to put it out as a relatively new member of the Legislature. Barron is a longtime activist in New York City. In Albany, he once got into a shouting match with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and at a Black and Puerto Rican Caucus conference; in the Assembly, he was one of only a few legislators to vote against electing Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver before he was indicted and later convicted and stripped of his office.
The bill says during the colonial period slaves accounted for 20 percent of the state population, and 40 percent of households in the state owned slaves. “These slaves were an integral part of the population which settled and developed what he now know as New York,” starting with the arrival of the first slaves in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s, the bill says.
“There are crimes against humanity and crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations ... Certain crimes have no statute of limitations and slavery is one of those crimes,” said Sen. James Sanders Jr. (D-Queens), the Senate sponsor of the measure.
“To look at me you will know someone survived at the bottom of a ship, shackled to a stranger, someone with whom he or she could not speak because the languages were not the same,” said Assembly Deputy Speaker Earlene Hooper (D-Nassau County). “Someone survived. We are the strongest people on the face of the earth to be able to survive a crossing of that type.”
Assembly member Victor Pichardo (D-Bronx) said the repercussions of slavery are still seen in New York in housing and other areas. “To this day there are clauses in specific deeds in Long Island and in upstate New York where folks of color cannot buy homes,” he said. “This exists and to this day we are dealing with the idea and the suppression, from the highest levels of government, of voter suppression and there have been voter I.D. laws across the nation.”
He said a study commission would “create a true remedy to the crimes and the sins that this country has committed, particularly to folks of African descent ... it’s not about financial justice, it is about justice overall. It’s about receiving what is due to our communities and for the United States to actually come to grips with and recognize the horrors of slavery and how it has damaged communities and families to this day.”
Legislators said that reparations have been paid to the Jewish victims of the Nazis, and to the families of Japanese-Americans put into internment camps during World War II. Descendants of freed slaves should also be compensated.
The bill establishes “the Commission to Study Reparations for African-Americans and to Recommend Remedies,” and part of its charge would be to appropriate money for compensation.
Slavery was well established in New York for 200 years and the last slave was not freed until 1827, after a gradual freeing of slave beginning in 1799. Slavery was widespread on Long Island, the Hudson Valley and the Mohawk Valley.
New York City had an active slave market for most of the 18th century, and the state was one of the first colonies to pass a law proscribing the death penalty for a slave who murdered or tried to kill his or her master.
Good!!!! pass it!!!
We may actually get a senate seat out of it if they do.
And if not, then I have legal grounds to divorce my wife based on the intolerable cruelty of her asking me to still live here.
And if we must tear down symbols and ban of the Southern side of the civil war because of its association with slavery, then we should tear down symbols of the Democrats for the same reason.
The Democrats are not only the party constantly trying to condemn America for its past sins. In most cases they were the party that committed the sins. Slavery. The trail of Tears. Japanese Internment. Jim Crow Laws. Lynchings. The KKK. More recently the Weather Underground. Antifa thugs. And BLM thugs. Always the party of division and hate. If any entity in America owes restitution, its the Democrat party.
I had two ancestors serve and die in the Union army. I want my 50% cut from descendants of slaves who receive compensation.
A large amount of white immigrants were indentured servants for years to pay for passage to America in 1700-1800s. So why do they think slaves were only black? They had free passage to America to be sold, and owned by other blacks as well. The fact that slaves were only owned by whites is a myth.
Trying to hold a generation of whites accountable, whose ancestors may never have owned slaves or who would never have been in agreement with slavery is ludicrous! That is over 300 years ago. Those who took taxpayer monies in the past 50-60 years as food stamps/welfare were predominately black, do we ask for refund if reparations are approved?
Most Americans descendants probably weren’t in America when slavery occurred yet being forced to pay for it. If anyone should pay for it, its the DEM party, not America
Zero comments on source.
So dig up the actual criminals. Don’t punish those who had nothing to do with it.
Especially the descendants of those who suffered or died in that war.
Good points. There are an endless amount of arguments against this idiotic idea.
Descendant or not. Even if your great great great grandfather owned a slave, descendants do not share the guilt of ancestors. What they’re doing is criminalizing a skin color. It’s a crime in itself.
As a native New Yorker, FUNY!!!
What about the family descendants of immigrant Yankee soldier that were used as cannon fodder during by the North in the civil war? How do they benefit?
I understand that. There are an endless amount of arguments and combinations of arguments against this idiotic idea.
These people continue to be very dangerous and should never be allowed to gain control to the point where they would be able to attempt to round up white people. This time the “Jews” are armed.
And so it starts - watch this get copied in other states and turn into an avalanche.
Time to start looking for a place in Mexico? or Canada?
“round up white people”. Roll the dice.
I would add that if reparations were paid it would be
a one time deal only and we would never have to hear
any more about it from these DESCENDENTS of victims.
The families of those who died to free the slaves should also have reparations as their loved ones, mostly the bread winners in the family died, leaving those families poverty stricken for two generations....
BTW, you’re welcome for the free libraries, public education, hospitals, penicillin, clean water, ice cubes, air conditioning, Iphones, McDonalds, Levi’s and Boom Boxes...
Grow up.
Philippines.
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