Posted on 07/09/2006 11:16:25 AM PDT by TomServo
Advocates who say black Americans should be compensated for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath are quietly chalking up victories and gaining momentum.
Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers, their campaign has morphed in recent years from a fringe-group rallying cry into sophisticated, mainstream movement. Most recently, a pair of churches apologized for their part in the slave trade, and one is studying ways to repay black church members.
The overall issue is hardly settled, even among black Americans: Some say that focusing on slavery shouldn't be a top priority or that it doesn't make sense to compensate people generations after a historical wrong.
Yet reparations efforts have led a number of cities and states to approve measures that force businesses to publicize their historical ties to slavery. Several reparations court cases are in progress, and international human rights officials are increasingly spotlighting the issue.
"This matter is growing in significance rather than declining," said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and a leading reparations activist. "It has more vigor and vitality in the 21st century than it's had in the history of the reparations movement."
The most recent victories for reparations advocates came in June, when the Moravian Church and the Episcopal Church both apologized for owning slaves and promised to battle current racism. The Episcopalians also launched a national, yearslong probe into church slavery links and into whether the church should compensate black members. A white church member, Katrina Browne, also screened a documentary focusing on white culpability at the denomination's national assembly.
The Episcopalians debated slavery and reparations for years before reaching an agreement, said Jayne Oasin, social justice officer for the denomination, who will oversee its work on the issue.
Historically, slavery was an uncomfortable topic for the church. Some Episcopal bishops owned slaves - and the Bible was used to justify the practice, Oasin said.
"Why not (take these steps) 100 years ago?" she said. "Let's talk about the complicity of the Episcopal Church as one of the institutions of this country who, of course, benefited from slavery."
Also in June, a North Carolina commission urged the state government to repay the descendants of victims of a violent 1898 campaign by white supremacists to strip blacks of power in Wilmington, N.C. As many as 60 blacks died, and thousands were driven from the city.
The commission also recommended state-funded programs to support local black businesses and home ownership.
The report came weeks after the Organization of American States requested information from the U.S. government about a 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Okla., in which 1,200 homes were burned and as many as 300 blacks killed. An OAS official said the group might pursue the issue as a violation of international human rights.
The modern reparations movement revived an idea that's been around since emancipation, when black leaders argued that newly freed slaves deserved compensation.
About six years ago, the issue started gaining momentum again. Randall Robinson's "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks," was a best seller; reparations became a central issue at the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa; and California legislators passed the nation's first law forcing insurance companies that do business with the state to disclose their slavery ties. Illinois passed a similar insurance law in 2003, and the next year Iowa legislators began requesting - but not forcing - the same disclosures.
Several cities - including Chicago, Detroit and Oakland - have laws requiring that all businesses make such disclosures.
Reparations opponents insist that no living American should have to pay for a practice that ended more than 140 years ago. Plus, programs such as affirmative action and welfare already have compensated for past injustices, said John H. McWhorter, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.
"The reparations movement is based on a fallacy that cripples the thinking on race - the fallacy that what ails black America is a cash problem," said McWhorter, who is black. "Giving people money will not solve the problems that we have."
Even so, support is reaching beyond African-Americans and the South.
Katrina Browne, the white Episcopalian filmmaker, is finishing a documentary about her ancestors, the DeWolfs of Bristol, R.I., the biggest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She screened it for Episcopal Church officials at the June convention.
"Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North," details how the economies of the Northeast and the nation as a whole depended on slaves.
"A lot of white people think they know everything there is to know about slavery - we all agree it was wrong and that's enough," Browne said. "But this was the foundation of our country, not some Southern anomaly. We all inherit responsibility."
She says neither whites nor blacks will heal from slavery until formal hearings expose the full history of slavery and its effects - an effort similar to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid collapsed.
Not now - not ever.
Sure it will.
Look how well it worked for the Katrina victims.
Sophisticated?--Nope
Mainstream?--Nope
Scholars?--Nope
Lawyers?--BINGO!
.
Will we get a full accounting of how deeply involved in the slave trade and slave economy the Democrat Party was? No. we won't. This one fact will forever limit the effect and importance of this issue.
My ancestors came from Italy and Germany. We bombed them in World War II, and I'm sure that made my ancestors feel bad. Do I get anything?
Oops... forgot the smiley in that last post :-) :-)!
You're a Sioux? Never mind the money, man, tell them you want the entire country back!!
actually, I'm all for it..all they have to do is produce picture ID (won't happen unless an alcohol purchase is needed) and prove they were alive during the 1860's to collect..
"Look how well it worked for the Katrina victims."
My thoughts exactly.
Apologizing for past behavior is a long cry from writing checks to the millions of black Americans who were never slaves. Even the majority of liberals won't support cash reparations. Reparations is a pipe dream that will never happen and it would be in the best interest of black Americans to not even entertain the thought.
Bah, the housing bubble is deflating, I'm cashing out and want my check! :)
I would agree that the DNC owes reparations. They are, after all, the slavery party, the Jim Crow party, the Klan was their action wing.
But since their former victims have entered the party en masse, and are now an influential part of it, that the question is now moot.
How will they determine which Blacks are actual slave descendants and not descendants of Free Blacks who were wealthy businessmen?
Will they include the now White Offspring that were also descendants of a Slave and her White Master?
If they truly dug into the history of slavery in the early US, many Blacks today might discover that their ancestors were also Slave Owners.
To pay someone simply because they are of a race, "assuming" they have an ancestor that was wronged, when it is somewhat possible it was their ancestor wronging others, goes beyond ridiculous.
This reparations smokescreen is nothing more than someone's attempt at pandering for votes and expanding the ever-growing "entitlement" class.
Excellent!
I do hope the Democratic Party takes this issue and runs with it! Please, please, please lefties - make this issue a centerpiece in ALL of your campaigns.
Yes, the more prominence this gets, the better. We just know how attractive this idea is going to sound to the average American voter ;)
Well come to think of it I have some "black blood" in me. I want my share of reparations. In fact, probably most every American has some black blood. We all should get reparations.
On another note, I can tell you how to guarantee your child gets into the college of his/her choice. Assuming they are at least an average student, when they take the SAT or ACT, list their race as "other." I had my son do this on one of the SAT test administrations. He was innundated with offers from top tier colleges across the country...NYU, Johns Hopkins, Univ. of Southern California, Georgia Tech,etc. They all wanted to meet this deserving "minority student." I'm telling you this is the way to end any preferential treatment for miniorities. We ALL become a minority!!!
A school administrator once told me that they could not question whatever race the student chose to categorize themself. This is THE solution!!! Spread the word.
The proper response would be peals of Homeric laughter. However, in this country, in 2006 A.D., the Euro American appears to be sick. Therefore, all bets are off.
ANY politician, Republican or Democrat, that supports this asinine notion, will NEVER get a vote from me, no matter what the alternative.
Not only that I will move heaven and I will move earth, I will talk to every friend, every relative, every ear I can find, to hurt, harrass and harm the careeer of any such politician.
If I EVER hear that a company I own stock in has wasted company money on such a frivolity, I will sponsor a stockholder's suit.
This truly insane notion should be belittled, mocked, castigated, scorned, and spurned.
It should be buried, stake through the heart, in the dead of night, never to rise again.
Couldn't welfare be considered slavery reparations?
Why am I not suprised?
The democrats should pay, because Jim Crow laws were passed solely by democrats both north and south.
After the credits for all the social spending the last 40 years, they will owe the country.
It will never happen but I hope the democratics runs with this idea :)
When my church decides to give money I have donated to reparations they have received the last friggin dime I will ever give them. They better find a new way to keep the doors open.
My government already gives reparations. Isnt that why we are rebuilding Chocolate City/ Why we have affirmative action jobs? Why we lower standards to hire blacks?
Hoping to beat out illegals in the giveaway sweepstakes.
Erin Texeira, "Black Reparations Idea Builds at UCLA Meeting," Los Angeles Times, 5/12/01
By Erin Texeira. Real life at work for women of color ...
Erin Texeira Writes about culture, race and ethnicity for Newsday and lives in Brooklyn, NY
Growing anger among blacks as Latinos 'take over'. April 7, 2006. BY ERIN TEXEIRA.
By Erin Texeira Associated Press (August 21, 2005) What do you call a minority that is becoming the majority?
by ERIN TEXEIRA , Associated Press March 28th, 2006 -- Even though the economy has picked up, stubborn gaps between blacks and whites remain _ a reality
“But as soon as the master was gone…they did what they really wanted to do…”–Erin Texeira, Black men quietly combating stereotypes, Associated Press. ...
By Erin Texeira, AP BERKELEY, California (AP)--Well over a century after it was abolished, slavery lingers in the American psyche,
LBJs Great Society was your multi-billion dollar reparation. To the extent it was used for educating yourselves, investing in your own business startups, and teaching your children the value of self-reliance, then you spent it well. If you frittered it away, too bad. But it's not too late. Miami's Haitian community as strong and economically viable. Go learn.
The Democrats won't touch this issue with a 20' pole. They'll lose the last of their liberal white voters and they know it.
It is a dead issue that only serves for a good news story. Not to mention, every year around tax time many black people fall victim to reparation scams where they turn over their tax returns to con-men who promise them "reparation checks" of 100 times the value of their returns.
Oh, it gets even better.
How do you handle the decedents of slave owners that were themselves black?
Do they give reparations to themselves?
DIXIE'S CENSORED SUBJECT -- BLACK SLAVEOWNERS
"Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.
To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters. "
J. Jackson has already requested the money. He will distribute to those who deserve it.
Nothing will divide the country more if whites have to give money to Tiger woods and 80 % of NFL players.
First & foremost, reparation must include repatriation. Any African who doesn't want to be repatriated is admitting that they're better off in the US than they would have been had they been left in Africa. If having their ancestors brought here in slavery has made them better off than they would have been otherwise, then what claim do they have to reparation? Of course any repatriation would have to be permanent. Those being repatriated would have to give up their US citizenship.
Second, reparation dollar amounts must be based on the African enonomy not the US economy. If we have damaged some Africans by removing them from Africa, then obviously the amount of reparation we owe them would have to based on what they could be expected to earn in Africa not the US. If there income expectancy is higher in the US, then where is the economic damage? I have developed the following formula and taken wild guesses at the variables.
A 30 year old African decides he wants his reparation and he would like to be repatriated to Kenya. Ok, we find out the life expectancy in Kenya is 50 years. We also find out the average annual income in Kenya is $2,000. So we subtract his age from 50 and find out he has 20 years to live in Kenya. We multiple 20 times $2,000 and his reparation amount is $40,000. Plus we would give him free transportation to Kenya.
Since we have given him Kenya's average annual income for the rest of his life, he should be able to move to Kenya and live the rest of his life without ever having to work again. What more could a reasonable man ask?
It seems totally reasonable to me to base all of this on African life expectancies and African income levels because had we not enslaved their ancestors, then that is what they would have been born into. That is what they would have to look forward to. With the above two rules, I totally support reparation for Africans in America.
Go to Liberia, a nation founded by freed slaves where every day they curse their ancestors for leaving America.
My people were in Ireland and were poorer that US slaves at the time. Who in the hell do I owe what to????
I believe that some of my ancestors were slaves during the Roman Empire. Can I sue Italy for reparations? </s>
LOL!
I'll gladly pay anyone that I ever owned.
By the way, how many people have gotten your tag line? I'll keep it to myself for now since I figure you went obscure for a reason.
From John Valentine:
This truly insane notion should be belittled, mocked, castigated, scorned, and spurned.
It should be buried, stake through the heart, in the dead of night, never to rise again.
This is a can of whup-ass that we shouldn't even think about opening.
Let's *all* raid the US treasury and get our reparations! Crank up the printin' presses, Uncle Sam, I'm a-comin' to town!
The penalty for slavery has been paid in full by the blood of two hundred and fifty thousand men on battlefields such as Gettysburg, Pea Ridge, Shiloh and others.
Get over it.
Don't try to confuse the man! I wants my check and I wants it now! :)
Ah, so you remember that Movie ?
"My people were in Ireland and were poorer that US slaves at the time".
Just think of how our ancestors were treated by various invaders, and especially the Brits. We, too, are due reparations, but from the British government. Show me the money.
What about African Americans who immigrated in this century and are now citizens? Do they get reparations too? What about Polish Americans who immigrated in this century and are now citizens? Do they pay reparations too? What about families whose ancestors fought and died for the Union Army? Do they pay too?
In all cases, the answer must come down to this: What is the color of your skin?
That's all the "liberals" know.
I think we have paid through the nose already.. we've been throwing money at them in the form of social programs for decades, and it has only made it worse for them. what we need is to help them come out of that victimhood cocoon that's keeping them from realizing their dreams. as long as the race pimps keep them ignorant and play to their color with hatred and payback crap, they will never emerge break the shackles of political slavery.
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