One of my distant ancestors was enslaved by the natives back in the early 1600s.
So far the Wampanoag haven’t offered up any cash.
My grandparents were still fleeing the pogroms in Russia half a century after Lincoln freed the slaves. How much do I owe?
Except we now already have several generations of blacks who have never known anything but living on reparations in the form of government handouts paid for by the sweat and hard work of real taxpayers.
If there is any current organization in America that is responsible for slavery and the misery of blacks that can be said to owe reparations, it is the Democratic Party. They should pay reparations for maintaining slavery, enacting Jim Crow laws, organizing the KKK, enforcing segregation and a million other things.
I am all in favor of reparations. Any living person who can present themselves to the United States Government proving they were held in bondage under a then valid and enforceable state and/or federal statute permitting them to be held in bondage deserves reparations.
Anyone else claiming a right to reparations should be told to go pound sand. They have been as free as any other American citizen and have had the opportunity their entire lives to avail themselves of the Constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Hundreds of Billions already poured into gov’t vote buying programs have proven that giving money away is not the path to freedom.
Only self sufficiency can provide true freedom.
Well, let’s see. When I was 7 years old, I was POW in the Philippines (SANTO TOMAS). Can I claim reparations from the Japs? Or maybe I can claim reparations from the US government, that knew an attack was coming and didn’t warn my father.
The reason the reparations argument holds no water is actually quite simple. Our constitution is based on the foundational concept of protecting individual rights. This means that repoarations can only be made on an individual basis.
That being said, I can imagine a class action lawsuit against the state of Mississippi or some of the redliners in Chicago, et al. But you can’t just take it from the federal government unless you win a lawsuit on behalf of specific people for specific grievances.
Since reparations for slavery have gone nowhere, Ta-Nehisi here is arguing that reparations should now be handed out for segregation and mortgage red-lining.
$25,000,000,000,000 of wealth redistribution over the last 40+ years is more than enough “restitution”.
Cry me a river Ta-Nehisi! (Your name sounds like an exotic Thai Jock-Itch cream for 80 year old saggers)
We’re done hearing your excuses for the repetitive failure of your community. The responsibility rests on you alone.
I’m sick of hearing your stupid grievances!!!!!! Nobody owes you squat!
Same answer as during the Battle of the Bulge:
NUTZ
Reparations for slavery?
When a black woman is one of the richest people in America?
When a black man was Secretary of State??
When a black woman was Secretary of State?
When black men have sat -- and do sit -- on the Supreme Court??
When a black would-be despot sits in the White House?????
When countless black men have risen to the top of the ranks of the richest in professional sports and show business?? Men like Hank Aaron. Men like Bill Cosby who... (Never mind. As we all know, because he speaks out against the cultural rot and violence among his black brethren, Bill's either an Uncle Tom or Oreo Cookie, depending on which black race pimp you listen to.)
And, how about Liberation Theology?
Liberation from WHAT? The chance to achieve and succeed??
Give me a break!!
Let me make it clear right up front: I am NOT a racist. I supported Herman Cain in his run for the Senate and supported him in his run for the WH. And if Allen West or Dr. Carson go for it, they, too, have my support.
I also consider Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams two of the finest economists and minds extant today. In case you don’t know them, both are black.
Sowell, Williams and Cain – among others -- have spoken out against those fellow blacks who castigate and vilify America for a slavery now long in our past. And ALL thinking men and women oppose the periodic calls for reparations. (When he ran, I supported Alan Keyes. I even spoke in his stead on the RTKABA at a Capitol rally and was asked to fill in for him on his radio show at the time. Sadly, while I still consider Alan a good man, I have had to rethink my support since he came out FOR reparations.)
The fact is that the modern descendants of slaves brought here in chains in admittedly miserable, soul-gutting conditions now calling for reparations need to remember something:
They should not only be glad to be in America, they should be glad to be ANYWHERE!
Had their ancestors NOT been brought OUT of Africa – many by MUSLIM slave raiders --the blood of those ancestors would have run into the earth over there several centuries ago, victims of the OTHER black tribes that captured them in one of the interminable tribal conflicts STILL ravaging that sad continent and these modern day would-be "plaintiffs" would not even exist.
And I would remind you that slavery is STILL practiced in parts of Africa (mainly by – American BLACK MUSLIMS LISTEN UP!! -- MUSLIMS), the Middle East and Asia today. How ironic that disgruntled American blacks are embracing a system that participated mightily in their initial bondage – and would, if Islam takes root here, probably put any who cling to their Christianity back INTO BONDAGE – or to the sword. In fact, as the majority of muslims consider black folks as “sub-human”, many of you black muzzies will get the axe.
95% of the African slaves who were transported across the Atlantic went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions, and that less than 5% of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic went to the United States, it was remarkable that the vast majority of academic research, films, books and articles concerning the slave trade concentrated only on the American involvement, as though slavery was a uniquely American aberration.
And should the great-great-great grandchildren of SLAVE OWNING BLACKS also be subject to PAYING these reparations? If so, how do we find THEM?
And I have traced MY family back to the SLAVS. Although the term looks to be related to “slave,” depending on your source, it either means “glory” or “worshipper.” But my family research indicates that many of my ancestors LIVED lives of virtual or real slavery to some despot or other. Do I qualify for reparations? From whom?? And it begs a question: Are most of us now living here headed into a modern form of that servitude? But that’s a topic for another discussion.
The official US Census of 1830 lists 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners. -"Selling Poor Steven", American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90
Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a recitation of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony: Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers' Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378
A few more salient points on the subject:
Until the US declared independence, the Colonies were REQUIRED by the King of England to embrace slavery.
The Northwest Ordinance (1789) prohibited slavery in federal territories.
A law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the US became effective in 1808.
Beginning in 1820, the Democratic Congress started passing laws allowing and encouraging slavery.
It was only after the Republican Party (many of whom were southern Blacks) was formed some 40 years later that the anti-slavery movement was able to move forward.
And the holier-than-thou Northern liberals are strangely silent on recent archeological evidence from NEW YORK CITY clearly tracing the financing of the slave trade to NORTHERN BUSINESSMEN!!
At the height of his remarkable boxing career, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), once declared, “I’m glad my great-grandpa got on that boat.”
And speaking of ancestors, my paternal grandmother’s daddy, William Henry Robinson, joined with the 80th Ohio Volunteer Infantry early in the War Between the States (re-upped twice) and fought on the Union side at Vicksburg, Jackson and elsewhere in the deep South then joined up with Sherman for that infamous march to the sea through Georgia. My wife’s great-great grandpappy ALSO fought for the Union. While I revere the memory of my ancestors, inasmuch as that conflict was less about slavery than it was the economic exploitation and abuse of the South by the North, I fear they MAY have been on the wrong side.
Author Robert Hitt Neill tells of attending a Tennessee Mountain Writer’s Conference years ago with several other authors. Among them was Alex Hailey, celebrated author of “Roots.” Watching a TV news show, a group of them watched a demonstration in a Southern state against the “Rebel” flag incorporated into that state’s flag. The very next report covered a famine in Africa. Graphic images showed dead bodies, starving children with distended tummies and runny noses and dying people covered with flies, too weak to brush them away.
Mr. Hailey intoned in a low, serious voice, “Every time an American black sees a story like that, they should find a Confederate flag and kiss it.” He then pointed to the TV screen and continued, “Because these would be me and my descendants, except for American slavery. I thank God that my family and I are here instead of there.”
Next problem!
Dick Bachert
AFTERWORD:
A brief review of the FACTS on the subject:
Until the US declared independence, we were required by the King of England to embrace slavery.
The Northwest Ordinance (1789) prohibited slavery in federal territories.
A law prohibiting the importation of slaves into the US became effective in 1808.
Beginning in 1820, the Democratic Congress started passing laws allowing and encouraging slavery.
It was only after the Republican Party (many of whom were southern Blacks) was formed some 40 years later that the anti-slavery movement was able to move forward.
I wonder what happened?
BTW, the economic conditions of most Mississippi white at the time were remarkably similar to that of most blacks.
There were a great many white sharecroppers, as well as black sharecroppers. Their economic, as opposed to social, condition was essentially identical.
Poor white sharecropper were also often effectively disenfranchised by the poll tax system.