Posted on 02/15/2004 6:33:00 AM PST by schaketo
Should blacks in America receive reparations for slavery? That's the issue Professor Manning Marable will address Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Marable is a history professor at Columbia University of New York and director of its Institute for Research in African-American Studies.
Marable believes that every black family in the United States should receive reparations, which he calls "compensatory justice," for losses their ancestors sustained as the result of slavery.
He says fair compensation for African Americans would involve a "civic restitution fund" and reparations would not come in the form of direct cash payments, but rather the use of tax money to fund social services for black Americans and scholarships for African-American students and historically black colleges.
Marable concedes that white Americans today are not guilty of enslaving anyone. However, they are the beneficiaries of racism, and as such they have a moral and political responsibility to bear its burden. The historical justifications for providing compensation to the American descendants of black slaves can be traced to the period immediately following the Civil War. The compensation that was promised to ex-slaves was never delivered. They never received their 40 acres and a mule.
African-American historian John Hope Franklin wrote, "Most living Americans do have a connection with slavery. They have inherited the preferential advantage, if they are white, or the loathsome disadvantage, if they are Black; and those positions are virtually as alive today as they were in the 19th century."
Marable points to the Holocaust lawsuits and the restitution Japanese-Americans received as a result of their internment in World War II as models for reparations.
However, people opposed to reparations say America
wasn't solely responsible for slavery nor did it invent slavery. They also say slavery didn't create the socioeconomic gap between blacks and whites.
Attempts have been made to bridge the gap, says Lindsey Scherer, founder of the conservative Web site, "The Right View: Nothing but right." Scherer says the United States has attempted to close the gap "by creating welfare programs, `cultural approaches to education,' and affirmative-action programs, just to name a few, and the end result has only been a decrease in the incentive to work, stigmatized learning, and a decrease in the incentive to excel in the truly bright and talented."
Anti-reparationists also say correlations can't be drawn between Japanese-American and African-American demands for reparations.
Scherer says Japanese Americans suffered direct financial losses because they were interned in concentration camps and couldn't work. Japanese-American internment was different from slavery in the sense that the descendants of the slaves didn't lose money directly because of their ancestors' enslavement, according to Scherer.
hmm...come to think of it, I like yours better.
Like termites, exposing them to light results in death ;-)
...but I also think they're a buncha cock-a-roaches.
Ahhh, therein lies the crux of the matter. I earned my degree from a historically black university. It was interesting, being the only white kid in class, but I digress.
Most of the reparations movement comes from the Historically Black College and University (HBCU) system. I believe this is key to understanding the reparations movement.
HBCUs are dying. Traditionally, they were the only places that African-Americans could get a college degree, and as such they were vital to the African American community. However, as the black middle class has grown, and black opportunities have expanded, the HBCU hold on black higher education has slipped. The unintended consequences of the anti-discrimination laws can be found here, halfway down the page, in the article about Virginia State University, my alma mater.
The bottom line is that HBCUs are dying, and the reparations movement is simply a way to pump badly-needed cash into these universities.
answer is simply NO!
Not at all. Give them a 150% retroactive tax to go with it.
If Clinton can pass a retroactive tax, so can other future chief executives....
This is a lie. There were offered 40 acres and a mule -- they just didn't take it. Check into the history of Marcus Garvey and the back to Africa movement. Forty acres and a mule were offered -- it's just that the forty acres and a mule were in Liberia and came with a one-way ticket and revocation of their American passport and citizenship. In fact, I think the offer still stands to any American black who wishes to take it.
This is historical B.S.
The U.S. Government never promised "40 acres and a mule" to ex-slaves.
U.S. Army Generals had no authority to issue "promises" to every ex-slave in America.
The compensation that modern blacks get from slavery is living in the U.S. If it were not for the slavery of their ancestors they would now be living in the hell that is Africa today.
A good parallel is the Harlem Globetrotters. They were so good in the 40's and 50's putting on exhibition games and beating the local teams they played against because blacks were excluded from the NBA. They got all the best black basketball players as a result of that discrimination. Now that blacks dominate the NBA who do the Harlem Globetrotters get? Not the the players with the top ability. They go to the NBA. With colleges, the best blacks go to Harvard and Yale. No need for HBCU.
It goes even further than that. Some black families who've emerged into the middle class actively dissuade their children from attending HBCUs, which are seen as virulently liberal. The emergent black middle class is becoming more and more conservative, and they don't want their kids trapped in liberal educational hell.
Like so many other things, HBCUs have outlived their usefulness in their traditional roles. I personally wish the HBCUs would drop that title (imagine the outrage if the University of Georgia, say, declared itself to be a HWCU) and instead start representing themselves as what they are: an affordable alternative to big name universities, for all racial backgrounds.
I fervently believe in what Dr. King said in his famous speech:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood...I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."
My dream is that ALL of mankind, regardless of race, be regarded not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Maybe I'm an idealist - but I think it's an ideal worth fighting for.
Hi. This is Lindsey from The Right View. Since you found the article, I was just wondering if you know HOW they somehow managed to quote me??? I don't recall interviewing with them. Anyone checked out the article I wrote about Reparations on my site?
I'll pay for one, one-way ticket...
Marable: We'll talk about your complaints right after you pay rent for the land you live on, for where you work, and for where you play. /s/ The 500 American Indian Nations.
PS: If you do win, come visit our new exciting casino and resort!
Reparations?
Of course, but pay them in Confederate dollars.
Nice article, and you know how the press works these days -- why bother interviewing someone when you can put words into their mouth and imply that you actually did work on the article.
*sigh*
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.