Rice Says U.S. Blacks Should Not Be Paid for Slavery

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, one of the most influential blacks in the Bush administration, said Sunday she did not think African-Americans should be compensated for the past wrongs of slavery.

Rice said the United Nations conference on racism, which ended in Durban, South Africa, Saturday without U.S. participation, looked too much at the past by focusing on the issue of reparations for slavery and on finding ways to condemn Israel.

Slavery ended in the United States 138 years ago with the stroke of Abraham Lincoln's pen and civil rights leaders such as Jesse Jackson have demanded that blacks be compensated for the injustices of slavery.

Pressed on whether she agreed with Jackson, Rice told NBC's ''Meet the Press'' television program it was more important to focus on current problems than dwell on the past.

``I would hope that we would spend our time thinking about how to deal with today. I would hope we would spend our time thinking about how to educate black children, particularly black children who are caught in poverty.

``I would hope that we would spend our time, as the president has said, turning back the soft bigotry of low expectations against our children,'' she said.

Calling slavery ``America's birth defect,'' Rice said she hoped all leaders -- blacks, whites and immigrants -- would try to grapple with the problems ahead.

``I think reparations, given the fact that there is plenty of blame to go around for slavery, plenty of blame to go around among African and Arab states and plenty of blame to go around among Western states, we are better to look forward and not point fingers backward,'' she said.

Many African nations at the Durban race conference wanted reparations for nearly four centuries of the slave trade but the final conference declaration fell far short of this demand, instead agreeing to fight racism ``wherever it can be found.''

Rich nations strongly resisted African demands for an apology for the slave trade and other past injustices because of fears this could trigger a wave of lawsuits.

Rice said slavery still existed in the world, such as in Sudan, and that the conference should have roundly condemned this rather than focusing on the past.

``I think a lot of time was wasted on issues that were extraneous to the questions that should have been preeminent in the conference and that is how to acknowledge the past, but especially how to move on in the future,'' she said.

Rice reiterated Washington's view that the United States had made the right decision to walk out of the Durban conference and said the meeting was ``hijacked'' by those bent on criticizing Israel.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, the first African American to hold this key post, boycotted the conference altogether over the Israeli issue and ordered a low-level delegation to leave the meeting last Monday.

``This conference spent far too much time in trying to condemn Israel and single it out. I think the United States made the right decision to leave,'' Rice said.''

Arab and Islamic countries had demanded Israel should be branded as racist, language that did not find its way into the final statement when the conference ended Saturday.

. . .this says the most, for the least.

This is the truth that many need to hear. . .learn. . .and remember. And know as well, the status of the 'slave trade' today and who is responsible.

'Reparations'; another dangerous tool of the radical Left/Marxists/Communists to divide the people of our country. . .and so weaken a nation, to make it easier for their agenda, to become our reality. Nothing more.

If you get the chance to catch " Waking Up and Walking Out" by Thomas Sowell, you will find he has written an outstanding article on just this subject. It appeared in the paper today( Sunday 9 sept).

In the article, he credits Colin Powell for calling the US delegation out of the meeting in Durban. He discusses how Jackson and others of his ilk coupled with the assistance of the liberal media have been able to extort millions just by using the word "racism" and how this has hurt the minority community the most. It is far too long to go into here but suffice to say, Sowell then goes into a rather long history of slavery and it's origins. In short, It was Africans who enslaved Africans who then sold them to the slave traders who did their level best not to land in Africa in order to avoid diseases to which they had no immunity.. many sailors died anyway... In addition to the African slave trade habits, Sowell details the Arab connection as well. He credits Western civilization as regarding slavery as morally wrong and at the same time, having guilt over it. Further, he mentions countries where slavery is still practiced yet little is mentioned about it because there is NO MONEY TO BE MADE FROM IT!. In his conclusion Sowell remarks that if the US walking out on the confrence against racism representsan awakening to the scams being played and just maybe this is a healthy sign not only for the US but for the international scene as well.

I hope you can find the article and read it in total.. it will be an article worth keeping.

I hope to make a few quick points on Slavery and try to change the mindset of some shortsighted individuals. First even though all the people who were enslaved have a point it is very misplaced as to who must pay for this slavery issue, they are only focusing on the most recent events in modern times. There has been much slavery in the world over thousands and thousands of years. From the ancient Middle East, as elsewhere, slavery is attested from the very earliest written records, among the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and other ancient peoples.

Both the Old and New Testaments recognize and accept the institution of slavery. Both from time to time insist on the basic humanity of the slave, and the consequent need to treat him humanely. The Jews are frequently reminded, in both Bible and Talmud, that they too were slaves in Egypt and should therefore treat their slaves decently. Psalm 123, which compares the worshipper's appeal to God for mercy with the slave's appeal to his master, is cited to enjoin slave owners to treat their slaves with compassion. From many allusions, it is clear that slavery is accepted in the New Testament as a fact of life. Some passages in the Pauline Epistles even endorse it.

There appear indeed to have been some who opposed slavery, usually as it was practiced but sometimes even as such. In the Greco-Roman world, both the Cynics and the Stoics are said to have rejected slavery as contrary to justice, some basing their opposition on the unity of the human race, and the Roman jurists even held that slavery was contrary to nature and maintained only by "human" law.

The Qur'an, like the Old and the New Testaments, assumes the existence of slavery. The Qur'an was promulgated in Mecca and Medina in the seventh century, and the background against which Qur'anic legislation must be seen is ancient Arabia. The Arabs practiced a form of slavery, similar to that which existed in other parts of the ancient world. The Qur'an accepts the institution, though it may be noted that the word 'abd (slave) is rarely used, being more commonly replaced by some periphrasis such as ma malakat aymanukum, "that which your right hands own."

I can go on and on about Slavery over the years. The Slave population of the Islamic world, The Central and East European slaves. The Ottoman and also the Persian states enslaving the Georgians, Caucasians, and related people all consider white people. How about mid-nineteenth-century Turks, enslaving "trained, strong, black male slave and white slave girls of special beauty, whether for work or pleasure. Not to mention the Arabs were doing what the Romans and the Chinese had done centuries before them. Finally we get to a more modern time in which Native American tribes enslaving others from other tribes, all the way up to and including African Slavery in America.

The descendants of those who captured and sold the slaves in the first place are demanding to be paid reparations for slavery. We all should be ashamed and learn from our human past mistakes and move on with more serious issues, like poverty, homelessness, crime, terrorism, race relations, etc. My point being that there has been slavery from the beginning of recorded time, and I bet that if each of us looks hard enough we will find somewhere in our family past a point when our ancestries were slaves. So will we make every person on the planet pay every other person on the planet so that we can all feel good about having given an apology for the slave trade and other past injustices because of fears this could trigger a wave of lawsuits. It is now time to live for the future not the past.

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