Posted on 02/06/2020 10:15:22 AM PST by karpov
“Turks should be paying reparations to the countries from which the slaves were taken—Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Italy, etc.”
That is an issue you should raise with the Turkish Ambassador in Washington, D.C.
1. I am a Georgetown alumnus (1983), so I have more than a little interest in this situation.
2. As best as I can analyze this situation, none of the people who sold the slaves are alive, and the likelihood is that ALL of them died during the 1800s (i.e. 62 years after this incident occurred).
3. As best as I can analyze this situation, none of the people who were slaves and who were sold in 1838 are still alive, and the likelihood is that most of them died before 1900 and that all of them died before 1920 (i.e. more than 100 years ago).
4. While I think that it is appropriate for Georgetown University to state publicly that what was done in 1838 was wrong, I do not think that paying money from people that did nothing wrong, to people who suffered no wrong, is either logical or proper.
To put that last part into perspective, at the time that this sale took place, all of my direct lineal ancestors were living under the rule of the Czar of Russia and, being Jews, they were most definitely oppressed (not to the extent of being slaves, to be sure, but they were oppressed nonetheless). I have never even thought of the possibility of deserving reparations. Further, one of my great grandfathers, who was suffering from esophogeal cancer at the time, was mercilessly beaten on two separate occasions by the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB and today’s FSA. This occurred in 1936 and 1937, and I personally witnessed the anguish that my grandfather experienced because of this, after he returned from a trip to his family in 1969. But, again, I have never even thought of the possibility of deserving reparations.
This “reparations” crap simply HAS to stop. People who did nothing wrong have no legal OR MORAL obligation to pay anything to people who did not directly suffer harm. That someone (or an entire nation) could offer to make such payment and carry that through (like Germany did with reparation payments to Jews across the world who suffered losses - financial and in terms of relatives murdered - during the Holocaust) is admirable. But when too much time, too many generations, have passed, what we are dealing with is nothing less than a blood libel or “corruption of the blood” (the latter of which is prohibited even for treason in our Constitution).
Apologies are nice. Really, they are. But without action to follow up on mere words, they are just that - words. But the very best way to apologize for a wrong is to make sure that it will never happen again to the actual victims, or to anyone else. Since slavery has been illegal in this country since 1865 (155 years), and there is no one that I’ve even heard of who is calling for its reinstatement, I think that it is pretty safe to say that slavery won’t happen again in this country. As to the follow-up to slavery, the “Jim Crow” laws, they have been illegal since at least 1964, with no prospect for the reinstatement of them, either (and thankfully so). We have had a mixed-race, half-black, President of the United States - which is quite an accomplishment regardless of how you view that person as a politician. So we as a nation have made our apology and backed it up with a long and solid history which speaks to that and related injustices never being repeated in the future. IOW, we’re done.
Georgetown University is damned foolish if it pays out any more in reparations. But that is their decision - I, as an alumnus, will simply not be giving any contributions to the University so long as it continues paying money to 7th and 8th generation descendants of slaves that the institution sold very long ago.
So how much has this sum reached in the 2 hours since you wrote this? ... A neverending bar tab!
If you tried to send reparations to decendants, then how do you calculate? $1 million in today’s money for each sold slave? Suppose Mary has 100 living descendants and Judy has 200, do Judy’s descendants only get half as much? Suppose you your great grandparents were cousins both descended from Mary, and you descend from Judy also, do you get three shares?
What if your gr gr grandfather crossed the color line, passed for white, and never looked back?
Adoptions? Father’s maybe baby?
Imagine the free for all of attorneys and genealogists, all sorts of people enrolling in DNA testing services, all the unlocked for consequences there.
If you tried to send reparations to decendants, then how do you calculate? $1 million in today’s money for each sold slave? Suppose Mary has 100 living descendants and Judy has 200, do Judy’s descendants only get half as much? Suppose you your great grandparents were cousins both descended from Mary, and you descend from Judy also, do you get three shares?
What if your gr gr grandfather crossed the color line, passed for white, and never looked back?
Adoptions? Father’s maybe baby?
Imagine the free for all of attorneys and genealogists, all sorts of people enrolling in DNA testing services, all the unlocked for consequences there.
I certainly respect your thoughtful approach!
“Tear down that school!”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The Black Community in the 70s were telling us that they were Cleopatra’s people and gold Cleopatra necklaces were in vogue, and now they are against slavery; their family tree in Africa still has its current share of slavery. One might go so far as to say prostitution is an economic from of slavery.
So did I, and I almost stood up and clapped.
This is so long overdue.
So slavery for any one not black to assuage slavery is the answer? Rhetorical question. It’s appalling what people demand for color of skin and not content of character.
Democrats keeping people in slavery to this day.
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