Posted on 04/17/2017 1:40:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Almost 250 years of slavery, 100 years of legal segregation and discrimination and over 50 years of redlining and other forms of institutional racism beyond that. All of these factors have led to the disproportionate poverty found in black communities in the United States, and all of them are cause for the need for reparations.
This idea is not without precedent: in 1952, Israel and West Germany signed an agreement that West Germany would pay reparations to Jewish people from Germany in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Reparations are not unheard of even within the context of the United States. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 compensated all survivors of the Japanese-American internment camps with $20,000 each. But despite over 400 years of oppression, the black community in the United States has never received reparations for the damages done to them. Given the existing precedents, it is not unreasonable for reparations to be demanded.
So, who would receive these reparations? Well, William Darity, a public policy professor at Duke University, and Dania Francis, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, proposed two requirements for eligibility: “First, an individual would have to provide reasonable documentation that they had at least one ancestor who was enslaved in the United States, and, second, an individual would have to demonstrate that at least ten years before the onset of the reparations program, they self-identified as black, African American, colored or Negro on a legal document.” This is only one of many possibilities.
How much is owed in reparations? Well, if we take into consideration all slave labor from the late 1700s to 1865, the black American community would be owed $6.4 trillion in 2015 dollars. That calculation is courtesy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by the way, who advocated for reparations for slavery in his 1963 book, “Why We Can’t Wait.” These calculations do not take into account other forms of legal oppression since that time.
It must be admitted that this is most certainly a hefty sum, and certainly one which the United States government could not pay off all at once. An immediate lump-sum payment to each individual is probably not the ideal form of compensation in this case. So, how would reparations be implemented then? The best solution to this problem might be the creation of a series of programs designed to bolster the black American community. These could include a fund to provide scholarships to prospective black college students, low-interest loans for black-owned businesses and a small universal pension for black Americans, all of which would be put in place for several decades.
Needless to say, reparations aren’t going to happen soon. Every two years since 1989, Representative John Conyers has introduced House Resolution 40, which only would create a commission to investigate how, potentially, some form of remedy for the damages caused by slavery might be implemented. Every time it has been introduced, the bill has stalled. Congress remains so firmly opposed to reparations that it refuses to even investigate the possibility of reparations.
These reparations would go a long way to improving conditions for the black American community — but even then, it’s not a cure-all. Alleviating the economic effects of centuries of oppression does not prevent future economic oppression, nor does it do anything to alleviate other forms of systemic prejudice and discrimination. Just as important as material solutions to the effects of racism is sustained work in advancing anti-racist education and activism. It is imperative that people recognize and work to dismantle and destroy systems of oppression in this country and worldwide.
Thanks for reading.
I think I’ll start marking “black” on all documents from now on. LOL
This is incorrect. The civil war was not fought over slavery, it was fought over independence. The Southern states wanted to be independent of Washington D.C. and Washington D.C. was against it.
There were five Union slave states. If the war was over slavery, they could have started fighting Maryland right away. The Union army was already there. The supply lines would have been very short.
Lincoln informed Horace Greeley (Newspaper editor) in August of 1862 that he would keep slavery if it was required to "preserve the Union."
Slavery would be tolerated by the Union. Independence of Washington's control would not.
Collect your reparations from anyone who has held you in slavery.
United States of America born July 4, 1776.
Slavery abolished January December 6, 1865.
The reparations Westmoreland with the lives of 500,000 white people during the Civil War. Never in history have so many people of one race died to liberate those of another.
but it will never be enough...
what is the cost of freedom? so when it is subtracted from the total reparations, the bill has been paid... time to make it on your own.
Reparations are already being paid. Go into any government office and see what you see. Has anyone been to your local DMV? Mine are ALL staffed by minority women and they all have the attitude of a pissed off badger.
The time for this is now. Its been too long. Each slave’s descendant gets their fraction of the slave from whom they descended’s “40 acres and a mule” retroactively. Adjusted for inflation is fine WITH THE PROVISO that back taxes are also due, adjusted for inflation. So you either owe the nation a hell of a tax bill that surely exceeds your takings, or we can compromise and you can shut the hell up forever. Pay up or shut up.
Prefident
The Black Community needs more Booker T. Washingtons and fewer Jesse Jacksons.
They have been getting preferences and what can only be called worship by the media for the last 70 years. It has produced many Blacks who are wealthy but many, many more who are immoral, brutal and cruel.
Hundreds of thousands of white people fought and died to end slavery. How much money do blacks owe the families of the dead to repay them for their sacrifice?
Yep, have one great-great-grandfather in that category, fought with the Union. With interest, the reparation payment ought to be HUUUUUGE.
Don’t owe them a thin dime.
So just plain: no.
“Bogus reasoning and bogus calculations.”
HEY! I had nothing to do with this!
I knew I screwed up the 1861, should have been 1865. but I couldn’t fix it. But the 1789 is Correct. that is the Day the United States became Officially it’s own Country. From 1776 to 1789 it was just a bunch of treasonous subjects challenging the Authority of King George.
How about 40 acres and a John Deere Tractor and some courses in agronomics?
If any American citizen feels they are owed reparations for century-gone slavery, they need to take it up with:
THE BRITISH
THE DUTCH
THE AFICAN TIBAL LEADERS
THEIR MUSLIM PALS
etc... - THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT SLAVERY TO THESE SHORES.
NOT with Americans, who’s ancestors ENDED it.
“This idea is not without precedent”
yes, it is completely without precedent. No nation has paid living people for something that was done before anyone currently living took place.
What a pile of crap.
I already paid reparations to every slave owned by me, by my parents, by my grandparents, by my great-grandparents, by my great-great-grandparents, and by my great-great-great-grandparents. Not satisfied with that, I then paid reparations to the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren of those slaves.
I decided to include 40 acres and a mule, plus $1,000,000 each. That is enough. My bill is paid, and it was not expensive. Of course. There are no surviving slaves, children of slaves, etc., . . . of myself or my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents.
At some point, it’s time to move on. Reparations to the surviving Jews of National Socialist Germany and to their children made sense. Reparations to Jews in the year 2110 would be silly, regardless of how terrible we all agree Germany’s socialists were from 1933 to 1945. Reparations to blacks in America are many generations too late both in terms of the beneficiaries and those who would be expected to pay.
So, whites are collectively responsible for bad things, but not for good things while blacks are individually responsible for bad things but collectively responsible for good things.
I get it now.
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