The Case For Reparations: 40 Acres and a Mule Would Cost America at Least $6.4 Trillion Today

The Atlanta Black Star ^ | May 23, 2015 | David A. Love

[robowombat]

‘to my understanding the whole 40 acres and a mule thing was a promise and being made by certain carpetbagger politicians to get elected.obviously, no one ever passed any such law and nobody owes anybody 40 acres or a mule.’

There were several authors. Interestingly one was William T Herman who wanted blacks settled on abandoned lands and given a government mule and some food and seed so they could raise their own food and not be permanent recipients of army rations handed out by the Freedman’s Bureau. Curiously by the late 1890’s the United Confederate Veterans passed motions supporting the 40 acres scheme. The idea was the US government would pay for the land and livestock and that would pump cash into the perennial cash starved South as well as settle indigent blacks on small place that were theirs thus reducing the incredible poverty of these people and take some of the pressure of competition off white tenant and share croppers. Life in the post bellum rural south was one of perpetual struggle to try and just tread water and keep from drowning or to use another analogy like being in a room where the oxygen was being steadily pumped out.

[bk1000]

“There was no promise of money or land or a mule...”

It was the carpetbaggers from the north, the ones who started it all in the first place, who offered stolen land and a mule for cooperation come ‘lection time. As a southerner, I accept no blame, feel no guilt, and owe no debt.

[clearcarbon]

"Sould reparations due under such a reparations scheme also from descendents of black freemen who owned slaves?"

Are the Caucasian light featured decedents of slaves also entitled to reparations?

[Nifster]

I think we ought to deduct the blood and treasure spent in the Civil War

[Darteaus94025]

Fine: A one time payoff, permanent end to all welfare, housing, food stamps, etc., an end to all quotas and racial preferences in education and hiring, no more race hucksters AND relocation to one’s continent of ancestry.

[dfwgator]

Chapelle Show - Reparations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg6J1Skptbs

[rawcatslyentist]

>Moreover, some people have estimated what the nation actually owes Black people.

We do owe them. A bus ticket to afreakuh!

If they behave in a recidivist savage manner, they don't belong here! They belong back in the jungle!

[Amagi]

Some Food for Thought:

• An entire continent --- Africa --- has for centuries past and continues in the present to abound with slavery and tribalism and yet it remains an impoverished, disease ridden, under-achieving socialist crap hole.
• What is the The War of Poverty if not reparations? $22 trillion in transfer payments that destroyed the urban black nuclear family but created an entitlement mentality and the DEMAND for ever more reparations.

[Theophilus]

I guess the rivers of blood that were shed in CWI were just a down payment. Ole Ben Affleck must be a shakin in his boots.

[GeronL]

$150,000 each, renunciation of citizenship and a airline ticket to their new country!

[Shimmer1]

Also....why even think about giving every single descendant this? Even if you were in favor of reparations, which I am not, for several reasons, you wouldn’t give every descendant what one ancestor would get. And 4 million black slaves? Really? I don’t think so. I don’t believe that number for one second. And how many were slaves for 246 years? 15? 100? Not many. What unadulterated bilge.

[Kozak]

Tack on the cost ( with compounded interest) for the free trip from Africa....

[OldSmaj]

If you were to guess how much the United States owes Black people in economic damages for slavery, how much would it be?

Not one damned penny.

And I will defend that to the death.

[Svartalfiar]

He calculated that value of the stolen labor was $3.7 trillion, or 2 million slaves working 10 hours a day, 365 days a year for 70 years (between 1790 and 1860) at a rate of $7.25 an hour. Applying a 2 percent interest rate compounded annually, he reached the $59.2 trillion figure.

Huh. Per the site below, I get a figure of average wages being between $.09 and $.18 per hour. So that's about 60 times less. Not even gonna get into his other numbers. And, as other posters have mentioned, how should that divvy up? Wouldn't we have to determine a per-slave money, then track descendants and split each slave's money between all their descendants? Of course, each recipient would have any welfare/food stamps/gov handouts fully subtracted from their share first. (Including welfare their ancestors in between received!)

http://outrunchange.com/2012/06/14/typical-wages-in-1860-through-1890/

[publius911]

The Case For Reparations: 40 Acres and a Mule Would Cost America at Least $6.4 Trillion Today

Let's have a vote on that.
I would support the 40 acres and a mule to every ex-slave who shows up and claims them.

The ignorant, stupid, arrogant, entitled thugs with no education, no skills, no language skills and no ability even to dress themselves properly, with not so much as minute under the yoke of slavery,not so much...

[Defiant]

I don’t think 40 acres and a mule to every person who was enslaved would cost us very much.

[AMDG&BVMH]

Some Native Americans also owned black slaves. Of course Indian tribes were no strangers to slavery . . .

[DoodleDawg]

This is why reparations make so much sense...

Not to me.

[GenXteacher]

Number 3 in that list is definitely a lie. If anything, the exact opposite is true.

[MuttTheHoople]

However, since most American blacks are part-white (and some descended from Democrat slaveholders who raped their Great-great Grandmothers), they have to have the white part of their reparations deducted.

Also, those of us descended from Union soldiers who liberated the slaves also get a handling charge.

Reparations is great!