Posted on 05/19/2017 11:54:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
ALBANY, N.Y. >> Legislators rolled out a bill Tuesday to create a state commission on the impact of slavery on New York and what kind of reparations should be made to the descendants of freed slaves.
“We’re always being studied,” said one of the bill’s sponsors, Assembly member Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn). “Every time I turn around we’re being studied... so here’s one, how about studying the history of slavery in New York State.”
“Most people believe that slavery was a southern thing, it was mostly southern states,” he said, but most do not know New York City had more slaves than any city in the U.S. beside Charleston, S.C.
The bill calls for a one-year study of all historical aspects of slavery in New York and its residual impact today. Five of the 14 members of the commission would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, with the rest picked by The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, the December 12th Movement, and by Dr. Ron Daniels of the Institute of the Black World. The three groups are black cultural and nationalist groups.
Barron said the bill is new and he decided to put it out as a relatively new member of the Legislature. Barron is a longtime activist in New York City. In Albany, he once got into a shouting match with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and at a Black and Puerto Rican Caucus conference; in the Assembly, he was one of only a few legislators to vote against electing Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver before he was indicted and later convicted and stripped of his office.
The bill says during the colonial period slaves accounted for 20 percent of the state population, and 40 percent of households in the state owned slaves. “These slaves were an integral part of the population which settled and developed what he now know as New York,” starting with the arrival of the first slaves in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s, the bill says.
“There are crimes against humanity and crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations ... Certain crimes have no statute of limitations and slavery is one of those crimes,” said Sen. James Sanders Jr. (D-Queens), the Senate sponsor of the measure.
“To look at me you will know someone survived at the bottom of a ship, shackled to a stranger, someone with whom he or she could not speak because the languages were not the same,” said Assembly Deputy Speaker Earlene Hooper (D-Nassau County). “Someone survived. We are the strongest people on the face of the earth to be able to survive a crossing of that type.”
Assembly member Victor Pichardo (D-Bronx) said the repercussions of slavery are still seen in New York in housing and other areas. “To this day there are clauses in specific deeds in Long Island and in upstate New York where folks of color cannot buy homes,” he said. “This exists and to this day we are dealing with the idea and the suppression, from the highest levels of government, of voter suppression and there have been voter I.D. laws across the nation.”
He said a study commission would “create a true remedy to the crimes and the sins that this country has committed, particularly to folks of African descent ... it’s not about financial justice, it is about justice overall. It’s about receiving what is due to our communities and for the United States to actually come to grips with and recognize the horrors of slavery and how it has damaged communities and families to this day.”
Legislators said that reparations have been paid to the Jewish victims of the Nazis, and to the families of Japanese-Americans put into internment camps during World War II. Descendants of freed slaves should also be compensated.
The bill establishes “the Commission to Study Reparations for African-Americans and to Recommend Remedies,” and part of its charge would be to appropriate money for compensation.
Slavery was well established in New York for 200 years and the last slave was not freed until 1827, after a gradual freeing of slave beginning in 1799. Slavery was widespread on Long Island, the Hudson Valley and the Mohawk Valley.
New York City had an active slave market for most of the 18th century, and the state was one of the first colonies to pass a law proscribing the death penalty for a slave who murdered or tried to kill his or her master.
“To look at me you will know someone survived at the bottom of a ship, shackled to a stranger, someone with whom he or she could not speak because the languages were not the same,” said Assembly Deputy Speaker Earlene Hooper (D-Nassau County). “Someone survived. We are the strongest people on the face of the earth to be able to survive a crossing of that type.”
Poor Ms. Hooper. She was chained to the bottom of a ship. All the melodrama set aside, you know what else can survive long voyages in the bottom of a ship, Ms. Hooper? Cockroaches. Also, parasites and many varieties of intestinal worms.
I don’t mean to be ugly, but I’m sick of hearing about “muh slabery”. None of these incompetent half-wits had to ever endure anything worse than a late welfare check.
Slavery in NYS ended in the 1830’S.
Think about that; instead of the “400 years of slavery” repeated ad nauseum by gibsmedats, NY had slavery for 50 years - and it ended nearly 200 years ago...
Not really: The slave “owners” just switched places. Now, whites are expected to toil away to keep these parasites in foodstamps and housing vouchers. How else can these poor slaves be expected to have the strength and rest necessary to get up at night to rob liquor stores, and rape old white women in the subway?
This proposition makes as much sense as enslaving current recipients of public assistance who have never paid taxes. I would support that as strongly as these people would like to attach themselves to my paycheck,
....and how many apparently white citizens today have a percentage of ancestry that were slaves, and how loudly will the left bowl about whites getting reparations?
I disagree. My Celtic ancestors were slaves to the Romans. I want reparations for that crime from 2,000 years ago, with interest. In fact, at one point the Romans considered Britons too stupid to be slaves. I lie awake nights burning over that ancient insult. I still weep for our murdered queen Boadicea. Only reparations from the Italians will make that right.
Except that the U.S. did not exist prior to 1776, when the Colonies declared their Independence... and then had to fight for it. If 'they', need to exact their own justice, go to Europe & deliver the bill.
But as Europeans were logistics & marketing, better head to Africa first, that's where the meat markets began...
These people have ruined AMERICA.
By the way, my ancestor was a subject to King Ludwig. By definition he was a slave.
It isn’t about “who would pay”.
It would be a DISASTER!!!
It would cause a second Civil War. A real SHOOTING war.
Reparations is the WORST possible threat to our nation.
We would ALL pay for it ....... in BLOOD.
Check out this link.
If the author is correct, pensions and other benefits actually cost more than the war did. That’s the cost in treasure. The blood spilled was priceless.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/warcosts.html
This is so they can avoid taking responsibility for their failures. By blaming today’s Whitey for things done by dead Whiteys, they avoid facing the FACT that their pathologies are self-inflicted.
Guilt does not pass through the genes. It does not jump from a guilty person to a person with a similar skin shade. Responsibility is not collective, it is for one and one individual only.
plenty of irish in metro NYC are going to get a windfall
We know what color meat deblasio likes! :)
The great irony will be the next step: upstate NY counties seceding from the state.
Reading this story I noticed that all the purveyors of this open pit of nonsense happen to have a (D) behind their names. Is that coincidence?
Mine served in the Union Army and survived. I’ll second your proposal.
Time to start looking for a place in Mexico? or Canada?
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Cowards run and hide. Patriots stand and fight! Choose your side.
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