Posted on 03/30/2021 9:34:44 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Whites were slaves in North Africa before Blacks were slaves in America so, who owes whom reparations?
DISCLAIMER FOR THE EASILY TRIGGERED: Slavery is wrong. I make no apologies for it. None of the research presented herein is intended to lessen the injustice of African slavery in America or slavery in any incarnation. If you disagree with what I have researched and decide to call me a (insert your insult here) I will say now, that you’re rubber and I’m glue. What you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Such is my present-day retort and likely my future rebuttal, should I feel so inclined. If you’re still curious as to why I posted this disclaimer, read on.
So, today, someone shared with me this article from Fox News, “Evanston, Illinois first in US to pay reparations to Black residents” and here are some quotes from that article.
The City Council in Evanston, Ill., voted 8-1 late Monday to approve a plan to make reparations available to Black residents over past discrimination and the lingering effects of slavery.
The plan, which could be the first of its kind in the U.S., is to distribute $400,000 to eligible Black households. The Associated Press reported that qualifying households in the city of 73,000 would be eligible to receive $25,000 for home repairs or down payments on property.
Ald. Robin Rue Simmons, the lawmaker who proposed the initiative back in 2019, called the approval a first step but said more needs to be done.
“It is, alone, not enough,” she said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We all know that the road to repair and justice in the Black community is going to be a generation of work. It’s going to be many programs and initiatives and more funding.”
Further down in the article it reads…
Qualifying residents must either have lived in or been a direct descendant of a Black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 to 1969 and who suffered discrimination in housing because of city ordinances, policies or practices.
The article reminded me of a conversation I had with a very dear friend of mine about race issues in America. (My friend happens to be white.) She asked me what percentage of black people would likely hold her personally responsible for slavery? I told her that I could not quantify a percentage but likely many African Americans would hold her personally responsible for the sins of her ancestors because of news reports like this.
Now, I’ve heard several arguments made for reparations on numerous occasions, but I tend to reject them. Why? For me, it always comes down to this – who should pay?
The topic of reparations for African Americans is a topic that has been discussed ad nauseum and typically for political advantage. Case in point, here’s a quote the Washington Times. The headline reads, “California moves to consider reparations for slavery.” The date of the article is August 29, 2020.
California lawmakers are setting up a task force to study and make recommendations for reparations to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves, as the nation struggles again with civil rights and unrest following the latest shooting of a Black man by police.
The state Senate supported creating the nine-member commission on a bipartisan 33-3 vote Saturday. The measure returns to the Assembly for a final vote before lawmakers adjourn for the year on Monday, though Assembly members overwhelmingly already approved an earlier version of the bill.
“Let’s be clear: Chattel slavery, both in California and across our nation, birthed a legacy of racial harm and inequity that continues to impact the conditions of Black life in California,” said Democratic Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles.
She cited disproportionate homelessness, unemployment, involvement in the criminal justice system, lower academic performance and higher health risks during the coronavirus pandemic.
Although California before the Civil War was officially a free state, Mitchell listed legal and judicial steps state officials took at the time to support slavery in Southern states while repressing Blacks.
The legislation would require the task force to conduct a detailed study of the impact of slavery in California and recommend to the Legislature by July 2023 the form of compensation that should be awarded, how it should be awarded, and who should be should be eligible for compensation.
The panel, which would start meeting no later than June 2021, could also recommend other forms of rehabilitation or redress.
A sober minded person might ask, what does slavery that happened centuries ago have to do with today’s homelessness, unemployment, health risks associated with the coronavirus and the other social issues mentioned in that quote? Outside of inciting the passions of would-be voters, what immediate benefit does it provide to the people of California?
When reparations are discussed it is typically proposed that the US government should be paying African Americans an undetermined amount of money for the suffering inflicted upon their ancestors by all the white people in America. If we look at this logically and without angry rhetoric, that argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. To illustrate that, let me share with you some inconvenient facts.
Inconvenient fact #1: Very few white people in America owned slaves.
Inconvenient fact #2: Native Americans owned and traded in slaves!
Inconvenient fact #3: African Americans owned slaves too
Should white people today be forced to pay reparations when only 1.6 percent of whites during the slavery era owned slaves? Should we demand payment from Native Americans and African Americans as well? Both groups owned African American slaves too. I could go on but, no, I’ll share a bit more.
Inconvenient fact #4: Whites Were Slaves in North Africa Before Blacks Were Slaves in America
I am quoting a 2004 article now from Ohio State News.”
A new study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 – a far greater number than had ever been estimated before. In a new book, Robert Davis, professor of history at Ohio State University, developed a unique methodology to calculate the number of white Christians who were enslaved along Africa’s Barbary Coast, arriving at much higher slave population estimates than any previous studies had found.
Most other accounts of slavery along the Barbary coast didn’t try to estimate the number of slaves, or only looked at the number of slaves in particular cities, Davis said. Most previously estimated slave counts have thus tended to be in the thousands, or at most in the tens of thousands. Davis, by contrast, has calculated that between 1 million and 1.25 million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa from the 16th to 18th centuries.
Davis’s new estimates appear in the book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800 (Palgrave Macmillan).
Now, should today’s white people demand reparations from today’s black people for the crime of enslaving their ancestors for two centuries? For some reason, lack of education mostly, so many people in America believe that America created the institution of slavery. I assure you America did not invent slavery. A cursory glance into a bible proves that. But, I digress, because I am veering off from something, I really want to say in 3 points.
No doubt, some of you reading this will have a problem with what I’ve shared. Perhaps, you are calling me names now. (No doubt. Its why I posted the disclaimer at the beginning.) If so, let me leave you with one final quote where a certain group is demanding social justice because of slavery. This quote is from BBC News.
The West is being asked to pay Africa $777 [trillion] within five years in reparation for enslaving Africans while colonising the continent. The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, meeting in Accra for its first international conference, also called for all international debt owed by Africa to be “unconditionally cancelled”.
The Accra Declaration issued at the conference says that money will be demanded from ”all those nations of Western Europe and the Americas and institutions, who participated and benefited from the slave trade and colonialism”.
The conference, co-chaired by Dr Hamet Maulana and Mrs Debra Kofie, announced plans to set up an international team of lawyers from Africa and the diaspora to pursue all legal means to collect the money. The group will also be contacting the International Court of Justice, as well as the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity for assistance.
Mrs Kofie told the BBC the reparation figure was based on the number of human lives lost to Africa during the slave-trade, as well as an assessment of the worth of the gold, diamonds and other minerals taken from the continent during colonial rule.
She says Africa’s turn has come. “We are the only group that have not received reparations. The Jewish people have received reparations. The native Americans have received reparations. The Korean comfort women and so-on and so forth,” she said.
The declaration added that all those in the diaspora, who want to return and settle in Africa, should be allowed to do so and that those who enslaved and colonised Africa should provide seaworthy vessels and aircraft for such repatriation.
The date of that article from BBC News is August 20, 1999.
Thanks for reading this far. I know it was a rather long rant today. A shorter one tomorrow. (I think. It all depends on what I read.)
Jim Stroud
P.S. Did you know that reparations were actually paid to slaves after the Civil War? This was thanks to a measure initiated by Abraham Lincoln (R). However, after his assassination, his Vice President – Andrew Johnson (D) assumed power and reversed it. Click here to listen to my podcast where I discuss that bit of history. (Or, just listen to it below.)
Where are the reparations for SEX SLAVE victims?
The slave traders were also black.
I was shocked to see Obamas buddy Henry Louis
Gates actually tell the truth about this
The get free pizza. No ... wait, they were the pizza.
No money should be given to anyone for “slave reparations”...
No whites, blacks, yellows, reds, or browns...PERIOD....
You want money??? Get a job...
Money will be printed and sent to non-white people.
Everyone will pay with higher inflation.
There is no justice in this world.
Snowflakes and crybabies probably have more to answer for injustice they’ve done than the perceived ‘injustice’ they feel they’ve received.
Actually, since I grew up lefthanded and always had to play “right field closed” unless there were enough kids to field entire teams, I demand reparations from all right-handed people.
The native Americans have received reparations.”
hmmmm...interesting take.
I’m not sure that (known, living) victims of communism in USSR/Eastern Europe have actually received any reparations.
I think the author makes some excellent points, and brings much moral clarity to this.
Hmmmm... interesting how that is worded. I think you have it backwards.
Blacks in Africa forced my people out of the continent a million years ago, and we had to journey across Asia and over the Bering Sea and down the coast of North America until they had to settle in what is today’s central coast of California.
There they had to eat acorns for f’in breakfast, lunch and dinner. Do you know what it is like to eat acorns for every meal?
Blacks owe me bigtime for these injustices and I figured out on my excel spreadsheet that they owe me, adjusted for inflation, approximately $1.2 billion dollars. As a courtesy I’ll round it down to an even billion.
I want it with a cashiers check or in Bitcoin.....
bitches
:-)
There was always first base...
NEXT!!!!!!!!!!
they are usually women so, nope.
Actually in some cases they have. I have in CA. It started my passbook savings account in Sunnyvale, CA at the Wells Fargo branch.
Reparations to decedents of white Union soldiers who died to free them.
There was no slave trade without African cooperation as Europeans,in those times, succumbed to tropical diseases rather quickly once they ventured more than a day’s journey from the coast. Tribal warfare and raids of the strong upon the weak brought prisoners to coastal locations where payment was made. People deliberately forget that the triangle trade paid off Africans.
I think every single person in the world should each send me a dollar just for dignifying the world with my presence...
There are no arguments. Black people alive in America today are not slaves. Were not slaves. Are not children of slaves. Are not even grandchildren of slaves. A very few may be great grandchildren of slaves. But by that token, they may very well be great grand children of slave owners as well.
No white people owned slaves. Their parents did not own slaves. Their grand parents did not own slaves. A very small number of white people had a great grand parent who may have owned slaves.
But going back further, there is no evidence that white people are more likely to have ancestors who owned slaves than black people. We know that every civilization traces back to slave ownership. So everyone is very likely to trace to an ancestor who was a slave. And most people can trace back to a slave owner.
Does America, as a country, a system, a culture owe African Americans anything. No. African Americans have benefited greatly from being American. Look at their quality of life, life expectancy, and wealth compared to Africans. They are huge winners. They owe their lives and livelihoods to the American system.
We have a few communists who would love to tear down America. With the help of colleges and the media, they are doing a good job of it. But most people would love to live here rather than anywhere else.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.