Built with bondage (Mega reparations barf alert)

The Raleigh News and Observer ^ | June 26, 2005 | JIM NESBITT

[Lee'sGhost]

This is the main article. There are several supporting op/ed pieces that go with it.

[Lee'sGhost]

An NC ping, if you please.

[Semper Paratus]

Those that have investments in Wachovia now have to consider if those assets are at risk because of Wachovia's admission.

[meema]

bump to read later

[Prost1]

The debt has been repaid. The blacks were freed at the cost of blood and lives of 100,000s of men, mostly all white.

The debt has been repaid thru education grants, minority grants, welfare and other plantation programs.

The debt is not owed because I am not a descendant of anyone in America at the time and I own noone. No illegal or legal immigrant post 1860 were slave owners. And, let us not forget, there is Liberia, the new black African paradise.

[bwteim]

I'd say something smart a* like, I can't reply because I am busy figuring out how to repay for sins I didn't commit - but instead I'll comment that there are some who would be not be satisfied until we have a Mugabe here who would seize every white-owned property and turn it over.

Come to think of it, the Kelo v New London SCOTUS ruling may provide ammo to some industrious leftist infatuated with Mugabe who can convince your city or county fathers that a greater public good is served by you turning over your 40 acres to another group.

[Lee'sGhost]

No, no, no. According to the bill's sponsor, Rep. John Conyers, there would be no negative impact at all.

THE N&O: Are you at all afraid the requirement might drive away prospective vendors?

JONES: No, especially because the legislation has no penalties. Many of these corporations already have foundations and charitable giving. Worst-case scenario, if they have any conscience at all, they can say, "Let's focus half of this giving on this segment of the population that has made us a multibillion-dollar corporation."

-----

See. No problem. No consequences.

[muir_redwoods]

Compare the "plight" of the slaves' descendants with the joy experienced by the descendants of the folks who escaped the slavers and stayed in Africa. Then tell me again what the people, who are simply the same color as the slavers, owe.

[IronJack]

Do modern-day American businesses have a duty-bound debt to the descendants of black slaves who helped build this nation?

This question raises a crucial answer: No.

[TGOGary]

Let's see, in order for them to get shipped here they first had to be captured by their own people, If they want free land so bad let them go back to Africa and reclaim land there. Oh wait, they can't, they would be shot, again by their own people.

[Lee'sGhost]

I'm still waiting for the euphemistically named African Americans to THANK the white America that freed them from slavery, died doing it, gave them equal rights, gave them and continue to give them welfare, etc., etc., etc. . .

[Jokelahoma]

Can they collect reparations from the corrupt Nigerian politicians who've stolen $220 BILLION dollars in western aid? Seems they'd have plenty of money to share, and since African leaders were complicit in the capture and sale of their kinsman to slave traders, well...

[WideGlide]

..disclose whether they or their predecessors profited directly or indirectly from slavery.."

Which group representing slave descendants do I petition for reparations for the death of my great-great grandfather who was a Union Army conscript that died in a Confederate prison camp. My family never owned slaves. They were just a bunch of immigrant miners and dirt farmers.

Robert Johnson (BET) is a billionaire. He's probably feeling a little ashamed of all the money he's stolen from European-Americans. He must owe my family something. Or Oprah. She be rich. How about Magic Johnson? Will Smith. Chris Rock. Snoop. Fitty Cent. Aight then. Don't be axing me bout no mo damn reparations.

[IronJack]

Those that have investments in Wachovia now have to consider if those assets are at risk because of Wachovia's admission.

Correct. And if I were a stockholder, I would raise holy hell at the next shareholders meeting. The board that rolled over for these shakedown hucksters would be out on its butt. And I would pull every dime I had out of that company and its banks.

This kind of cowardice should be punished surely and swiftly.

[righttackle44]

". . .the Kelo v New London SCOTUS ruling may provide ammo to some industrious leftist infatuated with Mugabe who can convince your city or county fathers that a greater public good is served by you turning over your 40 acres to another group."

They can have my mule when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

[SampleMan]

Some form of reparations from slave owners may have been a good idea c. 1865, but broaching it today is complete silliness.

One could make a very good case that the death of around 1,000,000 white Americans and the tremendous destruction of Southern properties during the Civil War was a reparation paid in blood.

I'd love to hear Jessie Jackson answer to why a white American with roots to a 1910 immigrant, should pay reparations to a "black" American with predominantly Carribean immigrant roots, for something that happened here before 1865.

[GregoryFul]

The problem is that the hearts of those who benefited from slavery have to be changed before reparations can be considered. It cannot be forced by legal or legislative act, else hell break loose. It seems to me to be right for those who benefited from a now realized injustice, to be made whole by those who benefited. It would be very difficult to determine those groups. And there are lots of historic grievances to consider. But there is no reason to throw up ones hands in the air because it is difficult.

Today, we have computers. With them, we can reconstruct a history of those who benefited and enabled, and those who lost through a system of slavery, which is now known to have been immoral and inexcusable. With those reconstructions, let us assess those who benefited, and from their excess profits, lets compensate those who suffered from the economic effects of their slavery.

But we also need to address other forms of oppression, totally immoral and currently illegal - race discrimination, sexual discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, cultural discrimination, class discrimination, religious discrimination, facial feature discrimination, height discrimination, weight discrimination, age discrimination, sense of humor discrimination, aggressive-passive discrimination, good-fellowness discrimination, chance or accident of birth discrimination, luck discrimination, etc.

It is essential that every aspect of one's inherited profit or loss be computed on some giant electronic computer, and their current morally correct equivalent economic position be determined, then fair compensation to be adjudicated for award to the "losers" by the "winners" in the unfair competition saddled on them by the past.

Egad! It is about time!

[LS]

Since the majority of black slaves to the Northern Hemisphere went to CUBA, then any and all discussions of "reparations" must begin with what CUBA is going to pay to Africa.

[Maceman]

Given that the Democrat Party is 100% complicit both in slavery and Jim Crow laws, I wonder when Howard Dean will announce that the party will take all the money in its coffers and contribute it to the Rainbow Coalition.