John Conyers: U.S. Owes Slavery Reparations

Newsmax ^ | 5/9/06

[peggybac]

John Conyers: U.S. Owes Slavery Reparations

The left wing Democrat who will become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if his party wins back Congress in November wants to hold full blown congressional hearings on whether the government should pay African Americans reparations for slavery.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers has attracted attention in recent months for his House resolution calling for an impeachment investigation against President Bush.

But another Conyers cause-celeb is reparations, which he's been advocating since 1989, when he first introduced legislation to establish what he calls, "The Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African American Act." ( H.R. 40)

In a press release posted to his official congressional web site, Conyers explains how he intends to handle the hot-button issue.

"My bill does four things:

• It acknowledges the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery.

• It establishes a commission to study slavery, its subsequent racial and economic discrimination against freed slaves.

• It studies the impact of those forces on today's living African Americans.

• The commission would then make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies to redress the harm inflicted on living African Americans."

Conyers says:

"I chose the number of the bill, 40, as a symbol of the forty acres and a mule that the United States initially promised freed slaves. This unfulfilled promise and the serious devastation that slavery had on African-American lives has never been officially recognized by the United States Government . . . " He goes on:

"Just as we've discussed the Holocaust, and Japanese interment camps, and to some extent the devastation that the colonists inflicted upon the Indians, we must talk about slavery and its continued effects."

Though Conyers reintroduces his reparations resolution every year, would-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has never indicated whether she'd back the controversial proposal.

[TheCrusader]

"Not 6 generations in my family."

Not to nitpick, but a generation isn't the lifespan of a man. I regard it as being roughly 25 years from one generation to another. Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation about 143 years ago. Divide 143 years by 25 and you get roughly six generations to take advantage of freedom. Yes, there was prejudice afterwards, but every race who came here had to face prejudice, especially the European settlers who were, (contrary to what modern history books claim), constantly attacked and butchered by the indigenous peoples. In Colonial times Catholics were driven out of villages, their homes and churches burned to the ground, the priests hanged or sent to England to be tried as "heretics".

My grandmother, born in 1885, told us many stories about the brutality, prejudice and outright oppression the Irish faced in America for many, many years. I've seen American newspaper illustrations from the 1800's that depicted the Irish as alligators washing up on America's shores. I'm sure many people know about the "NINA" signs in American store windows in the 1800's and early 1900s, ("No Irish Need Apply").

But no matter how you decide to define a "generation", or no matter how you define "oppression", the blacks of America have had 143 years to pick themselves up and make things work for them. Actually, it's been a lot longer than 143 years since slavery was abolished when you consider that the North abolished it long before the Emancipation Proclamation. No one alive today owes any black person 'reparations'. The whole idea just creates more division amongst the American people, and keeps many blacks in a perpetual state of "entitlement". Reparations is just the latest word for WELFARE.

[Myrddin]

Generation is a poor choice of words to depict a time frame. It is nominally the time from the birth of an individual until that individual produces the next "generation" offspring. It is variable according to culture and family. The reason I pointed out the birth dates to achieve 6 generations in my family was to illustrate how the term is too vague. The big news on Drudge's page last night is the pregnant 11 year old English girl. That's going hard the other way for a "generation".

We agree that no black person living today is owned any reparations by any living person in the United States. The liberal experiments in the "Great Society" and racial quotas and dumbing down of the school systems hasn't been a successful approach.

[NCLaw441]

Pay them in confederate dollars...

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

The left wing Democrat who will become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if his party wins back Congress in November wants to hold full blown congressional hearings on whether the government should pay African Americans reparations for slavery.

you know....if the Dems do win back congress, it will be funny to watch the american people react to the left-wings stupidity such as Conyers

[DM1]

"CONYERS IS with thejESSE jACKSON, AL SHARPTON self
appointed
LEADERS OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY...NO WONDER THEY ARE IN
'THE WILDERNESS WAITING FOR AN ECHO?? Jake"

yes and the MSM keeps fawning over them while their dippy constituents keep electing their dippy reps i.e Conyers, McKinney etc

[abigailsmybaby]

I just love you people who blame the voters for what the politicians have done.

[Hot Tabasco]

forty acres and a mule

Today: $400,000 and a Cadillac

[TheDon]

It's about time they compensated slave owners for the loss of their property.

[Uncle Meat]

What about this so called "pimp culture" that a lot of them are so in your face about?Isn't that a form of slavery when they force their prositutes to turn tricks and give them the money while they get them hooked on drugs.That seems to be the craze these days,pimp your ride,pimp daddy,pimp this and pimp that,yo I'm a pimp and proud of it.John Conyers can kiss my white ass.We don't owe them squat.

[Mr. Mojo]

Keep on talkin', Conyers. ....and could you please jack up the rhetoric just prior to the midterms? Thanks.

[Trajan88]

Not this $hit again.

[goldstategop]

It has no chance of passing. Then again John Conyers is a one trick pony.

(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)

[William Terrell]

A friend of mine emailed me this some time ago. I've posted it several times because it profiles the central flaw in the reparations movement.

---

While travelling to work the other day, I happened to catch Michael Medved's talk show with some woman who is the head of one those groups demanding reparation for Africans in America due to slavery. Of course I'd heard of this before and had already decided it was ok by me as long as it was done fairly. Here's what I would consider a fair system of reparation to descendents of slaves:

First & foremost, reparation must include repatriation. Any African who doesn't want to be repatriated is admitting that they're better off in the US than they would have been had they been left in Africa. If having their ancestors brought here in slavery has made them better off than they would have been otherwise, then what claim do they have to reparation? Of course any repatriation would have to be permanent. Those being repatriated would have to give up their US citizenship.

Second, reparation dollar amounts must be based on the African enonomy not the US economy. If we have damaged some Africans by removing them from Africa, then obviously the amount of reparation we owe them would have to based on what they could be expected to earn in Africa not the US. If there income expectancy is higher in the US, then where is the economic damage? I have developed the following formula and taken wild guesses at the variables.

A 30 year old African decides he wants his reparation and he would like to be repatriated to Kenya. Ok, we find out the life expectancy in Kenya is 50 years. We also find out the average annual income in Kenya is $2,000. So we subtract his age from 50 and find out he has 20 years to live in Kenya. We multiple 20 times $2,000 and his reparation amount is $40,000. Plus we would give him free transportation to Kenya.

Since we have given him Kenya's average annual income for the rest of his life, he should be able to move to Kenya and live the rest of his life without ever having to work again. What more could a reasonable man ask?

It seems totally reasonable to me to base all of this on African life expectancies and African income levels because had we not enslaved their ancestors, then that is what they would have been born into. That is what they would have to look forward to. With the above two rules, I totally support reparation for Africans in America.

---

[Uncle Meat]

You know that the average blak person wouldn't see anything.I'm sue Conyers,Jackson,Sharpton and the like would channel the money to their coffers and try to tell the rest that the money would be used for the advancement of the black race in America.Yeah right.We all know these shysters didn't get rich for looking out for their people.