Posted on 07/03/2008 5:20:26 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Segments of Americans are gearing up to oppose Senator Barack Obama because they fear he will be more considerate of the debt America owes to Blacks.
Anti-Obama whites, in particular, are concerned he’ll get into the White House and put Blacks on track for “a reparations gravy train.”
CNN debate moderator Anderson Cooper put Black Reparations on track to be a part of the presidential dialogue during the South Carolina Primaries.
The African-American vote in South Carolina was very important, and that made the reparations question relevant in the Democratic Debate. At that event former Senator John Edwards said “ I'm not for reparations…but I think there are other things we can do to create some equality that doesn't exist in this country today” he said, going on to talk about inequities African Americans experienced paying mortgages in Charleston, S.C., where the debate was held.
When Cooper asked Sen. Barack Obama about reparations he sidestepped a yes or no answer instead preferring to redefine reparations to make it part of a broader conversation about economic justice. “I think the reparations we need right here in South Carolina is investment, for example, in schools.” Obama said.
To corner Obama and nail all the candidates down, Cooper asked for a show of hands and questioned: “Is anyone on the stage for reparations for slavery for African-Americans?” The only “yes” came from Congressman Dennis Kucinich who said: “The Bible says we shall be and must be repairers of the breach. And a breach has occurred. We have to acknowledge that. It's a breach that has resulted in inequality in opportunities for education, for health care, for housing, for employment.”
From then on, reparations have been an issue in the campaign. America owes Blacks $700 billion to $1.9 trillion for unpaid labor that built the country’s infrastructure, including the U.S. Capitol. While Obama dodges the issue, his “old church, Trinity United Church of Christ, lists “The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks, by Randall Robinson (Penguin Putman Inc., 2000) as recommended reading”. In The Debt, Robinson argues that America still owes an enormous debt to Africans and African Americans for the incalculable damage that backs have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of two hundred and fifty years of slavery and segregation.
Barack’s birthright brothers many whites; but Wautella Graham of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) breaks the question of slavery into four categories of involvement: victims, collaborators, perpetrators and beneficiaries and makes the point that, “Even immigrants and people whose ancestral line contains no slaveholders should pay reparations, since every American benefits from slavery.”
Slavery victimizes free blacks to this day. All American people are responsible for the debt America owes.”
Why don’t we just rectify the problem by “making them whole” and send them back where they came from.
So did the Dutch. But slavery began in the Middle East where they sold their own people into slavery, not to mention they kept slaves themselves up until slavery in the Middle East wasn't outlawed some time in the 1970s if my information is correct.
I think that by the above sacrifice, ‘reparations’ to former slaves were made. The only other reparation necessary is to return those people, or their descendants, back to the homeland from which they were stolen and sold into slavery, should that be their desire. Otherwise, it's been 143 years since the end of the Civil War, so any National or Corporate liability has long since lapsed.
Ditto, except for my money was SEIZED from me via taxes. There was no 'give' to it.
I think it's the other way around.
ML/NJ
No reparations without repatriation.
bfl
I thought the “Great $ociety” took care of this.
The first slaves were brought here, to the Virginia colony, by the Portugese. They were employed under the same conditions as indentured servants, until a court case changed their status.
I wonder if Randall calculated the debt that the former slaves owed for transportation to a new country and free housing and meals. Obviously, that is a ludicrous thing to claim they owe; but then again the claim that the country now owes descendents of the slave billions of dollars for the slaves' labors is also ludicrous, especially in light of the tremendous benefit these descendants have in living in the US as opposed to Africa.
That is what I was coming on to say. To listen to the pundits today, Americans are the only ones who ever held slaves. That just shows the remarkable lack of knowledge (or acknowledgement of) history. Slavery is mentioned in the Bible. In history, the Middle East and North Africa held Europeans as slaves long before America was founded.
Actually, while I agree with your premise the British would be the SECOND place reparationis should begin. The first place reparations should begin is with the descendants of the BLACK Africans that captured other black Africans and sold them to the British.
I say, "Paid In Full."
100% correct.
These non-assimilating relatives of black slaves have been paid in full. In fact, they owe all of America a debt of gratitude, which they can pay by melding in to American society, and getting on their knees, thanking God that they are in The United States of America.
If anything, Obama is an interloper who used his black skin to unfairly get into schools that if he were Asian, would not have been admitted into.
> Is America ready to pay reparations for its sins of slavery?
Slavery is certainly an anti-social and unpleasant thing to do to one’s neighbor, but I am unaware which of the 10 Commandments makes it a Sin... or which of Christ’s Commandments says “thou shalt not take thy brother into Slavery’. Can someone enlighten me?
I supported Herman Cain in his run for the Senate. And if he ever runs again, I would probably support him again.
I also consider Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams two of the finest economists and minds extant today. In case you don’t know them, both are black.
Sowell, Williams and Cain – among others — have spoken out against those fellow blacks who castigate and vilify America for a slavery now long in our past. And ALL thinking men and women oppose the periodic calls for reparations.
The fact is that the modern descendants of slaves brought here in chains in admittedly miserable, soul-gutting conditions now calling for reparations need to remember something:
They should not only be glad to be in America, they should be glad to be ANYWHERE!
Had their ancestors NOT been brought OUT of Africa – many by Muslim slave raiders —the blood of those ancestors would have run into the earth over there several centuries ago, victims of the OTHER black tribes that captured them in one of the interminable tribal conflicts STILL ravaging that sad continent and these modern day would-be “plaintiffs” would not even exist.
And I would remind you that slavery is STILL practiced in parts of Africa (mainly by muslims) and Asia today.
95% of the African slaves who were transported across the Atlantic went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions, and that less than 5% of the slaves who crossed the Atlantic went to the United States, it was remarkable that the vast majority of academic research, films, books and articles concerning the slave trade concentrated only on the American involvement, as though slavery was a uniquely American aberration.
And should the great-great-great grandchildren of SLAVE OWNING BLACKS also be subject to PAYING these reparations? If so, how do we find THEM?
And I have traced MY family back to the SLAVS. For those who don’t know, that word means “slave.” Do I qualify for reparations? From whom??
The official US Census of 1830 lists 3,775 free blacks who owned 12,740 black slaves. Furthermore, the story outlines the history of slavery here, and the first slave owner, the Father of American slavery, was Mr Anthony Johnson, of Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor, the first slave for life. Both were black Africans. The story is very readable, and outlines cases of free black women owning their husbands, free black parents selling their children into slavery to white owners, and absentee free black slave owners, who leased their slaves to plantation owners.
-”Selling Poor Steven”, American Heritage Magazine, Feb/Mar 1993 (Vol. 441) p 90
Of course, a full telling of Black History would not be complete without a telling of the origin of slavery in the Virginia colony:
Virginia, Guide to The Old Dominion, WPA Writers’ Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940, p. 378
And the holier-than-thou Northern liberals are strangely silent on recent archeological evidence from NEW YORK CITY clearly tracing the financing of the slave trade to NORTHERN BUSINESSMEN!!
At the height of his remarkable boxing career, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay), once declared “I’m glad my great-grandpa got on that boat.”
And author Robert Hitt Neill tells of attending a Tennessee Mountain Writer’s Conference years ago with several other authors. Among them was Alex Hailey, celebrated author of “Roots.” Watching a TV news show, a group of them watched a demonstration in a Southern state against the “Rebel” flag incorporated into that state’s flag. The very next report covered a famine in Africa. Graphic images showed dead bodies, starving children with distended tummies and runny noses and dying people covered with flies, too weak to brush them away.
Mr. Hailey intoned in a low, serious voice, “Every time an American black sees a story like that, they should find a Confederate flag and kiss it.” He then pointed to the TV screen and continued, “Because these would be me and my descendants, except for American slavery. I thank God that my family and I are here instead of there.”
Next problem!
Would Obama have to pay himself?
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