Posted on 04/23/2010 8:51:34 AM PDT by C19fan
THANKS to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics — the fact that he is African-American and president — Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.
There are many thorny issues to resolve before we can arrive at a judicious (if symbolic) gesture to match such a sustained, heinous crime. Perhaps the most vexing is how to parcel out blame to those directly involved in the capture and sale of human beings for immense economic gain.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So how could President Obama untangle the knot? In David Remnick’s new book “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama,” one of the president’s former students at the University of Chicago comments on Mr. Obama’s mixed feelings about the reparations movement: “He told us what he thought about reparations. He agreed entirely with the theory of reparations. But in practice he didn’t think it was really workable.”
So the families of all the Union soldiers that fought and died to end slavery will finally be properly compensated?
If they weren’t so serious about this crap, it would be funny.
Yet the latest Obamapoll shows this moron still has an approval rating of about 30%.
Interesting...I thought there was something about Hussein’s ancestors that were involved in the other side of the slave trade, selling African slaves.
Any ‘reparations’ need to be set off against a race based charge based on property damage and intentional tort from the last 3 - 4 generations.
Excellent point!
How many lives?
Muslims controlled the african slave trade for over 1400 years...
Aside from that.... these reparations people should sit and rethink their position... as tough as they think they have it, or had it, they should look at their relatives still in F!!!!!-up Africa. Most have been killed by regional wars, sold into slavery or live in poverty....
Louis Gates, the affirmative action poster child, the famous Harvard Blowhard Professor of the ‘Beer Summit’ fame should not be taken seriously about anything having to do with race relations.
The elite blacks in this country are increasing becoming more like the black elites in countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe. They use the grievances of the masses of poor blacks to enrich themselves through racial preferences for themselves and their kids at prestigous schools, gov’t contract set asides for themselves and their cronies, gov’t handouts through grants and such. In the meantime they do nothing for their base.
The fact that Obama’s kids will be given preference over a poor white child of a drug addicted single mother when it comes to admission to a place like Harvard absolutely galls me. If we are to give preferences to anyone, it should be not based on race, but based on economic circumstances. The black elites in the US are using the same playbook those in SA and ZIM used after taking charge in their countries. Sadly, the results will be the same if they are allowed to play the race card and guilt white America into bending to their demands for reparations.
This is such a stupid idea I can’t believe we’re even talking about it. How long before Confederate soldiers’ kin ask for reparations? It could continue up to Iraq vets.
I laud Dr. Gate’s pointing out that it was black Africans who worked the slave market in Africa. After his arrest incident, I’m surprised he came out this way on the topic.
“He agreed entirely with the theory of reparations. But in practice he didn’t think it was really workable.”
Believe it or not, Obagabe is finding ways to make “it” work. Reparations by stealth is a primary goal of this man.
About da*n time someone put this in print. Very few people know this.
I wrote about this years ago - and my editor refused to print it - and anyone I talked to about it looked at me like I had two heads.
But now it's finally in print I think it would be hard for anyone to push through reparations...
We wouldn't have had the slaves had not the Africans captured them and brought them to the coast - whites were not about to go into the African mainlands back then.
And I said, way back, if you want to do reparations, let's start from the source of the problem - Africa, who sold her own people. (Talk about an 'inconvenient truth'.)
so, a half African-American with no American slave ancestry
has the answer ?
And those of us whose ancestors arrived from Europe after the Civil War don’t have to pay, right?
It would be rather satisfying to trace the ancestry of some of the old silk-stocking New England families to see who was profiting from the sale of slaves.
So reparations for Native Americans displaced from their lands will be made so they are properly compensated for their loss? How about reparations for southerners who were executed for operating the underground railroad to help slaves get to the north? What about reparations for Arab Slave traders who lost their source of income when slavery was abolished in America?
Since Obama is most likely the descendant of an African slave trader rather than a descendant of a slave, how would that affect the reparations that would be owed to Michelle.
It seems to me that the opportunity they have in the USA for a life far better than would be likely had they been born in Africa should be compensation enough.
You waited for the other side to respond.
There was no language to translate; neither party could speak with and engage with the other side.
It probably didn't take long before the African side ran out of beads to trade for advanced crafted goods from Europe and simply offered women for pleasure, which any man might find difficult to resist. After that, it was probably easier to accept the rotten concept of having workers traded as well.
We live in an evil world...of our own making.
Sauron
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