Posted on 04/24/2010 2:20:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In yesterday’s Times, the estimable scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. had an odd op-ed article entitled “Ending the Slavery Blame Game. ” What made it odd was its construction. At the heart of the piece was Gates’ very interesting summary of recent scholarship about the complicity of African tribes in capturing African people and selling them to European and American slave traders. Sandwiching this summary, however, was Gates’ bid for op-ed relevance, which was his assertion that this fuller understanding of a broader criminal enterprise would give President Obama “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.”
Is the idea of reparations still contentious? I guess it is–if somebody brings it up. But reparations seems to be an idea that had a heyday of argument a decade ago, and was then shelved in favor of ideas more vital. But even at the time of its greatest urgency, it seemed to be one of those self-evidently good ideas that became less good once you got into the practicalities. For one thing, there was the question of where the money should come from. No doubt some of the great slave trade fortunes of the 17th and 18th and 19th have been carefully cultivated and survive, but many have been used up, or, more significantly, destroyed during the Civil War. Moreover, it seems hardly equitable to charge the people whose ancestors arrived on these shores after the Civil War with the cost of paying for slavery. It’s very hard to think how my Malanowski forebears, for example, who arrived here in 1905, profited by the institution of slavery. On top of this is the fact that a great many people struggled against slavery and died fighting it. It may seem logical to argue that the descendants of slaves should be compensated by those who supported the institution, but if that is so, is it not just as logical to argue that the descendants of slaves and others should pay compensation to the descendants of the Union troops who died fighting for their liberation? I wonder how Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan would feel about that.
But what really rankles about the idea of reparations is that is turns slavery into a civil tort–an argument over back pay. Of course it was something much worse, something profoundly more evil, a society-wide, systematic criminal conspiracy. And in his second Inaugural, Abraham Lincoln specified precisely the price that terminating the conspiracy would exact. Speaking a little more than a month before Robert E. Lee’s confederate forces would surrender, LIncoln said “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
Was all the wealth sunk? Well, Richmond was burned, and Atlanta was burned, and the Shenandoah Valley was torched, and the tremendous value embodied by two and a half million slaves was struck from the books. Was every drop of blood drawn by the lash paid for another drawn by the sword? At least 620,000 soldiers were killed during the Civil War; with the limitations on record-keeping, this figure could easily be as high as 700,000. That was out of a population of 30 million. This does not include the physically or psychologically wounded, or civilian deaths caused by combat, or civilian deaths caused by a lack of food or medicine. And it in no way includes the incredible economic devastation wreaked upon the south, destruction so complete that for a century the south was poorer and more backward than the rest of the country (and let’s face it, Mississippi and Alabama still are.) The destruction fell on north and south alike: sons of southern slaveholders and sons of northern slave ship owners both died, as did the sons of families north and south who did not engage in the slave trade but who acquiesced in its existence.
And of course, some of the last blood shed belonged to Lincoln, in a futile effort to achieve the long-lost war aims of the south. Lincoln saw that the evil was not civil but moral, that the evil perpetrated was Biblical in its proportions, and that the price that had to be paid was stupendous. Those who seek reparations should visit the Union cemetery at Gettysburg or Hollywood cemetery in Richmond or any of dozens of other graveyards: there is your treasure.
It was the Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, who formed the ACS. Freed slaves were given a choice. Accept passage for resettlement in Liberia, or remain in this land of opportunity.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/li.html
Cheers,
OLA
I think every living slaveowner should give every living slave a year’s wages. Oh wait. They’re all dead. Nevermind.
“I am the great-granddaughter of 2 union soldiers. I consider any “debt” paid in full.”
...what I’m trying to do is cut out all the reparations that are being paid at present...no more EOC hires...no more carve outs...no more preferences...no more black colleges...no more set asides...no more preferences on government contracts ect.
....a voucher on a one time...last time basis...and that would be it....blacks would have to sink or swim on their own....just like the rest of us.
Blacks captured blacks and sold them into slavery - blacks/muslims were the slave masters, and still are in Africa and other parts of the world. Think Obama. His people. blacks & muslims. No reparations! And get the commie/muzy out of OUR HOUSE!
There have been almost 50 years of reparations in the forms that you mention - plenty of time for anyone who wanted to take advantage of them. Time to declare everyone equal and end them.
So , if they were given a choice and chose to stay why are reparations in order?
One last time. No Vouchers. No reparations. Doing so only admits a debt. Yes, we are currently paying vis a vis welfare, affirmative action, etc, but stating we are guilty of being white and we are so sorry for being white and handing over yet more treasure is a sure fire way to encourage further abuses. Like amnesty for the illegals. What happened after Reagan signed the one time fixes all deal. We got 20 million of the ba$tards now.
A better fix is to simply end racial quotas, affirmative action and welfare. Otherwise we will keep paying until the end of time.
So , if they were given a choice and chose to stay why are reparations in order?
Attempted shakedown of the uniformed masses?
Furthermore, the 14th Amendment, Section 4 specifically prohibits reparations for slavery:
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Cheers,
OLA
Thank you for this excellent post. This has needed to be said for a long time. Appreciate you having the guts to write it.
All in all, I wish I could personally pay them all reparations. However, where they are now is a better place, and G-d has set things right. I am sorry for what happened to them. I am sorry for all people in the world who are denied their G-d-given freedom. [None of the slave stories I have ever read are as horrible as what happened to my family in the Holocaust, but all evil is still evil.]
Black liberals need to focus not on reparations because of what happened to their ancestors but on making the struggles of those ancestors worthwhile. Live; achieve; be moral, good, and strong. Read these stories of your brilliant and hardworking, thoughtful ancestors and live the lives these men and women could not.
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