Replies

I have seen documentation that at least one of my ancestors owned a few slaves in South Carolina. I have seen African-Americans bearing my unusual surname, which almost certainly points back to slaves adopting the surname of owners who were in my lineage.

I think there are several strong arguments against reparations. First, the South was financially devastated in the wake of the Civil War. The vast majority of that slave generated wealth evaporated. Then there was the carpetbagger scourge that decimated even further. My wing of the family moved to SW Georgia before the Civil War. To my knowledge, none of them had slaves . . . that was 5 generations back. Then came the Great Depression and my great-grandfather lost the family farm and pretty much everything. Can’t be much more equal than everybody having nothing.

About the only thing that I admit slanted in my favor during my life has been one of opportunity. I know some blacks did not get opportunities that I did because of prejudices. However, some things bounced against me as a head wind: Great Society programs have cost me dearly in taxes paid over my career . . . I have already paid much in reparations. And finally, a promotion at work was delayed for quite a while when a black person, because of hiring and promotion preferences, was promoted ahead of me. I did not complain because he was perfectly qualified and competent. There were about five us us who were pretty much equal in performance and competency vying for that position.

There is just no way to balance that scale. The discussion does more harm than good specifically because it inflames feelings of injustice when there is no fair way to judge the impact. It is simply a way for the “community organizer” rabble-rousers to heap more resentment into the minds of African-Americans to gain support for socialism and invalidating our Constitution. For that reason, the actual INTENT of most pushing for it is evil.

First, the South was financially devastated in the wake of the Civil War. The vast majority of that slave generated wealth evaporated.

Folks that believe in reparations believe the South was as rich after the Civil War as it was before. Wrong. First the war devastated the South. Cities burned, crops destroyed and what factories were destroyed or looted. White manpower was lost for generations as their men died and left unburied far from home(many became food for hogs)

Second their wealth literally walked off their plantation with Emancipation. Third, as carpetbaggers and scalawags infested southern government, local taxes were raised and large farms and small were broken up to pay the taxes.

The South as an economic power was literally in Third World conditions until the First World War and didn't truly recovery until the Fifties.

I know this because it is the history of my family.