Slavery Reparations Gaining Momentum

AP ^ | July 09, 2006 | ERIN TEXEIRA

[TomServo]

Advocates who say black Americans should be compensated for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath are quietly chalking up victories and gaining momentum.

Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers, their campaign has morphed in recent years from a fringe-group rallying cry into sophisticated, mainstream movement. Most recently, a pair of churches apologized for their part in the slave trade, and one is studying ways to repay black church members.

The overall issue is hardly settled, even among black Americans: Some say that focusing on slavery shouldn't be a top priority or that it doesn't make sense to compensate people generations after a historical wrong.

Yet reparations efforts have led a number of cities and states to approve measures that force businesses to publicize their historical ties to slavery. Several reparations court cases are in progress, and international human rights officials are increasingly spotlighting the issue.

"This matter is growing in significance rather than declining," said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and a leading reparations activist. "It has more vigor and vitality in the 21st century than it's had in the history of the reparations movement."

The most recent victories for reparations advocates came in June, when the Moravian Church and the Episcopal Church both apologized for owning slaves and promised to battle current racism. The Episcopalians also launched a national, yearslong probe into church slavery links and into whether the church should compensate black members. A white church member, Katrina Browne, also screened a documentary focusing on white culpability at the denomination's national assembly.

The Episcopalians debated slavery and reparations for years before reaching an agreement, said Jayne Oasin, social justice officer for the denomination, who will oversee its work on the issue.

Historically, slavery was an uncomfortable topic for the church. Some Episcopal bishops owned slaves - and the Bible was used to justify the practice, Oasin said.

"Why not (take these steps) 100 years ago?" she said. "Let's talk about the complicity of the Episcopal Church as one of the institutions of this country who, of course, benefited from slavery."

Also in June, a North Carolina commission urged the state government to repay the descendants of victims of a violent 1898 campaign by white supremacists to strip blacks of power in Wilmington, N.C. As many as 60 blacks died, and thousands were driven from the city.

The commission also recommended state-funded programs to support local black businesses and home ownership.

The report came weeks after the Organization of American States requested information from the U.S. government about a 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Okla., in which 1,200 homes were burned and as many as 300 blacks killed. An OAS official said the group might pursue the issue as a violation of international human rights.

The modern reparations movement revived an idea that's been around since emancipation, when black leaders argued that newly freed slaves deserved compensation.

About six years ago, the issue started gaining momentum again. Randall Robinson's "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks," was a best seller; reparations became a central issue at the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa; and California legislators passed the nation's first law forcing insurance companies that do business with the state to disclose their slavery ties. Illinois passed a similar insurance law in 2003, and the next year Iowa legislators began requesting - but not forcing - the same disclosures.

Several cities - including Chicago, Detroit and Oakland - have laws requiring that all businesses make such disclosures.

Reparations opponents insist that no living American should have to pay for a practice that ended more than 140 years ago. Plus, programs such as affirmative action and welfare already have compensated for past injustices, said John H. McWhorter, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

"The reparations movement is based on a fallacy that cripples the thinking on race - the fallacy that what ails black America is a cash problem," said McWhorter, who is black. "Giving people money will not solve the problems that we have."

Even so, support is reaching beyond African-Americans and the South.

Katrina Browne, the white Episcopalian filmmaker, is finishing a documentary about her ancestors, the DeWolfs of Bristol, R.I., the biggest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She screened it for Episcopal Church officials at the June convention.

"Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North," details how the economies of the Northeast and the nation as a whole depended on slaves.

"A lot of white people think they know everything there is to know about slavery - we all agree it was wrong and that's enough," Browne said. "But this was the foundation of our country, not some Southern anomaly. We all inherit responsibility."

She says neither whites nor blacks will heal from slavery until formal hearings expose the full history of slavery and its effects - an effort similar to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid collapsed.

[R.W.Ratikal]

America has given blacks trillions in reparations already. In addition blacks have been put at the head of the line for promotions, jobs and especially government positions despite having little or no qualifications.

It's time blacks give America something in return.

BTW, blacks should fall down on their knees and thank God that their African chiefs who sold them into slavery sold them to slavers who brought them to North America where they were able to survive.

[Manic_Episode]

Couldn't welfare be considered slavery reparations?

[MistrX]

Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers

Why am I not suprised?

[tkathy]

The democrats should pay, because Jim Crow laws were passed solely by democrats both north and south.

[BurbankKarl]

After the credits for all the social spending the last 40 years, they will owe the country.

[1035rep]

It will never happen but I hope the democratics runs with this idea :)

[sgtbono2002]

When my church decides to give money I have donated to reparations they have received the last friggin dime I will ever give them. They better find a new way to keep the doors open.

My government already gives reparations. Isnt that why we are rebuilding Chocolate City/ Why we have affirmative action jobs? Why we lower standards to hire blacks?

[hershey]

Hoping to beat out illegals in the giveaway sweepstakes.

[1035rep]

democratics=democrats

 

[kcvl]

Erin Texeira, "Black Reparations Idea Builds at UCLA Meeting," Los Angeles Times, 5/12/01


By Erin Texeira. Real life at work for women of color ...

Erin Texeira Writes about culture, race and ethnicity for Newsday and lives in Brooklyn, NY



Growing anger among blacks as Latinos 'take over'. April 7, 2006. BY ERIN TEXEIRA.


By Erin Texeira Associated Press (August 21, 2005) What do you call a minority that is becoming the majority?



by ERIN TEXEIRA , Associated Press March 28th, 2006 -- Even though the economy has picked up, stubborn gaps between blacks and whites remain _ a reality



“But as soon as the master was gone…they did what they really wanted to do…”–Erin Texeira, Black men quietly combating stereotypes, Associated Press. ...



By Erin Texeira, AP BERKELEY, California (AP)--Well over a century after it was abolished, slavery lingers in the American psyche,

[gcruse]

LBJs Great Society was your multi-billion dollar reparation. To the extent it was used for educating yourselves, investing in your own business startups, and teaching your children the value of self-reliance, then you spent it well. If you frittered it away, too bad. But it's not too late. Miami's Haitian community as strong and economically viable. Go learn.

[Drew68]

I do hope the Democratic Party takes this issue and runs with it!

The Democrats won't touch this issue with a 20' pole. They'll lose the last of their liberal white voters and they know it.

It is a dead issue that only serves for a good news story. Not to mention, every year around tax time many black people fall victim to reparation scams where they turn over their tax returns to con-men who promise them "reparation checks" of 100 times the value of their returns.

[mc6809e]

Purely absurd. I have some Sioux blood in me. I want $200 billion in reparations and I want it now. Give me a break.

Oh, it gets even better.

How do you handle the decedents of slave owners that were themselves black?

Do they give reparations to themselves?

DIXIE'S CENSORED SUBJECT -- BLACK SLAVEOWNERS

"Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.

To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters. "

[Tripleplay]

How will they determine which Blacks are actual slave descendants and not descendants of Free Blacks who were wealthy businessmen?

J. Jackson has already requested the money. He will distribute to those who deserve it.

Nothing will divide the country more if whites have to give money to Tiger woods and 80 % of NFL players.

[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.

---

[Drew68]

BTW, blacks should fall down on their knees and thank God that their African chiefs who sold them into slavery sold them to slavers who brought them to North America where they were able to survive.

Go to Liberia, a nation founded by freed slaves where every day they curse their ancestors for leaving America.

[keithtoo]

My people were in Ireland and were poorer that US slaves at the time. Who in the hell do I owe what to????

[mrsmel]

I believe that some of my ancestors were slaves during the Roman Empire. Can I sue Italy for reparations? </s>

[1035rep]

"Nothing will divide the country more if whites have to give money to Tiger woods and 80 % of NFL players."

LOL! 

[Uriah_lost]

I'll gladly pay anyone that I ever owned.

By the way, how many people have gotten your tag line? I'll keep it to myself for now since I figure you went obscure for a reason.