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.
This needs to be repeated; over, and over, and over.
The GOP was born in 1854 for the explicit reason of ending slavery. It was a minority party that ought to have had no chance, but a very few years later slavery was gone.
The Democrats have their legacy, slave economics, race repression, Jim Crow, lynch mobs, fire hoses, church bombings, white hoods, and we have ours.
They are always trying to change the subject and re-write history, and if I was a Democrat I would too. We should never make the mistake of trying to explain or defend Democrat history. Let them own it.
no reparations without repatriation!
here’s your check and your plane ticket—don’t come back.
....I am the g-grandson of 4 Confederate soldiers...I would agree to one time reparations in the form of say a voucher to go to college, voucher to start a small business, voucher to start a farm ect....no cash payments!....and in return...no EOC hiring...no set asides or carve outs...no preferential college admissions...no minority preference contracts ect...those are already ‘reparations’ and need to end.
This needs to be repeated; over, and over, and over.
Amen.
a colleague came up with this idea:
since almost all authentic African-Americans (as opposed to recent immigrants from Africa or pretenders like Obama), are at least 50% white -and each can undergo genetic testing as part of the reparation requirement, they can pay themselves. I.e. their white half can pay their black half
If Blacks really wanted to call this country their country, they would realize that many people, from many countries, paid a dear price to live here. What about all of the men and women who died fighting for freedom over more than 200 years? From all races and creeds? Yes, some were slaves; others volunteered to give their lives. My grandfather came here in 1911 and toiled 18 hours a day to get a start for his family. Yes, he came voluntarily, but he worked very hard every day to get his freedom. I think blacks would gain a lot more respect if they stopped listening to the victim pushers (Jackson, Sharpton...) and started treating this country like the liked it, instead of always looking to get something for nothing, rip someone off, get government subsidies, and on and on...and by blacks, I don’t mean black Americans who work hard everyday to feed their families...to me they are not black, but simply Americans...I am referring to the lazy, listless people who want something for nothing and think the world owes them something....grow up and start taking responsibility for yourself...dump the nanny government and learn what freedom is...responsibility and freedom....Michele Obama” For once I am proud of my country..” Well, prissy, I’ve been proud of it since before you were born, and proud many times...too bad it’s only once for you...but then again....
I can accept this.
Everyone who was a slave up until 1866 when the Union remembered what the theory of their war motive was about, should be recompensed.
But only by anyone who was a slave owner up to 1866.
We have already spent TRILLIONS of dollars in de facto reparations just since the LBJ administration, not to mention affirmative action, set-asides and all that jazz. And what was the stimulus? When is enough, enough?!
If the Soviet Union had imported slaves they’d still be slaves! Hell, you can say that about half of the countries in the world!!
Reparations for slavery?
When a black woman is one of the richest people in America?
When a black man was Secretary of State??
When a black woman was Secretary of State?
When black men have sat — and do sit — on the Supreme Court??
When a black would-be despot sits in the White House?????
When countless black men have risen to the top of the ranks of the richest in professional sports and show business?? Men like Hank Aaron. Men like Bill Cosby who... (Never mind. As we all know, Bill’s either an Uncle Tom or Oreo Cookie, depending on which black race pimp you listen to.)
And, how about Liberation Theology?
Liberation from WHAT? The chance to achieve and succeed??
Give me a break!!
Let me make it clear right up front: I am NOT a racist. 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. (When he ran, I supported Alan Keyes. I even spoke in his stead on the RTKABA at a Capitol rally and was asked to fill in for him on his radio show at the time. Sadly, while I still consider Alan a good man, I have had to rethink my support since he came out 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. Although the term looks to be related to “slave,” depending on your source, it either means “glory” or “worshipper.” But my family research indicates that many of my of my ancestors LIVED lives of virtual slavery to some despot or other. Do I qualify for reparations? From whom?? And it begs a question: Are most of us now living here are headed into a modern form off that servitude? But that’s a topic for another discussion.
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 speaking of ancestors, my paternal grandmother’s daddy joined with the 80th Ohio Volunteer Infantry early in the War Between the States (reupped twice) and fought on the Union side at Chickamauga, Vicksburg, Jackson then joined up with Sherman for that infamous march to the sea through Georgia. My wife’s great-great grandpappy ALSO fought for the Union. While I revere the memory of my ancestors, inasmuch as that conflict was less about slavery than it was the economic exploitation and abuse of the South by the North, I fear they MAY have been on the wrong side.
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!
Dick Bachert
There is no possible way anyone can rationally calculate what each person should pay and to whom.
It is a fallacy (encouraged by lawyers) to think that all wrongs can be paid off somehow. There isn’t enough wealth in the whole world to pay off all the wrongs that people have suffered throughout history, and that many of the same people have committed.
I guess I could dream about my distant ancestors who were dragged out of a comfortable home in France, and had their throats cut in the street, while their neighbors pillaged their belongings, and their 14-year-old son escaped. This was the St. Batholomew’s Day Massacre. I would have to be somewhat crazy to think that the French would ever try to pay the descendants of this disaster — but France already lost, for they killed or drove out many of their best people, and enriched the countries in which the survivors took refuge.
I have a friend (Jewish) whose father escaped the Nazis, who confiscated the family’s business. After the war, the DDR took over the same company as a VEB (socialist enterprise). After reunification, the German government offered to return such properties, and my friend’s family declined. He told me that they were thankful to have come to the US, had made a good life here, and saw no reason why the grandchildren of the perpetrators should pay for a misfortune committed by their ancestors. That is an inspiring example of forgiveness — and it is a necessity, ultimately.
“But only by anyone who was a slave owner up to 1866.”
Good catch. My mistake.
On some of the newspaper comments section, whenever a Perpetual Victim whines about "Reparations", I post/point them to those sites that show Union dead like these
as proof that reparation were paid a long time ago.
Funny thing - they never show up again.
And what about my people, the Slavs, from whence the word "slave" derives? Were my ancestors' sacrifices for nought? I should think a small royalty, say $5.00 every time the word "slave" or "slavery" is co-opted and used to describe non-slavic people, wouldn't be asking too much, and would go a long way to make me feel whole and heal the indignities suffered by my forebears.
AMEN!
Ping to Dick Bachert’s post
“When is enough, enough?!”
...’offended’ blacks will never be satisfied that enough has been done...that’s just their nature...that’s why I’d give ‘em a one time voucher and not another thing....and btw, the TRILLIONS we give them now doubles about every 15 years...in some urban areas 28 year old grandmothers on welfare are commonplace.
Just an excuse for a free hand out.
According to wikipedia:
The history of Liberia is unique among African nations because of its relationship with the United States. It is one of the few countries in Africa, and the only country in West Africa, without roots in the European Scramble for Africa. It was founded and colonized by freed American slaves with the help of a private organization called the American Colonization Society in 1821-1822, on the premise former American slaves would have greater freedom and equality there.[4]Slaves freed from slave ships also were sent there instead of being repatriated to their countries of origin.[5] These colonists formed an elite group in Liberian society, and, in 1847, they founded the Republic of Liberia, establishing a government modeled on that of the United States, naming Monrovia, their capital city, after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States and a prominent supporter of the colonization.
I have NEVER seen this in ANY history book ever. Do any freepers know much about this? If you do , can you fill me in?
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