The U.S. has yet to make good on its promise of reparations to black Americans

The Baltimore Sun ^ | Professors Karsonya Wise Whitehead and Conra Gist

[2ndDivisionVet]

Conversations about reparations are not about money but about people and about the way that people are seen and valued in our society. These are difficult conversations, and we have found that what is most challenging about the idea of reparations today is the notion that America still owes a debt to black people..

We have spent the past eight months wrestling with the question about whether reparations — as Ta-Nehisi Coates so eloquently argued — could ameliorate inequality for black people in America. We believe that the answer to this question is connected to how well one can understand the structures, practices and norms that created the intentional and unintentional persistent pattern of inequality.

Because racism was institutionalized in the fabric of American society, it must be fought on multiple fronts — education, housing, employment, health, the criminal system and the criminalization of the black male body — and at various levels through community organizing, legislation, political representation, resource allocation and judicial advocacy. Reparations granted at the individual level would have little to no impact on the removal of institutional and structural barriers to make our society more just and free for black people. Reparations also cannot mandate changes in the norms of society that privilege certain groups in professional and recreational communities, or enforce a change in the biases and prejudicial views of others. They also cannot erase the double consciousness many black people juggle in a society that has yet to realize the provision of equal access to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for all....

[LambSlave]

No reparations without repatriation.

[I want the USA back]

Your last chance is under the current administration. He’ll find a way to do it and call it something else.

[norwaypinesavage]

My great-great uncle was killed while freeing the slaves in the Civil War. He had no descendants since he died before having children. He was a fresh immigrant from Norway, and hadn't even learned much English. His only compensation was a return to his brother (my great grandfather) of some of his belongings, the remainder were probably stolen. He didn't even receive his last pay.

Where's my reparation? It seems to me that a life lost to free slavery is worth at least as much as the cost of slavery.

[ontap]

Black Americans have no right to reparations.....some of them need some anti whining lessons. There are a lot of black Americans getting to go to the front of the line because of an atrocity committed against their ancestors by numerous people including their own ancestors who sold them to slave traitors.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Karsonya ?

[ontap]

traitors =traders need Jack Daniels!!!!

[mulligan]

Lies, lies. The government and the working people’s money and businesses have been doing that for years.

[IMR 4350]

Reparations for slavery was supposed to be one of the things Hillary was going to be running on with her planned run for president in 2004.

Problem is in August of 2002 Charles Baron derailed Hillary’s dirty trick campaign of demanding reparations for slavery when he let the cat out of the bag the plan involved orchestrate race riots in every city of the US.

OOPS!

[KC Burke]

great-great grandfather road with John Brown in relief of Lawrence and elsewhere in Kansas.

[texas_mrs]

And how much should the countries who participated in slave trading contribute? Never could have happened without the slave traders and their ships.

[Shimmer1]

I read the article and thought about what I believed, then scrolled down to find comments. Never could find them, probably because the site knows that their writers and guest writers don't make a bit of sense.

However, I did notice something interesting. Every single criminal with a photo was black. Every one, bar none. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. I found an article about some white fishermen who were pretty much railroaded by police, but really, all the criminals talked about were black.

Reparations: when you find someone that was a slave, I say give them reparations! And when you find someone that owned a slave....make them pay said reparations!
Exceptions: welfare income, Section 8 housing, food stamps, affirmative hiring, affirmative preferences in colleges, and many, many more, will be deducted from the reparations. Oh, no one is alive that was a slave, or no one who was a slave got those things? Well, good. That's disposed of then!

[FirstFlaBn]

Mebbe somebody could tell them some prez negated the 40 acres and a mule commitment through prosecutorial discretion?

[Shimmer1]

We did pick our own cotton, Vendome. My mother's family and far back picked cotton. My mother picked cotton. Far after the War.

Blacks like to pretend that they were the only ones out there in the sun, sweating and suffering, but it wasn't so.

[Shimmer1]

You know what else I’m thinking. If we take the value of 2 acres and one mule, and divide it up amongst their numerous progeny and descendants, they’d get ..what? two cents???

[ballplayer]

Don’t forget the Pigford case,if you get a tomato plant in your apartment window in New York City you got 50 thousand dollar checks for being a black farmer.

[Carry me back]

There has been billions extra given to blacks since Obama. I know the banks are a large part of the Nwo and have been giving them handouts since before Obama.

[Shimmer1]

They aren’t african americans. They are Americans.

[cyclotic]

More brilliance from the Baltimore Democrat Party Daily Newsletter

[Old Yeller]

I think the payback is coming after 50 years of this affirmative action crap.

[SaraJohnson]

The trillions in welfare and decades of reverse discrimination for slavery, plus the black crime and murder against whites which far surpass lynchings of the past, is enough payment.