Why the reparations suit, especially, it's arguements don't make sense to me.

3/28/02 | Me-JSteff

[JSteff]

Holding another person as a slave; an owned human being as unpaid, or minimally paid labor is, and was wrong. It is reprehensible and sad that it ever happened but it was legal. Eventually it was outlawed by the citizens of the country as it should have been. But it was legal at the time.

I am having problems understanding some of the claims that have swirled around this for so long. They just do not make sense. The slaves were not bought as items of play nor persons to be cruely tortured arbitrarily. I do not want to sound callous, but they were capital business expenditures. When I think of it from the dollars aspect it makes less sense, and dollars is why they were held.

At a time when the average consumer in the country probably had a yearly income of around $100 or less, some of the slaves cost, from what I have seen in books and museums, up to $1000 or more. Most around $200 to $300. So to me it just does not make sense that in the big picture that after a business purchased a slave out of business capital they would mistreat the slave cavalierly. The slave was an item to generate revenue and not just a vanity purchase. They were there to turn a profit for the business owner or to free the owner from mundane activities to concentrate on the business. It would take a long time to capitalize the worth of the "investment" at the prices they paid for the investment.

Businesses today do not invest in items of capital equipment just to mistreat or destroy them, and they did not then. Remember, the businessmen and businesses who bought the slaves were not stupid. Nor were the insurance companies who they insured the slaves through. I do not think an insurance company would insure a slave so the business could kill or incapacitate the "item" insured. Is Deadria Farmer-Paellmann actually using the insurance companies in this suit? I would think that would be stupid because the insurance actually would be more proof the owners valued the slave and would take care of them. I am sure like now the insurance company had rules stating care for the slave and did not pay if deliberate obvious harm was inflicted on them. In casting her net to include the insurance companies she lays out proof that the businesses cared for the slaves and wanted them alive and functioning.

This care aspect also points to the fact that a healthy, fed slave, is a better worker. A well sheltered slave gets more sleep and is healthier out of the elements. The same goes for a clothed slave. Again, protection of the business investment. When you shelter humans the have the inate tendency to make their "space" theirs and articles I read (but do not often see anymore)in history, science, and other magazines shows they did just that. Family paintings, china, lamps, home tools, cooking implements, furniture, etc have all been found in or around digs of slave quarters. One article I read said this also pointed to a system of some sort of income and/or barter. So they obviously had a life otside of the slavery and/or time to acquire goods or to make items or trade services for goods. Again this would not be possible if they were being worked to death.

Then comes the aspect of who benefited frome the slaves and is mentioned in this case. Yes the businesses benefited from the slaves, but they businesses also benefited from other low paid labor. That is other citizens of the country who the businesses hired. Generally these workers (white citizens) were not given shelter, food, clothing, housing, health care, etc and low paid workers still are not given most of those benefits. The general public also benefited fromt he goods and services produced or provided.

I am not saying it was okay because the slave was somewhat cared for that they were slaves, nothing still makes this okay. Just that it is an aspect that is not mentioned. If this suit did win, does that then mean that the low paid workers over the years have a right to reparations? A stupid thought? Impossible to gauge who is deserving of recompense? Would that mean everyone could claim they had an underpaid relative was deserving of reparations? Who would pay? The fact around this is that everyone is not equal ever and our country is full of stories of those who went from rags to riches or at least from rags to normalcy.

The opportunity is always there and always has been. The blacks are no different. Yes racism made it harder, but those who were able to make themselves invaluable still succeeded in making a somewhat normal financial life. That opportunity still exists and is being taken by numbers of blacks today. Set asides, quotas, and reverse discriminations have aided and still aid blacks who are willing to try for their own level of success and comfort. For anyone to try to claim today their is not opportunities for blacks in America is just beyond belief to me and shold be to them. But I think something Deadria Farmer-Paellmann mentioned in an interview really tells it all.

She was discussing the statistics. Higher chance to be murdered, higher imprisonment levels, higher rates of addictions to almost anything, lower income levels, lower rate of graduation from schools at all levels, etc. Again I could not believe she brought these things up and that the interviewers did not jump on her about this. The majority of these things are solely the problems that are caused by the black community. Who will future generations of blacks sue for these problems and impediments to "equality" and black success? Is this any stupider a question to answer than why should American citizens in general be required to pay for something that was wrong but legal, and was outlawed by the citizens?

I have had it. There will never be a way to address the indignities of slavery to those slaves who experienced them. But they, and those who inflicted them are long dead. Yes someone benefited from slavery, and/or some aspect of everything their workers did over the years. Yes America benefited from their slavery, yet even after they were released and equality was granted businesses still prospered. In fact it could be arguable said that American business wise and the level of financial distribution has equalized more every year since the civil war ended.

I think what Ms. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann doesnot realize that what makes this so reprehensible to the majority of Americans is that we all might not be where we want to be in life in so many ways. We all have stories of ancestors who lived the hard life. We all have had our troubles and tribulations in life. But we are where we are because we and our ancestors expended the effort to get there. We did not get there from lawsuits to the inequities and difficulties we or our ancestors endured. We got there from education and work and anyone can.

[Jim Noble]

>>The angle they are taking is that they are damaged because they are somehow affected by what happened to their ancestors.<<

But affected just how?

They have to show that they are worse off than if their ancestors were left alone. You can't sue for physical damage to your dead ancestors, can you?