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Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 4:38:11 AM   
rulemylife


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Status: offline 		Should blacks get reparations?



Gettysburg, Pa. – "You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago," said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, after the Senate voted June 18 to endorse a national apology for slavery. "It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice." And considering the scale and brutality of slavery in American history, Senator Harkin could not be more right.

Abraham Lincoln described slavery as "the one retrograde institution in America," and told a delegation of black leaders in 1862 that "your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people."

But one reason why we have waited so long has to do with what many advocates of the apology regard as the necessary next step – reparations to African-Americans by the federal government. Significantly, that's a step the Senate's apology resolution refused to take.

................. Randall Robinson, whose book, "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks" (2000), demanded "massive restitutions" to American blacks for slavery, insists that an apology is meaningless without reparations payments to African-Americans. "Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable," Mr. Robinson said after the Senate vote. "It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven't accomplished anything."

................And on the surface, the case for reparations to African-Americans has all the legal simplicity of an ordinary tort. A wrong was committed; therefore, compensation is due to those who were wronged. But just below that surface is a nest of disturbing complications that undercut the ease with which Robinson, Mr. Burris, and other reparations activists have put their case.


1. Who was legally responsible for slavery? Not the federal government. Slavery was always a matter of individual state enactments, which is what made Lincoln's initial attempts to free the slaves so difficult.

............2. Who should be paid? At first glance, the answer seems obvious: the slaves. But the victims of slavery are now long dead; it is the heirs of those victims who stand next in line for compensation. Still, the line is a shaky and complicated one, with the chief complication lurking in the genes of African-Americans themselves.

...........3. What about the Civil War? Slavery did not end by evaporation. It took a catastrophic civil war.............
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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 5:29:49 AM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		Was not the debt paid on the battlefields of Vicksburg,Antietam and Gettysburg?Monetary reparations ,at this point in time,would serve no other purpose than to further fracture American society?IMO the cost could be catastrophic.The discussion itself is divisive.

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 5:31:09 AM   
LadyEllen


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Status: offline 		Original responsibility and therefore liability must lie with those who took people and enslaved them - that is the leadership of west African tribes, who were engaged for centuries in this activity - an activity in which European customers were not the only source of business - Arabian customers and other African customers were buying too, long before and even after the trans Atlantic trade as regards north America and British colonies had ceased.

This is because we must have regard to the law at the time, not the law of today; the law of the time during which the trade to north America was active did not prohibit slavery and therefore the buyers and employers of slaves can have no liability under law, and neither can they have liability under law for poor treatment of slaves, who by definition have no right to redress either civil or criminal. Meanwhile, kidnap - a category into which the forced abduction of individuals and (as here) entire or near entire populations - was a crime at the time, making the kidnappers - the African tribes actively acquiring people to sell as slaves - the guilty and therefore liable parties. There is an argument here that the buyers must be accessory, but this does not stand - the buyers were purchasing slaves legally and in good faith with no knowledge of their origin or the means by which they had become available for sale, and no legal duty to ascertain either prior to purchase.

As for the original slaves of the north American colonies - those Europeans who had found themselves on the losing side during the civil war in England, had been taken prisoner and sent to work the plantations rather than being executed, here too there is no case and indeed no offence such as kidnap as might be applied to the African case. These were rebels and their enslavement, deportation and forced labour was neither illegal nor unmerciful for the times.

There is therefore no cause for reparations except as they might be claimed in the case of Africans from those who originally enslaved them by means that directly broke law by way of kidnap. But even here one must be careful - the African tribes who might be held guilty and therefore liable acquired their wares through warfare, with the defeated prisoners being sold and/or their tribes being required to provide people for the trade in order to secure and maintain peace with the aggressive slaving tribes. This brings the question into alignment with the question of the European slaves, where we have seen there is no crime, merely the execution of royal will.

There can then be no case for reparations, just as there is no identifiable party liable to pay them.

However this is not to say that crime committed against former slave populations post emancipation should not attract liability and reparations, but this is an entirely different question.

The best reparation that can be made has been underway for some decades now, and more or less has achieved what could be achieved, and far better than any likely result of handing out money.

E

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 5:37:51 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Was not the debt paid on the battlefields of Vicksburg,Antietam and Gettysburg?Monetary reparations ,at this point in time,would serve no other purpose than to further fracture American society?IMO the cost could be catastrophic.The discussion itself is divisive.


Of course the discussion is divisive, it's a divisive issue, but it's not going to go away by ignoring it, as evidenced by the recent national apology vote.

And the government did set a precedent by giving reparation payments to the Japanese-Americans interred During WWII.



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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 5:46:50 AM   
Starbuck09


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Status: offline 		Paying reparations to people who suffered a wrong is vey much different to paying those who are distantly descended from those victims. By that logic everyone would have an immense catalog of claims as without exception every race of every country in the world has suffered at the hands of another. As an English caucasian should I be recompensed for the suffering my far distant ancestors recieved at the hands of the Romans and vikings. Should Norway Sweden and Italy be apologising and paying me for the slave labour of the celts? Of course not the idea is ludicrous. THings like this serve to fracture not unite societies and ensures that minds are mired in the past. When you look at a young German do you see a nazi? Likewise when you look at a young afican american do you see a slave?

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 5:49:09 AM   
DarkSteven


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Status: offline 		Okay, I'm not a lawyer.  But here are some of my thoughts.

1. Slavery in the US lasted maybe fifty years and ended about 150 years ago.  Surely the Statute of Limitations expired a long time back.

2. When Affirmative Action was enacted, the premise was that minorities had been denied equal opportunities and that AA would even the playing field.  At that time, no discussion of reparations for unpaid slave wages was held.

3. The proper time to discuss this would have been in 1865, when President Andrew Johnson rescinded the "40 acres and a mule" giveaway.  Absent any evidence to the contrary, it could be assumed that the land was a form of reparations. 

4. As the article says, who pays?  The descendants of the slaveowners have no financial or legal obligations - that does not pass into the estate.  The government cannot be held legally liable for its actions as a general thing.




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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:01:47 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Starbuck09

Paying reparations to people who suffered a wrong is vey much different to paying those who are distantly descended from those victims.


Japanese American internment

In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership".  About $1.6 billion in reparations were later disbursed by the U.S. government to surviving internees and their heirs.





< Message edited by rulemylife -- 7/18/2009 6:04:03 AM >

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:01:59 AM   
SoulPiercer


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quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Was not the debt paid on the battlefields of Vicksburg,Antietam and Gettysburg?Monetary reparations ,at this point in time,would serve no other purpose than to further fracture American society?IMO the cost could be catastrophic.The discussion itself is divisive.


The Civil War was not fought to end slavery. Just like the Revolution wasn't fought because someone destroyed a shipment of tea.

To answer the original question, no .. I don't think reparations should be paid, not unless the burden is shared by the African nations who profited from the deal.

One difference between slavery and the Japanese internment during WWII is those were U.S. citizens (mostly) who lost jobs and homes simply because of fear, mistrust and of course you have to throw some racism in there. Afterall Charlie Lindbergh was free to move about the country along with many other Americans of German ancestry regardless of whether they were known Nazi sympathizers or not.

The other difference is slavery was not a U.S. government institution. It was a business practice by some business owners. However, the U.S government was responsible for the internments during WWII.

Some of the brothas might be pissed at me for that opinion, but I'll pass on the government reparations, as long as I get to keep tying up and whipping white bitches.

< Message edited by SoulPiercer -- 7/18/2009 6:09:38 AM >

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:08:53 AM   
Starbuck09


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Status: offline 		If their heirs means exclusively their children then I agree with it rule my life as those people would have been directly affected, if it was not then I believe that the decision was dreadfully flawed. Why would the suffering of an african american of today descended from a slave be any different to my own suffering from the romans use of my anscestors as slave labour? Righting a wrong is good thing, acknowleding it when one cannot right it is also good. Feeling guilty about a past wrong that can't be changed and so dredging it up and fracturing society is not a good thing. It isd poorly thought out and irresponsible. I strongly believe that the difference between the japanese case and that of slavery is that the majority of these peopl;e and their children were still alive. This idea would have been best served in the late 1800's when it could have helped those wronged now it is nothing but harmful.

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:09:12 AM   
slaveluci


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luci

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:27:09 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: SoulPiercer

The other difference is slavery was not a U.S. government institution. It was a business practice by some business owners. However, the U.S government was responsible for the internments during WWII.


But tne government clearly supported slavery through legislation and court rulings upholding the institution:

Constitution, Economic Benefits of the | Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. ...

... Moreover, to ensure that southern states ratified the Constitution, the constitutional convention approved protection for slave owners. The Constitution clearly regards slaves as "chattel," or property. The three key clauses addressing slavery are article 1, section 2—the three-fifths clause dealing with representation; article 1, section 9—the international slave trade clause, which stopped the international slave trade in 1808; and article 4, section 2—the fugitive slave clause, which provided a federal guarantee of the return of runaway slaves.


...The era of the American Civil War (1861–1865) brought changes to the Constitution, shifted power away from the states and toward the federal government. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) Chief Justice Taney was finally faced with having to choose between property rights and individual human liberty. He came down on the side of protecting the property rights of the slaveholder by denying the humanity of the slave, Dred Scott.


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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:28:22 AM   
hizgeorgiapeach


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Status: offline 		This is gonna sound as politically incorrect as what Soul had to say (nicely put, btw - bravo) - but hell, since when did that ever actually stop me?

As someone with a great deal of Native American heritage I look at it this way.  The blacks can  have their reperations right after the US government Actually gives back all the land blatantly stolen from various tribes, appologizes and makes reperations for the murders committed to steal property, acknowledges it's active role in attempted genocide and in the cases of several small tribes sucessful genocide, and acknowledges it active role in the attempt to completely wipe out the cultures of indigenous peoples.  Oh - and while they're at it, they can acknowledge that they've played a Huge roll in the high suicide rates, extreme poverty, high alcoholism rates, high drug abuse rates, and despondancy present in many tribes.

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:33:04 AM   
servantforuse


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Status: offline 		Maybe the Irish too. They were basically forced to live in deplorable slums in New York. 

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:38:40 AM   
SoulPiercer


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Status: offline 		There is legislation that supports the sale of land and homes. That does not make real estate sales a U.S. government institution.



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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:41:05 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Starbuck09

Feeling guilty about a past wrong that can't be changed and so dredging it up and fracturing society is not a good thing. It isd poorly thought out and irresponsible. I strongly believe that the difference between the japanese case and that of slavery is that the majority of these peopl;e and their children were still alive. This idea would have been best served in the late 1800's when it could have helped those wronged now it is nothing but harmful.


40 acres and a mule


40 acres and a mule is a term for compensation that was promised to be awarded to freed African American slaves after the Civil War: 40 acres (16 ha) of land to farm, and a mule with which to drag a plow so the land could be cultivated.

40 acres (16 ha) was a quarter of a quarter-section. The award was a land grant deeded to heads of households, the land presumably formerly being owned by land-holding whites. It was the product of Special Field Orders, No. 15, issued January 16, 1865 by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, which applied to black families who lived near the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Sherman's orders specifically allocated "the islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida". There was no mention of mules in Sherman's order, although the Army may have distributed them anyway. Federal and state homestead grants of the time ranged from 1/4 section up to a full section.

After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, his successor, Andrew Johnson, revoked Sherman's Orders. It is sometimes mistakenly claimed that Johnson also vetoed the enactment of the policy as a federal statute (introduced as U.S. Senate Bill 60). In fact, the Freedmen's Bureau Bill which he vetoed made no mention of grants of land or mules. (Another version of the Freedmen's bill, also without the land grants, was later passed after Johnson's second veto was overridden.)

By June 1865, around 10,000 freed slaves were settled on 400,000 acres (160,000 ha) in Georgia and South Carolina. Soon after, President Andrew Johnson reversed the order and returned the land to its white former owners. Because of this, the phrase has come to represent the failure of Reconstruction and the general public to assist African Americans.

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:44:20 AM   
Lorr47


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quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Was not the debt paid on the battlefields of Vicksburg,Antietam and Gettysburg?Monetary reparations ,at this point in time,would serve no other purpose than to further fracture American society?IMO the cost could be catastrophic.The discussion itself is divisive.


Of course the discussion is divisive, it's a divisive issue, but it's not going to go away by ignoring it, as evidenced by the recent national apology vote.

And the government did set a precedent by giving reparation payments to the Japanese-Americans interred During WWII.





I read an article some months ago that convinced me that the American Japanese reparations were not a precedent.  The payments were made to persons "in being" or basically the first generation survivors.  Big difference.
Also, every day claims are denied because a "statute of limitations" controls.  All "statute of limitations have run many many many decades ago.  I have been bound by the "statutes of limitations" in my life" and to my detriment.  I am bound by the "statute of limitations" because I am white while others are not?  Is that reverse racism?  

< Message edited by Lorr47 -- 7/18/2009 6:45:40 AM >

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:46:29 AM   
Starbuck09


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Status: offline 		But so what rulemylife? That reinforces my point not negates it. The issues should have been dealt with then when it could have done some good. It wasn't and now it is far far too late to do any good and instead will do much harm. I was asking a serious question about whose suffering was greater the descendent of an african american slave or me the descendent of celtic slaves.

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:50:48 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: SoulPiercer

There is legislation that supports the sale of land and homes. That does not make real estate sales a U.S. government institution.



And I didn't say slavery was, but it was clearly supported legally and legislatively by the government.

And when we are talking of the legal aspect there has never been any court case to challenge the rights of people to own homes or land as a general principle.

There were legal challenges to the right of people to own other people and that right was upheld by the government, largely for economic reasons.

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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 6:50:57 AM   
slvemike4u


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quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Was not the debt paid on the battlefields of Vicksburg,Antietam and Gettysburg?Monetary reparations ,at this point in time,would serve no other purpose than to further fracture American society?IMO the cost could be catastrophic.The discussion itself is divisive.


Of course the discussion is divisive, it's a divisive issue, but it's not going to go away by ignoring it, as evidenced by the recent national apology vote.

And the government did set a precedent by giving reparation payments to the Japanese-Americans interred During WWII.



Laws were violated to accomplish that interrment....no existing laws were violated to keep slaves in their chains.I don't see a legal precedent.


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RE: Should blacks get reparations? - 7/18/2009 7:17:08 AM   
rulemylife


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lorr47

quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife



I read an article some months ago that convinced me that the American Japanese reparations were not a precedent.  The payments were made to persons "in being" or basically the first generation survivors.  Big difference.


If you have a link I would like to read that.

But when you say "big difference" I also think there is a big difference in the severity of the two situations.

The internment of the Japanese lasted a few years while slavery in this country goes back to the earliest colonial settlements and was far more brutal.

The precedent was the government acknowledging there was a wrong committed and a debt owed.

quote:


Also, every day claims are denied because a "statute of limitations" controls.  All "statute of limitations have run many many many decades ago.  I have been bound by the "statutes of limitations" in my life" and to my detriment.  I am bound by the "statute of limitations" because I am white while others are not?  Is that reverse racism?  


I think any argument trying to apply a statute-of-limitations here would be a stretch.  The argument could be made but there is nothing anywhere that comes close to addressing it on-point.

Besides, this is not likely to be decided as a civil action but as an act of Congress, if it ever comes to pass.

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