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LadyEllen -> RE: African complicity in the slave trade.... (4/24/2010 6:16:00 AM)
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In 1651 there was the last battle in the series of conflicts known collectively as the English Civil War. The battle took place at Worcester, (about 15 miles from me - the few defeated who managed to flee did so up the road to the back of my house).
The English contingent of the defeated and captured Royalist army, numbering about 6000, was conscripted into the Parliament army and sent to Ireland. The remnants of the Scottish contingent, which had made up the bulk of the Royalist army, numbering about 8000, were sent to the American colonies in New England - as slave labour.
Clearly then, if it is established that descendants of Africans transported as slaves are entitled to reparations, then the descendants of these 8000 Scottish slaves must also be similarly entitled. Alongside one must say, the descendants of the English debtors sent in similar circumstances to Georgia and those sent later to Australia, comprising a range of petty criminals, debtors, misfits and innocents.
Equally if the principle may be established, there should be equal grounds in relation to alike instances worldwide throughout history. In this way, I am entitled to reparations following the events of 1066 to 1080, whereby my ancestors were made slaves until the early 19th century; that's 700 years, three times the period of slavery of any family in the US.
Such a principle, even if possible to establish, should be at best absurd in its resolutions, notwithstanding that in relation to the claims arising, the cause asserted is so distant in time (and in many instances place), the harm or loss so indirect to those claiming and the harm or loss suffered so difficult to establish, the evidence being for the most part at best conjectural, not to mention that the question as to who might be joined in suit and on what grounds are equally affected.
If the question is as to whether the enslavement of past generations of a family might affect (and even effect) the status and character of their current descendants, this is more readily established but by no means a factor that necessarily might indicate equally damaging effects across all such instances. There is no question that past enslavement in many, even most, instances, likely sets a family line on a path that runs at or near the bottom of the social scale for generations.
It seems to me that the whole matter of reparations is one that in fact is identified wholly with the question of ongoing and continuing adverse discrimination against the descendants of slaves that affects those descendants in the present to their disadvantage. This latter is another and more viable cause of action that can be established, regardless of ethnicity, and which being contrary to criminal and civil law in its action and effects has a ready means of resolution, evidence and harm and loss being present. Whilst it should be difficult at best to establish general damages for intergenerational harm or loss arising from an instance in the distant past, it should be easy to establish specific damages for harm or loss arising in the present.
This though brings us back to the matter of the low social status of families asserting the effects of past slavery, as this low social status acts as a deterrent in accessing the law (and defending against its effects) in instances of adverse discrimination. There are questions of trust that the law will, as it ought, treat them equally, and practical questions of cost. There is more than adequate evidence that such barriers play a substantial role in maintaining and reducing the social status of those already at the bottom of the scale, thereby reinforcing those barriers.
The reparation that one might suggest therefore is that public funding be provided not to those asserting adverse effects from past slavery in relation to those asserted effects but rather to schemes which provide for access to justice for all those who, being at the bottom of the social scale, may face substantial barriers to such access otherwise, whether in the civil or criminal theatres.
Such funding, diverted to both the provision of adequate counsel in current cases and the training of promising candidates of lower social standing for the future, should open up the provisions of law that should provide reparation where adverse discrimination has occurred in civil wrongs, and deter and defeat those instances in criminal law where a defendant finds himself arrested and charged for no good reason. Thereby trust in the law will over time also be restored, and a clear message sent to those prone to adverse discrimination that may not act on it without facing the consequences. That such schemes are absent or underfunded is interesting to say the least.
E
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