Slavery Reparations: Is it time?

[Disgustipated]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

There's a wiki article to get you started.

Obviously the Is it time saying is a bit too late. The time to do it was in 1866 or so. But maybe better late than never? I ask this as a question, because I do not know. I think giving reparations could lower the crime rate, and that would be a good thing. I can't blame them for taking what was stolen from their ancestors over 100 years ago.

The problem of course is it's nearly impossible to implement. Obviously people who came after 1865 should not receive benefits, although they did have to endure segregation and discrimination, so maybe they should get some money too? How is this paid for? It would be unfair to tax just whites (many like my family came over well after slavery ended). The only fair way would be to tax everyone, including blacks.

Anyways, I have no idea, but I think this thread will spark some interesting discussion, and I look forward to reading it.

Precedents

Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. government apologized for Japanese American internment during World War II and provided reparations of $20,000 to each survivor, to compensate for loss of property and liberty during that period. For many years, Native American tribes have received compensation for lands ceded to the United States by them in various treaties. Other countries have also opted to pay reparations for past grievances, such as the German government making reparations to Jews and survivors and descendants of the Holocaust

 

[Winner]

It's nonsense. Everyone who suffered because of slavery and everyone who took part in the system that sustained it is long dead. It's history, period.

(just for the lulz, I'd offer to pay "reparations" to any black American willing to move 'back' to Africa and never return - how many would take such an offer I wonder )

 

[Disgustipated]

It's nonsense. Everyone who suffered because of slavery and everyone who took part in the system that sustained it is long dead. It's history, period.

(just for the lulz, I'd offer to pay "reparations" to any black American willing to move 'back' to Africa and never return - how many would take such an offer I wonder )

Chase Manhatten bank is still around. Check this link out

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/repara30.htm

JP Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank and 18 other companies due to their historical roles in the enslavement of Africans.

Maybe Chase Manhattan should pay for the reparations?

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

1866-1880 or so would have been a different issue. There is no living American who was ever either a slave or slave owner. Therefore there is no actual reparations.

 

[Winner]

Chase Manhatten bank is still around. Check this link out

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/repara30.htm

Maybe Chase Manhattan should pay for the reparations?

That's a can of worms that should better stay closed. One way or another, pretty much everyone alive in the US while slavery was still practised was involved in it. Hundreds and thousands of companies and millions of people. If you started tracing back who "inherited" the responsibility, you'd just end up with a very unfair and largely arbitrary selection of companies and people who should "pay reparations".

Just draw a thick line and let history be history - it is way too late for a "just payback".

 

[Patroklos]

Why are we considering reparations for just that particular instance of slavery? And why just slavery?

 

[Crezth]

Why are we considering reparations for just that particular instance of slavery? And why just slavery?

What else are you thinking of for reparations?

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

What else are you thinking of for reparations?

I'm pretty sure there are even today still reparation hearings for seized property during the holocaust, but they have to prove the property was theirs to begin with.

 

[Antilogic]

There is no living American who was ever either a slave or slave owner.

This. While some could make the argument the current state of African-American communities is the result of historic discrimination and slavery, that's what affirmative action programs, etc. are for. Reparations would have needed to be settled between the individuals directly involved.

Reparations opens another can of worms--are we going to pay a fair value for all the land taken from the indigenous Americans? How about the victims in any wars--are the invaded justified in demanding reparations?

 

[emzie]

The point of reparations is that the descendants of slaves are still, on average, less well off precisely because of their ancestor's enslavement. So the lack of people alive today that were slaves or slave owners is rather a side issue.*

But I'm against it anyway as there are better mechanisms to address that than feeding into a victimization complex. I support affirmative action / subsidized education based on poverty.


*Though I do think some of us forget how recent slavery was. When our grandparents were children, people born slaves were still alive. The last person born into slavery outlived Hitler -- put another way, you can have a conversation right now with someone who has met a former slave.

 

[bhsup]

I never owned a slave. I don't owe crap in reparations and my tax money shouldn't go towards any. In addition, legal slavery has not existed in this country for 1.5 centuries so just who could possibly be owed any reparations for slavery? Nobody, that's who. If anyone claims they are owed reparations, they're just greedy lazy bastards who want a handout from the government.

*I specified legal slavery because tragically there is still human trafficking in young women, etc.

EDIT: Also, since the North claims in hindsight that the civil war was all about slavery, shouldn't descendents of union civil war veterans be exempt from any stupid reparation since they fought the 'free the slaves'?

 

[luiz]

Agree with VRWCAgent. Anyone who claims to be entitled reparations because of someting their long dead ancestors suffered well over a century ago is either a a greedy bastard or a complete idiot. Or both.

The idea is so cretinous it is not worth discussin, but just for laughs: would they track down who is a black person descendant from slaves as opposed to more recent free immigrants? What about, say, americans of haitian origin, who are descendants of slaves that were not enslaved in the US? What about someone who looks entirely white, comes from a slave-owning family, but has one distant slave ancestor? The possibilities for fun would never end.

 

[Antilogic]

*Though I do think some of us forget how recent slavery was. When our grandparents were children, people born slaves were still alive. The last person born into slavery outlived Hitler -- put another way, you can have a conversation right now with someone who has met a former slave.

So you are saying that if I talk to a bunch of seniors I might meet one who had a conversation decades ago with someone who knew slavery from even further back?

Sounds distant enough for me.

 

[downtown]

Forget checks. The US owes american blacks a decent education, which they have systemically failed to provide for decades, not just from slavery. Once that stain of inequality is gone, we can call it even.

Any other form of reparations is just perpetuating the problem.

It's worth pointing out that we've really only extended full civil rights for Blacks over the last 50 years. Of course there are residual effects from that.

 

[Turquoiside]

(just for the lulz, I'd offer to pay "reparations" to any black American willing to move 'back' to Africa and never return - how many would take such an offer I wonder )

Where are the lulz?

 

[~Corsair#01~]

I think that every American citizen who has ever personally owned a slave should indeed pay compensation to individuals who have been enslaved.

 

[Crezth]

I'm pretty sure there are even today still reparation hearings for seized property during the holocaust, but they have to prove the property was theirs to begin with.

Well it's not like anyone is saying reparations should only be doled out in compensation for slavery.

I think society as a whole should attempt to address the inequality problems that have resulted from the systematic oppression of African Americans (that continued well past slavery's end and, in a certain sense, still exists today) but reparations should really be between the direct descendants. And a matter of personal conscience at that, so if you're the descendant of a wealthy slaveholder you might feel inclined to give reparations to the descendants of some of your descendant's slaves, but if that then you might as well support affirmative action or increased funding for inner-city schools.

fake edit: Plus I'm not sure how you'd monetize slavery reparations in any definitely quantifiable way, so you're better off looking into means to improve the lot of slave descendants in terms of their capacity for self-improvement and advancement, both of which are lacking at present.

 

[Patroklos]

What else are you thinking of for reparations?

I think the English owe the Irish a thing or two. The Russians a whole bunch of people.

 

[Winner]

Where are the lulz?

I would find it very amusing.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The Russians a whole bunch of people.

The Russian Empire, with its benevolent conquests, which developed the friendship between all peoples of Eurasia, doesn't own anything to anyone. On the contrary, the We$t should pay reparations to Russia for spreading instability and destroying the Russian friendship of the peoples