Democrats and Reparations

[Shad]

No, they are indigenous to this land they are not defined as "citizens" under the code of the law which is why we call them "Native Americans." A citizen (in its proper definition) is a member of a state or union who owes an allegiance to a government, Native Americans had neither of that sort in that context.

Wrong. The Indian Citizenship Act and removal of voting prohibition made them citizens. The 14th amendment is not applicable thus other legislation was passed from the 1920s to late 40s.

 

[pearl]

But this isn't about affirmative action.

In the sense that it was the government's use of social engineering to redress discriminatory practices of the past it is.

For a group that is opposed to it, sure as hell reap the benefits from it.

As did Justice Clarence Thomas who now opposes it.

What is that?

Civil Rights

 

[BSM1]

What exactly is that supposed to mean? I honestly can't make heads or tails of it.

Have you noticed the deplorable and soul-sucking conditions that exist for many, if not most, of the average persons living in the areas that produced most of the slaves from that era? How many African-Americans do you think would want to have their children grow up in the land of their ancestors? My ancestors were refugees from the Irish potato famines; although it's a quaint thought, I am damn glad that my kids grew up in the US instead of River Dancing in the pubs of Dublin.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Have you noticed the deplorable and soul-sucking conditions that exist for many, if not most, of the average persons living in the areas that produced most of the slaves from that era? How many African-Americans do you think would want to have their children grow up in the land of their ancestors? My ancestors were refugees from the Irish potato famines; although it's a quaint thought, I am damn glad that my kids grew up in the US instead of River Dancing in the pubs of Dublin.

I had wondered if that is what you meant, but wasn't sure so asked for clarification. Now that i have it, I wish I hadn't.

The reason why those places tend to be so poor is because they had been subjected to centuries of brutal domination by European colonialists, for the benefit of their wealthy elites to become even more powerful. This wealth was never returned to them, so of course they're going to be poor. When you're robbed, you tend to be poorer than you were beforehand. They also suffered the loss of millions of people over centuries of kidnapping and enslavement which caused the destruction of societies and communities. European colonialism only officially ended around the 60s and 70s in Africa, so to think that those people should be on the same terms of the so-called first world already is just stupid and completely unrealistic when they have only just begun recovering.

it is also very unrealistic to expect African Americans who are the descendants of slaves to rejoice in being born in America because their enslaved ancestors lost their heritage and their cultures. They have no idea which ethnic group their ancestors came from, which country, which language they spoke, and which name they had. The colonialists and slavers stripped all that from them, including their religions and folkways. The family names they have now are those of Europeans, generally. Black people don't owr America any sort of thanks for how they've been treated. It is completely tone deaf of you to compare that to your Irish ancestors coming to America to escape the potato famine in the 19th century because you most likely know where your ancestors came from and you probably even still have their family name. Black people don't have that kind of privilege, so you need to really think things out more before you spew more such disturbing rhetoric.

 

[BSM1]

I had wondered if that is what you meant, but wasn't sure so asked for clarification. Now that i have it, I wish I hadn't.

The reason why those places tend to be so poor is because they had been subjected to centuries of brutal domination by European colonialists, for the benefit of their wealthy elites to become even more powerful. This wealth was never returned to them, so of course they're going to be poor. When you're robbed, you tend to be poorer than you were beforehand. They also suffered the loss of millions of people over centuries of kidnapping and enslavement which caused the destruction of societies and communities. European colonialism only officially ended around the 60s and 70s in Africa, so to think that those people should be on the same terms of the so-called first world already is just stupid and completely unrealistic when they have only just begun recovering.

it is also very unrealistic to expect African Americans who are the descendants of slaves to rejoice in being born in America because their enslaved ancestors lost their heritage and their cultures. They have no idea which ethnic group their ancestors came from, which country, which language they spoke, and which name they had. The colonialists and slavers stripped all that from them, including their religions and folkways. The family names they have now are those of Europeans, generally. Black people don't owr America any sort of thanks for how they've been treated. It is completely tone deaf of you to compare that to your Irish ancestors coming to America to escape the potato famine in the 19th century because you most likely know where your ancestors came from and you probably even still have their family name. Black people don't have that kind of privilege, so you need to really think things out more before you spew more such disturbing rhetoric.

No matter why "those places" are the way they are, I still wouldn't want my kids having to live there, would you? BTW, you don't think ruthless warlords and dictators had anything to do with the conditions today?

 

[Mindmaster]

No matter why "those places" are the way they are, I still wouldn't want my kids having to live there, would you? BTW, you don't think ruthless warlords and dictators had anything to do with the conditions today?

I refuse to feel bad about slavery, but that's because I had nothing to do with it. I despise it, but that's someone else's crime, not mine.

Anyway, African-American's at the end of the day have it a lot better than their counterparts in Africa for the most part, in the modern day. As strange as it is to say, African-American's should count their damn lucky stars that they end up here. Sure, they probably didn't have the choice, but in the end they're doing a lot better.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

No matter why "those places" are the way they are, I still wouldn't want my kids having to live there, would you? BTW, you don't think ruthless warlords and dictators had anything to do with the conditions today?

I see that you're just going to ignore everything I said and how those conditions came to be. Figures.

 

[BSM1]

I see that you're just going to ignore everything I said and how those conditions came to be. Figures.

What you are saying has nothing to do with what we are talking about. It seems you are trying to dredge up some kind of artificial guilt for situations that were not part of our doing instead of contributing to the conversation.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

What you are saying has nothing to do with what we are talking about. It seems you are trying to dredge up some kind of artificial guilt for situations that were not part of our doing instead of contributing to the conversation.

It has everything to do with it. You're just choosing to ignore it because it destroys your idiotic and insulting view of it. What you said was deeply offensive. No one in their right mind would be glad their ancestors were ripped from their land and lost their heritage and culture. You've lost the plot.

 

[BSM1]

It has everything to do with it. You're just choosing to ignore it because it destroys your idiotic and insulting view of it. What you said was deeply offensive. No one in their right mind would be glad their ancestors were ripped from their land and lost their heritage and culture. You've lost the plot.

Really? Well, I guess I'll just go have a cup of chamomile and try to atone for the sins of others. Thankfully your biased misreading and misunderstanding has shown me the errors of my ways.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Really? Well, I guess I'll just go have a cup of chamomile and try to atone for the sins of others. Thankfully your biased misreading and misunderstanding has shown me the errors of my ways.

I don't want or need anything from you. I was just informing you in your ignorance.

 

[BSM1]

I don't want or need anything from you. I was just informing you in your ignorance.

And for that I will be eternally grateful. I only hope you'll feel the same when you finally face your naivete.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

And for that I will be eternally grateful. I only hope you'll feel the same when you finally face your naivete.

Next you'll say that Jews should be happy to have been driven out of Europe.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Being that's the case, and am completely being off track here, why then are calls for reparations even being brought up in 2018-19 in view the offending and victimized generations in question are both long dead and in the grave?

The arguments being made regarding reparations stem from not just slavery, but the social and psychological affect of discrimination thereafter. What Democrats are proposing was the affect of subsequent discrimination created an economic gap.

No one living today had anything directly to do with the situations and events that had occurred in 17th and 18th century. Even more specifically, what demographic of people aside from political affiliation, is being targeted for the proverbial writing of a check for an undisclosed amount and handing it out?

Well from the arguments that my school mate supplied as well as what I'm reading from the positions of the Democratic candidates what their focusing on are not the American citizens, but the federal government who has had a direct influence on past housing disadvantages which greatly impacted the African-American community. Not to mention various state laws (primarily Jim Crow) which greatly affected the community which had residual effects. so all the while nobody alive can be responsible for slavery, the federal government still bears the responsibility of affecting a community for centuries which I would presume, would be the argument these presidential hopefuls are making.

Is there a dollar figure established to the cost of reperations now? How is that calculated assuming such a figure exists?

I don't know about Kamala Harris or Cory Booker (or is it Brooker?), but Marianne Williamsom presupposes "$200 billion to $500 billion to the ancestors of slaves over the course of 20 years."

Source:What Are Slavery Reparations? 2020 Democrats Are Trying to Decide

I suppose all white folks that were lumped into the reperations call who's ancestors sacrificed life and freedom in the Underground Railroad should be included as well I would take it?

I'm sure if such reparations were distributed if in fact it was agreed upon to dispense monetary rewards I'm sure it would come from what we have stored within the federal government. Even if (and that is a BIG IF) taxpayers would be footing the bill it's not like I'd be escaping it because you, me, Jack, Jill, Jesus, Maria, Oscar or whoever that is a taxpaying U.S. citizen would be paying. My best guess this would be avoided and most likely come from elsewhere.

Should black slave masters/owners be exempted as well as the tribal lineages of any and all blacks that helped the whites enslave other men women and children and brought them to the US.

I love the black slave owners go-to argument, see the following:

"That black people bought and sold other black people raises “vexing questions” for 21st-century Americans like African-American writer Henry Louis Gates Jr., who writes that it betrays class divisions that have always existed within the black community. For others, it’s an excuse to deflect the shared blame for the institution of slavery in America away from white people."


The first legal slave owner in American history was a black tobacco farmer named Anthony Johnson.

Possibly true. The wording of the statement is important. Anthony Johnson was not the first slave owner in American history, but he was, according to historians, among the first to have his lifetime ownership of a servant legally sanctioned by a court.

A former indentured servant himself, Anthony Johnson was a “free negro” who owned a 250-acre farm in Virginia during the 1650s, with five indentured servants under contract to him. One of them, a black man named John Casor, claimed that his term of service had expired years earlier and Johnson was holding him illegally. In 1654, a civil court found that Johnson in fact owned Casor’s services for life, an outcome historian R Halliburton Jr. calls “one of the first known legal sanctions of slavery — other than as a punishment for crime.”

Source:FACT CHECK: 9 Facts About Slavery They Don't Want You to Know

To explain, did free blacks owned slaves? Yes. According to The Root

"So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people."

Source:https://www.theroot.com/did-black-people-own-slaves-1790895436

So you question what about so-called black slave owners? Well, the relationship between so-called black slave owners and white slave owners were different. As the above source further states:

"The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."

Moreover, Woodson explains, "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms." In other words, these black slave-owners, the clear majority, cleverly used the system of slavery to protect their loved ones. That's the good news."

In other words, the type of slavery under black ownership was a huge contrast to slavery under white ownership.

Personally I think we need to continue to look into the future rather than picking at old wounds that nobody can do anything about. Just my uneducated opinion.

This is why I believe we are at an impasse because this U.S. society is still not ready to understand the complex history of discrimination against black people and the continued existence of the economic gap between blacks and whites. So far as people like you who are willing to overlook the economic disparities due to the long system of white supremacist policies my grand parents had to endure which affected my family. When talking about reducing economic wealth disparities between blacks and whites, it's not enough to say we (blacks) have to make better financial decisions, or have greater educational attainment, or tell us to work harder, it is about addressing the centuries long system that has had a residual affect on the community that has spanned for generations.

Some Democratic solutions on decreasing the gap would require policies in place that would decrease the gap and would help to undo decades of economic injustice. I believe this is what these candidates are fighting for. I've since then have given up on U.S. American to understand the black plight. As I mentioned in another discussion i's going to take the death of my generation and generations behind me for us as a society to actual own the word "progressive."

I suggest looking at the following video and the world we still live in since you want to look beyond the pains of others:

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Wrong. The Indian Citizenship Act and removal of voting prohibition made them citizens. The 14th amendment is not applicable thus other legislation was passed from the 1920s to late 40s.

I stand corrected.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

In the sense that it was the government's use of social engineering to redress discriminatory practices of the past it is.

But that isn't enough to correct the economic disparities that exist between black and white considering that blacks had to endure decades to centuries of social and economic policies that put them at great disadvantages.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

I refuse to feel bad about slavery, but that's because I had nothing to do with it. I despise it, but that's someone else's crime, not mine.

You despise something you don't feel bad about seems like an oxymoron.

Anyway, African-American's at the end of the day have it a lot better than their counterparts in Africa for the most part, in the modern day.

Not really. I just face discrimination, poverty, death, destruction, and the like just on a different platform in a different playing field. I still get called a N**** whether I exist here in the states or there in Africa, I am black, people who look like me are disliked all over the planet due to Eurocentrism and colorism. The problem with individuals like you is that you're not well travelled so all you have in your mind are the stereotypical pictures that plays in the media and in non-profit organizations depicting Africa a certain way. Nigeria for example, is a prosperous country just as Ghana, Morocco, Rwanda, Algeria, Burkina Faso. You ought to get your head out of your rectum, afford a plane ticket and travel instead of being broke and watching false depictions of African countries.

 

[Augustus]

Upon reading some stuff at work (of course while on break) I was reading about the discussions regarding Democratic candidates opening up the discussion of reparations for black Americans. Interesting enough the discussion of course on different political platforms evolved into inflammatory discussions.

If you were President, what form would reparations take and how effective do you think they would be?

 

[Curious George]

Upon reading some stuff at work (of course while on break) I was reading about the discussions regarding Democratic candidates opening up the discussion of reparations for black Americans. Interesting enough the discussion of course on different political platforms evolved into inflammatory discussions.

I like the answer (in question form) that Bernie Sanders gave when asked whether he endorsed reparations for the descendants of African slaves he said "what does that mean?"

It has come to my attention that several Democratic presidential candidates are endorsing the idea of reparations for the descendants of slaves these include: Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Marianne Williamson. In a telephone discussion with a former school mate of mine concerning the subject, she approved of the idea of reparations as a means of closing the economic gap that many black Americans have far too long have staggered behind in time. All the false promises like 40 acres and a mule (which was never paid), Jim Crow, discriminatory housing practices etcetera have all played in affect, the stagnation of economic equality between black and white Americans. She further argued that abolishment of slavery did not reset opportunity for social and economical equality, and the systems that existed after slavery perpetuated racism which prevented equitable opportunity for people of color. In addition she stated to me that black Americans were impacted by federal housing laws and even today these laws in part are still in effect.

To put this in context for you guys my mother during her time could not live in any neighborhood and most certainly she had to live in areas where it was populated by predominately blacks. the value of home ownership in comparison to white home ownership is less even when crime was very low. The very fact that people were of a different skin pigmentation sets a particular value for the housing market and it still continues still this day. I then asked her how she felt regarding the pushback in social commentary Ben Shiparo came to mind. She said:

"When white Americans talk about why should I pay for something I was not involved in? I tell them why do we as taxpayers fund wars we do not completely believe in? Or what about African-Americans Latinos, Native Americans paying for reparations for the Japanese in the 1980's?"

Sounds compelling she further added:

"I take issue for those arguing against reparations focusing on the history of slavery and not take into consideration the subsequent discriminatory experiences faced by black Americans. 243 years of slavery, 10 to 12 years of reconstruction, 19 years of Jim Crow all the way until 1970 as the marker, blacks were technically free for 49 years. To add to this the Fair Housing Act was passed because it was filibustered for three years and MLK had to be assassinated for the House to pass it. When whites ask how they would feel about reparations to blacks, I tell them to ask the descendants of Rosewood and Black Wall street and how racism destroyed affluent black communities. There were blacks who owned hundreds of acres of land and had to abandon them due to the KKK threatening them with lynching even though police were present during those times (police are considered as government entities) smart Democrats see this."

Ultimately what I see that is problematic when it comes to Democrats pandering the idea of reparations is that psychologically we do not live in a society that is ready to recognize its sins and ready to close the gap because I firmly believe there are people that fear competition. I believe given the opportunity and if all things were reset equally with equal opportunities without discriminatory practices black Americans would be very successful. Unfortunately in my lifetime this society is not ready to acknowledge generations of discrimination which affected generations of people over time. Gentrification, redlining, all played a part in dismantling black economic growth that no Democrat will be able to fix, at least not in my lifetime.

A bit surprising that Ta-Nehisi Coates has escaped mention in this thread. I assume you have read, or listened to him, if not you should.

I worry that democrats pandering the idea of reparation severely misses the mark.

Injustices occurred. The ripples of those injustices still pervade our current stream of reality. While we can discuss various remedies for that, doing so loses meaning when we neglect to address the actual injustices and bring them to the forefront. For some injustices there is no viable legal remedy. For others, we could certainly brainstorm. But the focus on who gets what and who pays what is in some ways putting the cart before the horse.

We can see that is the discussion that some push. Even here discussing a political aspect you are asked what you think you are owed. I am not surprised that is the direction this thread took. Are you?

I would like to see a productive conversation regarding the injustices, the reasoning behind those injustices, the benefits to those injustices and the consequences of those injustices. I understand that is not the topic of your thread, but I am not sure this thread can get back on track.

Thanks for the post.

 

[Curious George]

As for reparations, who would be footing the bill? The guilty/responsible parties are long gone, and what about those whose families migrated from Africa after the emancipation proclamation?

That is not true. Corporations and nations are still around today.

Consider: https://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery/