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Do you believe that America should pay reparations to African Americans?

Should we pay reparations to the African American community?

  • We should pay reparations to the African American communtiy

    Votes: 15 10.6%

  • We should not pay reparations to the African American community

    Votes: 126 89.4%
  • Total voters
    141
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Moot said:
Since most slaves took on their slave owners last name after the Civil war, their surnames, birth certificates, family records, old photos, etc.... could be used to determine who they are.
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There is no way to conclusively determine slave ancestors and your ideas above are ridiculous. There were no birth certificates for slaves, photos don't prove anything about actually being a slave or not, family records are not legal and what? Every black person with the name Smith gets money from every white person named Smith?

Those who can prove they're direct 'decedents' should get the money.
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Possible for a few at best...

It could be determined by what whites were paid for doing similar labor and by records kept on cotton, sugar and indigo exports to determine the overall production value and output from slave labor.
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not adjusted for inflation... right?

Academics at public colleges and universities most likely.
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Most likely? ...and why academics and not government officials using census statistics, etc.?

Since the entire country benefitted from slave labor, it should come out of the general fund.
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The entire nation did not come close to benefitting from slavery. My relatives in the Oregon Territory in the 1840's lived a world away from that crap.

Because the country still has the stain of slavery hanging over it's head...and we're supposed to be a moral country that pays our debts.
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Slavery is not hanging over our heads...
 
Moot said:
It was involuntary servitude....not sure why this is a difficult concept, either.
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And I guess that Indentured Servants should also get paid? What about the Native Americans that had their land stolen? Give it all back?
 
Moot said:
Yes, that's what I meant...good guess.

Since most slaves took on their slave owners last name after the Civil war, their surnames, birth certificates, family records, old photos, etc.... could be used to determine who they are.

Those who can prove they're direct 'decedents' should get the money.

It could be determined by what whites were paid for doing similar labor and by records kept on cotton, sugar and indigo exports to determine the overall production value and output from slave labor.

Academics at public colleges and universities most likely.

Since the entire country benefitted from slave labor, it should come out of the general fund.

Because the country still has the stain of slavery hanging over it's head...and we're supposed to be a moral country that pays our debts.
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So you want college professors and/or historians to spend time looking through historical documents to determine each and every slave and slave owner descendant and determine what each individual slave should've been paid based on how much he/she worked during his enslavement? Really?

If it comes out the general fund, then African Americans are paying too..............
 
Bodhisattva said:
Slavery was legal... end of story. What I would like to know is who is supposed to pay? Why should one cent of a person's money that didn't even live in the USA or descendents of people that never owned slaves pay anything? That is just theft... straight up. So, even if you get people to agree that they should get paid, which I will never agree too, who pays?



Not here it isn't.
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It was written in the constitution that the slave trade was to end by 1808. The money should come out of the general fund because the entire country benefitted from slavery and wouldn't be what it is today without it.
 
Moot said:
It was written in the constitution that the slave trade was to end by 1808. The money should come out of the general fund because the entire country benefitted from slavery and wouldn't be what it is today without it.
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You just can't be honest... no, it was not written that the slave trade would end by 1808. It was written that Congress could not make any laws stopping the slave trade before 1808. Additionally, this had only to do with importing slaves and not owning slaves. Slavery was still legal until 1865 and consequently my point remains correct. What did my relatives in Oregon have to do with or benefit from slavery? Prove that they did or your argument is FAILED.

The Slave Trade
 
Josie said:
So you want college professors and/or historians to spend time looking through historical documents to determine each and every slave and slave owner descendant and determine what each individual slave should've been paid based on how much he/she worked during his enslavement? Really?

If it comes out the general fund, then African Americans are paying too..............
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As are Native Americans who were systematically slaughtered and innocent people that had nothing to do with slavery including tens of millions of people that immigrated here years, decades and over a hundred years after slavery was over.
 
Bodhisattva said:
As are Native Americans who were systematically slaughtered and innocent people that had nothing to do with slavery including tens of millions of people that immigrated here years, decades and over a hundred years after slavery was over.
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Yes, and I have Native American ancestry. So..... what do I get?
 
Josie said:
So you want college professors and/or historians to spend time looking through historical documents to determine each and every slave and slave owner descendant and determine what each individual slave should've been paid based on how much he/she worked during his enslavement? Really?

If it comes out the general fund, then African Americans are paying too..............
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Looking at historical documents is what historians and academics, do. They can determine an average time and labor spent to determine an average wage the slaves should've received to determine an average of what their descendants should get. Yes, really.

Most African Americans never had inherited wealth like the white middle class did and they didn't earn enough to pay into the general fund. Until 1960 they weren't even allowed to own a business ...or vote.

"African-Americans, before the 1960s, first by law and then by custom, were not really allowed to own businesses. They had very little access to credit. There was a very low artificial ceiling on the wealth that could be accumulated. Hence there was very little, if anything, that could be passed along to help their children get to college, to help their children buy their first homes, or as an inheritance when they die," said Shapiro....​
A $95,000 question: why are whites five times richer than blacks in the US? | World news | The Guardian

"..Wealth passes down from generation to generation. The main reason African Americans are currently worse off than whites, according to Shapiro, is that today's African Americans inherited less wealth from their parents than today's whites did. It is not hard to see why: The generation of African Americans now passed away accumulated less wealth because discrimination in their day kept most of them poor and denied them opportunities other Americans enjoyed.

The disparity in wealth not only persists, it mushrooms. Without a cushion of inherited wealth, emergencies hit harder, and people who have no nest egg have to let opportunities pass by. Because of the wealth deficit, African Americans find themselves more vulnerable to shocks and less able to capitalize on breaks than whites with the same income. So the next generation will inherit less, too. The wealth gap will not close anytime soon...."​
RACE - The Power of an Illusion . Background Readings | PBS

The racial wealth gap we hardly talk about: What happens in retirement - The Washington Post
 
Bodhisattva said:
There is no way to conclusively determine slave ancestors and your ideas above are ridiculous.
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Then there's no point in responding to the rest of your post. Have a nice, day. :2wave:
 
FreedomFromAll said:
This is starting to remind me of the white privilege argument. Get whitey!
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Don't worry, you can keep your privilege. But you might have to learn to share some of that privilege with others.
 
FreedomFromAll said:
This is starting to remind me of the white privilege argument. Get whitey!
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Moot said:
Don't worry, you can keep your privilege. But you might have to learn to share some of that privilege with others.
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Are white people, specifically FFA, opposed to sharing privilege because it sounds an aweful lot like you are call FreedomFromAll a racist.
 
Moot said:
Then there's no point in responding to the rest of your post. Have a nice, day. :2wave:
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Silly things like facts are messing up your idea of utopia, apparently. Take care...
 
Moot said:
Looking at historical documents is what historians and academics, do. They can determine an average time and labor spent to determine an average wage the slaves should've received to determine an average of what their descendants should get. Yes, really.

Most African Americans never had inherited wealth like the white middle class did and they didn't earn enough to pay into the general fund. Until 1960 they weren't even allowed to own a business ...or vote.
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I think you need to check your history on that. The 15th amendment was passed in 1869.
 
Josie said:
Yes, and I have Native American ancestry. So..... what do I get?
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First you have to prove you're a direct descendant...but you might have to get in line because half the country claims to have Native American ancestry. But most likely your ancestors came to the US voluntarily whereas black people's ancestors did not.
 
Moot said:
First you have to prove you're a direct descendant...but you might have to get in line because half the country claims to have Native American ancestry. But most likely your ancestors came to the US voluntarily whereas black people's ancestors did not.
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I could prove it easily as my great-great grandmother was full-blood Cherokee.

So because my ancestors were here voluntarily, they get nothing? Really? Do you even KNOW what Native Americans went through in this country?
 
Josie said:
I think you need to check your history on that. The 15th amendment was passed in 1869.
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It was called the 'great compromise' and can found in first four Articles of the Constitution. The Constitution was ratified in 1788. Slavery was supposed to end by 1808 - 1810 of its own accord and when it didn't, the country had to go to war to end it. Slavery was only legal in the belligerent southern states but the rest of the country still benefitted from it through exports and trade.


The Thirteenth Amendment: Slavery and the Constitution
 
Moot said:
Don't worry, you can keep your privilege. But you might have to learn to share some of that privilege with others.
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Could you be more specific about what privilege that you think that I have personally. And what exactly someone could take away from me?
 
Moot said:
It was called the 'great compromise' and can found in first four Articles of the Constitution. The Constitution was ratified in 1788. Slavery was supposed to end by 1808 - 1810 of its own accord and when it didn't, the country had to go to war to end it. Slavery was only legal in the belligerent southern states but the rest of the country still benefitted from it through exports and trade.


The Thirteenth Amendment: Slavery and the Constitution
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That makes no sense with what I said. My comment was about when African Americans were given the right to vote through the Constitution. It was 1869, not the 1960s as you said.
 
Josie said:
I could prove it easily as my great-great grandmother was full-blood Cherokee.

So because my ancestors were here voluntarily, they get nothing? Really? Do you even KNOW what Native Americans went through in this country?
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Apparently, there's some controversy among Native Americans who qualifies as authentic native Americans. So I doubt they would accept your third or fourth generation removed ancestor as authentic native American especially if she married a person of another race or tribe. Blacks didn't that have that luxury to marry outside their own race.
 
Moot said:
Apparently, there's some controversy among Native Americans who qualifies as authentic native Americans. So I doubt they would accept your third or fourth generation removed ancestor as authentic native American especially if she married a person of another race or tribe. Blacks didn't that have that luxury to marry outside their own race.
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You keep coming up with all of these excuses to NOT help the descendants of Native Americans. What do you have against them? Why African Americans and not Natives?
 
Smeagol said:
You and I obviously have different perspectives but in my view if something would be heinous and barbaric in 2015, it was heinous and barbaric in 1915 and 1815.
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The illogicality of what you think of it now is irrelevant to what it was back then.


Smeagol said:
Right would still be right and evil still evil no matter what year, decade or century in my opinion.
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And it was right back then and not evil.


Smeagol said:
... and the federal government were complicit in the slave industry.
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Just stop with the bs.
Slavery was legal and not a wrongdoing then, there was no complicity.
 
Moot said:
They earned it with their labor, so why wouldn't they be owed back pay?
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Again Moot. They didn't earn anything.


Moot said:
It was involuntary servitude....not sure why this is a difficult concept, either.

"Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the worker's financial needs."​
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D'oh!

A concept that wasn't in effect while they were slaves.
In other words, it doesn't apply here.


Moot said:
That's a good list. Along with corporations, the entire country benefitted from slavery whether they owned slaves or not IE: cotton picked by slaves in the south kept the mills and factories in the north operating and white immigrants employed.
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No, the country benefited from the product of those who were able to purchase folks to work for them.


Moot said:
Slavery was supposed to end by 1808 - 1810 of its own accord ...
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No Moot, that is a dishonest statement.
 
Josie said:
You keep coming up with all of these excuses to NOT help the descendants of Native Americans. What do you have against them? Why African Americans and not Natives?
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No, I'm just telling you that it's the Native Americans themselves who decide who is an authentic descendant. So if they don't believe you then that's your problem, not mine or the rest of the country. If you had kept current on native American issues you would've known that...but you've shown that you really are too far removed to care about them or their issues.
 
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