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

Glen Contrarian said:

No. While some whites may have been enslaved/raped/murdered/had land stolen, these were very much the EXCEPTIONS to the rule...whereas for blacks it WAS the rule.

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Certain groups were though...

Up to one-half of all the arrivals in the American colonies were Whites slaves and they were America's first slaves. These Whites were slaves for life, long before Blacks ever were. This slavery was even hereditary. White children born to White slaves were enslaved too.

Whites were auctioned on the block with children sold and separated from their parents and wives sold and separated from their husbands. Free Black property owners strutted the streets of northern and southern American cities while White slaves were worked to death in the sugar mills of Barbados and Jamaica and the plantations of Virginia.

Hoffman reveals: The Forgotten Slaves--Whites in Servitude

Were white people as a whole group enslaved by America? "You're white, therefore you're a slave"?

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The word slave comes from the Slavs, whites enslaved by the Vikings and the Persians.

And black people as a whole group were NOT enslaved by America. "You're black, therefore you're a slave" is inaccurate.

Not all African Americans came to America as slaves; a few came even in the 17th century as free men, sailors working on ships. In the early colonial years, some Africans came as indentured servants, as did most of the immigrants from the British Isles. Such servants became free when they completed their term of indenture; they were also eligible for headrights for land in the new colony in the Chesapeake Bay region, where indentured servants were more common. As early as 1619, a class of free black people existed in North America.

Free negro - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We had it nowhere near as bad...and anyone who thinks otherwise is simply speaking out of ignorance.

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No offense but as I am using facts/links and you are not I will kindly think the opposite.

Glen Contrarian said:

You mean America enslaved and abused everyone at one point in history or another?

Oh, wait, you mean ALL THE WORLD, and not America...by which you mean that we shouldn't be responsible for anything America has ever done since other people did it too....

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That is not what he is saying... but why should some oppressed classes receive money and not others? That is his point.

radcen said:

While I am adamantly opposed to reparations, this particular argument is irrelevant and off-the-mark, IMO. *I* never did anything wrong, either, but the issue isn't really whether or not we as individuals did anything wrong, the issue is whether or not the government did something wrong, and whether we like it or not the government works in our name and with our complicit approval.

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Not really. Not one of us cast a single vote for the people who allowed and sanctioned slavery. Not one of us cast a single vote for the people who appointed Supreme Court Justices who kept slavery fully intact in the USA for quite some time. I would bet a good state dinner that if we polled every member of Congress tonight and every Supreme Court justice and every bureaucrat heading a government office, we would get 100% results with no exceptions that every single one would oppose slavery, segregation, and would vote against repeal of the Civil Rights Act.

And when it comes to the more destructive policies of government these days, I consistently vote for people who oppose them and would vote to reverse them, and I speak out against them every time somebody gives me a soapbox to stand on. I have a hard time accepting responsibility for that which I do not support or any complicity in the tragic results.

Glen Contrarian said:

You mean America enslaved and abused everyone at one point in history or another?

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Everyone abused everyone at one point in history or another. The reparations game is really just a fools game of picking a random date and declaring that to be the start of history.

ThePlayDrive said:

LOL, the prosperity of this country and all the benefits that come with it is, in GREAT PART, due to slave labor. What the **** kind of question is that?

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Yea I didn't think you'd answer. What specifically?

2nd question: Are you in favor of inheritance tax, and are you for taxing wealth instead of income?

Glen Contrarian said:

Okay, let's address the immigration thing. We did amnesty - which I believed then and now was the right thing - and now we've got another illegal immigrant problem. It seems quite logical, then, to say that amnesty doesn't work, right?

Thing is, what can prevent illegal immigration? A wall? Hardly. Anyone who thinks a wall from the Pacific to the Gulf would stop illegal immigration doesn't know human beings. There is one thing and one thing only that will effectively end illegal immigration - if Mexico's economy is as prosperous (and as safe) as our own (or if ours is as bad as theirs, which is why we've had zero net immigration for the past few years). Unless we get their economy to be almost as prosperous as our own, we're always going to have an illegal immigration problem...which, according to the Chamber of Commerce, is something that requires immigration reform ASAP. It doesn't matter that Reagan's amnesty didn't fix the problem forever - it needs fixing again...and likely will twenty or thirty more years down the road.

So how does this apply to the debate on reparations? What we have done to African Americans was and continues to be a shame. If we pay reparations, those problems won't go away - in fact, it's possible they might worsen from the backlash from those who oppose reparations for whatever reason. But the problem is still there, and needs fixing...even with such a bubble-gum-and-bailing-wire solution as reparations. We can't allow the possibility that things won't improve or might even worsen stop us from doing what we can to make things better.

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I'm sure you'll disagree, but my point regarding amnesty is that it was an abject failure, and that we shouldn't be doing things as a matter of public policy that don't have some sort of tangible benefit. That, combined with your acknowledgment that reparations would possibly only incite further backlash, only serves to reinforce my position. We would gain nothing, and government is not (should not be) in the position of "feel good" activities.

radcen said:

I'm sure you'll disagree, but my point regarding amnesty is that it was an abject failure, and that we shouldn't be doing things as a matter of public policy that don't have some sort of tangible benefit. That, combined with your acknowledgment that reparations would possibly only incite further backlash, only serves to reinforce my position. We would gain nothing, and government is not (should not be) in the position of "feel good" activities.

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It's not whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, but it was a necessary thing. As long as our economy is so much better than Mexico's, they WILL come here no matter what we try to do to stop them - the idea that a 2000-mile wall could do it is ludicrous. If we want to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, we need to make sure their economy's at least nearly as good and as prosperous as our own. That's the only real solution. The ideas of walls, of checks to see if one can work legally, of holding employers accountable - and of amnesty for illegals - ...these are all band-aids for the gaping wound. The wound is the Mexican economy, and it needs to heal.

Think about it - if their own country is safe and prosperous and free, why would they want to come here and become criminals as soon as they cross the border? Sure, some would, especially if they're criminals already running from the Federales...but our own criminals do the same, running for the border: such will always happen between any two nations that share a physical border. But the key is to improve their economy to the point where their regular people don't feel that they need to cross the border and immediately become criminals just so they can provide for their families.

Reparations should never be paid, except perhaps by the actual persons who committed the deed.

Taking money from several generations removed people to pay reparations for some event or chain of events decades or centuries ago is unacceptable.

Hell, I think I should be properly compensated after reading some dog-dumb opinions on this thread.

RabidAlpaca said:

If I'm white and my great great great great great grandfather, who I never met and know nothing about was a slave, do I get free money too?

If you weren't a slave yourself, you don't deserve free money. If we're going to start paying people for what happened to their ancestors, I think the Jews are first in line.

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Funny thing actually the Jews did get their compensation for the Holocaust. Germany payed reparations to Israel when it was just created.

The fact that the Union lost around 360,000 men to the cause of ending slavery is payment enough.

PirateMk1 said:

If you feel so strongly by all means open your checkbook up and start writing. I however feel no such obligation, and my honor is intact.

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So is mine...and also my great-great-great grandparents'.

I don't feel any guilt and owe nobody an apology. None of us was born, most of us by more than a century, when slavery existed in this country.

Luftwaffe said:

Funny thing actually the Jews did get their compensation for the Holocaust. Germany payed reparations to Israel when it was just created.

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They gave the money out because they had wronged the survivors. There isn't anyone alive today who was a US slave (legally anyway), so nobody deserves reparations for slavery.

If I have a black person somewhere in my family tree do I get free money too?

RabidAlpaca said:

They gave the money out because they had wronged the survivors. There isn't anyone alive today who was a US slave (legally anyway), so nobody deserves reparations for slavery.

If I have a black person somewhere in my family tree do I get free money too?

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Good point, RA! According to recent DNA studies in which samples were acquired throughout all of the states. Actually about 4% (an average statistic) of "whites" have black ancestors. The highest percentage is 13% of whites in South Caroline have black ancestors. Texas has about 3% of whites having black ancestors. And so on.

So I guess it's time everybody get DNA tested and if they are the lucky winners of genetic heritage...go line up at the the nearest government "Get Your Reparation Award Department".

It's a good thing that ignorant people aren't asking for reparation. The dumbing down of America has been going on for quite a while. The U.S. would be bankrupt minutes after the announcement.

RabidAlpaca said:

They gave the money out because they had wronged the survivors. There isn't anyone alive today who was a US slave (legally anyway), so nobody deserves reparations for slavery.

If I have a black person somewhere in my family tree do I get free money too?

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Nah, I hear ya there.

I believe that we HAVE PAID reparations to African Americans for a long time.

1. We gave racial preferences in college admissions for decades.
2. EEOC affirmative action required employers to not discriminate based on race in the hiring process. There were EEO Audits of companies to see if they complied. Annually you had to show how many people you had hired by race. Companies had to hire is rough proportion to the demographics of the community in which you did business. By the 70's, EEOC also wanted to see non-whites and women moving into management, not just hired at the lowest level.

This eventually led to LBJ’s Civil Rights Act, which came shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination. This document was more holistic than any President Kennedy had offered, and therefore more controversial. It aimed not only to integrate public facilities, but also private businesses that sold to the public, such as motels, restaurants, theaters, and gas stations. Public schools, hospitals, libraries, parks, among other things, were included in the bill as well. It also worked with JFK’s executive order 11114 by prohibiting discrimination in the awarding of federal contracts and holding the authority of the government to deny contracts to businesses who discriminate. Maybe most significant of all, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act aimed to end discrimination in all firms with 25 or more employees. Another provision established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as the agency charged with ending discrimination in the nation’s workplace.[28]

Title VII was perhaps the most controversial of the entire bill. Many conservatives accused it of advocating of a quota system, and claimed unconstitutionality as it attempts to regulate the workplace. Minnesota Senator Hubert H. Humphrey corrected this notion: “there is nothing in [Title VII] that will give power to the Commission to require hiring, firing, and promotion to meet a racial ‘quota.’ [. . .] Title VII is designed to encourage the hiring on basis of ability and qualifications, not race or religion.” Title VII prohibits discrimination. Humphrey was the silent hero of the bill’s passing through Congress. He pledged that the bill required no quotas, just nondiscrimination. Doing so, he convinced many pro-business Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (IL) to support Title VII.[29]

On July 2, 1964, the Act was signed into law by President Johnson. A Harris poll that spring showed 70% citizen approval of the Act.

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Affirmative action in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I lived through all that implementation in New Orleans and if you were an all white company, you had to get busy hiring some black employees, or EEOC could easily prove that you had discriminated. We did pass on better qualified white candidates to hire black candidates so EEOC could not prove we were discriminatory. The same was true for women by the 70's and 80's. Many men felt discriminated against when they were passed over to hire or promote a minority candidate. I was passed over by a woman in the late 80's; she had an MBA that I did not, but I had 15 years of hardcore datacenter management experience and she had none. I was angry and quit 6 weeks later to go to the company that I retired from 23 years later. I worked happily for several women who had demonstrated their competence in our field. The first company was trying to hit a quota, the second was not.

At any rate, I think the US went out of its way to alter the hiring and promotion systems in the nation for decades, to the advantage of blacks and women, to the detriment of white males. I don't think that is arguable. I think it was probably the right thing to do, even though I personally paid a price for it in the late 80's.

I think our reparations have been paid through affirmative action for decades, and we no longer owe any reparations.

In Russia, the serfs and Jews who were in many ways like serfs were the majority of population, while the nobles were a small minority. Serfdom was abolished in 1861. In 1917, former serfs overthrew the monarchy. Almost all of the nobles' property was confiscated and redistributed to the descendants of serfs and former serfs. That helped most of the population greatly.

In 1968, my family got an apartment in a new house built long after 1917. I was born in 1970.

No this is not going to solve the problem of race relations. If anything it's going to make it more hostile.

I do support providing everyone with a basic minimum income regardless of their background as a basic right, not sure if that counts as it would include African Americans.

Glen Contrarian said:

If the nation as a whole did something wrong, is it not our duty as a nation to right that wrong?

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I think 300,000 Yankee corpses rotting in southern soil might be payment enough.

It is sad that after getting their freedom, 30 acres and a mule, they are now back asking "progressives" for yet more handouts.

BUT WAIT !!! I am 100% WRONG.

It is very few blacks asking for the handout. MOSTLY it is Liberal Progressive whites that are talking about doing it......not so much the blacks.

I offer this thread as an example.

Ben Carson said it so truly...Quit patting us on the head and saying, "poor, poor baby" You are somehow not able to do anything on your own and NEED the help of white progressives to even start to be successful.

That is complete crap.

Just the mention of this topic absurd on it's face....and pretty racist against blacks, even though it was written by a black man.

I say this because it is saying in the United States, in the year 2015 with a black president, and an almost complete black faced government....black people STILL cannot make a go of it and need yet another handout. That is exactly what this subject is saying.

Note in history....The IRISH were the first slaves brought to the US. They were even forcibly mated with blacks to make a better field hand.

That aside. If a people...AS A GROUP...say they cannot make it in a world with one of their own as President, and the complete government filled with their own people, then that is not saying much about that people is it.

BUT>>>> it is NOT the blacks... as a group... that are saying it. It is the white guilt Progressives.

I say no to financial reparations.

But I sure would like to see them treated as equals for a change.

Some might say that a half white President proves that we've made progress.

But I'd just point to how he has been treated to prove we have not.

SocialDemocrat said:

I do support providing everyone with a basic minimum income regardless of their background as a basic right, not sure if that counts as it would include African Americans.

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That would help GREATLY.

Once again -- I do not know -- I am not an African American or English American.

But I remember living in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) -- all of the buildings in the city center were confiscated from nobility and given to descendants of serfs in 1918 -- a few months after the Revolution of 1917.

Germany paid reparations to the Jews, which gave Israel the money to become a country in the first place. If they did, we should. It's hard to believe this didn't happen sooner.

Shadowless said:

Germany paid reparations to the Jews, which gave Israel the money to become a country in the first place. If they did, we should. It's hard to believe this didn't happen sooner.

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We should give blacks money so they can start their own country somewhere else?