How would reparations be paid to heirs of former slaves?

Question

Some native americans were taken slaves and released or escaped. Some africans escaped or were freed. Some africans immigrated to the US after slavery and were never slaves. Many people are of mixed ancestory and some have no clue as to their actual ancestory. For example if I'm 1/64 african do I get a 1/64 portion of the hypothetical reparations?

It's true that many immigrated to the US after slavery even existed but proponents of reparations claim the US should pay them reparation as a country not individuals. That is an important distinction.

Answer 1

Reparations have and continue to be paid out to african decendants in the form of affirmative action, welfare, and other public assistance. Also, I very much agree with the asker. I look, act, and am white... yet I am about 1/16th african... those who support reparations would never EVER consider giving me money, despite having a clear and provable family tree descending from slavery.

Slavery was a legal practice and the fact is that no living african american was enslaved. Giving some blacks a few hundred bucks isn't going to solve any problems; the current problems are social and only indirectly economic.

Finally, no one in my family tree owned a slave. 90+% did not even arrive in this country until after WWII. Why should MY tax dollars pay reparations for something I and my family never did? Reparations that I would never receive despite being a descendant of a slave...

Answer 2

Here’s what I don’t get: How am I responsible for the acts of those from 130 years ago? Especially when you consider that the bulk of my heritage wasn’t here at the time. And why do those (so called) survivors deserve it? They aren’t slaves. They are awarded the same rights and privileges as everyone else in this country today. If reparations are awarded they should go to the person who was enslaved. Oh, wait, they’re all dead. Well then give it to them in the form of a nice headstone…maybe a respectable epitaph. Why is it we never hear Asians or Italians demanding reparations? They were forced into slavery in America. Fact is; every race on the planet has been enslaved at some point in time. Reparations are a joke. It’s nothing more than people looking for a hand out.

Answer 3

First, there is not a single former slave alive today. If there were they would certainly be due just compensation for their labor, but the ancestors of atrocities do not deserve compensation in any way. As a precedent for this point of view, from the last century, let us look at how the compensation of slave labor during the holocaust of World War II has been handled. The thousands of people that survived that inequity are being compensated by both the government of Germany and by the companies that gained from their forced labor, and rightfully so. But their children have no inherited right to collect for the uncompensated labor of their parents. Certainly the grandchildren and great grandchildren of American slaves never experienced the appalling life of slavery, and therefore, like the children of Jews and others enslaved in Germany 50 years ago, they have no claim for themselves.

Secondly, blacks do not have a monopoly on living in poverty in this country. According to the latest census data approximately 30 percent of blacks and whites live in poverty. Hispanics unfortunately have an even higher percentage living below the poverty line. All this current day poverty can not be attributed to a disgusting institution that was ended 150 years ago. It can however be attributed to present day governmental policy. There should be a monumental effort made by the government, at all levels, to get all Americans out of poverty, but a policy centered on only one race is just as wrong as slavery was.

Thirdly, slavery could not have existed without the complicity of black Africans who supplied most of the unfortunate humans that were sold into this dreadful condition. It was not just whites that kept this retched institution going for over 200 years. In addition, there were over 200,000 white Americans that paid the ultimate retribution during the Civil War, when they gave their lives to end slavery. The reparation debt owed to slaves was paid a long time ago when the North won the Civil War and freed them.

Answer 4

OK so the blacks want to be paid reparations. Well 1st of all I shouldn't have to pay them anything. I never owned a slave, and neither did any of my ancestors. The blacks already got their reparations, through welfare, freedom from a white man, named Abraham Lincoln, alot of them have very good paying jobs, sports are all dominated by the black man. They get to have financial aid before the white man for school. It seems to me that the only ones that are crying for reparations are the ones that want free money, so they can stay in the lazy life they live. Do the German"s that had to leave their home land get paid from the German government? No, do the Hebrew slaves, get reparations from the Egyptians? the Jews get it from the Germans? the native Indians get it from the white man?, because they were put on reservations, so basically this is a red herring and just get on with your life because it is a crock.

Answer 5

The question here should be, would reparations really change anything? I think the people calling for reparations are unaware or unwilling to face how little would change if reparations are made. Would it end racism? Would it rewrite history? Money can't do that. Reparations would only serve to deepen the rift between blacks and whites, and end up doing more harm than good. Did Martin Luther King and the civil rights marchers march for money? Did they struggle for years in the face of overwhelming opposition for cold hard cash? No, they wanted something more meaningful, more permanent than that. They wanted respect, to be treated like equals, to see to it that their children and their children's children wouldn't have to live in the world that they did. It is not within anyone's power to change or make right the sins committed by our ancestors, but it is within our power to learn from them. We can say that what happened was wrong, and that we won't allow bigotry, racism, or hatred to guide us anymore. No amount of money can do that, and to try to simply buy forgiveness for the sins of the past would be a betrayal of everything that we as a society have come to terms with and overcome over the last century, and would make the obstacles yet to be overcome that much harder.

Answer 6

How would reparations be paid?

Answer: over my dead body.

Just try stealing my money to pay for reparations.

First of all, who do you get the money from? The US government?
The government has no money. Any federal debt is the responsibility of the US taxpayer, which includes heirs of former slaves. So try and figure out how to tax only people who were slave owners.

Guess what? No slave owner is alive today, so you have to go after the descendants of slave owners. What if you were a descendant of a slave and a slave owner? What about the rest of the millions of people just like that?

Ok, so you only go after white people who are pure white. Guess what? Over half of the country was opposed to slavery. The north was anti-slavery. Most northerners did not own slaves. And what about people who came here from Canada or the UK?
They had no part of any of that.

You cannot collect from anyone who is partially slave ancestor, you cannot collect from anyone who has no slave owner ancestry.

Last, but not least, since when do children (or great, great grandchildren) pay for the crimes of thier parents?

If your grandfather killed my grandfather, can I sue you for reparations?

Bottom line: If you support reparations, then you believe people are guilty of crimes they did not commit, and you need to be shot before people like you gain control over the law and begin stealing from millions of innocent people, thus reversing decades of progress against racism and fascism.

Hypocrites.

Answer 7

Reparations will never happen in a monetary sense. The government DID pay reparations to Japanese Americans that were interred in camps during WWII, but only to those who were actually there (i.e. no family members).
Reparations to blakcs in America would turn into a debacle...a slippery slope. Who do you give them to, where do you stop? How do you prove ancestry?
Impossible, and that's why EOE and AA were started...as an indirect way to make reparations.

Answer 8

I'm what I call an American Mutt.I'm Dutch,English.Irish.German and Iroquois Indian.The Dutch bought and brought slaves to America they had the ships,no money running a empty ship.Should I pay for what my ancestors did.What they did was wrong.I'm sorry for the atrocities they did.But,I owe you nothing,I didn't get there millions.What you all did to my Indian ancestors,Stole their land,Slaughtered them.Slavery,would have been a reprieve.So,as I see you all OWE me and my Indian Ancestors and there living descendants.For ignorance of a Indians ways would be your excuse.A people whom respected nature,unlike your white big businesses,who kill our lands.

Answer 9

It is unwise to make financial reparations to heirs to former slaves, mainly because our country is already bankrupt to the tune of 8.3 trillion dollars.

Answer 10

I haven't a clue. My family didn't step foot on U.S. soil until 1883 so that side of me doesn't owe anyone reparations. And my mother's side of the family was on a reservation, so we couldn't afford any nor need any. So my family owes NOTHING!