When is the US going to pay reparations to the descendants of slavery?

Question

The main source of disadvantage in the black community in america is a breakdown of the family. Isn't it curious that while blacks in Africa share a deep sense of family responsibility, blacks in america have a child illegitimacy rate of 75 percent? How do we explain this discrepancy? The answer is the slave culture in america, where black slaves from different plantations were breeded and the children sold like pups from a litter remains the origin of this "bastard" culture. The legacy of the slave culture is lived through this day as observed in the illegitimacy rate. It's time the US government repaired for the crimes of slavery, the legacy of which plagues black america to this day.

Answer 1

When is the Government going to pay reparations to the South for what they did to our land and people? They did do to Japan, Germany, Afghanistan and Iraqi to name but a few; to this day we remain poorer and behind the rest of the country. Many whites in the South had been or were still slaves themselves do we get paid? What about the countries who sold the original people into slavery? Would they not be responsible? Lets look at two issues one that the war was not over slavery and the fact slavery still exists today!

In the 1770s, the South had every reason to continue the relationship with England, one of its best customers. It was the manufacturing North that was getting the short end of that stick. Southerners joined the Revolutionary War out of patriotism, idealism, and enlightened political philosophy such as motivated Jefferson, not patriotism, philosophy, and economic betterment which inspired the North. In 1860, the shoe was on the other foot. Southern agrarians were at heel to the nation's bankers and industrialists. That just got worse with the election of the Republican Lincoln, bringing back into power the party favoring the wealthy supply side, as it still does. Then as now central to that, party's interest was keeping down the cost of manufacture. Today labor is the big cost, so today they move the plants offshore and leave US workers to their fate. Back before the US labor movement existed the big cost was raw materials, and the GOP was just as unprincipled toward its Southern suppliers as it is today toward labor. Thanks to modern graveyard science and surviving records, researchers know that in 1760, 100 years before the War Between the States, Charleston, South Carolina, had the largest population of slaves and we say proudly the second largest slave population was in New York City.
One of the main quarrels was about taxes paid on goods brought into this country from foreign countries. This tax was called a tariff. Southerners felt these tariffs were unfair and aimed toward them because they imported a wider variety of goods than most Northern people. Taxes were also placed on many Southern goods that were shipped to foreign countries, an expense that was not always applied to Northern goods of equal value. An awkward economic structure allowed states and private transportation companies to do this, which also affected Southern banks that found themselves paying higher interest rates on loans made with banks in the North. As industry in the North expanded, it looked towards southern markets, rich with cash from the lucrative agricultural business, to buy the North's manufactured goods. The situation grew worse after several "panics", including one in 1857 that affected more Northern banks than Southern. Southern financiers found themselves burdened with high payments just to save Northern banks that had suffered financial losses through poor investment. However, it was often cheaper for the South to purchase the goods abroad. In order to "protect" the northern industries Jackson slapped a tariff on many of the imported goods that could be manufactured in the North. When South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification in November 1832, refusing to collect the tariff and threatening to withdraw from the Union, Jackson ordered federal troops to Charleston. A secession crisis was averted when Congress revised the Tariff of Abominations in February 1833. The Panic of 1837 and the ensuing depression began to gnaw like a hungry animal on the flesh of the American system. The disparity between northern and southern economies was exacerbated. Before and after the depression the economy of the South prospered. Southern cotton sold abroad totaled 57% of all American exports before the war. The Panic of 1857 devastated the North and left the South virtually untouched. The clash of a wealthy, agricultural South and a poorer, industrial North was intensified by abolitionists who were not above using class struggle to further their cause. In the years before the Civil War the political power in the Federal government, centered in Washington, D.C., was changing. Northern and mid-western states were becoming more and more powerful as the populations increased. Southern states lost political power because the population did not increase as rapidly. As one portion of the nation grew larger than another, people began to talk of the nation as sections. This was called sectionalism. Just as the original thirteen colonies fought for their independence almost 100 years earlier, the Southern states felt a growing need for freedom from the central Federal authority in Washington. Southerners believed that state laws carried more weight than Federal laws, and they should abide by the state regulations first. This issue was called State's Rights and became a very warm topic in congress.

What I can not understand if the Afro-Americans here in the States are so anti-slavery why aren't they and you fighting slavery in the modern world? Is it all right to complain about what happened a 140 years ago but you won't take any steps to prevent from happening today?

You say you didn't know about modern slavery? Well, now you do, anyone who has had such a issue with slavery as the Afro-Americans should be studying the issue and organizing bans, boycotts and marches. Lets' start with the number two (2) area that being Chocolate, you should ensure that your family, friends and school boycott Chocolate that means candy, ice cream and hot chocolate, etc. The big companies have the power to make sure the Egyptians and others quit using slaves to gather the Coca Beans.

The number one (1) area is the sex trade, videos, prostitution and children. You cannot do much there but you could ensure the issue becomes publicized.

Number three (3) is Coffee and you should do the same thing as you should do with chocolate.

Number four (4) is drugs and it is even worse with this area (I believe they should be legalized; it worked in the Netherlands and would be a God sent to the Country) is that the profits are used to kill us.

Yes, I am against slavery are you? God Bless You and The Southern People.

Answer 2

Many people would argue that the breakdown of the black family didn't start until After the birth of the welfare state in the 1st half of the 20th century.

The government started rewarding husbandless mothers with cash payments which increased with every "fatherless" child the mother could produce. To anyone with a limited education, this money was often more atractive than the money one could earn in an entry level job. Plus the government took away payments if the mother earned income on her own.

While black families were the first destroyed by this "welfare trap", white families are seeing the effect more and more. The percentage of unmarried white women has been on the increase for 20 years, and will soon approach the levels seen in the hardest hit black communities. These women depend as well on food stamps, rent assistance, and other government programs and begin to fall into the same trap.

The idea that throwing money at any group of people will solve the social ills of that group is a fallacy. It won't work. The amount of money spent to eliminate "poverty" in the USA amounts to enough money to PAY each poor person $40,000.00 in cash or more, and yet, we have poor people in roughly the same percentages we always have.

Each Human being, black, white, brown, or other color is responsible for bettering his own life now. Looking at ancestral wrongs can lead everyone to a distant relative who was wronged by someone else--meaning we can ALL claim reparations for one crime or another. A "fast cash" solution like reparations would not solve the crisis and would only create new racial tensions.

Answer 3

Reparations for slavery is a proposal that some type of compensation should be provided to the descendants of enslaved people in the United States. Blacks are not the only race it applied to. Stop enabling others to do for themselves. I have worked since 15, and today hold a college degree, and have learned that only hard work is required M-F.

Welfare, food stamps,welfare,affirmative actions ,pell grants,LBJ's guns and butter programs? What the heck is that? There are a lot of African American who are making it on their own and education without such aids that quite frankly are now being given to Whites and Russian and their descendents as well as others. The government is not making it well known, however a neighbor let it slip. While I never addressed it the benefits are for Americans who have worked 40 quarters. Not just anyone coming to this country. Social Security benefits were at first said to be for Americans.

I am not sure where you got your history lessons from, but 1) They are so far off base it is not funny, please do not speak on issues you know nothing about regarding other races except you own pitiful one. It is so typical that you want to blame it all on Blacks, but quite frankly it is not their fault at all. The decisions being made in American stem from government. Democrats are not at fault, the Republicans are. They do not want to get off any money, change the way they have lived for $200 years in history, are shocked that a President of color got revoted back in a the "White" candidates lost!
Those benefits are to help all who need the help; it does not elevate blacks or anyone else for that matter? As for a free handout, white get that in taxes every year, oh forgive me, the wealthiest whites. Today, there are no members of slavery. Slavery ended years ago. Today slavery must be voluntary to work in situations like the Paula's of society. It is obvious that you need to review your history. Bitterness, anger, frustration that Romney did not win is not anyone's fault. People keep putting the blame on Blacks in America? Why? Figure it out and start telling the truth. Obama did not place this country in two Wars! Bush did. Katrina suffers were not put in a trick but from only one person, Bush; but it backfired, they moved mountains to rise above where they were. New York survived because the people pulled together not worked against one another, all people or all colors, nationalities and races consistently working together. Not all states know how to do this. That is the problem. Stop putting it on Blacks.

Answer 4

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 5

The Age of payback is over for the African Americans, they need to get off of their behinds and work like the rest of us. It would just be as if why aren't the descendants of the Romans paying for my education? They enslaved my ancestors who were the Brits and Celts? There isn't a slave culture in america.. the policy is, if your great grandfather on both sides was a slave then you should get reparations. But I doubt seriously if the generation of African Americans really are in that line. What plagues the 'Black Americans' as you have phrased it is a since of moral desegration. They believe just as you do. Why aren't isn't the government paying for me? Ohh look, if I have this many of children I will get money from Welfare to get my hair did. Sorry but I have no respect for the African Americans who are still crying that sorry excuse. Work for a living just like the rest of us!!

Better yet, why don't you complain about the goverment not repaying the Irish and the Germans who were basically worse then slaves when they first got into America!

Another fact, my ancestors the Acadians when they were kicked from Nova Scotia by the Britons were forced into a ship called L'Amistede.. which you should think of the same ship the Amistad. Where is my payback?

Answer 6

In 1775, My ancestors,The Acadians were scattered throughout the eastern seaboard (where some became slaves in British colonies), the Caribbean, and Europe. Families were split and put on different ships with different destinations. They were forbidden to speak their own language. But do I hold any grudges against the British, NO. That was in the past. People today should not be punished for what others did.

The black community is not the only race in history that were slaves. READ your history book.

Personally, I have many black friends that have no problems like you aparently do. They hold no grudges, no hate. They work hard like the rest of use do and get on with their lives.

You CHOOSE to think this way.

Answer 7

slavery has been happening as long as man been here its only in the last 150 or so years that man has tried to stop it. we have to answer for our individual actions. that goes for both sides of slavery.you can`t forever blame the slave mongers of over a century ago, for the blind fools leading more blind today. the gov.
can`t change what plagues the inner soul of some blacks. you
reap what you sow, and thats everyone. by their fruits you will know them.go ask the pride foolish gangsta`s.....

Answer 8

Reparations just can't work, I agree with Posner's opinion that he wrote recently. First of all, determining who gets them is just too tricky. I'm white but it's possible I have a great great great great grandmother that was a slave, does that entitle me to reparations? What about blacks who's family wasn't entirely slaves?

And who pays? If my family immigrated here 10 years ago, is it fair for their tax dollars to re-pay slavery?

How do you justify standing in court to sue for reparations?

And if the descendants of slavery deserve reparations, don't the American Indians, who were also subjected to what was essentially genocide?

Answer 9

Their oppressing nation never repay for their crimes.

Nations who commits such crimes should not be allowed to benefit from it but should be punished. If you catch a thief(USA) stealing not only do you take back what he has stolen but takes all the money he had to begin with, then he shall be punished.

Like Egypt, not only did they repay Israel but they carried away all of it's wealth. Then Egypt was destroyed by the their enemies, which latter stole their land.

You can name all the people who were oppressed by others throughout history but name one oppressor or oppressing nation that got away with it. Rather they get punished 40 years latter or 400 years every nation who committed a crime never went unpunished.

Fact America committed a crime and they will always be guilty of it because you can't change history. You cover it up, pretend it never happen or try and forget it. But you can't change what has happen. Their has never been one nation on the face of the Earth you hasn't reap what it has sowed

Answer 10

nope, no reparations. when will the black community give up on this stale old rant and do something positive. like take advantage of the civil rights your relatives fought and died for you to have? why not STAY in school and get your education. the fight for that was long and hard, yet what do a lot of the black youths do today? drop out and rap. dont you think that thurgood marshal is spinning in his grave! it drives me insane!!!!! dont you realize the money available to you to pay for your education if only you would go on to college? thats all i have to say.