If reparations for Slavery was the only way for America to overcome the racial divide would you support that?

Question

please, why or why not?

Answer 1

Well, as Dave Chappelle put it, the day reparations would be passed out, the only thing that would happen is Cadillac's stock would go up, cigarettes woud be bought by the truck load, rims would sell out, and there would be no more diamonds for sell in the big cities.

Don't get me wrong, I love my people, but we really don't do well with money. We purchase things that depreciate not appreciate. People would move out of the hood into homes they couldn't afford, and then get foreclosed on and end up in the same place they started, except a lot more angry. Not to mention since many blacks don't have bank accounts, you would have a large number that would cash the check and have the cash sitting at home. Burglaries would rise, false identifications like Katrina, and many other crimes would run rampant.

What is needed is an understanding that blacks weren't truly treated as citizens in this country until the late 70's. I would love to explain it to anyone that wants to listen. It isn't far-fetched, it is true and it isn't fair that whites don't understand how we today are affected by things of the past that affected our previous generations directly.

Answer 2

what bereal1 said...

Honestly, for awhile I was pro-reparations. My thought was that America is the greatest country ever known and alot due to the free slave labor. I figured why not pay them for the work they did. However, I have changed my mind. What bereal1 said in her answer is true and has alot to do with it. But, my main reason for being against reparations is that 360,000 Americans, MOSTLY WHITE, died freeing the slaves. If we can sacrafice 360,000 people (that is living humans, fathers, sons, brothers, husbands) and that is not enough, what evidence is there that a little money would solve anything. Not to mention the fact that most Americans black, white, or whatever are ancestors of immigrants that came to america after slavery. The more I look at it, the more reparations seems like just another way to get something for nothing.

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

Of course not. There is no one living today that has in any way earned any reparations. The whole notion is ridiculous and really just keeps African-Americans in a victimized state. It's time to stop using slavery as a crutch for what ails the African-American community.

Even if reparations were paid...it wouldn't change anything. The change has to come from within that community.

Answer 5

If it was the only way to overcome the racial divide I would actually be less likely to support it. If the racial divide in America is based on money and can be healed by money than we are in far worse shape that I had every imagined. If African-Americans can have their feeling about slavery so easily put to right by what would amount to a few bucks each then they are not seeing the extent of the racial divide. And if White Americans think they can heal those wounds by throwing cash at them then they never learned the lessons of the failed war on poverty

In truth no wrong can be healed by money. Wounds are healed when people apologize and I do support those states that have apologized for slavery.

Answer 6

No. The slaves have long since died and the people who owned slaves have long since died. Having people who have had nothing to do with a wrong pay for that wrong is immoral and will only create a strong divide. The racial divide is not one sided, as slavery reparation proponents assume. There are two sides to it. An excellent example is to ask what Strom Thurmond owes Al Sharpton. Thurmond never profited from Sharpton, though Thurmond's ancestors profited from Sharpton's ancestors. Should Sharpton now benefit from from his ancestors' slavery? Are we not just trading one type of profiteering from slavery to another? Particularly when you consider that the people who are wealthy enough to pay reparations without suffering some for it will move or have already moved that wealth to places that shelter them from taxation.

Instead, I think a better proaction would be to turn our energies into combatting slavery that currently exists and to alter negative cultural attitudes that are hold-overs from slave days that still persist.

Answer 7

well i would of supported the 40 acres and a mule right after the civil war but considering most white Americans ancestors did not own slaves or support slavery than i don't think a lot of people would support reparations

Answer 8

No.

My family NEVER owned any slaves, why should I have to pay for it? I completely believe that it was a terrible, immoral, unjust time in American history and everyone involved should be ashamed that it was ever allowed to happen...but does that mean a monetary reward is due? Do you know what would solve the racial divide?/ If everybody stop labeling themselves for the sole purpose of being set apart...
African-American, Asian-American..C'mon...Unless you are actually LIVING in Africa you are not African..
You want equality then you PURPOSELY want to be singled out....

I guess maybe I'm just jealous because there is no college fund for me the Dutch/Irish/Italian American....
I think it's ridiculous that people keep thinking that money will solve problems like this.

You know what? My ancestors were driven from their homes in the 1860's. Their houses were burned and many of them died from being cast out in the dead of winter...Then they were persecuted for the next 50 years...

Gimmie my million dollars so I stop feeling bad about it...

Answer 9

Reparations for slavery are nothing more than another fleecing of Americans.. would beneficiaries have to show that American slavery caused their current condition? [Editor's Note: Under the American system of justice, civil courts (lawsuits) and criminal courts (prosecution of crimes) require such proof of wrongdoing, criminal acts, or harm.] What if they would otherwise have been killed or enslaved by their African captors, or sold to non-American masters?
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew78.php
Who should have to pay??? All tax payers? Not all tax payers ancestors owned slaves..... Not all slaves were black, do they get paid too......
Any black alive today who alleges economic harm as a result of slavery -- whether provably related to a U.S. slave or not -- has had the benefit of (a) 135 years of no slavery; and (b) 36 years of "reparations" already paid in the form of job quotas, racial preferences, and race-based targets and goals (since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Since the passage of the original Civil Rights Act of 1964, trillions of dollars in federal transfer payments, welfare payments, racial job quotas, race-based federal contract set-asides, and race-based college admissions have already been paid to so-called "historically disadvantaged minorities" in the U.S. Insteasd of the black leaders preaching"perpetual victimhood" they should be preaching education and employment....

Answer 10

The racial divide is caused by well-meaning SELF-SERVING black leaders who cry racism everytime there is a political gain to be made by that cry. Mobilize the poorly-educated low-income black into rallying for a cause will lead to votes. As for reparations, why should my tax dollars go to 'back pay' for a business that was once legal? Maybe a stretch, but legalizing hookers in July and charging them back taxes. It is just screwy. ( ps, check you history. Muslim Arabs/Blacks captured blacks in Africa, and sold them into slavery if they did not convert to Muslim faith. still happening today, where is the outcry ?????? )