do u feel african americans should be paid reparations?

Question

being that africans were brought here as slaves
we built the country and ideas we had were stolen and european americans received wealth and land

Answer 1

NO

Should Germany still pay reparations from WWI and WWII? NO. It is as simple as that.

if that were the case then the Chinese should be paid by both the USA and Canada for building the Rail Road. The *****'s should pay all the families of the North who lost family fighting in the civil war to help get their emancipation.

Today's generation cannot be held responsible for the acts of past generations. All todays generation and tomorrows can do is know the past and not repeat and and make life the same for everyone regardless of race, religion or creed.

I do not think anyone should be paid any reperations, except maybe the good Ole USA, where are all the debts that are owed us since we rebuild Europe in WWII, all the money we gave in the Lend Lease program implemented after the war to help restore Europe. Has any country ever paid us off for those debts except maybe one or two?

No, we should not pay reparations. Should our ancestors have paid YES. Should we today for their mistakes NO.

Answer 2

No, get over it already!

African Americans in the US have it better than any other place in the world. Their ancestors suffered, present day African Americans have every opportunity that any other citizen has. It's time to move on.

My ancestors were Irish Immigrants who worked the sweat houses and I don't hear anything about the Irish receiving reparation for indentured servitude, which is the same thing!

Answer 3

Reparations for what? Reparations for slavery is both morally wrong and unconstitutional.

It is morally wrong because there is not one SINGLE black person alive today that was every held in human bondage, there is not one SINGLE white person alive today that ever owned slaves.

Also, you have the problem of whom pays the reparations and whom is to receive reparations.

Certainly asians, blacks, hispanics and anyone whose ancestors didn't own slaves or didn't emigrate to this country before 1865, shouldn't be forced to pay reparations for something that they have never done and none of their ancestors have done. Just as certainly, anyone who had an ancestor fight for the Union in the Civil war, should not be forced to pay reparations, as they have already paid there fair share to free the slaves.

Who should get reparations? The only people who deserve reparations are those people directly hurt by slavery itself, since that is NO ONE, then no one deserves reparations.

Remember, no one is guaranteed a rich life, a famous life, or a happy life, they are guaranteed nothing more than the equal opportunity to succeed.

Lastly, slavery was LEGAL, not only in the US, but throughout the entire world at the time. Also, blacks in Africa were not merely victims of slavery, they were in some cases complicity in the slave trade themselves. Slavery was practiced in Africa at that time as well and warring tribes would capture prisoners, they did and would make them slaves and either use them for their own benefit or to sell them to Europeans as slaves. Maybe American blacks blathering about reparations should go to the Nigerian, Gambian, Angolan, Senegalese and Camaroon governments and ask THEM to pay black American descendants of slaves reparations for selling their ancestors into slavery. See what kind of response you get from those Governments.

In addition, only about 10% of the blacks taken from Africa to the Americas ever set foot in America, the rest landed in the Caribbean and Central and South America


There is this little clause in the USC which will forever bar reparations from passing constitutional muster, it is called:

Article I, Section 9, clause 3;
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

In the context of the Constitution, a Bill of Attainder is meant to mean a bill that has an negative effect on a single person or group

HMM, only punishing white people, therefore, reparations are unconstitutional

Ex post facto

In U.S. Constitutional Law, the definition of what is ex post facto is more limited. The first definition of what exactly constitutes an ex post facto law is found in Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]), in the opinion of Justice Chase:

1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender.

therefore, once again, retroactively making slavery ILLEGAL and making white people pay for the said crime is UNCONSTITUTIONAL under US law and thus will never fly no matter how much some idiots want to claim it is the right thing to do.

whale

Answer 4

No, I believe amends were made with Constitutional amendments, and all of the strides forward over the past 140+ years. Should women be paid reparations by men? After all, it was women who were denied voter status and the right to own property and hold guardianship of thier own children the longest. The past is past - we today are not slaves or slave owners. Those were our ancestors. The best thing we can do is treat each other equally and kindly - that's more important than any amount of money.

Answer 5

yes I do. Now each person who is descended from a slave or an indentured servant should do research to find the decedent of the owner and demand the living wages of the time. To make it fair they should only claim one ancestor. The first one brought over. I'm not sure what it was before the civil war, but in 1907 it was 22 cents an hour. So taking in affect inflation the pay was probably 10 cents a day. The life expectancy was 32 years for a male and 35 for a female. But you have to take the ancestor from the age of sale to death. So say sold at age 12 died at age 32 gives you 20 years. 365 days in a year times 10 cents a day is $3.65. Times that by 20 and you get $73.
That would be roughly how much every one who finds an ancestor could claim from the other person.
Now would it really be worth all the time, money and effort to get that much? Only if you are doing it to discover your roots.
Also a project this big would open a whole lot of jobs and stimulate our failing economy.
This might work.

Answer 6

justice would seem to say "yes." but the problem is complicated in america, which seems to insist on a liability based system of compensation.

for example: my great-grandfather fought on the side of the north as a volunteer because he was against slavery. in the name of his altruism, should i be exempted from payments and should they only be imposed on recalcitrant confederate sympathizers (if there still are any?) and anyway, wasnt the south punished enough by having 20% of the white male population killed in the civil war?

and then there is the inevitable problem that these events happened many years ago and the people benefited by (what would probably be minuscule) payments are so far removed in time from the evil that was slavery.

i think african americans should settle out of court for an apology endorsed by the entire congress of the united states and signed by the president.

Answer 7

Do you fell that the Germans and Franks should be paid reparations by the Italians? Or that the Mongols should pay the Russians? Stuff happens... Everyone owes everyone...

Answer 8

Of course not. But of course, we should be given the same chance as anyone else to succeed as anyone else, with little or no regard to how we got here, or why. Let the past belong to the past, and let's get on with the present. There's no free lunch.

Answer 9

Do you feel this question should be in the Polls & Surveys category?

Answer 10

No, absolutely not! We cannot help what our ancestors did, therefore, we should not be blamed and punished for it.