How do you stand on the question of reparations for the effects of slavery in America?

Question

Do you think that American, Canadian, and Latin American institutions and businesses should consider how they have benefited from slavery? How might our wealthy classes have benefited from slavery or indentured servitude? Do we need to consider reparations? How would this take effect? Would money make up for the damages of slavery?

If you are in favour, might you state your ethnic identity and how would this have affected your thinking in this matter?

Answer 1

I would favor it for anyone who was actually a slave. Their slave owner could pay the reparations. Otherwise, It's a ridiculous idea.

Answer 2

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 3

I am not in favour of reparations. And if it was only issued to those in America other countries affected by slavery would want reparations too. Reparations will not solve anything and would probably end up causing more tension between the races.
Giving out reparations is an unrealistic idea because how do you know which people are legible for it and which are not? Do mixed race people get the same amount as "fully" Black people? How do you measure the "Blackness" of a person?

As you can see from my avatar I am Black.

Answer 4

I'm not personally in favor of reparations. There is as far as I know, not one living former slave. If there were, that person should certainly receive reparations. But as it is now, I think it would be way to hard to decide who gets reparations vs. who does not. The logistics of the whole thing would just be too hard to figure out. And more importantly, I just feel like no amount of money would make up for the damage caused by slavery.

Answer 5

Then we'd have to consider suing England, Ireland and other countries for pushing indentured servants off on us. We'd have to pay Mexico for it's land and people, China for the slave labor on the railroads and elsewhere -- by the time we get finishing up on who has had ancestors wronged and by whom the majority of present day citizens would be owed reparations --- why don't we try getting along and turn over a fresh page ?

Answer 6

It's a moot point. I, personally, nor anyone else living now, did nothing that horrible to ANYONE. Also, no one living now has been subjected to slavery. It's history, and it belongs in the past with a healthy dose of study to make sure it's not repeated, though.
If ANYONE has a right to complain, it's the American Indian. They're STILL on reservations and being treated like crap!! You've seen the bumper sticker, right? "Sure you can trust the American government. Just ask an Indian!"

Answer 7

No I don't. Slavery was a terrible thing. However, the descendants of slaves could be in Africa today. They could be living and dying with disease, starvation, constant wars, and tribal atrocities. Slavery has been over for nearly a hundred and fifty years. If there were any living former slaves then I would be in favor of reparations.

Answer 8

It is the single dumbest idea I have ever heard...Where does it stop? Because come to think about it I would like to recieve a check from the British government because of their treatment of my ancestors in Ireland during the Famine. The march of history is a bloody mess, no one has been spared. Every group of people have a sad story, we cannot start rolling back time and playing the blame game.

Answer 9

Why should they get anything? Their own ancestors had more rights and value than my ancestors ever had. My ancestors were shot on sight as vermin. The only value they had was the price their scalps would bring. The amerikan government has never kept a single treaty with us. In a nation that has had a constitutional right of freedom of religion, we were in violation of amerikan law if we practiced our own religions, or conduct our own scared ceremonies. We were forced into prisoner of war camps, you call them reservations, in areas not familiar to us with little game so we could not feed our families. One group of us, were murdered, approximately 160 women women and children and old ones, for practicing a ceremony. This happened beside a creek named Wounded Knee. More congressional medals of dishonor were awarded after that massacre than in any other battle amerika has ever fought in, in its dishonorable history.

Answer 10

No reparations. Not one person alive was a slave owner or a slave. I dont think anyone alive deserves to be paid for what happened to their ancestors.