Is it time to admit that bringing Africans to America was a mistake?

American Colonization Society was the movement.

 

Doesn't matter if they want to be here or not. None of them whining about it were brought over on a ship. They were born here.

So anyone whose parents came to America, and gave birth, should get funds from the government to go back if that's where they prefer to be ?!
That's crazy.

Plus, with this administration, "affordable" is never an issue.
Add "black" to the equation, and we'll get press conferences including: "if I had a great-great-grandfather who was a slave... he'd look like me".

 

So the mistake wasn't the slavery part! No, it's the part where you have to pay someone.

Slavery = not a mistake

Reparations = mistake

You really are the gift that keeps on giving.

 

The American Colonization Society came out of an attempt to ape the emancipation movements in Britain and France.

In the early 1830s, Britain and France emancipated their slaves through compensated emancipation. The governments simply bought all the slaves at a premium price. No problem. Slave owners were acutely aware of the time value of money, so they took the pounds and francs and ran.

But actually, they didn't run at all. You see, there were no slaves in the British Isles (despite what the Irish would tell you) or in Metropolitan france in the 1830s. Their slaves were all in the Caribbean islands. With the exception of colonists, neither the British nor French had to live with their emancipated slaves in the nineteenth century. The plantation owners threw the emancipated slaves off the plantations and waited. The British and French did not repatriate their African slaves, they left them in the colonies. The newly emancipated slaves had no jobs, so they had to come back to their former masters, asking for work. so the former slaves were now free (if poorly paid) labor doing the same things they'd always done. Just less of them because mechanization was coming to the sugar operations. Mr. Watt's steam engine made it possible to easily refine sugar in the islands and ship product as sugar rather than as sorghum as had been done in the colonial days. This substituted steam power for human and animal power, so within a few years the sugar operations had about 40% fewer (paid) workers than they had slaves.

The americans had bought the land for what is now Monrovia, Liberia and had moved a few formers slaves (bought away from their masters) back to Africa. the US numbers were not big as America was not as wealthy as Britain and France in the 1830s. so the whole idea stagnated until 1850.

The California Gold Rush and subsequent strikes throughout the West changed everything. In Victorian times "money" meant "specie" - silver and gold. By 1850, America was awash in specie and emancipated compensation with repatriation would have been easy.

And it was talked about. The idea had considerable support, but "fire-eaters" in the South and Radicals in New England opposed it. If Franklin Pierce had actively advocated the idea, the US civil War could have been averted. There were only 400,000 African slaves in the US. If the government (awash in gold remember) had paid the princely sum (floated by midwestern and upper southern factions) of $1,000 per head in specie and transportation to Monrovia had been carried out the total cost was less than the first six months in 1861 (Yankee side only). Only 8% of southerners owned slaves and even then mostly in SC, GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, and TX where they could raise two cotton crops a year. In the upper south (VA, NC, KY, TN, and MO) slavery was dying fast. Waves of immigrants would work cheaper than slaves, so slave owners were making the economically rational choice and selling their slaves to cotton growers in the Mississippi delta. This is why Uncle Tom was "sold down the river." this resonated with people in the Old Northwest particularly the river states of OH, IN, and IL. They saw to operation in progress.

But Pierce stayed aloof and thus is widely considered the worst president of all time because he could have averted a furious civil war. Maybe. there were other dynamics which had nothing to do with slavery, but whether things like tariffs could ignite a war that would kill 5% of the population can be debated.

But when Pierce avoided emancipated compensation and repatriation, the American Colonization Society became an irrelevant footnote in history.

 

With so many posts here, like this, from rightwingers....is there ANY possible way that anybody (outside of themselves) would believe there is "no racism on the Right/Tea Party/Republican Party"????

 

I think you're being a little too generous by offering blacks $20,000 to get them to travel back to their native Africa. After all, that $20,000 is money coming from our taxes. When did a black ever give me money or invest $$ in my well being? Look, blacks have the tools to build themselves large enough boats to make the cross Atlantic voyage back to their homeland without any help from we hard working WHITES. I will however pray for their safe trip across the high seas.

 

"Racism" has been so overused that it no longer has any meaning.

Racism is when black districts go 19,000-0 for Democrats.

 

The racism on this thread is gobsmacking! It's amazing that so many people are willing to tie their actual name, via their IP address to being an out and out racist.

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No it hasn't and yes it still does.

 

It doesn't even matter. Black already vote 19,000 to zero Democrat.

I've angered a liberal by telling him the truth.

 

Who in the world has ever said there is "no racism on the Right/Tea Party/Republican Party"?
There is racism everywhere. All parties, all races, all cultures.

Are you new to the Earth ?
Or just in denial ?

The reality is liberals claim the Right says that.... the Right doesn't actually say it.

That false accusation from the left is a pretty common thing.

 

Unless somebody can get those backordered parts for their Wayback Machine, the thread has little more relevance than the whole concept of racism.

 

Absolutely true.... and sad for the people that actually suffer because of it.

Not the ones whining in front of TV cameras, or asking for money, or throwing race cards when a non-black shoots a black.

 

And yet another thread proving we still have a problem with racism in this country and are going to need affirmative action for a long time to come.

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That has been the conservative strategy. But it definitely has meaning.

That isn't racism, ballot fixing maybe.

 

95-5 margins are racism, too.

 

So it looks like you're saying that the reverse discriminatory practices of affirmative action are actually helping to reduce racism? Can you show us where that may have been the case?

 

LOL! Half of those half million fought to keep them slaves.

 

I'm not saying he can't say it. I'm saying I think the OP has an undertone of racism. It's an opinion, I'm not proposing we shut this down or anything.

 

I meant more that because their ancestors were forcibly brought here, they were as a result born here rather than Africa.

However, I don't think many people want to go back to Africa at this point, it's far better on this side of the ocean.

 

No one pay attention to Blackrook...

He's just a concerned christian.

 

You realize that blacks are still disproportionately poor, under educated, unemployed compared to whites right? An outlier like Jay Z doesn't mean things are getting better.

 

So you're the forum mother now.
I knew someone had to step up.

That last one can't seem to post here anymore.

 

Rahl the rich of whatever race are all outliers.

Poor blacks are largely poor because they were sold a bill of goods and wound up swapping the cotton plantation for the Welfare plantation with the only difference being that the cotton plantation has proven to be far easier to escape. But don't let it worry you there are plenty of caucasians joining them with the same tragic consequences following in it's wake.

 

You know of someone who thinks it was a swell idea?

 

Lol, this has nothing to do with my post. Are you seriously suggesting they were better off as slaves on the plantation?

And why not use the quote function? You specifically used my name in your post, which means you are addressing me. Trying to avoid alerting me?

 

I would argue that $20,000 is not nearly enough. The suffering their ancestors endured is worth far more than that.

The reason reparations should not be paid is that no amount would be enough. There is no price you could put on it. Any amount would be insulting. So all that can be done is to correct the problem and give them equal rights.