Sad to say we inherit everything either bad or good, and if slavery is a crime against humanity then we should face the legalities. if the Americans are being called upon then it should be the Americans who should answer.
Millions of blacks and tens of millions of Americans are of mixed racial ancestry. So if someone is 25% black that person would pay only 50%? Obama would pay 50% to himself, though there is NO slavery in his ancestry. That is another myth, that all blacks in the USA were slaves. they were not.
Go ahead and start paying then. That is so wrong anyways. Most Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived here much later than slavery and had nothing to do with. Also, most Americans, back in the days of slavery, did not even own slaves because they were too poor. Another point is that there were also some BLACK slave owners. Excerpt from link below: The fact is large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states. The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves). In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2). According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city. To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters. The majority of slaveholders, white and black, owned only one to five slaves. More often than not, and contrary to a century and a half of bullwhips-on-tortured-backs propaganda, black and white masters worked and ate alongside their charges; be it in house, field or workshop. The few individuals who owned 50 or more slaves were confined to the top one percent, and have been defined as slave magnates. In 1860 there were at least six Negroes in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves The largest number, 152 slaves, were owned by the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards, who owned a large sugar cane plantation. Another Negro slave magnate in Louisiana, with over 100 slaves, was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at (in 1860 dollars) $264,000 (3). That year, the mean wealth of southern white men was $3,978 (4). In Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 125 free Negroes owned slaves; six of them owning 10 or more. Of the $1.5 million in taxable property owned by free Negroes in Charleston, more than $300,000 represented slave holdings (5). In North Carolina 69 free Negroes were slave owners (6). http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm
Just look around the world where hatred of the oppressor survives thousands of years. No there will never be reparations until either a) Blacks take over or b) Some blacks stop being victims of another age and realize they are just another skin color......not separate, not inequal.
You do know there is very old and very fundamental principle in our law that the sons do not pay for the transgressions of the fathers? Also slavery was not a crime at the time it existed. Do you know what ex post facto is and where it comes from in our law?
Marilyn, my departed sister is a good example of putting sizeable sums into the hands of what amounts to the poor... She and her homosexual husband, father to their 4 daughters, all still living ... divorced. She used a lawyer who is also a mormon. Anyway, I was asked to sell the home since she was about to lose it anyway. I made major repairs to it to make it presentable and put it up for sale on the MLS. We got a buyer and she took the offer. She was not used to working. She was not good at dealing with any money. To further help her out, I allowed her to move to my city and make full use of a home I had here. What a mistake. I did not charge any rent. I had just got remarried and owed my allegiance to my new family. It ended up I was forced to evict her. I had tried to sell the home and she kept blocking me. I took a test buyer she did not know, whom was an agent I hired, to see the house. I had to endure her telling him not to buy the home. I also had payments to make on the new wife's home. I ran into a condition known as too much month at the end of the money and really needed to sell the home. She kept blocking me. I got in touch with one of my investers and made him an offer he did not refuse. It took cops to get her out. I got a judgment in court. The church helped her and they paid rent on an apartmentment. I don't think she ever got over her eviction. Oh the fun? She took the money from the sale of her home, and blew every bit of it in 90 days. Never paid me a dime. She trashed my home. She blew through over $15,000 around 1987 like it was chump change.
sure but then deduct all the moneys spent on welfare, "great society" and the cost black criminals have imposed on the tax payers and its more than a wash
The USA was not only established recently but a long time ago, it's not the inhabitants that are to answer but the government itself. As I could recollect USA government was established by 1789 and an act of abolishment was at 1808.
I agree. Every person held as a slave before the ratification of the 13th Amendment is due reparations from those that held them. Burden is in the ex-slave to prove they were so held, of course.
I remember some years ago on a TV show (Oprah I think), a black woman and the great-great-great-grandson of a slave owner were brought together so he could apologise to her, which he did. I thought "How bloody silly, the slave owners are long dead and buried, slavery is nothing to do with their descendants!" And I feel the same way about reparations, it's nothing to do with the modern generation.. PS- I just found the clip- [video=youtube;HqOl3q8SI1g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqOl3q8SI1g[/video]
They could insist that if equal rights were given before, they would have the chance of having a good stature at present time, ergo having a firm foothold and foundations before.
IF reparations are provided can we then resume using the N word as freely as 'cracker' or 'honkey' or 'white bread' is used?
Blacks will never allow America to be "one nation." They'll make trouble, riot, burn, steal, waste resources, FOREVER. They haven't assimilated after being here for hundreds of years. That will ever change. And as far as reparations are concerned, could it be that blacks ought to be paying white people a reward of gratitude for bringing them out of a hellhole in which they would never have had any future, decent food, clothes or a decent roof over their head. Now they are the wealthiest blacks in the world. The only solution to black anger or dissatisfaction, imo, is total segregation, or repatriation of blacks. That would solve a great many of America's problems: crime of all kinds, chronic whining, riots, wasted resources, rotting inner-cities, never-ending racial hostilities, finger pointing about guilt, white privilege, etc., etc. A lot of people won't agree with this, but even after all these years solutions to these race based problems STILL elude us. Why? Because, we (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)-foot around the real issues and cannot talk honestly about the problems OR possible solutions. Happy MLK Day, all.
From what I've read, when average people come into money they didn't earn (inherited, lottery, etc) the money is almost always squandered in a relatively short time. In this case, we'd almost certainly be back in this same spot, with the same accusations and the same brainless whining, in no time. Wasting more money would be NO solution. Want a real solution: how about segregation.
If anyone really wants to stop the never-ending whining about reparations there may be a solution. Maybe, instead of reparations, we should hand out job applications, the offer of free resume service, AND, free transportation to one, or two, job interviews. There. Share the idea that it's a really good thing to stand on your own two feet. Give a person free fish and it does no good. Teach a person to buy their own d@mned can of tuna, and they can feed themselve for as long as they keep a stinking job.
Maybe blacks should pay us for rescuing their ancestors from the stinking jungles and giving them free transportation to America and good steady jobs on the plantations with free food, free housing, free med care and free english lessons etc! Huh you try to be nice to people (sniffle).. PS- I saw a film a while back (can't remember the title) which had a final scene something like this- PLANTATION OWNER- "Well the Civil War has ended, you're all free to go now, goodbye" SLAVE SPOKESMAN- "Beggin yer pardon massa, but go where?" PO- "Wherever you like" SS- "Er.. massa, do we have to go?" I think it ended with some going and some preferring to stay on as paid hands.
