I say Obama would have to pay. On his mother’s white side he is likely descendant of white slave owners. But on his black side his father comes from Kenya and he is not the descendant of American slaves. In fact it is more likely he is the descendant of blacks in Africa who sold other blacks to the whites for slavery.
So in Obama’s case it looks like he would owe reparations.
In contrast, although I am a white person, my ancestors immigrated from eastern Europe in the 1870s which was after slavery was abolished. Therefore I’m not descended from slave owners.
However being of Jewish decent, I’m still waiting for reparations from the Egyptians for slavery.
This whole reparations thing gets more complicated if you get past the idea that all white people owe all black people a check. Perhaps it’s time to forget this color thing and decide we are all part of the human race?
The whole reparations idea is insane. Unless, you are talking about a perp & slave that are currently alive.
What debate?
Ignorant question. Even more ignorant answer.
Questions of reparations are couched in classic Anglo-Saxon law – reparations for past wrongs. Since the state was responsible for laws supporting everything from slavery to discrimination [in years following the Civil War], the argument is that the state provides reparations.
That includes all taxpayers not just white.
Even though that’s the part that worries some white people more than they ever worried about slavery. Of course.
Clearly reparations for slavery would go to, you guessed it, descendants of slaves. Obama is not a descendant of slaves.
I hope this clears it up for you.
The more important question is, how does Obama figure in my decision as to which guitar to buy next.
#3
So let me get this right?? You’re talking about another bailout?
I do agree with bobbo and Paddy-O. The debate on this is academic, and gets so more each year.
I’ll eat my shirt if Obama so much as mentions it.
#3
There is also a long held concept in our laws. Statute of limitations. LOL.
Cherry picking is nice though.
Oh please, a “debate”? This is so circa 1970’s nonsense rhetoric.
If anything I’d like to discuss restitution from the Catholic church for murdering and torturing my ancestors.
My family came from Europe in the early 1900’s. We don’t have to pay right?
The post an discussion was funny. To add to the jocularity, how about an apology for chasing my american indian ancestors around. I;m sure they enjoyed the exercise but ya didn’t need to mess up the land!
I have never owned a slave, therefore I have nothing to repay. I had no control over what my forefathers did. How far back in history do you want to go with this? What about the Chinese that were brought over to build the rail roads out west? Maybe we should use this “reparation” money to free the slaves we have today in the porn, drug and religious communities around the world?
Reparatian is legal recompense. Digging into the murky past, beware of what else you might dig up.
Wondering how long before the shit hits the fan over the use of the term “half-breed” being used in the post to describe obama.
“On his mother’s white side he is likely decendant of white slave owners.”
Actually, we know that Obama is descended from several American slave owners.
“Oh please, a “debate”? This is so circa 1970’s nonsense rhetoric.”
Not at all. In fact, only in the last session of Congress did the United States see its first congressional hearing on legislation on reparations for slavery. This issue is very much alive.
“My family came from Europe in the early 1900’s. We don’t have to pay right?”
It’s already been pointed out that under most reparations proposals, the money would come from taxpayers, without regard to ancestry.
It’s also worth noting, I think, that all Americans today have derived benefits from slavery. For instance, those of us with ancestors who immigrated in the 1870s or early 1900s know that most of them came because there were jobs and economic opportunities in this land. Those economic strengths derived largely from slavery, which drove the early American economy and was vital to the industrialization of the early United States. Without slavery, it’s doubtful that most immigrants would have come here … or that we’d enjoy today a standard of living many times higher than in Third World countries.
“Perhaps it’s time to forget this color thing and decide we are all part of the human race?”
I’m good with that.
“Reparations”, as such, have been paid out many decades ago. Just add up all the government assistance handed out, sort by race, and Bob’s your uncle!
Not to mention, as EvilPoliticians alluded to, exactly who is supposed to pay reparations? Is he going to pay simply because his ancestors joined American society even though they had no direct involvement with slavery?
If that’s the case, how many blacks also benefited from this very same benefit? Do blacks from the North have to pay blacks from the South?
So here is the point: Since Obama’s lineage is white and immigrant, he would have to pay!
He is not the product of American slavery, just a beneficiary.
Reparations would result in another massive government bueracracy that will burn through billions of dollars and not help anyone. Ignore the idea of who will pay, because as has been pointed out all tax payers will pay. That leaves us with who gets reparations. Obviously you can’t just say anyone who is black, because not all black people have ancestors who were slaves. Maybe they have partial slave based lineage, so they’ll get less than someone that can prove they came from a 100% slave lineage. This will require thousands of geneologist to track all this down. How will we pay anyone who is deemed deserving of reparations? A weekly check? One big check?
After we are finished with this, lets move on to Native Americans. Obviously they deserve the same reparations that descendents of slaves do. There is another organization that will figure all of that out.
Next, women. We screwed them over for centuries to. No right to own land, no right to vote, unequal employee and educational opportunities. Another organization to deal with this.
Now lets move on to the orphaned children of soldiers that have fought in our many wars. Obviously, if one or both their parents were killed because of the war they were at a major disadvantage. We should create another organization to track down everyone who deserves a payout here.
Slavery was a disgusting period in our history. The majority of people agree to that and will openly admit it (there will always be screwballs that think it was a good thing, you aren’t going to change them). As a country, like every other country, we have done horrible things. We grew as a country and moved past them. The time for reparations was after the civil war, but that didn’t happen. We start going into our past we will cripple ourselves trying to right every wrong. Lets work together as a country where anyone can get ahead if they are willing to work hard enough. We can’t let ourselves or others wallow in pitty because of something that happen 150 years ago.
We should teach each generation about the things we did wrong, how we have moved past them, and the good things we did as well. Teach them that as a country we have messed up, but the important thing is we have proven that we can learn from those mistakes and grow. That is what makes us a great country, we learn from doing things wrong and adapt.
What debate ?
There’s still a debate about reparations? There have been slaves in every human society since the dawn of humankind. Eventually, the slaves get assimilated into society and take a part in the benefits. Get rid of this idea of reparations, it is stupid. In my mind there is a statute of limitations on slavery reparations and that period of time is the lifespan of the original perpetrators. Guess what, the window of claim expired 120 years ago.
I want reperations for the shit wages my ancesestors were paid for the thousand years so. There is no doubt about it, slavery was shit. But to be honest, being a free working man during that period was exactly great … and being free workiung woman was even worse, so I reckon anyone decended from women should be in line for repreration …
Mark Perkel, if you’re descended from Eastern Europe, then you may be a descendant of slaves. The word slave comes from Slav.
Reparations would be funny so we should do it.
We just gave a trillion dollars to banks as a reward for mismanaging their business. We have an unfunded debt of $40 trillion for social security obligations.
We should do it so we can say we did.
Oh, spare change. I thought it was a different kind of change.
This “debate” is just stupid and “reparations” will NEVER happen.
Oh boy slave reparations, again. How wonderful is it to get charged for something you didn’t do in support of people who didn’t get it done to them?
On the bright side if that happens my taxpaying days are over. Just an honest mistake.
“I was born in the 1950’s. What does this have to do with me in any way?”
Great question.
For starters, all of us in the U.S. today enjoy benefits from slavery. The U.S. economy wouldn’t be anything like what it is without our history of slavery; in fact, our standard of living would probably be on a par with, say, Mexico’s or Brazil’s, rather than being significantly higher.
Even more, our long history of slavery and discrimination means that white American families have been getting ahead in this country for generations, while until the 1960s, discrimination against black families was brutal and officially sanctioned. To take just one example, in the 20th century, the federal government offered massive programs to aid with home ownership, higher education, and small business loans. These programs collectively built the modern American middle class. All of them were almost entirely closed to black citizens.
#26, James,
For starters, all of us in the U.S. today enjoy benefits from slavery.
I really hate it when someone thinks they understand history.
Far from being a boon to the American economy, slavery actually hurt it. You will find in most slave societies they are technologically behind the rest.
When the United States was created, a majority of the population were from the South in slave States. By the Civil War, the northern States outnumbered the South by over three to one.
The North was vastly industrialized with town grouping around streams and rivers to harness the water power.
Farms were usually what one man with some help from his children could manage. He grew truck crops for sale in nearby towns to wage earners. Since so much work was done by the farmer, many inventions were made for Northern farmers by names such as McCormick and John Deere.
The South had little industry. Most items were imported from the Northern States or from England. Farms were usually much larger and required slave labor to grow single cash crops such as tobacco or cotton. Even staples such as wheat were imported from Northern States.
The huge waves of immigration to not only the US, but also Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand was because there was no more room for expansion in Europe. Then, the farmer’s children that couldn’t own a farm moved to cities where they became a ready labor force.
America, along with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also had a lot of mineral wealth. This helped fuel and fund industrial expansion. It was all the cheap coal that fired the steam engines that helped the farmers kids and immigrants to build the products in the factories.
Eff this idea that slavery built America. Not even in your dreams.
Funny how often the people saying “We’re all part of the human race” are white.
Even more intriguing are the links to some of the same graduates of the Marie Antoinette School of Public Relations that run today’s big banks. The Bank of Boston, which was eventually swallowed into what is now TD Bank, I believe, made profits on the slave trade. Those seem recoverable to me, with compounded interest.
To paraphrase Bill Hicks, we should forget about slavery as soon as Christians forget about Jesus. It was a long time ago, you know.
#29, Mike,
Good point. I don’t hear many canines saying “Hey I’m a human too, can I shed on the couch?” Well those lap poodles might but they’re effen weird.
But you see, one of the tenants of law is that if you did something and it was legal at the time, it is fine. Even if they change the law and make it illegal, doesn’t matter. It was legal when you did it. So how the Bank of Boston is somehow a bad character for doing something that would have been almost 150 years ago kind of baffles me.
To quote my father,
Lest we forget
Far from being a boon to the American economy, slavery actually hurt it. You will find in most slave societies they are technologically behind the rest.
These are two separate issues, Mr. Fusion.
In many cases, slavery offered societies significant economic benefits by allowing the inexpensive production of commodities such as sugar, cotton, and coffee. By focusing on producing these commodities, such societies often failed to develop industries and became trapped as agricultural and commodity-exporting countries.
In the case of the U.S., however, the North built much of its economy around the business of supplying slavery in the South (and the West Indies) with both agricultural (such as produce and livestock) and manufactured goods. Even President John Quincy Adams acknowledged that without this business, it’s doubtful the colonies would have been wealthy enough to rebel against Great Britain.
Even more importantly, though, the northern United States was able to industrialize because of the surplus capital provided by slavery and the slave trade. This was the only suitable source of investment capital in the U.S. at the time, and it was required in order to make the vast investment in textile mills (the leading industry in the world at the time) necessary to compete with the world’s industrial powerhouse, Great Britain. In addition, U.S. textile mills received a tremendous boost by using cheap, slave-produced cotton as their raw inputs.
The North was vastly industrialized with town grouping around streams and rivers to harness the water power.
That’s exactly right. And who paid to sneak British engineers to the U.S. to replicate their new textile mill technology? Who paid to build the giant mills of the northern U.S.? Where did they get the millions of tons of cotton required as industrial input?
Farms were usually what one man with some help from his children could manage.
Actually, in the north, for generations family farms would often have a slave or two, as well. People tend to forget that fact, but it’s why per-capita slavery was at times higher in the north than in the south.
He grew truck crops for sale in nearby towns to wage earners.
Actually, a substantial fraction of northern agricultural goods during slavery were brought to seaports and shipped to the south, or to the West Indies, to feed slaves. It was cheaper for the slave owners than diverting any of their slaves from cash crops to food.
The South had little industry. Most items were imported from the Northern States or from England.
Yes. Slavery didn’t industrialize the southern U.S.; it industrialized the northern U.S.
The huge waves of immigration to not only the US, but also Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand was because there was no more room for expansion in Europe.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, t’s not that there wasn’t room in Europe. It’s that overpopulation made it difficult to find jobs.
Why do you think most immigrants went to the U.S., and far fewer to the other places you mention? Our economy, rapidly becoming the greatest in the world, and its supply of jobs.
Do I get a reparations for my relatives who died to free the slaves? Do I get a pass for my great-great grandfather who emigrated to the US from Germany to New Orleans and was so disgusted by the first slave auction he saw he went straight to the north and joined the Union (we have it all laid out in his diary)? Does that offset any other relatives that may have owned slaves? How could we possibly afford this when we have so many banks to pay almost a trillion dollars to “bailout” so their executives can still get their billions in bonuses?
This country is so F*@K#D if we are even considering this. Lets just feel good about the fact that we are landing a crushing tax burden on our children. I’m sure they’re going to be nice about it when they take our social security away to pay for our runaway debt. But people who are over a hundred years removed from the sins of our past will still get their checks. Lets give it all back to the native Americans while we’re at it. I’ll at least get a 1/16 share of that check…