# Apologizing for Slavery. Does it matter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 2, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570 "2005-06-02T17:03:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/321 "2005-06-06T14:37:30Z")
No mule? Seriously, thanks for the cite **Monstro**. This would seem to indicate some basis for reparations. What’s the government’s take on this? “We don’t enforce laws sometimes”? seems unlikely. “Ooops, we forgot.”? Just looking for information here, no need to be dismissive. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/322 "2005-06-06T15:00:18Z")
Here ya go. [http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html](http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-01/reconstruction.html) > [@](#): > > The order gave abandoned plantations on the barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia to freed blacks; forty thousand resettled there. One of the new settlers was Tunis Campbell, an African Methodist Episcopal minister from New Jersey, who became superintendent of the Georgia islands for the Freedman’s Bureau, which was coordinating a national relief program for refugees. Campbell took it one step further. Under Campbell, St. Catherines Island became a separatist democracy for four hundred blacks with its own constitution, congress, supreme court, and armed militia. They planted food crops and started schools. > > With the assassination of Lincoln at the end of the war, the experiment on St. Catherines ended. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, ordered the confiscated lands returned to their former owners. “Johnson’s aim,” historian Eric Foner points out in the film, “is to bring the white South and the white North back together. African Americans just do not play a role in Johnson’s vision of the postwar South, other than to go back to work and be landless . . . and rightless . . . plantation laborers.” > > The federal government forced the residents off the islands, and the former owners reclaimed the plantations. The promise of land was lost. Most blacks had no alternative except to work for the returning plantation land owners. For the chance to put in his own crops, a black farmer would work twenty or more acres of cotton or rice for the owner. The system of sharecropping was born. Campbell bought land inland and became the workers’ advocate. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/323 "2005-06-06T16:43:57Z")
**tomndebb.** Rest assured, I figured I’d get a warning no matter who responded. I mean, was _begging_ for it. I was obnoxious about it. I had the nerve to wheedle. I asked myself before I pressed Submit … “You sure you want to do this?” And both the lil’ angel and devil on my shoulders said, “DO IT, YOU CHICKENSHIT!” I was well aware I could have walked away or opened a Pit thread, but, I indulged myself in jerkish behavior, so… ah, well. Anyway, thanks for the well wishes. **Liberal.** If I had a glass eye factory, I’d roll 'em all. I’ll reinterate what **monstro** said about we two being different people. Same for **brickbacon** and **Hippy Hollow** and other self-identified black posters. My view of the TransAtlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity is necessitated by the reality that without that characterization, statutes of limitations would apply and you could never get recourse in the courts. Any argument for reparations would merely be hypothetical instead of a real possibility. Sometimes you have to frame an argument in an abstract perspective before you can proceed with practical considerations. I did want to comment on **monstro’s** statement: “Unfortunately black Americans did not have the respect or clout to fight the federal government in 1905.” That is not entirely true. Our problem, IMO, was the accomodationist policies of Booker T. Washington, which helped justify and in some cases codify white racism not only for whites but for blacks, too. Jim Crow had his tacit approval and vocal endorsement, starting with the Atlanta Compromise of 1895 and his famous statement about blacks and whites being as separate as the fingers on the hand. White American loved him for that and anointed him as America’s black leader for the next 20 years. Jim Crow persisted for the next 60. He potentially advised the next nine American presidents re: black America and evidentally approved some black political appointments, too. Some fought him on his urging blacks NOT to fight for civil rights and concentrate on bettering themselves and maybe, by proving themselves as hardworking and diligent, just maybe they might be granted rights with whites someday. W.E.B. DuBois has the most famed criticism (often described as “rivalry”) against Washington and his Tuskegee Machine until his death in 1915. I believe Booker T. Washington’s legacy was one of the greatest detriments to African-American culture and progress since slavery and the missteps of Reconstruction, and that his beliefs helped forestall the Civil Rights movement _en masse_ by at least 50 years and another three generations. I also believe that Washington’s peculiar brand of conservatism and cosying up to the white power structure might be why lots of blacks are so quick nowadays to distrust other black conservatives as Uncle Toms. (On Preview) **Contrapuntal.** That’s… big of you. Wow. Thank you. You definitely are no slouch yourself. What kills me about me is I didn’t even blast you over the larger issue of reparations, I went after you over whether or not Wachovia was coerced by law into complying in the first place. Which is really moot, you know? I could have – should have – just moved on once I realized we weren’t going to agree on that, but damn my ego and imagination get the better of me sometimes. D-did **pseudotriton ruber ruber** just say there’s a stronger cases for reparations? Thank **monstro** and her Googling skills! **holmes.** Thanks for the summary. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/324 "2005-06-06T17:03:19Z")
**Askia** , I tried (and hope I succeeded) to stay out of the reparations discussion mainly because it seemed like a bit of a hijack and it is easier for me to focus on one point at a time (sometimes to my detriment, I am told.) However, I have opinions about the topic. Blast away! Meanwhile I will go back and read the reparations posts and see where we stand. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/325 "2005-06-06T18:18:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > The shakedown I referred to was the law itself. Companies are dammed if they respond to it and damned if they don’t. If, as you suggested, it’s intended as the groundwork for future lawsuits then there is a serious reason for companies to pull out of Chicago. CEO’s don’t respond well to a lot of red tape bullshit. This is even more of an egregious exaggeration than Libertarian views on federal laws as coercive. Bwah ha ha ha ha! Oh. No one else finds this funny? Is it too soon to laugh about this? > [@](#): > > There are other ways the law can be used for political purposes. It could be used by the city as a way to discriminate on contracts based on compliance or the frivolous law suits that follow. All laws are potentially fraught with unanticipated consequences. Humans are endlessly imaginiative that way. Businesses who desire a presence in the marketplace (say, oh, Chicago) learn to adapt. > [@](#): > > There is no positive result of this law for businesses and as it becomes part of the national consciousness it will hurt the city’s image as a place to conduct business in. If you don’t comply with a law in a given area, and your contract can be revoked for that reason, you should lose your friggin’ contract. That’s not discrimination. That’s enforcement. If only sertain non-complianing businesses had their contracts nulled, THEN you could claim discrimination. How is not complying with the law and getting away with it fair to businesses who do? Not enforcing the law makes the law edentulous. Finally, one positive result of the law is that gives businesses so inclined an opportunity to formally apologize for their past involvement in slavery and come to grips that slavery help copntribute to their company’s success. That’s quite a positive thing as well as an illuminating one. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/326 "2005-06-06T23:32:59Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Lot of “shoulds” in there. As I’m sure you know, the issue of slavery was discussed thoroughly in committee before the final version of the Declaration of Independence was drafted. Arguing, as you seem to be doing here, that the Constitution that legalized slavery should never have included slavery in the first place is a non-starter: “Yeah, but it did. Next?” is the court’s response, and is the only response proper to ex post facto arguments. You _might_ have a point, **p.r.r.** , if slaves were sitting in that committee room, helping to put the final touches to the Declaration of Independence. You _might_ have a point if slaves had been able to nominate candidates, vote on them, and then ship them off to the Capitol Hill to represent their interests. It’s easy to say, “But the law books said it was legal! You can’t complain 'cuz it was legal!” when these people had ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in what could be legal or not. They couldn’t even escape from a country which gave them no rights because it was against the law for them to do so–they were completely helpless. How is this not a crime against humanity, **p.r.r.**? How does this not go against the grain of representational democracy, the form of government our country is modeled on. I don’t care if the Founding Fathers deliberated for minutes or days over the DoI. The fact that their behavior and what they permitted went BLATANTLY against their revered manifesto is a testiment to this country’s hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is blatant now, and I don’t see how it couldn’t have been blatant then. I suppose when people are blinded by self-interest and greed, they can let all kinds of shit slide. Like I said to **AZCowboy** , I find your position unpalatable because it could be used to even argue against reparations for former slaves, if they still were alive. If you think former slaves were due compensation, then you wouldn’t hold the above position at all. > [@](#): > > If “Next?” then makes you form a higher court to study crimes against humanity, that’s also a loser, I think. The Nuremberg trials obviously issued stiff sentences to individuals still living at the time, for specific acts that they committed. If the U.S. goes on trial for being mis-formed under racist law in the 18th century, any International Court will realize how long the docket of potential complainants they will have to deal with, since other countries have also committed numerous crimes against humanity since the U.S. was formed. Are all countries based on the concept that all men are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? If so, then your argument might have merit. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure where you’re going with this. In either venue, the U.S. Supreme Court or some international body, you have no one who seems to think you even have standing for arguing your case. I wouldn’t say this is true. Do you have a cite supporting this? > [@](#): > > This is to say nothing of the impossible problems with determining who is, and who is not, a plaintiff in this case, and who is and who is not, a defendant --the idea of determining that by ethnicity is seriously flawed, and will almost certainly include numerous people who, sadly, are genetically both descendents of slaveowners and slaves. The defendent is easy: the Federal Government. The plaintiff is self-selected: Anyone who can document slave ancestry. I don’t know why you think the idea of determining ethnicity is “seriously flawed” since there hasn’t been–AFAIK–a set forumula or procedure planned yet. For all we know, reparations may be issued as institutional grants, open to anyone who can document slave ancestry. I don’t know why people act like this would be impossible to do. If people can calculate to the fraction how much Irish, Native American, and German “blood” they have, surely they can do the same thing–with a little footwork, to be sure–with slave ancestry. The Mormons have had some success with it. I am one of those millions of Americans who knows slave-owner and slave blood flow through my veins. Most black Americans have slave-owner flowing through their veins as an tragic consequence of rape. It would be deeply ironic IMHO if we were to deny these people compensation simply because Massa raped their great-great-grandmother. The irony would almost be too great to bear. > [@](#): > > And I appreciate how you’re emphasizing that my opinions (and yours) don’t mean much in this purely legal context you’re positing. You’d have to know me to understand how the idea of tearing up my ACLU card and applying for NRA membership is absurd–my point was that if someone like me is at the point of even considering such a drastic response, then millions of Jethroes who are already NRA members aren’t likely to take such a ruling without shots being fired. Practical concepts like “Such a ruling will create massive civil unrest” and “the economic consequences of such a ruling would be ruinous” often acccompany judicial decisions on far lesser matters, so I don’t think the courts are completely removed from the practical world I’m describing. Do you think it would have been fair to black Americans, post-CW, to tell them, "Listen. We know ya’ll deserve to be free, but white people are going to get reaaal angry if they see ya’ll walking the streets, especially if ya’ll are grinning a lot. Why don’t ya’ll go back to the plantation and go back to being slaves, so that **ya’ll** don’t cause ‘massive civil unrest’?"First of all, do you think that would have been fair to those people, to tell them that they deserved justice but then not give it to them? Second, do you think white people were justified in feeling outraged and put-out because black people were finally free? If your answer to both of these questions is “No”, can you see why it would be equally wrong to tell black people seeking reparations, “Listen. We know the federal government owes you money, but we can’t give it to you because white people–especially all these Jethros–will go berserk”? Why do the feelings of white people (or other Americans) get precedence over the feelings of black people? Because the latter is a minority group? Is that the way our government is supposed to represent us? Is justice decided by popularity now? If reparations are distributed–and let’s face it, they won’t be–they will not be ruinous to the country. This is a very wealthy place–wealthy enough to spend a billion dollars a day half-way across the world. Are you telling me it’s too broke to provide compensation to its own citizens? The US is a lousy, broke-ass country, if that’s true. > [@](#): > > Can you be sure that if the Union Army had distributed 40 Acres and a Mule with unprecedented efficiency that today’s African-Americans would not be disadvantaged still? That reparationists would not be arguing “Okay, but what we needed was 80 acres and 2 mules, at least” or that they wouldn’t be able to claim that in the context of post-Civil War America they needed police protection more than any number of acres and any number of mules, and that without that police protection, lingering racism has blighted their descendants’ lives? Why are you distorting the motivations of pro-reparations people? Why do you assume they are going to step into court with craziness like that? If they act a fool, they won’t get any money. The SC is composed of rational people. Have some faith in them, man. 😉 As far as hypothesizing what would have happened to blacks if they HADN’T gotten the 40 acres and a mule, this is a futile exercise. Because we don’t know absolutely sure what would have happened, that’s reason enough to deny them of their due compensation? Isn’t that kinda…I dunno…crazy? If I owe you fifty bucks and refused to pay you back, would it satisfy you if I told you, “Stop complaining, dude. You would still be broke even if I paid you back. Just chalk up the lost to your own hopelessness.” WTF? > [@](#): > > This isn’t how the courts work, and I think you understand that. They offer compensation to viable plaintiffs, they punish defendants for misdeeds they have done themselves, they order that laws be changed from this day forward, but they don’t revisit the past and declare do-overs. Um, just because the government makes the law and enforces the law does not mean it never break the laws–the very ones it is charged to create, interpret, and execute. Sometimes it break laws without even knowing it is, because the government is composed of human beings subject to flaws and biases. Pro-reparations people will have to show that the federal government screwed up in the interpretation and enforcement of their own edicts. Personally, I believe they can make a strong argument. I hope maybe you’ve changed your mind now? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/327 "2005-06-07T00:21:42Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I hope maybe you’ve changed your mind now? Since when does my mind matter? You’ve given me some good points to consider. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/328 "2005-06-07T00:39:57Z")
It matters. Maybe not you expressly, but people like you, with reservations and questions. It’s good to know that people might honestly question whether enough redress has occurred. I personally don’t continue to come to this thread day after day after day, explaining my feelings, spinning my abstract thoughts, questioning rationales and beliefs, and sharing my hopes so that in the end, we all walk away with nothing new to take away from all this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/329 "2005-06-07T01:07:38Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Since when does my mind matter? > > You’ve given me some good points to consider. I’m glad. I didn’t mean to come across as insensitive and provocative. Sometimes I get lost in the excitement of anonymous arguing and forget that I’m interacting with real people. Your opinions _do_ matter, particularly here at the SDMB. Just not in a court room, where this controversial issue will (one day, maybe) be played out. ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/330 "2005-06-07T02:30:27Z")
Wow. My arguments have left an impression that wasn’t my intention. I started off mentioning that I have no problem with the concept of reparations. I’m sympathetic to the argument at a high level. I really struggle with its legal chances to succeed and recover damages. I’m certainly not trying to insult any descendents of slaves. I have great respect for them (and you, where applicable). Slavery was a despicable crime against humanity. And its artifacts continue to disadvantage to this day. I wish that wasn’t necessary to say. As I thought of the crime, I thought of it in the abstract. Kidnapped from ones home, forced into labor, and suffering for generations - like one big crime. **Monstro’s** post gives me the perspective of the accumulation of millions of discrete crimes. That you can throw out the transported slaves, and look strictly at US born slaves. I see your perspective. I’m sorry you couldn’t see mine. If reparations were awarded, is the share of the award related to the depth of slavery in the roots of ones family tree? Or is any path to a slave sufficient to earn a full share? ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2005, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/331 "2005-06-07T14:16:38Z")
**AZCowboy.** It’s kind of difficult to know what exactly would entitle one to slavery reparations, what kinds of payment you’d receive, what constitutes a full share or maybe eligibility for educational grants or tax breaks. I assume that anyone who isn’t a direct descendant of black American slaves would be ineligible, and that you would have to go claim the money and not just be mailed a check. There may be other specific redresses reparationists may be seeking I’m not aware of. My own personal preference is that educational opportunities and allotments (farmland, perhaps, and disaster-relief level intervention to improve area infrastructure) be awarded on a need-priority basis first to people in areas depressed by cycles of generational poverty, like the Gullah Sea Island communities off the Carolinas and Georgia and whole counties in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida. We can look to some other models. **INDIAN [NATIVE AMERICAN] REPARATIONS** [The Bureau of Indian Affairs](http://www.unclaimedassets.com/US2.htm) from 1820, executed national policy to parcel out allotments of 80-160 acres to individual Indian owners for over 100 years, stopping in the first third of the 20th century. Mismanagement, waste and fraud have been described as a “plague” in the BIA for decades, which have hurt this policy. From the site: “An audit revealed at least $2.4 billion from a trust is missing or otherwise unaccounted for over just the 20-year period from 1973 to 1992, making an accurate reconciliation of accounts virtually impossible. A pending class action lawsuit initiated by the Native American Rights Fund over Indian Trust Fund mismanagement alleges the federal government breached its fiduciary duty to over 300,000 Native American [Individual Indian Monies] beneficiaries. Damages could total several billion dollars.” **JAPANESE-AMERICAN REPARATIONS** [This link](http://www.globaled.org/curriculum/internmentd.html) on Japanese reparations, signed into law by Ronald Reagan, states that each qualifying and surviving Japanese-American interned during the war received a $20,000 direct payment and whose descendants were eligible for a $1.25 billion education fund, among other provisions. An estimated 120,000 JapAmericans were interned at various facilities in California, Washington, Oregon, Oklahoma and other states during WWII, with more than half described as children. **JEWISH HOLOCAUST REPARATIONS** Wikipedia is currently offline for maintenance, so I can’t link to articles there at the moment. Germany has apparently paid over $60 billion in reparations over the decades to concentration camp survivors. Professor Locksley Edmonton, a proponent of slavery reparations, has said, “Jewish reparations have been the most prominent, the most legitimated in principle even though controversy has surrounded the aspects of it.” ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570/332 "2005-06-14T19:50:13Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > The more I post in this thread, the more I start thinking that reparations aren’t such a bad idea after all. Really, if this is the best the opposition can come up with, then we have nothing to lose. I few question on reparations if I might: What is the amount that would be paid in reparations per individual? Can I presume that an A-A immigrant that arrives in America the day before the payments start would receive the reparations? Can I presume that a German immigrant that arrives in America the day before the payments start would have to pay into the reparations pool? Do you think that these payments would be fundamentally positive to the nation as a whole? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apologizing-for-slavery-does-it-matter/306570.md?page=16)