# No fucking Slavery Reparations for you! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 14, 2002, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791 "2002-08-14T03:33:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/61 "2002-08-14T21:30:36Z")
OK, a quick check of the Aetna site says it was involved in such insurance shortly after its founding in 1853. It doesn’t say how long it went on insuring slaves after that, but if it presumably kept issuing policies until 1865, I’d say they made some money off of it. Twelve years is a little long to go on a money-loser. As an additional point of interest, [here](http://www.insurance.ca.gov/SEIR/main.htm) is a Slavery Insurance Registry put together by the State of California. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/62 "2002-08-14T21:40:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by EasyPhil \* > **What’s so wrong with the government and industry that obviously benefited from slaverly and it’s aftermath, to pay reparations?** The following things:[ul][li]No black American alive today has suffered because of slavery[_]No white American alive today has ever owned any slaves, black or otherwise[_]The solution of financially benefiting one group over the other -based on shaky grounds at best- will most likely create a bigger gap, rather than narrowing it.[/ul][/li][quote] \*\*I’m amazed by people who think racisms is advanced by talking about things such as reparations to a group that has been grossly wronged through the use of slavery, lynching, jim crow, segragation, racial profiling, and descrimination. What does that say about the person that thinks this way. \*\* [/QUOTE] First off, we’re specifically talking about slavery here. The reparations are about slavery, and slavery alone. Therefore, no individual has been “grossly wronged” by it: they were all born free men and women. What does it say about people when they argue against reparations? To me, it tells me they are rational individuals unwilling to settle for a politicaly correct pseudo-solution that has minor positive short term effects for the beneficiaries, and substantially negative long term effects for integration between races as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/63 "2002-08-14T21:42:47Z")
**Zev** , how many businesses do you actually think use the source of income in determining where the money goes? Most businesses I’m familiar with only care how much they have to spend. None of them would sit down and say “OK, the money that comes from X, Y, and Z sources _has_ to be spent on A, B, and C expenses”. The Nazis had “science” to back up their claims about Jewish inferiority, but they started out by blaming the Jews for the European financial crisis. No, it wasn’t caused by slavery, but the situation in the Weimar Republic was much the same as in the South immediately after 1865. I’d certainly be interested in knowing how much of that crap was put out both before and after the Final Solution began to be implemented. I’d put money on the propaganda mill really churning it out after the trains started shipping Jews to the death camps. Your last question is an interesting one. IMO, a victory against those companies now would increase people’s confidence in fighting for deeper, more far-reaching reforms, so that 50 years down the road the issue will have progressed to the point where there are greater steps forward to take than suing a group of insurance companies. ---
**Author:** ![Hinten](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecd19e/32.png) [@Hinten](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hinten)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/64 "2002-08-14T21:47:04Z")
iampunha, zev\_steinhardt You are both right, the recipients of the reparations (not right after the war but the ones paid out last year) were and are still alive. Problem is that the only ‘survivors’ that were taken to task were corporation not Nazi indviduals. Since the trial was held here in the US, the German corporations were treated like individuals would have been; hence the payments. Either way, a somewhat similar precedent has been set and it does not surprise me that it is in the interest of some lawyers to pursue this course. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/65 "2002-08-14T21:49:57Z")
TLW How beautiful you are! Thank you for sharing a meaningful opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/66 "2002-08-14T21:52:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Coldfire \* > **No black American alive today has suffered because of slavery** **Coldfire** , my man, the whole history of Blacks in the US after 1865 shoots that assertion right out of the saddle. The freed slaves got absolutely nothing besides the manacles off their wrists once the war was over - not even the “40 acres and a mule” Lincoln promised them. (Not his fault; he was dead and Johnson was a jerk.) They had to start from nothing, competing for jobs with the poor Southern whites, or migrating up North to the cities of the Midwest and Northeast. They had to deal with the Klan, “whites only” businesses, fighting like hell to actually exercise the right to vote, and still poverty affects Blacks disproportionately in comparison to whites. The racism and bigotry used to justify slavery continued long after slavery was abolished, and plenty of Blacks have suffered because of it. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/67 "2002-08-14T21:55:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Olentzero \* > \*\ ***Zev** , how many businesses do you actually think use the source of income in determining where the money goes? Most businesses I’m familiar with only care how much they have to spend. None of them would sit down and say “OK, the money that comes from X, Y, and Z sources _has_ to be spent on A, B, and C expenses”. \*\* I’ll be honest, I don’t know. I’m not a corporate accountant. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some money from certain sources are “earmarked” for certain expenses. In any event, both of us have been speculating, since neither of us has seen Aetna’s books (if they even still exist). However, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to show that the proceeds from this practice are still evident in the company today. It’s not Aetna’s burden of proof to prove that they aren’t. > [@](#): > > \*\* > The Nazis had “science” to back up their claims about Jewish inferiority, but they started out by blaming the Jews for the European financial crisis. No, it wasn’t caused by slavery, but the situation in the Weimar Republic was much the same as in the South immediately after 1865. I’d certainly be interested in knowing how much of that crap was put out both before and after the Final Solution began to be implemented. I’d put money on the propaganda mill really churning it out after the trains started shipping Jews to the death camps. \*\* Germany got progressively uglier for the Jews between 1920 and 1944. I really couldn’t tell you when the Nazis started putting forth their “scientific” theories. However, in any event, it still clearly wasn’t because of slavery. In short, people don’t need slavery as a reason to hate other people. They can do a fine job of it all by themselves. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/68 "2002-08-14T22:06:03Z")
I guess my point was, **Zev** , that the really egregious anti-Semitic propaganda probably came out to justify the concentration camps, rather than the concentration camps being a result of viciously rabid anti-Semitism. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/69 "2002-08-14T22:10:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Olentzero \* > \*\*I guess my point was, **Zev** , that the really egregious anti-Semitic propaganda probably came out to justify the concentration camps, rather than the concentration camps being a result of viciously rabid anti-Semitism. \*\* That I can help you with. The concentration camps didn’t get started until the mid-late 30s. The Nazi “scientific theories” were out there before then. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/70 "2002-08-14T22:11:08Z")
I’m half Irish and half English. Does that mean I cancel myself out? _genie vanishes in a poof of logic_ ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/71 "2002-08-14T22:12:08Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Coldfire \* **The following things:[ul][li]No black American alive today has suffered because of slavery[/ul]**[/li][/QUOTE] Uh, surely you don’t believe this. Do you really think all was better the moment slaves were freed?. The economic repercussion alone from families not earning an income or owning land adversely affected future generations. I am not for reparations, by the way. (It bothers me that I just typed that but I don’t know why. I’m not, nor have I ever been, for reparations, but I don’t think my stance should validate or invalidate my previous point.) Anyhoo, I’m signing off for the day. If another poster doesn’t come along to elaborate on this point, I’ll address it tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/72 "2002-08-14T22:14:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Olentzero \* > \*\*Coldfire, my man, the whole history of Blacks in the US after 1865 shoots that assertion right out of the saddle. The freed slaves got absolutely nothing besides the manacles off their wrists once the war was over - not even the “40 acres and a mule” Lincoln promised them. (Not his fault; he was dead and Johnson was a jerk.) They had to start from nothing, competing for jobs with the poor Southern whites, or migrating up North to the cities of the Midwest and Northeast. They had to deal with the Klan, “whites only” businesses, fighting like hell to actually exercise the right to vote, and still poverty affects Blacks disproportionately in comparison to whites. The racism and bigotry used to justify slavery continued long after slavery was abolished, and plenty of Blacks have suffered because of it. \*\* I’m not saying that current discrimination of Blacks in the US doesn’t have at least a partial origin in slavery: it probably does. But just giving every African American some money doesn’t rectify the current situation of racial inequality: if anything, it will aggravate it. In fact, if I were a black American, I’d consider this approach a slap in the face. It completely ignores current racist patterns, does nothing to improve socio-economic status for blacks in the long run, and looks like a fucking buy-out out of the guilt of a nation. Guilt for which no individual can currently be held responsible. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/73 "2002-08-14T22:14:56Z")
**Zev** - with all due respect, show me what you got on that point. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/74 "2002-08-14T22:16:54Z")
I hope my response to Olentzero also answers Juanita’s question. Yes, my statement needed elaboration. ---
**Author:** ![Fang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/96bed5/32.png) [@Fang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fang)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/75 "2002-08-14T22:17:10Z")
I’m Jewish. If I could sue everybody who mistreated my ancestors, the world might very well go broke. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/76 "2002-08-14T22:17:48Z")
How will paying out reparations aggravate racial inequality? I can see how it might enrage some of the tiniest white supremacist minds (something I heartily favor), but I fail to see how it will aggravate actual inequality. ---
**Author:** ![Tars\_Tarkas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/77 "2002-08-14T22:17:55Z")
> [@](#): > > not even the “40 acres and a mule” Lincoln promised them. (Not his fault; he was dead and Johnson was a jerk.) Can i please get a cite for Lincoln saying 40 acres and a mule? i remember a big fight a few years ago on whether this was a real promise. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/78 "2002-08-14T22:21:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Olentzero \* > \*\*How will paying out reparations aggravate racial inequality? I can see how it might enrage some of the tiniest white supremacist minds (something I heartily favor), but I fail to see how it will aggravate actual inequality. \*\* I think you underestimate the power of money there, Olent. Typical, for a commie. 😉 I think even a lot of pretty emancipated, well behaved and downright righteous white folk will get mightily pissed off that their black neighbour is getting money from the gummint all of a sudden. I really do. Does that make me a cynic? ---
**Author:** ![wikkidpis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f05b48/32.png) [@wikkidpis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wikkidpis)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/79 "2002-08-14T22:22:09Z")
Personally, I’m against reparations, but only because at this point we’re too far removed from it. Look, people did work & didn’t get paid, were prisoners for life, were treated worse than animals, murdered, tortured and it was all legal. The country condoned it & benefited from it and that was wrong. Reparations should have been paid in the first, say, 50 years after slavery was abolished. It would have been the right thing to do. But to do it now gets a little iffy. My grandparents came from Yoo-rip in the 20’s, so even though I’m white I don’t know that my tax dollars ought to go towards paying reparations. In fact, its fair to state that most non black people in the US today have ancestors that came to the US after slavery was abolished. And many of the decendants of slaveowners are now not so well off. And many decendants of slaves are doing very well for themselves. And while its probably true that most black Americans today are decendants of slaves, most would have trouble proving it. Now, reparations to those who could prove that their ancestors were slaves could be on OK idea, I think. After all, those reparations really should have been paid to their great, great, great grandparents and so now should be paid to their heirs. But that would be pretty unfair to the those who know they come from slaves but couldn’t prove it. Plus, in practice, the whole thing would just be vulgar. What would happen, really? Every black American gets a check from the taxpayers? Or from the defendant in a class action lawsuit? What would it be, a couple hundred bucks? So they get that check and go buy a new TV and that makes up for 400 years of slavery? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2002, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-fucking-slavery-reparations-for-you/123791/80 "2002-08-14T22:26:09Z")
Tars: Got [this](http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1994/4/94.04.01.x.html) right quick off of Google. > [@](#): > > In addition to the limits surrounding enforcement of this piece of legislature, the Proclamation made no mention of reparations. Neither is there any mention of reparation in the 13th Amendment, ratified on December 18, 1865, which in actuality freed the slaves. Nonetheless the case for reparations is not a recent phenomenon, nor did the issue just emerge following emancipation. Quite the contrary; as early as 1829, Walker’s Appeal, published by David Walker, castigated the “lack of compensation for the labor of the slaves.” > However, the derivation of the promise of 40 acres and a mule to ex-slaves is not altogether clear. It has been speculated that the origin might have derived from either of two sources: 1) the First Freedmen’s Bureau Act; or 2) efforts of the War Department to provide for the freedmen who marched across Georgia with Sherman in late 1864-early 1865. > On March 3, 1865, just weeks before the end of the Civil War and almost a year prior to the ratification of the 13th Amendment the Freedmen’s Bureau was created by Congress. Originally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, the Freedmen’s Bureau was responsible for, among other things, “the supervision and management of all abandoned lands . . . …the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel States.”4 Also according to Section 4 of the First Freedmen’s Bureau Act, this agency “shall have authority to set apart for use of loyal refugees and freedmen such tracts of land within the insurrectionary states as shall have been abandoned or to which the United States shall have acquired title by confiscation or sale, or otherwise; and to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, as aforesaid there shall be assigned not more than 40 acres of such land.” > > Introduced into Congress by Thaddeus Stevens this portion of the Freedmen’s Bureau Act was defeated by Congress on February 5, 1866 “by a vote of 126 to 36.”6 Lands which had been distributed to freedmen were reclaimed and returned to the previous owners. It should be noted that there is no mention of providing the freedmen with a mule (or any other type of animal) in any portion of this legislature. So the question remains in part unanswered. What is the origin of the promised 40 acres and a mule? > > The second possibility for the basis of the ‘promise’ has to do with the efforts of the War Department to furnish accoutrements for the thousands of freedmen who assisted General Sherman in his triumphant march across Georgia. According to Claude F. Oubre in his book Forty Acres and a Mule, General Tecumseh Sherman, acting under an edict from the War Department, issued Special Field Order No. 15. Promulgated on January 16, 1865, after Sherman had conferred with 20 black ministers and obtained the approval of the War Department, Special Order No. 15 provided that: > “The islands of Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering St. Johns River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of [N]egroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.”7 > > The land was then divided into 40-acre tracts. Sherman then issued orders to General Saxton to distribute the plots and processory titles to the head of each family of the freedmen. Sherman also ordered General Saxon to lend to the freedmen animals that were no longer useful to the military. “By June, 1865 approximately 40,000 freedmen had been allocated 400,000 acres of land.” However, by September, 1865 former owners of the land reserved by Sherman “demanded the same rights afforded returning rebels in other states. Exempted from the general amnesty, they secured special pardons from President Johnson.” who broke the promise made to the freedmen. When he ordered the processory titles rescinded and the land returned to the white plantation owners Johnson gave little or no regard to the fate of the former slaves. Dismayed, like many, Saxton wrote Oliver O. Howard (Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau) stating: > > “The lands which have been taken possession of by this bureau have been solemnly pledged to the freedmen. The law of Congress has been published to them, and all agents of the bureau acting under your order have provided lands to these freedmen . . . . I sincerely trust that the government will never break its faith with a single one of these colonists by driving him from the home which he was provided. It is of vital importance that our promises made to freedmen should be faithfully kept . . . . The freedmen were promised the protection of the government in their possession. This order was issued under great military necessity with the approval of the War Department . . . . More than 40,000 freedmen have been provided with homes under its promises. I cannot break faith with them now by recommending the restoration of any of these lands. In my opinion this order of General Sherman is as binding as a statute.” So I was off in attributing it to Lincoln, but there were actual attempts at giving freedmen land (up to 40 acres) and farm animals as reparations for slavery. 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