:: Blush :: Awww, thanks GUIN; the check is in the mail.
SCHNITTE –
Yes, but the concept of “human rights” then existing did not necessarily exclude slavery. Indeed, the comforting idea that slavery could be both moral and positive led in large part to the concept of the “happy darkey” which was never grounded in the realities of slavery. And the concept of human dignity was not generally found in the idea of slavery; property does not have or need dignity. This is precisely what I was talking about: The importation of modern ideas (or modern iterations) to historical facts in an attempt to hold people responsible for actions that are clearly wrong today but were not clearly wrong then – speaking again as society as a whole.
The moral absolutism that slavery is always wrong (as indeed I believe as a personal matter) is a modern belief. What if 150 years from now our society swings far to the right and decides, as a societal matter (meaning, a tenet held as true by the majority of society) that abortion is always wrong. Will that society owe “reparations” for the what is done today, when abortion is not universally considered wrong?
To me, it just makes no sense to reach back to attempt to impose the values of today on the actions of 150 years ago. The very idea that it is okay to do so is grounded in moral absolutism – that a profound wrong is always wrong and cannot be made right through context. I agree with this as a personal matter but I don’t see how you can apply it to historical events. Burning witches? Absolutely wrong now. “Wrong” in the context of the Dark Ages, and the beliefs and knowledge then possessed? I don’t think we can easily say that, and I think it’s facile to try.
Again, this is aside from all the practical problems with reparations, which I consider insurmountable as well.
Has anyone tried to make a case for the presumably large number of extremely poor whites who were economically oppressed by the pool of virtually free labor that the institution of slavery provided? After all, their descendants are still parking buses on blocks on their front lawns. Their inability to find work kept them locked in perpetual cycles of poverty and dependence. I think that all hillbillies south of the Mason-Dixon should receive reparations checks as well.
I am white. I am Christian, or at least descended from Christians. The number of times my anscestry has been opressed, enslaved and/or killed by governments can hardly be counted before we reach the end of recorded history. [We can do this with literally every group of people by the way.] So, I want reparations from every Government, lets just use the current governments located in that geographic area for that particular injustice, for any and all injustices committed. I would like to start with the African continent with the opression and slavery of my Jewish/Christian anscestors. I will happily take the money from my African-American neighbors, thank you very much.
And, everyone else deserves exactly the same thing.
So, either we all get it, or no one does. No half way on this one because we all have anscestors that have been hurt in one way or another by someone.
The best way to make reparations is to change the present and prevent (insert horrible atrocity)from ever happening again to anyone.
Sorry, tsunamisurfer, I wans’t trying to complicate matters. Of course, there isn’t any available genetic testing that provides evidence for “blackness”. I was trying to convey (poorly) that there has to be some basis for the government to determine whether a person is a descendent of someone who was a slave - physical evidence other than documentation (I would expect that not everyone would be able to provide verifiable documentation that their ancestors were slaves). Blood testing or DNA samples to help trace linneages, for example. As I am not a biologist/geneticist, I don’t know the details of how this would work. But I assume it’s possible (like the case in verifying that Thomas Jefferson did indeed have children with Sally Hemmings).
Blood (i.e. DNA) testing to determine the lineages of some 35 million African-Americans would be a mite expensive, not to say administratively cumbersome. Hell, untold thousands of young urban poor do not even receive needed innoculations. (How many undereducated African Americans would allow white folks to appoach them, en masse, with hypodermic syringes?)
What interests me re: this broadening international debate is the fact that, historically, African-Americans have asserted that most “white” Americans have “racially mixed” ancestry. If so, how does that assertion complicate the proposed reparations scheme? If push comes to shove, will we suddently find tens of millions of whites claiming black ancestry while dressed in Kente cloth? Strange.
What about reparations to native Americans? To women? How will the reparations fees be levied–through a garnishing of paychecks? A national lottery?
This isn’t to suggest that the plight of these groups can begin to match that of AA’s. I feel their pain in a very non-Clintonian way.
Besides, what about blacks who are themselves descendents of slave owners? Many are, you know?
Some blacks even owned slaves themselves, if I’m not mistaken.
Hate to say it, but reparations should be considered an antique idea. The feasability of most reperations died in the 1920’s when the world saw that all of society took a hit when the allies decided Germany should pay full reparations for WWI, and Germany’s economy plunged under the weight of it. Realistically affordable reparations in this day and age are more a gesture of good PR than they are of fully due reparations. To borrow a phrase: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Spend the money on programs to help descendants of slaves for the rest of their lives (education, home loans, etc.), don’t just give them some measily Public Relations payout that will be gone in a couple of years. Money won’t cure the ills of history. Building infrastructures to facilitate success in the present won’t either, but it will help even the playing field for descendants.
I don’t think it would need to be done en masse, per say; only for those that lack good documentation (which would still be a lot of people). I’m not saying that it should be done - but I don’t think that the government would rely solely on documentation only (you’d leave out the people who don’t have documentation - a political mess). But I agree, it would be expensive and cumbersome to administer.
Which is one reason I got to thinking about the reparations issue (and why I had it listed in one of my mock tabloid headings in my original post). If the government DID decide to use some kind of DNA/genetic testing to trace linneages for reparations (heck, even without the testing), then, you’re correct, we could very well see tens of millions of whites claiming African-American heritage. Which will open up the whole “race” issue, one that has been debated on this message board for some time.
That’s why I can’t see the US government ever seriously considering reparations for slavery. There’s too many political minefields and slippery slopes involved. I’m neither pro- nor anti-reparations; I was curious as to whether a strong argument could be made for the merits of the issue.
Collounsbury,
I’m curious - have there (or are there) any proponents regarding reparations that have considered your take - “re segregation since 1865 and above all inadequate civil protection during the tail end of the Jim Crow period/beginning Civil Rights movement.”?
Believe me, the impact of reparation payments on Germany’s economy between the wars is grossly overestimated. It is true that Germans were pretty angry about the Allied claims and right-wing parties, including the NSDAP, used this for their propaganda. But they certainly did not make Germany’s economy “plunge” under the weight. In fact, the Dawes and Young Plans provided for pretty high payments (between 1.5 and 2.5 billion dollars annually for about 50 years). That’s a bunch of money, but it did not make the economy crash. It was of course quite a burden, but it could be carried, even after beginning of the Great Depression which led the Allies to make huge concessions about the amout of payments (the reformed plan was rejected in a German plebiscite, however, because the Nazis and other right-wing parties rallied the masses against this really fair plan). Using the German WWI reparation question in the slave reparation question is simply silly; the two things have in fact very little in common.
Yes, indeed. All Americans deserve reparations. Let’s rename the Bush tax cut the “Reparationg to All Americans Act.” Then reparations will be complete and we can get back to our lives.
I’m not well informed, I think, but it seems to me that the whole thing gets collapsed into slavery. I have the impression, sneaking and subjective as it is that ideological imperatives (romantic pan-Africanist drivel) drive this more than good political and legal sense.
But one might easily show me wrong since I don’t think I’m necessarily well-informed on this.
I can’t think of anything that would build more anomosity between whites and blacks than if reparations were paid. It would heal no old wounds, just rip them open again.
To date, with the knowledge that billions of other people around the world have, in history, been forced slaves, no one has ever received compensation for what their ancestors blood and sweat during such times did for any economy. Can anyone tell me of any race which, at some time in the past, did not have some members there in enslaved?
This reparation thing is one of the most racist and ridiculous concepts that I have come across in years which is guaranteed to create more hostile feelings towards the African-Americans and other blacks encouraging it than anything else. What nation, having used slavery in the past, has paid the ancestors of such slaves for the then legal use of forced labor?
That would be like now going after the descendants of the Confederate Armies and States for payment of war damage done by them in the Civil War! I do not see this as anything but a foolish attempt for some to get free money and for others to build up their political power by deliberately promoting a popular but destined to fail cause. In the end, all it will produce is hard feelings between blacks and other races.
If it were to actually succeed, the resentment generated towards blacks will far outweigh the benefits of a few dollars and if it fails, the resentment generated by blacks towards other races will also far outweigh the few benefits the fight created. It is a no win situation, and only the promoters of the cause will benefit from it.
How many of you, if you search your ancestral tree going back thousands of years, will have slaves in the branches? How many of you have connections in the Roman Empire? Among the slave societies they used? In ancient England and the slaves they used? How about China? Japan? Even among certain American Indian tribes and, the Great Mayan Civilization? Spain used slaves, so did the nations of the Middle East in the far distant past. Will every nation be sued by the descendants of slaves now?
Better to concentrate on the illegal slavery which continues today than to worry about getting a couple of bucks for the legal slavery of the past. I don’t notice much fuss being raised over the slavers of today who still plunder Africa.
One interesting new wrinkle is the idea of getting reparations from STATE governments, not the Federal government. And these reparations could be due to legal slavery in that state, Jim Crow laws, and legally enforced racial discrimination.
I would argue that until the Civil War the Federal Government did not have the legal authority to end slavery…in fact, that was what the Civil War was all about. And once it was established that, yes, the Federal Government did have the power and authority to abolish slavery, slavery was duly abolished. So I don’t think that the Federal Government could be held liable.
But, the State governments are another matter. It would be interesting to see southern states that legalized slavery and instituted government enforced racial discrimination brought to account.
But no matter what, individual checks to individual people would never work, since there is no way that logical criteria for eligibility for reparations could be set.
My understanding was that the hyperinflation of 1923 was due in large part to Germany’s efforts to pay off war indemnities with worthless paper. Unfortunately, they had to make everybody’s paper worthless to do it.
Granted that the hyperinflation wasn’t as bad as the Depression, it did wipe out the middle class’s savings and spread economic chaos.
Anyway, for something similar to happen in the U.S., the U.S. government would have to approve the reparations plan and then start printing massive amounts of money to make it worthless; that seems unlikely.
Incidentally, Jonathan Rauch just put out a column on this subject, where he argues against the concept of reparations for slavery, but says that reparations for Jim Crow segregation, particularly segregated schooling, are supportable. (I’m always plugging Rauch on this board).
I presume you’re refering to my harsh response to some of the poor logic used in attacking reparations?
Well, the fact is the posters here are a clever lot but the emotional and charged nature of this reparations issue has led a goodly number of otherwise intelligent posters to make fallacious and poorly framed arguments. There’s no need to do so as past arguments have shown.
BTW I rather liked the Rauch link, thanks Danimal.
Yes, this an emotional and charged issue. IMHO there’s no chance at all that reparations will actually be paid. However, it’s worth considering the impact of the debate itself. IMHO
It gives pundits something to write about. They like that.
It helps Blacks claim victim status, which may have potential value.
It distracts us from steps that would be most helpful, such as education.
What a load of rubbish. You come in blanket all the arguments with you are wrong and say nothing to defend your argument, and you act as if you are the only intelligent response on the subject. Unless you have an opinion with some point to it why don’t you just stay quiet. If you have something with substance, say it.
The hyperinflation of 1923 was not a result of reparations payments, it was much more a result of what German propaganda called the “Ruhrkampf” at the time. To exert some pressure on Germany (the reparations question was not yet solved), the governments of France and Belgium decided to occupy the heavily industrialized Ruhr region in western Germany and to use the region’s steel and coal production capacities for their own economies. The Germans were indignant, and the government proclaimed the Ruhrkampf (Ruhr fight): The workers in the Ruhr industries should collectively begin a massive strike so France’s and Belgium’s (which were still seen as enemies by many Germans) would benefit as little as possible from the occupation. But of course the workers had to be paid anyway, which was done by switching on the printing machines in the central bank, since the income from steel production ceased to fill the coffers.
The Allies had always made clear that they would not accept German paper money as reparation payment, they only accepted gold, foreign currencies or valuables.
