Politics: Should African-Americans Receive Reparations For Slavery?

[Im Still Ballin]

My opinion? Yes.

The cumulative cultural, spiritual, ethical and financial damage slavery has done to the African-American ethnic group is substantial.

Victims of the holocaust received financial restitution, as did those who suffered from Apartheid.

The US has paid reparations in the past.

Japanese-American victims of internment camps

The forced internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II resulted in about $3.1 billion in property loss and $6.4 billion in income loss, in 2014 dollars. If you account for the possibility that that money might have been invested and gotten above-inflation returns, the economic losses are even larger.

Congress made two attempts at reparations, the Japanese-American Claims Act of 1948 and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. Between 1948 and 1965, the former authorized payments totaling $38 million (which comes to somewhere between $286 to $374 million in 2014 dollars), which didn't come close to matching the economic loss. The latter offered survivors $20,000 each in reparations. By 1998, 80,000 survivors had collected their share, for a total payout of $1.6 billion (between $2.3 billion and $3.2 billion today). There is no accounting by which either measure adequately repaid internees for their economic losses, let alone compensated for pain and suffering.

Victims of forced sterilization

Most Americans states practiced one or another form of eugenics during the 20th century, with forced sterilizations of "unfit" people being a prime instrument. The targets were largely but by no means entirely mentally or developmentally disabled; poor black women on welfare were especially likely to be victimized in this manner. The Supreme Court gave the practice a green light with 1927's Buck v. Bell, and eventually 33 states adopted the practice, forcibly sterilizing about 65,000 people total through the 1970s. Oregon forcibly sterilized people as late as 1981, and its Board of Eugenics (renamed the "Board of Social Protection" in 1967) was only abolished in 1983.

Very few states have acknowledged or apologized for these policies, and only one, North Carolina, has set up a reparations program. The state sterilized about 7,600 people, most of whom are no longer living, but last year passed a $10 million reparations program that should give the more than 177 living victims somewhere in the range of $50,000 each. The payments should be made within a few years. Some victims have objected, saying this doesn't come close to remedying the injustice. As one victim, Elaine Riddick Jessie (who was sterilized at age 14 after being raped and giving the resulting son up for adoption), put it, "If I accepted it, what kind of value am I putting on my life?"

California, which sterilized by far the largest number of people of any state, has yet to pay out reparations.

Tuskegee experiment victims

After the end of the Tuskegee experiment — in which 399 black men with syphilis were left untreated to study the progression of the disease between 1932 and 1972 — the government reached a $10 million out of court settlement with the victims and their families in 1974, which included both monetary reparations (in 2014 dollars, $178,000 for men in the study who had syphilis, $72,000 for heirs, $77,000 for those in the control group and $24,000 for heirs of those in the control group) and a promise of lifelong medical treatment for both participants and their immediate families. According to the CDC, 15 descendants are still receiving treatment through the program today.

Rosewood victims

In 1923, the primarily black town of Rosewood on the Gulf Coast of Florida was destroyed in a race riot that, by official counts, killed at least six black residents and two whites (though some descendants of the town's residents have claimed many more were killed and dumped in mass graves). In 1994, the state of Florida agreed to a reparations package worth around $3.36 million in 2014 dollars, of which $2.4 million today would be set aside to compensate the 11 or so remaining survivors of the incident, $800,000 to compensate those who were forced to flee the town, and $160,000 would go to college scholarships primarily aimed at descendants.

[Phong]

Sure, give reparations to those who were slaves. How many are there still alive today?

[RRR3]

Yes of course but it won

[Im Still Ballin]

Sure, give reparations to those who were slaves. How many are there still alive today?

Related Reading -- Why the racial wealth gap persists, more than 150 years after emancipation

Juneteenth — Emancipation Day 1865 — was supposed to start a new era of black wealth creation. After 12 generations of being subject to slavery’s institutionalized theft, 4 million African Americans were now free to earn incomes and degrees, hold property, weather hard times and pass down wealth to the next generation. They would surely scramble up the economic ladder, if not in one generation then in a few.

Eight generations later, the racial wealth gap is both yawning and growing. The typical black family has just 1/10th the wealth of the typical white one. In 1863, black Americans owned one-half of 1 percent of the national wealth. Today it’s just over 1.5 percent for roughly the same percentage of the overall population. The cause of that stagnation has largely been invisible, hidden by the assumption of progress after the end of slavery and the achievements of civil rights. But for every gain black Americans made, people in power created new bundles of discrimination, largely hidden from sight, that thwarted, again and again, the economic promise of emancipation.

Key Concepts -- Generational wealth, systemic racism, legal discrimination

[Phong]

Related Reading -- Why the racial wealth gap persists, more than 150 years after emancipation



Key Concepts -- Generational wealth, systemic racism, legal discrimination

Yeah yeah, then you have people who come to this country with nothing but the clothes on their backs, not speaking the language and within 2 generations are part of the middle and upper class.

Lets entertain your idea for a minute. Who's eligible for those reparations? All black people? Black people who can prove they're descendants of slaves? What about those who settled here after the end of slavery? What about mixed people? Do they get a percentage of reparations proportional to their percentage of black DNA?

[Rolando]

African American slaves built the South and are largely responsible for the prosperity of the North. Their free labor and production fed the industrial revolution.

They sure as hell deserve reparations. And it doesn't have to be so complex either. How about just installing the social programs that have been needed for decades to support African American families? They deserve all the educational grants, tax breaks, welfare....everything.

Not only did they build the foundation of the prosperity and global dominance that all Americans enjoy today, they also HEAVILY contribute to our world dominant pop culture.

Ask yourselves: Where the hell would America be without the Africans?

They deserve everything this country can give them and more. The US owes these people dearly.

[Im Still Ballin]

Yeah yeah, then you have people who come to this country with nothing but the clothes on their backs, not speaking the language and within 2 generations are part of the middle and upper class.

Lets entertain your idea for a minute. Who's eligible for those reparations? All black people? Black people who can prove they're descendants of slaves? What about those who settled here after the end of slavery? What about mixed people? Do they get a percentage of reparations proportional to their percentage of black DNA?

Related Reading -- 'Model Minority' Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks

[QUOTE]But as history shows, Asian-Americans were afforded better jobs not simply because of educational attainment, but in part because they were treated better.

"More education will help close racial wage gaps somewhat, but it will not resolve problems of denied opportunity," reporter Jeff Guo wrote last fall in the Washington Post. "Asian Americans

[Phong]

But as history shows, Asian-Americans were afforded better jobs not simply because of educational attainment...

The rest is all excuses.. Highest level of education, highest wages, lowest crime rate, most successful socio-economic group in the US even ahead of whites..

"Bla bla bla.. slavery, systemic racism, white supremacy"

Key Concepts: victim mentality, waiting for the White Man for handouts

[FultzNationRISE]

African American slaves built the South and are largely responsible for the prosperity of the North. Their free labor and production fed the industrial revolution.

They sure as hell deserve reparations. And it doesn't have to be so complex either. How about just installing the social programs that have been needed for decades to support African American families? They deserve all the educational grants, tax breaks, welfare....everything.

Not only did they build the foundation of the prosperity and global dominance that all Americans enjoy today, they also HEAVILY contribute to our world dominant pop culture.

Ask yourselves: Where the hell would America be without the Africans?

They deserve everything this country can give them and more. The US owes these people dearly.

Tens if not hundreds of billions are poured into these communities each year from both government and charity.

Just like billions are poured into Haiti and other places, and the money just disappears.

You cant make people change. You cant buy social change. It’s not a financial issue at this point, it is a cultural/accountability issue. You want to make it a money issue because youre not someone who has the balls to make honest criticisms to sensitive people, aka leadership, but rather youre an ordinary middle class pleb who wants to buy guilt relief, primarily with the money of others.

Governments and charities distribute billions to these communities every hear. Handouts do not provide incentive to change. Theyre not a solution. It’s not the easy reality youd like to hear and believe, but it’s the real reality.


Have you considered the fact that the sheer opportunity to live in a country like America in 2019, where there are already myriad programs and grants and civil rights in place, is a massive benefit to today’s blacks as a result of their ancestors’ sacrifice? Whereas in Africa theyre climbing over each other for a chance for the limited few visas that will provide access to this country.

Youre a one-dimensional kind of thinker, so your solution to everything is “just buy it with government money!” That doesnt work in every situation but you will always use it for EVERY solution cause youre just not really bright, creative, insightful, and pragmatic. You wanna take the easy mainstream popular sentiment, be the guy to declare it, and make people think you just came up with something meaningful. Actually youre just rehashing tired ideas that have been proven not to work.


If you have intelligent solutions that are likely to help struggling communities, that’s great. We can talk about it. But you dont. Youre just beating the reparations drum using sentimental tripe because all you have to offer is regurgitation of basic-bitch ideas some Dembot politician came up with years ago.

[COLOR="Black"]Fu[/COLOR]ckin fa[COLOR="Black"]ggot[/COLOR].

[FultzNationRISE]

Also, OPs entire reason for making this thread was specifically to get me to respond, which is usually the only time Ill purposely avoid a discussion like this. But Maxfly went full empty emotional cliche and I had to jump in.


So you got lucky this time, OP.

[Phong]

Again OP, how will recipients be selected and how will the amount of reparations determined?

[egokiller]

How can reparations be given when only approximately 0.1% of the current non black population has any family ties to slaves owners? The vast majority of non blacks have European ancestry with no relation to any former American slave owner. There's no one left that owes the reparations. It would be like trying to collect a debt from someone who is already dead. Makes no sense.

[CelticBaller]

The Midwest is so sparsely populated I would be fine giving them land there.

[Phong]

Makes no sense.

It doesn't have to make sense for them. Notice how they never go into details as to how it would work. They have no clue.

They're victims and someone just has to give them money!

[Im Still Ballin]

Again OP, how will recipients be selected and how will the amount of reparations determined?

How can reparations be given when only approximately 0.1% of the current non black population has any family ties to slaves owners? The vast majority of non blacks have European ancestry with no relation to any former American slave owner. There's no one left that owes the reparations. It would be like trying to collect a debt from someone who is already dead. Makes no sense.

Related Reading -- What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019

Key Concepts -- Reparations, financial restitution, slavery, discrimination

Marianne Williamson's plan


Race-based policies alone are helpful, but only on a temporary basis. That is because, while they address the external symptoms of racial prejudice, they carry no moral weight and therefore have no fundamental transformative power. Of themselves, they leave open the question of whose fault it is that the economic gap exists.

The main power of a reparations plan is that it carries moral weight that goes beyond mere economic restitution. This is because it implies an inherent mea culpa – the acknowledgement on the part of one people of a wrong that has been done, a debt that is owed, and a willingness to pay it. Reparations are not “financial assistance;” they are payment of a debt that has never been paid. They thus pave the way for an emotional and psychological healing between blacks and whites much needed in the United States.

SPECIFICS

- According to my plan, reparations for slavery will be paid in the amount of $500 Billion.

- These payments will be made over a period of twenty years to a Reparations Council made up of black leaders from across the spectrum of American academic, cultural and political leaders.

- The Council would include 30-50 members, all descendants of slaves, and all who have some scholarly, cultural or political connection to the issue of reparations.

- This Council, not the American government, would determine how the money is to be disbursed.

- The stipulation on the part of the American government is the following: that the money be applied for purposes of economic and educational renewal.