Reparations for slavery debated in Congress

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Plenty of nasty things done to African Americans...enough to write an encylopaedia

Some where money was paid to families of survivors (so precedence)
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-tu ... er-lining/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottsbor ... an_Tragedy
https://www.theroot.com/fred-hampton-is ... 1830865895

I think that that is exactly his point. Niether party is still around. Niether the actual ex slave owners, nor the actual ex slaves. So you cant collect money from the actual perps, nor can you give it to the actual victims.

NONE of those is a "precedent".

They are all examples of pay back to individual families of survivors of individuals who were wronged within the same generation, or within the same lifetime. None of those are examples of a whole collective race of people getting compensation, and none are examples descendants of injured parties getting compensation six generations, and 150 years after, the wrong in question was committed.

If you want a precedent you would have to find a government that pays money to a group of people (race or ethnicity) just because they are a member of that race/ethnicity because that government is compensating them collectively for some past wrong done to the ancestors of that group.

The closest thing I have ever heard of to that is the 25 billion in Euros that Germany (first West Germany, than the reunited Germany) has paid both to Israel, and to individual Holocaust survivors because of the Nazi Holocaust.

Since 1952 Germany gives money to Israel. And it also pays to some individual holocaust survivors. The former (aid to Israel) amounts to something akin to what we are talking about: Government giving money to another country - a country that represents a whole ethnic group collectively (Jews) who were victimized.

So you might argue that Germany giving money to Israel is a precedent for the US taxpayer compensating American Blacks for antebellum slavery.

But even THAT would be a stretch because Germany started that aid program in 1952, only a fortnight after the war and the end of the Holocaust - so initially it did amount to the actual perps compensating the still alive actual survivors of the crimes perpetrated. And even today the Holocaust is closer in time to the present than is American slavery.

I think the African American community should demand more scholarships/higher education places rather than cash payments

That actually sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

a minority [unintentional pun] opinion here- we gave reparations to the japanese and their children, we gave native americans to the present generation, certain benefits and protected lands [not so much today under The Dotard]. why are the descendants of slaves any less deserving? AFAIC the least we could do is rescind that obscene tax giveaway to the rich that passed in 2017, and direct it towards initiatives which benefit disadvantaged POC. things like universal health care which would actually benefit all but especially the disadvantaged. things like universal education to the state college level which would help all but especially the disadvantaged. things like universal child care/pre-k/prenatal care likewise. strong laws against gouging landlords and predatory lenders, fine the dickens out of offenders and give that money to social programs benefiting the target group. vastly increased school quality in both the inner city as well as rural areas presently under-served. mandatory licensing of police, misconduct resulting in PERMANENT Revocation of license to practice police work, none of this BS of simply getting another cop job elsewhere, plus mandatory malpractice insurance for cops, no more hiring IQ 100-106 to be flatfoots [yes, this is a real thing in many areas]. no more ex-military hired for police work, either- and no military equipment/weapons for the police. a basic income for POC for inner city/rural areas. set-asides or affirmative action on steroids, for at least one generation. we basically need to re-level the playing field after a century or more of it being systematically tilted against POC. you can't fix that length of disadvantage in less than a generation. a lot of things need not cost ruinous amounts of money, it is mainly a re-allocation of fundage from other less deserving things such as fancy public schools for rich neighborhoods, inflated salaries of administrators and further unfair tax advantages for the wealthy and business.

I believe people of African ancestry do deserve some kind of compensation for what was done to their ancestors. Not just because of slavery, but for things like the racial segregation they suffered up until the Civil Rights movement. Not being allowed to marry white people, being beaten and killed by the KKK and police, not being able to go into any place with a "whites only" sign, being wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, etc.

The racism towards black people didn't just end with slavery. They put up with a lot of s**t from white people for many years and they still do to this day despite white people wanting to believe that it's all in some evil past and that black people have no reason to hold a grudge against them.

But at the same time, it's not fair to make people pay for the sins of their ancestors. And it'll only create more racial tension in the longrun. We really don't need more racial tension unless we're looking to start a race war like Charles Manson attempted to do.

There’s been affirmation action and quotas since about the mid-late 60s. Many scholarships for disadvantaged students still exist today. And I'm all for it.

Jews had been royally screwed and discriminated against before WW II in the US. And other ethnic groups, too.

Not to the extent of what happened to the African Americans and Native Americans, though.

I believe in moving forward, not backwards.

In general, I believe our government should be more compassionate against those who are less fortunate. And I believe in universal, basic health care. And totally government-funded health care for catastrophic conditions.

My family on my dad’s side owned slaves. I have the records in my basement. In fact, there is a wing of my family who has my neurological disease, with a genetic variation (there’s a long story there but I won’t get into that). The offshoot wing cannot be confirmed to be a part of the family by anything but cricumstantial evidence and oral history from their branch. Our records and census records mention the names, ages, and sometimes if a slave was black or “mulatto” (mixed race).

My offshoot branch cousins seem to be the result of one of the slaves and our common ancestor. We think he educated him and sent him away, where he built a successful life for himself. Their entire family is like a mirror to ours, except they seem to be better (nicer) people. But similar interests, drive, similar way they relate to each other. Same disease that affects and then kills about half of them. Very interesting.

BUT, I found when researching this that people really don’t like to talk about it. Everyone likes to pretend that THEIR family didn’t own slaves (whether they were white or another color) and THEIR family was never a slave (even if they were a color other than black, such as an Irish indentured servant). I do believe people who say yes, my family wasn’t, but some of us know for a fact that it’s in our family history, and I have noticed that those people usually stay silent. It’s a shame. It should be discussed.

But no, I’m not going to give money to my lawyer and business owning cousins because of our common great great whatever grandfather. They were actually part of the black confederacy and lived in a successful free black segregated community during the civil war. Weird but true. My oldest cousin over there is a civil war historian and he told me all about it.

Since my mom's family was mostly Irish and my dad's family Polynesian I imagine my family didn't actually own slaves. I was told that our ancestors on my mom's side were sharecroppers.

Of course I've never read any documents about what my ancestors truly were in the Civil War era. If my mom's family was Irish chances are there were indentured servants in my family. Especially if we truly were descended from poor sharecroppers.

But nobody ever talks about our family history in my family. Maybe somebody in my family did have slaves? How would I know?

My father's side was Dutch and German Catholics, and arrived in Michigan about 1840 or so. They prospered for a while, then lost some money in the various "panics" of the late 19th century. No one owned slaves; I'm not sure what their views on slavery were. I would imagine they had the typical prejudices of the northerners at that time---which sometimes were considerable. No connection to the slave trade, either.

My great-grandfather on my mother's side arrived in New York in the 1890s, then sent money for the rest of the family to come from Russia in 1910. They were purportedly poor Jews---but they did live in the city of Minsk. I'm not really sure how "poor" they really were. Obviously, way after slavery was abolished.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 21 Jun 2019, 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

My mom's father's (my grandfather) family had German ancestry too. And my half sibilings are German Jewish through their Nana's side of the family.

I think I now remember my mom saying her father's family did in fact own slaves... his family had a little more money than my grandmother's family did.

If that's true it's really a shame in my opinion, but I would have never supported slavery had I been alive back in the 1800's. I wouldn't have supported the Civil War either.

I'm glad I wasn't alive back then. But according to a psychic I spoke to I was a POW in the Crimean War in a past life, which happened around the same time as the American Civil War. Maybe she really meant the Civil War?

This woman predicted that my grandfather was going to pass away soon and two days after she told me this my mom told me he stopped being able to eat and now he's in a hospice center. She's making funeral arrangements too.

I believe in psychics now after speaking to this strange lady I met on FaceBook.

The Crimean War was about 10 years before the Civil War.

That's just a decade apart. It's very close together.

There were even veterans in the Crimean War who later served in the American Civil War.

General Winfield Scott was a veteran of the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. 50 years apart.

The psychic told me that my time served in the military as well as being a prisoner of war explained why I personally hate the rules but at the same time I still want everyone else to follow them so that I at least know where I stand with them.