Reparations for african-americans

[Sava]

That whole civil-war-to-free-the-slaves stuff is so bogus. Take todays society, if companies had access to blue-collar workers that worked for free, what do you think that would do to the US economy? Trust me, your average Union soldier/General/Politician were not people who cared about black people's right not to be slaves, if anything that was just a thin varnish of 'christic morality' sprinkled on top to make it look good to the 'bleeding hearts' of the time. You carry on believing what you do though, if it makes you feel big and magnimonious.

Abolitionists were a sizable minority in America. The Republican party of the day is similar to the Democratic party of today... split between progressives and moderates. Perhaps the soldiers didn't care, but enough politicians did to make it happen. Slavery was a major issue behind the war. And people who are informed about history and the time period... know this.

[Velociryx]

My question is....what's next?

Should distant relations of former Serfs in Europe also gain reparations? The door would surely be open if this prescedent is set. I mean, hey....they helped create the wealth of the Kings and Queens in Europe, yet oddly, you don't here anybody crying about or demanding reparations for the serfdom of their great, great, great ancestors.

Wonder why not?

-=Vel=-

[Japher]

Man, I would feel sorry for Germany and Egypt if the Jews ever started asking for reparations!

[DarthVeda]

I don't think less of them for asking for reparations... I mean who doesn't want free money?

But I do think it is a ridiculous idea. There isn't anybody from that era alive and hasn't been for several decades now.

[Velociryx]

Not to mention the fact that there's nobody on the planet, if you look back far enough, who didn't have a great ancestor who was oppressed in some way....Gods and Saints...let's just pass free money back and forth for a while and call it a day when it all gets back to square one.

-=Vel=-

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Kidicious

That's just crazy. There is no danger of whites being second class citizens because of their color, because of these organizations.

And there is no solution to that that is being seriously considered.

To the first part: The danger is not in "whites being second class citizens", the danger is in promoting social inequality based strictly on race. Obviously this will create resentments and be counter productive. Organizations should be based upon societal issues, not racial platforms.

To the second part: I agree. The problem is that we spend to much time trying to address the symptom and not the problem. Affirmative action and the talk of reparations are symptomatic solutions. A concerted effort to change societal impressions and promote true equality is what I am talking about and what should be our focus. The fact that it is currently not is what I'm griping about.

[Japher]

I agree with PLATO

Black pride, asian pride, gay pride...

White pride?... No, that would be racist.

The problem with supporting and/or generating groups that revolve around race is that you create this false sense of pride which in turn generates racism...

And, Racial pride turns into social dependence. Dependence upon not only the people around you, but their acceptance, which will oppress... And, opression turns to governmental dependence, and you become a lazy sack of mung demanding money from the government in any way shape or form...

Pride is downfall of communities. People should take pride in who they are, and not what they are.

[PLATO]

Japher.

Well put and highly accurate.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by PLATO1003


To the first part: The danger is not in "whites being second class citizens", the danger is in promoting social inequality based strictly on race. Obviously this will create resentments and be counter productive. Organizations should be based upon societal issues, not racial platforms.

To the second part: I agree. The problem is that we spend to much time trying to address the symptom and not the problem. Affirmative action and the talk of reparations are symptomatic solutions. A concerted effort to change societal impressions and promote true equality is what I am talking about and what should be our focus. The fact that it is currently not is what I'm griping about.

What you've got is a policy for whites by whites. You would get no support from blacks to make their institutions illegal. It's just another right wing argument that claims to make things more democratic but actually makes America more elitist and racist.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
most african americans have some white blood in them, meaning many (or probably most) of them are decended from both slaves and slave owners. ergo they should give themselves money

The problem with that logic is that the children of slaves and masters were slaves, and thus inherited nothing.

[Sava]

When white people become an oppressed minority, then they can have "pride" days. Most "white pride" movements I've seen preach the elimination of other peoples.

The problem with supporting and/or generating groups that revolve around race is that you create this false sense of pride which in turn generates racism...

Pride doesn't create racism... I suspect those minorities' expressions of pride fuel other peoples' pre-existing racism.

Why does the pride of others threaten you guys? Let them have their party.

Well put and highly accurate.

Terribly put and highly ignorant.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Space05us
And no one has yet to justify giving people reperations just because they got sold into slavery. Ive also already pointed out that Africans are the people who sold the Europeans the slaves, wether they were black or white made no difference to the Europeans, they were cheap!

Actually, this isn't quite correct. Getting slaves from Africa was a damned expensive process - you had to pay those who captured them some trinkets, weapons, or what not for their prisoners, then you had to pay the crews of the slavers, had to provision them and deal with ship losses, then the majority of your cargo died on you - probably something about sanitation and being able to breathe, what with them chained into those narrow spaces and the usual shipboard diet of the time.

Getting white European scum out of the debtor's prisons or jails for petty offenders was much cheaper - you could even con a bunch of "free" Europeans into indenturement to get them over.

Trouble is, the white European scum died off in the fields too quick, and weren't malaria resistant, so the plantation owners went for the more durable, but more expensive Africans. They just got slavery, instead of five year indenturements or terms of bondage with a nine-month life expectancy in the fields. So let's give reparations to the descendants of our oppressed white bonded and indentured servants too, if we can find any living descendants of them.

Which brings up an even better point!


Why arent "African" Americans trying to sue Europeans nations that held most of the power during the era when most of the slaves were brought over?

off the subject Im going to start calling myself European American!

Because they don't have wacky tort systems that allow for the threat of bull**** like this, nor wacky governments that even talk about such nonsense.

[SlowwHand]

"Actually, this isn't quite correct. Getting slaves from Africa was a damned expensive process - you had to pay those who captured them some trinkets, weapons, or what not for their prisoners, then you had to pay the crews of the slavers, had to provision them and deal with ship losses, then the majority of your cargo died on you -"


Which is one reason more farmers didn't have slaves.
ONE reason.

[GePap]

I am against reparations, but not for most of, what I would call absurd, rationalizations given against it in this thread. To follow money created by slavery would be much more simple than many of the other cases brought forwards, speically from still fucntioning insititutions, like Banksm insurance companies, whatever.

The fact is that reparations would do nothing to imporve the situation of the African Americna community (no, there are no European Americans..but there are italian Americans, Irish Americans, German Americans, all of them with nice parades, ethnic neighborhoods, so on, so if you happen to unfortunitelly be from a boring white people, like Scandinavians or British, your bad luck.). Firts of all, a direct method of distributing money would be impossible, and not all blakcs deserve money. Second, there atre no public insitutions that could rightfully be given such money, and since the only places form which such money could be collected would be institutions such a private companies that can be shown to hav profited in the past from slavery, hte amounts would not be earth shattering, but then questions about foreing subsidaries would pop up. Finally, such money would basically all get used up to buy commercail products anyway.

I agree with PLATO that it is more improtant to carry out social porgrams to imporve the quality of life in the community.

[Drake Tungsten]

There will never be any reparations, for the simple fact that all the honkies in this country would riot if there ever was. Real riots too, not any of this ***** "we just won the Super Bowl" bull****.