“The NYT Article On Reparations: An Article Not Worth Reading”. The actual article headline says it all. No need to read it. Let’s all just use the time it would have taken to read the article to get back to hard work and self reliance and still provide essential services to those currently in need. We apparently can’t seem to help the homeless lining the streets of our cities but we have money to throw at reparations?
21
Slavery was certainly abhorrent, evil and economically devastating to the slaves. Further, it materially affected the Slave families for generations. However, there is a percentage of slave families that were able to move up the socioeconomic ladder who certainly do not need any further support. Instead of focusing on Slavery exclusively, we should examine the effects of the Jim Crow laws and the influence of the Southern Strategy in influencing the laws around Housing, Banking, Labor Unions and Schools throughout the entire Country. From the Mid 1930s until the late 1960s, the Federal Housing authority enforced laws that precluded Negroes from receiving FHA loans in "White" neighborhoods. ( Read " The Color of Law") . This helped create Red Lined districts that the Banks enforced and School Districts respected. Further, Most Labor Unions did not accept Negroes and Employers also discriminated. The Negroes were placed in substandard Projects which concentrated Poverty and created the ghettos which suffocated many lives. These practices can be traced directly to the Present day problems of impoverished neighborhoods with substandard schools, healthcare and safety. The government could provide reparations to these Neighborhoods with economic and structural support which will help ensure that the next generation is properly educated and supported into adulthood. This will create an economic stimulus of higher wage taxpayers and eventually lower our assistance costs.
7
Slavery, that odious practice of Democrats, was only eliminated in the US by the formation of the Republican Party - the anti-slavery party.
Since Democrats practiced slavery, Republicans opposed slavery, and it is the Democrats that are bearing their own guilt over slavery it seems a no brained that Democrats ought to pony up the reparations money.
In addition, Democrats should pay Republicans for the murder of more than 1000 white Republicans by Democrats dressed in their pretty white Klan robes for having the audacity to oppose slavery.
6
"A Conversation Worth Having"
And a short one too:
Baloney.
25
Those who are advocating reparations are incredibly stupid and have no feeling of America’s history or the history of world slavery. America did not invent slavery nor did it invent racism. Yet we have done much to eradicate both evils including electing a black president. This talk of reparations will guarantee four more years of Trump like no other topic. Cory Booker and the extreme left are so simple it is laughable. My people came from Germany to Canada around 1890 and then on to America. Should we have to pay? My Irish side fought in the Civil War to free the slaves after coming to the US in 1848 escaping the discrimination and starvation from the English landowners during the “Great Hunger”. Should we have to pay? My English ancestors came to America in 1636 as indentured servants and never owned slaves.
Also it should be noted that the reparations people should start with the tribes of Western Africa, the Arabs and the Portuguese who where by far the biggest slavers with Brazil and the Caribbean the primary recipients of slaves dwarfing America’s participation. Lastly, it was Barack who said it is now a good time to be Black in America. Come on you Liberals. Stop now with this bull or welcome Trump for four more years!
34
Most Mexicans are of Spanish descent. Which means their own ancestors were the perpetrators, and they (their descendants) the benefactors of their crimes. So just apologize to yourselves, and treat yourselves to a fine dinner in lieu of reparations, if that makes you feel better. Liberalism is, after all, about feeling. End of problem. Next!
17
Targeted reparations would raise resentment among disparate groups of people. There is an underclass in the US since day one of the Anglo landing in Massachusetts. The continual resettlement of prisoners, idiots and the poor from England to our eastern sea-board ensured cheap labor which was furthered by the slave trade in native Americans and blacks. To this day, our political and economic systems have maintained the underclass of poor-white-trash, native Americans and, more generally, blacks. Not one of the two cited above have every gotten to the Supreme Court or the White House.
2
After we finish paying out billions in reparations to black people, then we have to pay much more to the indigenous people we call Indians. How about the Jewish kids who had the horrible misfortune of growing up in an Irish Catholic area. Then we pay the Mexicans who were thrown out.
I'm sure we'll be able to find more people to pay, if not we can apologize for murdering them. The upper one-percent of billionaires could take care of it all and not feel a thing!
6
Everyone in the world has a claim on some other group for reparations - EVERYONE.
This all started when reparations were paid to the Jewish peoples for the Nazi Holocaust.
I wish this had never been paid for it has started something that will never end.
6
Yes, reparations. You go with that. As a Trump supporter, Im all for it.
But seriously, anyone who thinks this is going to go anywhere is fooling themselves. They are once again, getting themselves all riled up like they did over Russia collusion. The discussion of reparations, which is all it will amount to, is just bait to get the black vote to the polls and vote Democrat. How on earth would this work? Would it be only for African blacks? What about new immigrant African Americans? They werent hurt by slavery. Do they get anything? How do we make the distinction? And what about Jamaicans and Haitians? Do we impose some sort of litmus test to be sure only the correct blacks get reparations? How would it be divied up? Cash? Or perhaps a card like an EBT card. And what about the blacks who were actual slave traders? Do we investigate their background, or do we just allow them to participate as well?
See what I mean? Once you give this 30 seconds of thought, it makes zero sense, hence, it wont go anywhere. Just bait to get black folks riled up for the election. They should be offended that the Democrat Party takes them for such fools.
19
The only reparations should come from the the Democrats who have controlled inner cities for decades, and have seen these black neighborhoods in chicago, Harlem, Boston, Baltimore, LA., etc. continue to decline year after year at an alarming rate. Why?
15
This is stupid.
16
The democrats talk of reparations is nothing more than a carrot to dangle in front of black voters. It’s sad and pathetic to use such racially dividing tactics and it’s so blatantly obvious to anyone with a brain. Why black voters continue to be tricked and further victimized to support the Democratic Voting Plantation is beyond me. Eventually blacks will wake up to the empty promises and sham calls for election cycle reparations and seek reparations from the Democratic Party itself. I’m all in!
10
I am able to go up on Google Maps and look at the exact locations of my grandfather’s bakery and my father’s candy store on Neudorfer Strasse in the heart of the business district of Gliwice, Poland (formerly Gleiwitz) for which my father never received a single penny of restitution from either Germany or Poland.
My mother who lost her elderly parents and young brother in Auschwitz after spending nearly two years in the French hell-holes of Gurs and Drancy had a similar experience.
There is a widespread rumor still evident in certain circles that Jews made out like bandits in restitution money, returned art works and property in the wake of World War II, but that is far from true.
My advice to blacks in America who now find themselves in somewhat analogous situations: keep moving straight ahead in your bid for just compensation for the next hundred years, while recognizing that -- in all probability -- you will never get a fraction of what is truly owed you.
https://oldthing.de/Gleiwitz-v1944-Neudorfer-Strasse-mit-Geschaefte-17227-001-0021683778
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
7
An essay without a point that ends in a platitude.
14
There is never a good time for a conversation about reparations. This shouldn’t even be brought up. Ever. It’s such a cockamamie idea that is more platitude than any sort of rational idea. Who gets paid? All African Americans? What if they are 1/4 black? Does that count? Do all native Americans get a check too? How Native American do you have to be? $1000? $1,000,000?
Frankly the left is full of stupid ideas. Stupid ideas that will get trump re elected. How can they not see this?
COME BACK TO THE MIDDLE!
22
Another Woke shakedown. Note hw doesn't ask Manhattanites to vacate their cushy lairs to atone for America's foremost original sin: the unprovoked invasion of Columbus. Or demand restoration of the Southwest ripped from Mexico in what President Grant called a war crime. Silicon Valley is America's West Bank. I suppose Bibi will be open to reparations once his Drang Nach Osten is over. But Israel is where American leftwing lunacy goes to die. Realpolitik, Jorge, is brutal business. The sword (and all politics is underwritten by the sword) makes mockery of atonement and forgiveness. Germany made reparations because she lost her sword. Bibi and Putin will not until they lose theirs. Not even Woke Canada grants her native population sovereignty. They would throw off the yoke if they could. Mexico would take back California if lt could. Would that be moral? It certainly wouldn't be woke.
6
The idea of reparations and the attention it's receiving is more than anything else a manifestation of the conflicted time we're living in. I agree with the comments about the impracticality of this idea, how there is probably no way to enact a reparations program without further reinforcing divides between people, and how it both points to and obscures the need for us to address social inequality in this country. --But even as an idea, I wonder how it can be uttered without including Native Americans.
9
It's not our past that is dying, it's our present. Pick your victim categories, because if you're in only one you're pretty far down the ladder. Some people have 3 or 4 and they get the headlines.
Then there's always the possibility of straightforward overcoming. Unfortunately, that requires strength, education, and motivation. One hundred years ago the Jews and Catholics, the Italians and Chinese suffered prejudices that were a violation shared with the blacks.
My closest, most intimate friend for 40 years was as black as I am white. He was a success in life, by any standard and so are his children. He didn't come from abject poverty, but the only thing his parents gave him was the will to get an education. He became the most cultivated man I've ever met. In the black riots of the late '60s he decided to become a university professor and for the rest of his life, he shared that drive of rising by learning. Prominent as a teacher as well as in his field, he never became rich, but he was comfortable inside himself despite the weight of color.
What victims forget is that we all have problems, white, rich, male, etc. Those who focus on their victimhood will never rise above it.
127
@Anonymot Yes we all have problems but 400+ years of oppression goes WAY beyond being categorized as a problem. We’re talking about 246 years of chattel slavery followed by nearly 100 years of Jim Crow. Our ancestors built this country and we (ADOS) have been largely shut out of sharing in the wealth.
And please spare me the “Black best friend example”. If that individual succeeded...wonderful. What is needed is a group solution. That means reparations.
3
Reparations is a Christmas come early gift to Trump and the Republicans.
I don't believe for a second Warren actually believes in it. She is just an opportunistic politician looking to do well in the democratic primaries, no matter how much damage this far left position would do to democrats in a general election in midwestern swing states.
Win the primary then worry about what comes next, right?
16
If they ever let us vote, I am voting no. I am not willing to spend any money on this foolish idea. Spend the liberal democrats money. Make liberal billionaires divest their fortunes to Al Sharpton's organizations for redistribution.
6
Whether you agree with the basic idea or not, it makes no sense to pay reparations in America to native Americans and descendants of slaves while the prejudices and the imbalances of power remain in place. Pay reparations today, we’ll owe them again by Tuesday. I could be an unwoke white person, but I think most people would be happy just to see a level playing field. Without that, setting a fair amount for reparations will be difficult - if it’s a one time payment, nothing else changes, and your descendants must continue to live in a country that discriminates against them and limits their opportunities, I’d say any amount less than $10 million per person would be insufficient. How will we pay for it? Every year, white people will pay a fee in order for their family to remain white. At first it will be expensive, but everybody will pay it. Eventually, market forces will drive it down to where it’s no longer worth an extra dollar to be white, reparations will have been paid, and prejudice eliminated.
3
This is silly. Poor starving savages have been getting run out of their lands ever since the first farmer depleted his soil and moved in. Are we going to give everyone $1.00 for the advancement of civilization at their expense? Get over it. Move on.
8
Reparations shows silly white guilt and how hypocritical the left really is. Here they are asking for more money to be taken out of people's paychecks that had nothing to do with slavery while human traffickers are bringing young girls across the southern border for illicit purposes and do nothing about what is happening today.
12
Germany paid reparations for a long time. That's how Adolf got his career foothold - he said enough already with the reparations. People loved him for it.
7
What ridiculous drivel. We're having enough of a hard time remembering what humans have done that was good, without constantly dwelling on past mistakes. There is not a perfect person, nation, or ethnic group on earth, now,or in the past, nor will there ever be. How far back do we go? Who owes whom reparations for original sin? Does Eve owe reparations to Adam? Cain to Abel? Humans need to figure out how to make our lives better, not constantly moan about who did what to whom.
11
The amount of discord this would cause would be off the charts, and the reverse outcome of making the country whole would likely occur if this proposal actually was able to gain traction. It would insure that Trump got re-elected and the number of white supremacists tripled in number. Talk about an shooting yourself in the foot, this would be as bad as it could get. The author and more important politicians who are pandering, as well as those who want to assuage their personal guilt caused by their ancestors behavior, I would suggest they stop proposing that the government impose a solution for previous injustices and write a check and send it to the United Negro College Fund or to one of the historical black colleges that are doing great work. If you haven't been doing that for a number of years, open the dictionary and look up the word hypocrite because your thoughts don't match your actions. Last, my early peeps were enslaved by the roman empire, can I petition Italy to right that wrong and cut me a significant check?
6
Inasmuch as Black slaves and their owners worked on land stolen from various First Nations peoples, it would seem that any conversation about reparations should consider First Nations members and descendants as the primary claimants.
I wonder whether Guatemalans seeking residence here at the border owe reparations to American Blacks which, if reparations are made to them, will come from everybody's taxes. Wait a minute, Guatemalans' Spanish forbears stole and profited from land stolen from Central American First Nations. Hmm, maybe they're trying to get out of reparations there. Of course some First Nations took land from each other in wars, as did First Nations on this side of our border.
According to the current research, who we primarily owe reparations to are the Neanderthals, who we seem to have made extinct, except from some genes likely the product of rape.
If the purpose of reparations is to improve relations among racial/ethnic groups, it will not accomplish that. Simply handing someone a thousand or ten thousand bucks may change the the lives of some individuals, but most are likely to spend it on food, shelter, health care, gadgets, or drugs just like the rest of us, at which point things will be pretty much back where they started. What is needed are sound policies expanding opportunity for all with guarantees enforced that no one will we be discriminated against because of a group identity. Most importantly that means respect and massive support for education.
4
The history of reparations is instructive and not a happy one. Following the Allied victory defeating Germany in WWI, Germans chafed at their country's war debts to England and France among others, and Hitler rejected them. Would WWII Germany have paid reparations to Jewish victims of the Holocaust had it not been forced to do so? One doubts it.
Both former African American slaves and the defeated whites of the Confederacy assumed the history, rights and obligations of the Union following the 13-15th Amendments and the readmission of Confederate rebels into the Union.
Former white slave owners and traders never considered reparations to former slaves. nor did the former slaves ever submit a bill for unpaid wages nor assign the debt to be paid to their descendants.
Native American treaties with the federal government settled all other Tribal claims against the U.S.A. As did the claims of Liberio-Americans resettled in Liberia against the Union when they voluntarily accepted settlement in Liberia earlier than our full Emancipation of slaves.
Official government apologies for slavery in Mexico and the United States and forms of reparations have been largely voluntary, with few exceptions, notably cash awards to WWII Japanese Americans held in our wartime concentration camps and black victims of the Tuskeegee Syphilis study.
Reparations is largely about Truth and Reconciliation. a moral issue, not about Truth and Restitution.
1
There is a massive difference between what Spain did to the people of South and Central America, what Belgium did to the people in its former colonies, what the Germans under the Nazis did to the Jews and what the US did to Africans during slavery. And that is that in all of those other cases it was the governments who did what they did and so they have what to apologize for.
On the other hand the US did nothing at all to Africans and to slaves. It had no part in bringing them here to the US, had no part in selling them as slaves and had no part in enslaving them. The US also had no part in enacting the laws that allowed and recognized slavery as valid as the laws both predated the US and was the law of the land in all of the New World.
So since the US had no part in slavery what exactly did it do that it must apologize for, let alone pay reparations for.
3
Indeed, the top proposition of my bucket wish list would be a paraphrase of Sekou Sundiata’s poem “Bring On The Reparations!” If for no other than the bottom-line reason I could use the money. I mean convert the 1863 value of 40 acres and a mule to present value, assign to it a reasonable 8% interest rate, compound it semi-annually for 400 years and I’ll be all right! If not a Jeff Bezos at least a Mar a Lago member!
Still, reparations for African-Americans is pie in a sky so remote as to exist way across the event horizon of the recently photographed Black Hole! Moreover, whilst those who are being diverted into futilely tripping the light fantastic along this celestial event horizon here on the dirty earth we are loosing the mundane compensatory ground afforded to us by mildly amelioratory efforts like affirmative action!
Sad! As the donald would say! We best keep our eye on the donut and resist having it diverted into the hole!!
2
This is a glass that cannot be filled. And while the left debates among themselves, the right can sit back and enjoy the show. (And I don't think this is because the right is a bunch of racists. Unfortunately, when it comes to issues of race, identity politics, tribalism, patriotism, they are the party of reason - to me.)
8
Can Democrats please throw away the victim card? We can't possibly put a price on reparations. With affirmative action and college financial aid specifically targeted to the African American community, society has tried to make amends for the definite imbalance that exists. Will this "check" now make everything go away ... all the strife, racism, poverty? No. Instead, invest in poor economic areas and get these people back to work and help them afford their own home.
9
Is there anything about you life and the world in which you live that is good? Modern anesthesia perhaps? Your first amendment rights? The access to most of the planets natural treasures, art, and literature? A loved ones smile? Your own particular mind, intact and free?
If there is, you owe it to the past. The entire past, crimes and all. The world as it is now is the only possible outcome of all that has come before. Inventions, generosity, crimes, invasions, rape ( likely a factor in every humans make up at some point) and the vast trade of slaves through history. White Europeans into the Caliphate as well as Black Africans into the Americas.
How many Mexican’s would undo Cortez and go back to a world of brutal mass cannibalism? How many Black Americans would undo the result of their ancestors trials and prefer to be in tribal Africa with its indigenous culture including slavery untouched by European influences? How many Indians would prefer an India without it’s British past, an India with no common language or system of government marked by ongoing warfare and Asian slavery traditions untouched by Enlightenment abolitionist notions?
If there is anything about which you are grateful in the present , then be grateful for the past, including your “enemies”, for if anything had been different, if one butterfly were removed, the present would not exist.
8
No Americans ever worked harder and longer for less return than enslaved and separate and unequal black African Americans.
No Americans ever had more of their land, lives and natural resources stolen than brown Native Americans.
Neither Africans nor Natives were immigrants to America. They are the only two American groups deserving and worthy of reparations.
1
Democrats and liberals across the spectrum - Please don't go down this rabbit hole and thereby gift wrap another four years for Captain Orange.
15
The reparations idea is one of the worst ever. As other readers have stated, there are so many reasons not to do it. When would it end, after one payment or in perpetuity? What percentage of African slave ancestry do I need to apply? If my Great, great, great, black Grandma married her white employer, do all her descendants get money? People who are legitimately poor deserve government assistance until they can get on their financial feet, but after a few hundred years, you can't blame all black poverty on slave owners. Bad life choices contribute.
12
Republican Senator John Cornyn from Texas introduced this bill?
Why is this not the headline?
3
The idea of reparations for slavery is untenable because no US slaves are alive today and no one in the US has owned slaves since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Some questions:
1. Most non-black Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived after 1865 and were not slave-holders, and therefore do not owe reparations.
2. Many blacks are descended from Africans who came to the US after 1865 and therefore are not owed reparations.
3. Many blacks are of mixed race; will their reparation payments be pro-rated on the percentage of black/slave ancestry? How will such ancestry be measured? DNA? Historic or genealogical records?
4. Should reparations be paid to blacks descended from African tribes that captured members of other tribes and sold them into slavery?
5. Do all taxpayers have to pay into a reparations fund, or only non-blacks?
6. Will rich blacks (e.g., the Obamas) receive reparations or will there be a cap on recipients' income?
7. Will illegal aliens receive or pay reparations?
8. Will payments to blacks be reduced by the amounts paid for welfare, affirmative action and other race-related benefits they and their ancestors have received since 1865?
9. Will reparations mean the end of affirmative action for blacks?
10. What about reparations for Native Americans, who lost so much land and so many lives to their conquerors?
Nice to have advice from a foreigner; perhaps Mr. Castaneda can tell us how to stop the flow of illegal aliens through Mexico.
6
Black men are going to have to wait in line behind women and Native Americans if any 'reparations' are going to be considered.
4
Reparations for slavery will be very difficult to establish, especially considering that the cost and damages of the civil war itself will need to be figured in.
Reparations for Jim Crow, the denial of rights and property from American Citizens, is a much more winnable case, well documented, clearly defined actions, with unambiguous consequences. That’s the case that could be brought forward and settled.
Unlike many reparation arguments I’ve seen, this one at least includes native Americans. Still, imagining how compensation would actually be done is beyond mind boggling. Not to mention that it’s never really going to happen.
The “conversation” about past wrongs has already been going on for decades. The comments here about discussing, instead, acheivable programs regarding health care, climate change, income equality and other pressing issues make more sense.
2
Forget slavery, reparations are due for the horrors of Jim Crow, segregation and the KKK. Plenty of people alive today experienced those horrors first hand!
25
@CBJ Jim Crow laws ended 50 years ago. Most Americans alive today weren't even aware of these laws, as they were minors, or actually children. Not their fault.
13
"Grievances abound". Abound? I daresay the author grossly understates how America is drowning in grievance - everyone has one and mine, of course, is much more egregious than yours. And if Democrats run on a platform of reparations in 2020 they will be complicit in electing Trump to a second term - which is something many of us will grieve mightily.
12
Take care of America's own indigenous people ie Native Americans as in Indians, with decent living conditions and care, not second or third class lives on the reservation.
Not only did we do them wrong but we continue to do so. Let's fix this.
2
Any discussion of apologies owed and reparations to be considered must include Native Americans.
1
In every category of well being, backs come up short. That is either because of their history or their inferiority. Those who think it isn’t their history are racist.
It also tells us that enough will never be enough.
7
Here’s the deal. Compare the GNP or per capital income of the West African States from where the slaves were sold to slave traders, with the same metric for US African Americans. Let the math provide the answer.
Ockham’s Razor is a wonderful tool!
4
Yes, centuries of injustice to black and brown people. But the very word ”reparations” is a resentment lightning rod for working class whites, giving Trump the perfect rant which will get him re-elected. He is just licking his lips waiting for some Democratic candidate to start using that word.
4
The argument against reparations in the United States is that descendants of sub-Saharan Africans enslaved and transported to the United States are far better off than sub-Saharan Africans whose ancestors were not enslaved and transported to America. African Americans are the world’s richest large black population. They have shared, abet not equally, in American prosperity.
The per capita income for sub-Saharan Africans is $1,573 a year. The World Bank projects that by 2030 nearly 9 in 10 extremely poor people—defined as people living on $1.90 a day or less—will be Sub-Saharan Africans.The life expectancy for sub-Saharan Africans is 46 years. The life expectancy for African Americas is 75.6 years.
7
Nobody alive today was a US slave owner. No black people alive today were slaves. Since the 1960's, American taxpayers have funneled trillions into Great Society programs that were mostly aimed at improving the lives of minorities and the poor. Today the poverty rate is the same as the 1960's and the black family has been decimated with nearly 80% of black babies born out of wedlock into fatherless homes.
Tell me again why reparations are a) proper and b) a good idea. If nobody alive today is responsible and if trillions of spending on minority programs has only worsened the lot of average black families - particularly those in urban areas - then it's virtually impossible to find a justification for them.
14
Slavery was an abomination that ended in the US in 1865. However, the idea of reparations for slavery is unworkable, as shown by the questions below:
1. Most non-black Americans are descended from immigrants who arrived after 1865 and were not slave-holders, and thus do not owe reparations.
2. Many blacks are descended from Africans who came to the US after 1865 and therefore are not owed reparations.
3. Many blacks are of mixed race; will their payments be pro-rated on the percentage of black/slave ancestry? How will such ancestry be measured? DNA? Historic or genealogical records?
4. Should reparations be paid to blacks descended from African tribes that captured members of other tribes and sold them into slavery?
5. Do all taxpayers have to pay into a reparations fund, or only non-blacks?
6. Will rich or highly-paid blacks (e.g., the Obamas) receive reparations or will there be a cap on recipients' income?
7. Will illegal aliens receive or pay reparations?
8. Will payments to blacks be reduced by the amounts paid for welfare, affirmative action and other race-related benefits they and their ancestors have received since 1865?
9. Will reparations mean the end of affirmative action for blacks?
10. What about reparations for Native Americans, who lost so much land and so many lives to their conquerors?
Nice to have advice from a foreigner; perhaps Mr. Castaneda can tell us how to stop the flow of illegal aliens from Central America to the US through Mexico.
7
Let it rest! Nobody owes anybody anything. The path to success is hard work, not a government handout. Blaming others for you lack of success is also a fools game, unless liberals fall for it.
6
Inasmuch as Black slaves worked on land stolen from various First Nations peoples, it would seem that any conversation about reparations should consider First Nations members and descendants as the primary claimants.
I wonder whether Guatemalans seeking residence here at the border owe reparations to American Blacks which, if reparations are made to them, will come from everybody's taxes. Wait a minute, Guatemalans Spanish forbears stole and profited from land stolen from Central American First Nations. Hmmm, maybe they're trying to get out of reparations there. Of course some First Nations took land from each other in wars, as did First Nations on this side of our border.
According to the current research, who we primarily owe reparations to are the Neanderthals, who we seem to have made extinct, except from some genes likely the product of rape.
If the purpose of reparations is to improve relations among racial/ethnic groups, it will not accomplish that. Simply handing someone a thousand or ten thousand bucks may change the the lives of some individuals, but most are likely to spend it on food, shelter, health care, gadgets, or drugs just like the rest of us, at which point things will be pretty much back where they started. What is needed are sound policies expanding opportunity for all with guarantees enforced that no one will we be discriminated against because of a group identity. Most importantly that means respect and massive support for education.
1
I believe that the ideas of apology and reparations are so completely different that they should not even be addressed in the same op-ed, much less the same law.
An official apology by the government or by privates institutions for actions in the distant past (and yes, I consider 150+ years the distant past) can be very appropriate when the actions were as reprehensible as were these. It is an acknowledgement that these actions were not right, and give notice that they will not be repeated or excused.
Reparations are an entirely different matter. Had there been a special tax levied on those who previously held slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War, and had those revenues been distributed to those held in bondage, that would have been legitimate. Doing so now is not. There is no way to determine who should be paying these reparations, so people whose families were not even in the country at the times of slavery, as well as the descendants of those who lost lives and limbs in fighting against the institution, would be paying for the sins of the slave holders. Tracing the descendants of the slaves, who are the only people who should be entitled to the reparations, would be nearly impossible as birth records in the time for anyone, and especially for slaves, were spotty at best.
6
Admission, contrition, repentance, reconciliation, and reparation: first, a clear and complete admission and acknowledgment of specific wrongdoing; next, a full and complete apology for said actions and a sincere vow to change one's ways; finally, a plan for addressing the lasting harm of the wrong that had been done. This doesn't mean some mealy-mouthed half apology and throwing dollars at people; this means coming to grips with systemic and generational abuse, and that's a lot harder to do.
Slavery and it's aftermath in our country was, and is abhorrent. That being said, the logistics involved in determining who are entitled to reparations and who should fairly pay for them are daunting - if not impossible to implement. As a proud descendant of a Union Army captain who received multiple medals and recognition for bravery and gallantry while fighting the treasonous Confederacy, I question why I should be held responsible for the historic inhumane treatment of their victims. Rather, I believe that such proposed remuneration should be targeted to effective programs/legislation which will uplift our poor and oppressed fellow citizens, as well as ensuring the meorialization of both the historic and current contributions of the descendants of slaves. It starts with the removal Confederacy memorials.
4
Is the goal fro view Black Americans as Americans like all other Americans or as a group, separate and different from all other Americans?
Many so-called "activists" and "progressives" are promoting "separate and different" status which damages all Americans, but especially Black Americans.
15
This old white guy is ashamed that this country once held slaves, and equally ashamed of how blacks and others are treated today. Were it possible to somehow repay those who were forced to endure such evil, we'd gladly contribute our share.
That said, instead of cash, reparation should be done by making every American as welcome as any other. Mere money would do nothing to remedy the profound disrespect we show black people today, and talking of reparation in terms of money insults the memory of those that were slaves.
3
Reparations for slavery? How about dealing with TODAY's structural economic and demographic systems of discrimination against blacks?
3
@Frank J Haydn Maybe part of those reparations could involve addressing today's remaining structural inequities.
2
@Frank J Haydn Affirmative Action has been in place for 50 years and it ADVANTAGES blacks. Racial discrimination in housing, education, health care, access to retail services has been ILLEGAL for 50 years.
4
I am gratified to read in this article that the prime minister of Belgium apologized for the kidnapping and forced adoption of children born to mixed race couples in Belgium's former African colonies. Many women in so-called civilized nations have been robbed of their children in the name of family values. It is a reality that all "values" are linked to social and socioeconomic value. Women and their children have often been valued according the value of some male. It is true that most of our nation's capitol was built by slaves from Africa. It is also true that many of the first white people to arrive in the Americas were England's "waste" people, largely London's urban poor - fit for tobacco farming in the hot sun until they could farm no more. The Irish were harvested from their land and shipped as slaves to England's colonies in the Caribbean. I dislike the term "white privilege" because I know that most working class and working poor whites' privilege includes the "privilege" of not knowing about or acknowledging their history as pawns and victims. Much support for dictators arises from cheering for someone who seems to look like you, someone who can "win" over "them" and in whose victory, you can vicariously share if only in the rallied excitement. Fix today what can be fixed today.
2
The GOP cannot believe their good luck.
Rather than having to justify and defend the words and actions of Trump and the GOP-controlled Senate, the left-wing Democrats are handing the GOP a nation-wide winning election strategy. This DEM design for failure includes promoting reparations for moral sins from centuries ago, abolishing ICE and allowing uncontrolled immigration, free college tuition that will primarily benefit white middle-class children in liberal arts programs at costly private universities, and the granddaddy of them all - Medicare for All which would force 180 million people who get HC from their jobs onto a Government program with a >500% increase in recipients.
This "progressive" strategy will definitely guarantee another 4-years of Trump and GOP control.
12
So, the families and descendants of Union soldiers who fought and died and set the slaves free are going to pay reparations? Waves of the tired and poor longing to be free who came after slavery ended will pay reparations?
If there is a way to find the descendants of slaves, rather than later arrivals, and say that they are owed something, then find the descendants of slave owners and give them the bill.
7
@Lady L There is a two year statute of limitations on damage suits. And reaching back to dun people for something their ancestors did is patently unfair and maybe unconstitutional.
3
@Lady L There is a 2 year statute of limitations for damages. And in no other offense is it legal or constitutional or fair to reach back 200 years to hit people up for something their great, great great grandparents did.
1
Castaneda misses the point. It's not about what happened after the Conquest or the character of indigenous society, but how Spain carried out the Conquest. Even at the time, observers -- and indigenous peoples - argued against the brutality. An acknowledgment of the wrongs costs nothing and would open up a better discussion of what really happened and how we can more equitably move forward. https://medium.com/dukeuniversity/letters-to-a-spanish-king-b30c9ab9736d
Here's my part of this conversation: if you want to give people your money for something that didn't happen to them and something you had absolutely nothing to do with, be my guest. But don't for one second think about giving them my money.
28
The only way black reparations are politically feasible is if they take a form so disconnected from the definition that they are no longer recognizable as reparations. Something along the lines of Cory Booker's "baby bonds" or Sanders' support for "10/20/30". At that point, just drop the term reparations. Better to focus on treating the problem than cling to a specific prescription.
I will not pay for the crimes of those who lived 160 years ago. My ancestors immigrated here decades after slavery ended. I have nothing to apologize for.
10
I look forward to people with Spanish names paying compensation to the original inhabitants of this continent.
What you people did to them, often in the name of Christianity, was inhuman.
4
Sad to see Mr. Castañeda posing as the king of hypocrisy. He used to be a good learner, who once posed also as a professor. Today only because of that little fight with Fidel Castro during a diplomatic affair between the US-Cuba-MX ("comes y te vas"), he appears to be living in some kind of purgatory where not even himself knows in what kind of land (argument)to set his foot. In a discussion that almost all agree, the Spaniards must apologize, like the king of Belgium, and Mr. Adenauer did, Mr. Castañeda (in a rush to act like the counter-populist, and a possible leader of Mexican Conservatism) says, an apology is not necessary because most Mexicans are mestizos: the equivalent of "yes, your great-great-grandma may have been raped but, look, we now have a beautiful child, with a beautiful culture, and wonderful achievements, therefore, your dead grandma doesn't need any apology for the rape."
As I said, sad that a man that many know as a prominent, and possibly a good Mexican statesman, has fallen into the reigns of his own confusion. To say that a necessary apology "can make an enormous difference, as with African-Americans, race and slavery in the United States" but not in the case of the Mexican war of conquest, shows us the real skin of what Mr. Castañeda is made, a writer of inconclusiveness, a manager of the art of between and betwix. It seems that, in the end, he never learned the lessons taught to him during the Bush era by his own Castro affair.
2
The lack of full restitution for slavery shows a stark contrast between democracy and ethical correctness. This disparity isn't due to ignorance of the wrongness of slavery after the Civil War, but that the rulers, with eyes wide open, decade after decade, perpetuated injustice.
The Democratic candidates' proposals of "reparations" are trivial in comparison with full restitution for slavery and all the subsequent harm from it.
But, this is only part of the ethical wrongness of democracy. Another factor is its inability to apply the correct penalties, neither for the slave owners, nor its government officials, guilty of this atrocity.
Some might argue it couldn't successfully prosecute them since what they did was legal, however that merely shows that democracy's legal system is not aligned with correct ethics since it uses what is now called the Nazi defense.
The oppression of the Palestinians shows a similar unethical disparity of democracy -- neither did the victims receive full restitution, nor the government officials correct penalties.
Slavery and its legacy, the oppression of the Palestinians, etc., shows that in spite of every attempt to whitewash democracy, it is ethically wrong, illegitimate and evil.
8
How are we ever going to make reparations to what we’re doing to Mother Earth?
4
Reparations? So, I propose that, if the requirement to receive them is based on tracing back your heritage to slavery, the requirement to pay should be based on tracing back your heritage to owning them. That's fair.
10
This is an easy problem to solve.
In this corner, everyone who are descendants of the aggrieved from past crimes.
In the opposite corner, the descendants of the perpetrators.
In the corners between the parties are the lawyers for each side.
Let's get reeeeeaaaadddddyyyyy toooooooo rumble. The lawyer's time starts now.
The only admonishment, (from the lawyers) "We don't get paid, unless you get paid."
The moral of the story is, Trump v. ???. Trump wins by 25.
4
In light of the nation-examples cited in the first paragraphs of this article, might it be a good idea for Israel to get off to a good start by making reparations to palestinians?
In the US, the past is the present for African-Americans. Discrimination and dismissiveness of the community is the status quo. Consider the latest burning of “Black churches” in Louisiana.
@Ted Wrong. Affirmative Action, which favors blacks, has been in existence for 50 years. Racial discrimination in hiring, access to education, access to housing, access to health care, access to retail services has been ILLEGAL for 50 years. Blacks dominate in media - for example this very publication.
4
I'm a middle of the road guy who enjoys the Times to get the "other" perspective. The WSJ is my other daily read. The many unfavorable responses to this article surprise me. I hope there is a middle ground we can find as country on this issue. Whether its an "apology" or a candid acknowledgement, it is absolutely unquestionable that the legacy of slavery continues to fracture society today. The practical considerations of why throwing money to remedy the sin though are equally valid. Regardless, it matters not at all where we fall on the political spectrum, this is one issue that we truly need to find a shared path to build a more equitable future for all. With the reparations now emerging as a mainstream issue, there will be a reflexive belief from most voters that the other party can't lead on this issue. The candidate though who provides the most compelling, realistic vision to build a consensus on it is the person our country needs in 2020.
Why think of reparations as money? There is much evidence of the harm done over the centuries to the enslaved and their descendants. It continues before our eyes today. We have not even begun to talk about what reparations could look like in this country because from the moment it’s mentioned someone starts complaining about handing out checks. That wouldn’t even begin to undo the damage that has been done to the prospects for most African Americans. Surely we can do better than that, if we are sincere about it.
The best way to repair the past is to fix the future where all our children and their children will, with some great effort on our part, live.
3
Democrats will be re-electing Trump if they enter this bog at this time.
Polarizing an audience and ratcheting the conversation into intense internal conflict does not produce consensus. It propels election campaigns beautifully tho ... losing ones.
20
Yes. A thoughtful discussion on reparations would be well worth having. Is the American public capable of a "thoughtful discussion" on the topic? If Donald Trump is an exemplar of "the American public", the answer is clearly no.
When the mass infection of the past isn't adequately treated, the wound doesn't heal - it festers. The Civil War, for all the lives lost, wasn't ended correctly and we are still suffering a misconception of the wrongness of actions taken against our government by the South. I'm certainly not for reparations in the form of a check, but I do seriously believe this country needs to adequately preserve, build on and protect Affirmative Action programs for the sake of all who've lost their lives in the struggle going all the way back to its genesis.
22
@David
This is ridiculous!
Formally apologize, give them a day of national recognition or something but do NOT give today's descendents, who have never spent one day enslaved, a check for their forefathers suffering.
10
We don't need reparations. What we need is 100% inheritance tax that funds truly equal education for all children.
You should pay for what you get through hard work, not be given it, not inherit it.
1
I'm assuming that the reparations would be paid from taxes paid by all Americans. That means that Hispanic, Asian and Whites whose ancestors came to this country after slavery was abolished will essentially be paying reparations to African-Americans despite the fact neither they nor their ancestors benefited from slavery. If your'e looking for the best way to re-elect Trump, having Democratic Presidential candidates arguing about this during the debates will do the trick.
23
Anyone still struggling to see a path for Trump to win re-election? Anyone? The pure efficiency that Democrats are able to deploy when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot is simply breathtaking. It is almost as if they actually plan out the most extreme, alienating things they can say to ensure they will be trudging uphill. It is utterly unbelievable. This is the same government system that can't even get a regular budget passed without shutting the entire government down. The same government system that struggles to get the slightest things done due to such deep political gridlock. Yet you are going to find money and political capital to hand out reparations? My God, I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Meanwhile we have rotting infrastructure, mounting student debt, insane amounts of state debt, awful public transpiration, a broken educational system, and on and on. But THIS is what we should be spending wildly on? Yeah, real sound politics. The Democratic party’s circular firing squad is shaping up, right on cue. Amazing that after losing to Trump by alienating working class voters, the Democrats are scrounging for an issue that will alienate them even more. We are divided enough as a country, yet progressive fanatics want to divide us more. To what purpose? Slavery was very evil; Jim Crow was terrible. But I wasn't alive then, and my ancestors didn't live here. Don't try sending me a bill for something that dead people did to other dead people 200 years ago.
42
Awhile back David Brooks wrote in the Times: “Reparations are a drastic policy and hard to execute, but the very act of talking about and designing them heals a wound and opens a new story.”
Yes, pay reparations. It's just a matter of figuring how to allocate the costs and benefits based upon our individual histories.
Does a Black and White couple have one pay and the other receive reparations?
Do Native Americans pay reparations or get them? Does a 40% Native American pay or get a reduced amount?
Does a millionaire Black household get reparations or do they pay because they benefited from a system based on White exploitation?
What reparations should Chinese pay whose ancestors arrived in the 1800s to work on the railways?
Do families who have been granted asylum in the US from threats elsewhere have reparations responsibilities?
Some dispensation for non-Blacks who, or their ancestors, fought for or made contributions to Black causes?
And Blacks who migrated to the US recently from the Caribbean or Africa?
Should future immigrants to the US expect to pay reparations? If not, what is the cutoff date?
Are reparations a one time or ongoing program?
Only a fool would not recognize that, instead of healing, there would be furious widespread pushback from what would be characterized as a “White sin tax” and the feared need for “Reparation Tribunals” that would assign to all Americans reparation debits and credits based their individual genetics and genealogies.
12
@Leonard Miller
To bring up the concept of reparations plays directly into the Republican strategy.
Democrats can’t help themselves believing that all Black people are victims. A Black guy driving his new Bentley is a victim.
Democrats continue to try and convince Black people that they are victims.
Yet, there is nothing a Black person can not accomplish in today’s USA.
Candace Owens’ message of I am not a victim is taking hold.
9
@Leonard Miller Kinda like the Pol Pot regime?
2
@Ken Correct, according to liberals, a black guy driving a Bentley is a victim, while a white 70 year grandma living on SS in a run down trailer park in west Virginia is a privileged princess who deserves to suffer.
6
A reparation is the material compensation of an individual by an individual or organization that harmed that individual. The method is,conceptually transactional, and while nominally easy to understand and intuitively attractive, completely impractical, ineffective and destructive when applied to the great industrial scale harm perpetrated against the ancestors of people living today. The economic foundation of the US, without doubt, is based on the expropriation of land from its indigenous inhabitants and labr stolen from slaves kidnapped from Africa and their descendants. But a response that tries to quantify the consequences of that damage and apportion liability and credits to the the descendants can only lead to further resentment and social fragmentation. A real commitment to universal healthcare, education and childcare is both historically justified and the only practical way forward,
124
Well put!
11
As Faulkner said- The past is not forgotten. In fact, it is not even the past.
I cant say much about the Mexican situation. A strong argument can be made that the slave trade built much of the wealth of
England in the 18th century and of course the slaves built much of the nascent American economy. The North benefited, too, not just the South.
So, there is a case to be made for reparations.
But it is not going to happen and bringing it up again and again does nothing but help Trump.
We all just have to get ahead as best we can.
60
@Lefthalfbach
This is about as stupid as the fight for DACA's to get paid if they work in a Congressional job.
If they agreed to intern without pay in Congress, end of subject.
Go work somewhere else.
2
Reparations this far along in the timeline since slavery would cause far more harm than any perceived healing.
Paying reparations now, this far away from the time of slavery would cause anger and resentment for both those in favor and opposed. Those in favor will be disappointed with any amount believeing it doesn't reflect the enormity of the wrong inflicted on a whole race. Those opposed will resent paying taxes for something they and their ancestors who emigrated here after the civil war never had anything to do with.
Intended recipients will feel they got shortchanged when they see the amount is far below what they dreamed about. Opponents will resent people they feel got something for nothing. And then when those on the receiving end complain they didn't get fair compensation, that will only increase tension and resentment from those who were opposed.
This idea would make race relations significantly worse.
158
There were only 34 American States in existence during the time of the Civil War, of which only 15 were deemed "slave States". Should the descendants of the 70,000 Union soldiers from Maine, who fought to free the southern slaves, be required to pay reparations? What of the family trees of the 360,000 Union soldiers who died to make the Emancipation Proclamation a reality? What are the liabilities of reparation due from the 16 States that were even part of the Republic in 1864?
And what of my white family ancestry, Eastern Europeans who didn't emigrate to the United States until the 1880's and 1890's...why would I owe reparations, or an apology, for sins committed upon the African-American before my [great] grandparents even stepped foot on Ellis Island?
This "conversation" of slave history reparations is a godsend for Trump going into 2020...an unfortunate godsend.
216
@Stone
I am also a northerner descended from recent European immigrants. My answer to that would be that no one is asking you or me to "apologize" for things our grandparents were not complicit in.
What is being asked is for the *United States government* to apologize and provide restitution. The US government has been around for over 200 years and has facilitated and tolerated not only slavery, but also Jim Crow, redlining, the Drug War and race based exclusions for certain government benefit programs. These injustices are all fairly recent and were endorsed or tolerated by the government of the country that we are citizens of.
12
@Stone
Thank you.
And all those people that supported the underground railroad.
And what about all those people who have been paying for food stamps, head start, housing, medical care (as inadequate as it is in some states) to help people have a better life? That is a form of reparation.
32
@A F The "restitution" by the US government that you call for will be paid for by US taxpayers.
27
The very idea of pushing reparations, seems to me, to be the express train to four more years of Trump. This would be the own-goal of all time if the leftward wing of the party prevails.
185
@Mike
REPUBLICAN John Cornyn authored and introduced this bill?
This is a GOP idea?
1
There is nothing, absolutely nothing that can be done or said to repair the past. The past is just that. The present and the future are available to build a better world if only we don't forget what happened in the past. This is the impossibility of it all. Getting everyone to agree is another story in itself.
2
Reparations? Visit United States Native American Reservations. Then talk about reparations. Poverty, remote medical care, limited resources for jobs. The US should feel one thing - shame.
9
@MIMA Please research the status of Native Americans and the perks they DO enjoy, like Indian Lands, tax exemptions, etc.
2
The Republicans must be wetting their pants over Democrats raising this issue to the fore. I can't imagine a more divisive issue, and I'm not really sure what "reparations" even means. If reparations become a focal point of the 2020 election, then Trump will win in a landslide.
We should be fighting for good schools, safe neighbourhoods, equal treatment under the law, reduction of the size of the prison population, universal healthcare, etc for ALL Americans, whether that be in Detroit, Appalachia, the Rio Grande valley or the Navaho reservation. We sink or swim together.
(And btw, Castaneda is delusional. I have lived and worked in Mexico. Mexico is a profoundly racist society. The European descendant minority owns and controls practically everything. The "mestizo" national identity is a self-serving myth propagated by the elite to maintain control, just like the myth of Brazil being a "racial democracy".)
8
Slavery was an abomination. However, my European ancestors did not own slaves and did not come to the US prior to the ending of slavery in 1865. Why is it that I and others like me should be expected to apologize or pay reparations to anyone?
5
@Mal T
For a start, it's called compassion and doing the right thing.
P.S. Did your "European ancestors" have any Jewish friends.
There are few more profoundly stupid, politically suicidal and impractical ideas than reparations. A few minutes reflection reveals this truth -- and exposes the idea as either hopeless bitter dreaming or moral preening.
Try these practical tests:
1) If African Americans are due, what about Native Americans?
2) What about the Irish and Jews and.....?
3) How about women, who were second class citizens for centuries?
4) Would Barack Obama be entitled to reparations? How about his kids?
5) How exactly would someone document and prove one was entitled to reparations? DNA tests? "Just one drop"?
6) How much money is due?
The sad fact is many government programs in this nation to help poor people are unpopular because they are wrongly regarded as favoring minorities. Something like reparations would turbocharge that sentiment and be insanely divisive.
Fastest path to getting Trump re-elected is to keep yammering on this hopeless topic. And I'm pretty liberal.
21
The idea of reparations for descendants of slaves defines black Americans as pitiful victims. What an awful statement to make about someone else, and what an awful self-concept to willingly adopt for oneself.
"Give me money and we'll just forget the whole thing, OK?"
In the 1830s, my family was Mormon, forced to leave their land because they were the victims of violence. On the way to Utah many of them died--many years ago my father saw the make-shift graveyard a local farmer still maintained.
Because so many died that winter the rest just stayed in western Iowa, and had to start over, with nothing.
Who, except a very few, doesn't have stories like that in their family history? Stories of death, abuse, victimization by powerful foes, etc.? How many people alive now are descendants of women who have been raped over the past millennia? What about the Vietnam Veterans who couldn't get deferments for bone spurs?
There are a lot of Democrats running for President. I need some way of deciding among them. Any of them favoring reparations will be off my list.
10
Shall I make the check payable to Oprah or Jay-Z?
Given that all my ancestors arrived from Ireland after the Civil War, it's probably not fair that I pay, but hey, maybe I can get some money from the English for starving my ancestors?
21
My ancestors were serfs who had about as many rights as slaves. They had been granted "freedom" at about the same time as the American slaves.
Am I entitled to a part of reparations?
Oh, and I'm a recent immigrant with a white skin that is just a tad this side of albinism. Does that disqualify me?
9
Reparations is an attractive idea to people who think it can be made to pay; absent the pay-off I doubt if they really care.
4
But Clinton already formally apologized for slavery. Everyone has already forgotten because it was essentially meaningless. My opinion is that 'reparations' are likely to be the same. Unless and until significant progress on ending racism is made, any reparations paid will be forgotten by the next generation.
Further, 'reparations' for slavery annoys the many, many Americans of European ancestry whose ancestors arrived in America after the end of slavery. Or those, like myself, who had ancestors who fought to free the slaves. And it implies that some African-Americans will receive something and others, such as Obama, won't. Yet, racism affects the lives of all African-Americans, not just those with documented descent from slaves.
We need to address the cancer of racism and a study of its effects and how to move towards a future where the content of your character matters more than the color of your skin. Just don't call it reparations.
1
In Spain, we have not come to terms with the colonization of America, which was a brutal act of conquest and cultural imposition. I think that an apology is due not just to Mexico but to all aborigines in the Americas that were under Spanish control. The Caribbean native population suffered so much that we do not have anyone to apologize to. I say this with all sadness. Of course, not every thing was bad. The Franciscans in California are guilty of imposing their religion and culture to the native population, but they were not killing natives. In the colonization of Florida, there were missionaries that cared for natives, their culture and language. See http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/secrets-spanish-florida-full-episode/3666/. Spaniards can be proud of three people who defended the natives with all their strength: Bartolome de las Casas, Francisco de Vitoria and Antonio Montesinos (google them). The massacre and brutality against aborigines did not stop after Spain left the colonies. For instance, just in California, Bejamin Madley describes the American genocide in California from 1846 to 1873. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300181364/american-genocide
I am deeply concerned with the plight of American aborigines now in all Americas. Presently, the Amazonian aborigines are fighting for their land, their livelihood, their forests and their life. They are under an imminent threat. The fight for justice that Bartolome de las Casas and others started has not ended.
2
Ta-Nehisi Coates presented the history of discrimination against all Americans whose lines of descent can be traced back to a slave in "The Case for Reparations" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
This column adds nothing to Coates' presentation, and in common with Coates' fine review, the form such reparations might take is never mentioned.
Every proponent of reparations should be prepared to answer this question now.
If a program of reparations were to provide compensation in any way other than apologies how would the recipients whether seen as individuals or groups be identified?
To my knowledge, Coates has not answered this question. Consider this possible answer: "All who are assigned to the black race by the US Census Bureau are to receive reparations."
This would immediately be challenged by anyone who is well informed about the USCB system, especially anyone also reasonably well informed about studies of the human genome.
In the USCB system, an individual, for example Barack Obama, simply checks a race box - black - to become a potential beneficiary. Won't work.
Imagine then everyone presenting data on their own genome. Won't work. There is no way to use those data to uniquely identify potential recipients.
Where is that discussion?
Only in comments, is my answer.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
4
Georgetown university has starteded to address the history of slavery and the role that the Catholic University played on supporting racism. Students voted for a 27.00 dollar student fee increase with a process to ensure that families of slaves are part of the financial solution. The university is taking responsibility unlike the financial institutions.
We need to realize that based on America’s acceptance of slavery and the belief that brown people are inferior , policies were deliberately created implemented and are in effect today damaging the non white population . Jim Crow didn’t just develop in one back room.
Till white Americans addresses our history of slavery, murder of native Americans, stealing there lands and just down right abuse on these reservations we are never going to racially heal and move forward.
The past is never the past we are reliving it each and everyday. The country is committed to the success of white people. The college scandal would be funny if it wasn’t so pAthetic. Once again ,elites are getting over and white GOP people complaining about a few affirmative slots for minorities. Madison Avenue marketing will address these racial issues and it will tear this country apart if we don’t discard these backward ignorant ways of thinking. Listen up GOP and corporate America change needs to be part of the national conversation .
Should descendants of Abraham Lincoln pay reparations? My ancestors were a bunch of poor Scotsmen who likely never owned slaves or much of anything else. Deciding who should pay and who should receive is a murky proposition at best. One thing is pretty certain. It would widen the chasm between blacks and whites.
19
@Clark Landrum
And yet, Clark Landrum, you've enjoyed white privilege all your life, as did your forebears.
Perhaps you didn't realize it. Perhaps you don't know what white privilege is.
1
So, after considerable flip-flopping in his essay, Sr. Castaneda finally decides that the Spanish don't have to apologize but the Americans do. Why am I not surprised that a Mexican intellectual and failed politician of European descent (one of the tiny minority of white Mexicans he mentions in the essay) would come to this conclusion? Let me amend Sr. Castenada's conclusion: the United States doesn't need to apologize for slavery. It has already paid in blood to finish off slavery during the Civil War. Nor are reparations called for, as it is unjust for those who have never owned slaves to pay persons who have never been enslaved. Instead lets move forward toward making the United States a more humane and just society in which all of its citizens are treated more fairly in the here & now.
8
With all due respect to former foreign minister, Jorge G. Castañeda, Mexico would first have to apologize not only to its indigenous citizens for racism but to the descendants of former African slaves. One of the myths of Mexico’s La Raza is that it is not also largely of African ancestry. But according to anthropologists like Dr. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran (author of “Cuijla” and “La Población Negra de México, 1519-1810”) the rapid absorption of African slaves, in colonial times one-third of Mexico’s population, was through racial amalgamation with the Spanish and then absorption through unions with the indigenous tribes. It is almost racist for Mexicans to deny that heritage, when mostly cultural and genetic markers of the African passage through New Spain, in documents well-known to the intelligentsia, show it.
Most Mestizos of Mexico are descendants of those Africans as well as the Spanish and the indigenous peoples. So it is hard to figure out how any Spanish or Portuguese apology can be made to the white Mexican elites, unless it is, as in the case of Germany’s reparations and apology to its WW II victims, compelled for symbolic reasons. American reparations to former slaves who took citizenship rights along with the obligation to defend the United States had no bill for stolen labor, nor did they assign one to their descendants. As in Georgetown University’s offer to slave descendants of free tuition, the motive is moral, the reparations, gratuitous.
First of all, there is no "discussion of reparations" unless there is a concrete plan to pay them. Until then, it is just a bunch of a bunch of liberals flattering themselves.
Second, and this is far more important, this whole discussion is a Republican dirty trick. You want to win the next election? Do not even speak the word "reparations." Politically speaking, you will do so much more harm than good. We are increasingly making it a requirement that every Democratic candidate talk about their views on reparations. This is political death. There will never be wholesale reparations funded by the taxpayer. Never.
Get a clue, Democrats.
23
This could quickly turn into a trip down the rabbit hole of genealogy and forensic accounting, if you try to identify specific individuals who were harmed, and extract reparations from specific individuals who inherited wealth from said harm, right down to identifying which specific dollars were earned by unsavory means. Unless the idea is to pull money from general taxes paid by everyone, and then distributing to anyone who "looks the part," even if they immigrated to the U.S. six months ago.
Depending how far back you want to look, everyone's ancestors played, or at least attempted to play, the Great Game of conquest, subjugation, and exploitation, similar to the Aztecs mentioned in the article (or Macedonians or Mongols). However, around the time of the Renaissance, Europeans started gaining an advantage due the freedom of thought and scientific and philosophical inquiry that evolved. They levered the ensuing technological, economic, and military advantages to essentially become the NY Yankees or New England patriots of that particular game for several centuries. If King Shaka had access to the manpower, money, and military hardware Europeans of his day had, we'd probably all be demanding reparations from the Zulu empire right now. We are all products of numerous rolls of the historical dice.
6
If only we were capable of having a conversation about any subject worth discussing. Unfortunately, it appears we lack the small amount of humility required for such a thing.
1
"It called for a formal study of the impact of slavery on African-Americans living today ..."
Beware the slippery slope. What if a rigorous assessment (as opposed to a politically correct one) shows that blacks in America who had ancestors who were forcibly relocated from Africa to the United States are actually better off as a consequence? Will they owe reparations and, if so, to whom?
It is, of course, impossible to prove a negative but one way to approach this analysis would be to compare incomes for blacks in America relative to incomes for blacks in Africa, everything else held constant. My guess is that although slavery was very bad for the actual slaves, it was very good for their freed descendants. I'm also curious to know how other people would perform the study.
22
@Earl W. It's a stunning suggestion to make....that slavery was ultimately good for the income level of their freed descendants and, presumably (?) makes them less deserving of any additional consideration. You don't have to look very far or very hard to find data that shows the typical black household in the U.S. is now poorer than 90% of white households. But (you're right) I'm sure they'd compare more favorably to black households in Africa. Then there's a few other pesky issues to consider like generations of subjugation, maltreatment, abuse, disease, denial of education, proper nutrition, health care, fractured families, imprisonment. Again, we wouldn't have to look very far or very hard to learn about the effects of those things. I think your guess of "very bad" is probably right.
1
@SurlyBird Excuse me, but no one forces anyone else to "fracture" their families, or to commit crimes that harm others, resulting in imprisonment. And racial discrimination in access to housing, education, employment, health care etc has been ILLEGAL in the US for over 50 years, while Affirmative Action favors African Americans.
4
@Earl W.
"My guess is that although slavery was very bad for the actual slaves, it was very good for their freed descendants."
It's to laugh, Earl W. And then cry and cry some more. The legacy of slavery is well-known yet you have the temerity to write such nonsense?
1
Well said by Stone who beat me to write about the misguided push for "Reparations".
Questions:
Who gives reparations to the descendants of all Union Soldiers who died to free the slaves? Do we give the bill to the former states that seceded? And only half the bill to the border states?
Do we give President Obama and Dereck Jeter only 1/2 their "due"?
Is there a cut off for people like Oprah, Kareem, Denzell, Quincy?
Exclude everyone whose ancesters immigrated after 1865?
Then after we figure all that out, we write a big check to every Native American Tribe?
Keep it up (along with ideas like decriminalizing illegal entry into the US and abolishing ICE) and we're looking at 4 more years of Trump.
But, the answer is not to turn a deaf ear to real grievances, but to intelligently address funding for: healthcare, education, a fair tax system, clean energy, immigration courts, intellectual property theft, cyber security/privacy, etc.
16
@Jon,
Well said sir. What African Americans don't realize is that they were enslaved by their own kind. Kings sold their own people into slavery. Other tribes raided villages for slaves. Arabs did likewise. If you want to sue someone sue these guys.
As for the civil war, half of my mother's family died in blue fighting the rebels. I would only ask of the rebs that they honestly agree to join the union. When I was south on a job, some said to me that they ancestors were treated unfairly because they were denied their voting rights for not pledging allegiance to the Union: I replied that they should have been hanged right there.
2
Union vets suffered in silence, are their descendants to be considered?
6
@northlander
"Who gives reparations to the descendants of all Union Soldiers who died to free the slaves?"
They served as soldiers in a constituted army, serving their country. As such they received veteran's benefits. Why would they receive reparations?
1
This is an extradinarily difficult, slippery slope. A case in point is the state of Hawaii which has special benefits for "pure blood" Hawaiians. The result has been a genealogical battle over what constitutes "pure blood", complete with discussions about racial complexities that would be considered odious in other contexts.
Reparations for slavery seems to be a political issue about a potentially bottomless grab for money. I am opposed, although I would reconsider if there is a reduction for social benefits already paid out, perhaps also a per capita reduction for the cost of the Civil War itself.
7
Slavery was a horrible thing and there is no doubt that those enslaved suffered. However the descendants of those slaves, born and living in the greatest country on earth, are probably better off and more prosperous than if slavery had never happened. Perhaps this should be considered when debating reparations.
11
@Aaron Adams
"are probably better off and more prosperous than if slavery had never happened."
How does one dialogue with this kind of thinking?
1
A check will not change anything. It in many cases would be poorly spent.
A check will not change the attitudes of racist people. In fact may make it worse. Racist people (and the problem is getting worse, think white nationalism) are not about to give up being racist.
Sadly, racism will still exist. It seems to be part of the human condition.
Reparations may make some people feel better (the people that feel guilty, and perhaps make the people receiving money) but it the long run, it will not help. It will just be another token. Attitude is the problem.
Some have been trying for years to improve the lives of those affected by racism for years.
2
I want the UK to pay me reparations for the Irish famine.
Slavery in the US:
The perpetrators and victims died off a century ago.
No one alive today was a perpetrator or a victim.
Population numbers:
1860 4 million
2017 75 million
The number of one's ancestors doubles every generation. At 5 generations this works out to 32 ancestors for each person alive today. I have to wonder just how many DO NOT have a slave ancestor.
That said:
African ancestors got a very raw deal in America (there was no US for most of this time) for the first 2 and a half centuries. Something to level economic cooperation and development needs to be done. As some other commenter stated: reparations is a political football for politicians who pander.
What I would be open for in addition to affirmative action:
A huge investment in K-12 education, and free college tuition.
3
Here's what I've observed from my many trips to Mexico City:
The country is still run by Mexicans of European ancestry ....or mostly European ancestry.
It's been that way for centuries.
That doesn't seem right.
Or am I missing something here?
2
United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians (1980).
If reparations are truly about principle, then the Lakota nation (Sioux) teach us a powerful lesson.
In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that the Sioux Nation of Indians were wrongfully deprived of their land (the Black Hills) and their freedom (forced to live on the barren reservations where they remain today). The U.S. knowingly violated the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) when Custer led his forces into the Black Hills to “support” prospectors, who were there illegally.
We know what happened next to the Lakota nations. Little Bighorn. Wounded Knee. Standing Rock.
The Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. pay reparations and damages in the amount of $102M. It sits in a trust that is now over $1B.
But it is untouched.
The Lakota feel that by accepting reparations, they would acknowledge the sale of their land, their principles, and themselves.
11
@Brian Zimmerman Wow, I didn't know that about this case. Fascinating.
2
Mexico is not alone, of course, in having a significant number of mestizo citizens. African-Americans average between 20% and 30% European ancestry.
Also, up to 4% of white Americans have African blood. This rate is undoubtedly higher in the South than in the rest of the country.
Truth be told, African-Americans are the long lost relatives of many white Americans. If we could treat each other as the family we actually are, the racial divide and tensions will fade away.
1
I believe the Native American people deserve reparations more than descendants of slaves. It would be nice if the wealthier tribes who have made fortunes in the casino business helped out the very poor tribes in the north and western regions, too. Today every man, woman and child in the Seminole Tribe of Florida receives biweekly dividend payments totaling about $128,000 a year. Indeed, by the time a Seminole child today turns 18, she is already a multimillionaire, thanks to tribal trusts that prevent children or their parents from touching the funds until adulthood. Applying industry multiples to the Seminoles' hospitality and gambling businesses would put the tribe's net worth at about $12 billion, including some 81,000 pieces of pop music memorabilia--stuff like Michael Jackson's red leather jacket from the "Beat It" video and John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to "Imagine"--valued at more than $100 million.
7
The United States is already paying reparations; it's called affirmative action and it manifests itself most concretely and effectively in the significant advantages African-Americans have is gaining admission to colleges and universities and in obtaining financial aid to attend those institutions.
38
Boy, if every one of us was paid for abuses to our forefathers, even our immediate generations, it would be some world, wouldn't it. Look around the world.
9
The slaveholders, including descendants of powerful men like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, should have been made to pay for their evil, after the Civil War.
And yes, the discussion is important.
But actual reparations for the slavery at the birth of America were paid in full, by those who fought the Civil War to end slavery. Many died in that horrible war of brother against brother...
I stood in a cemetery in Portland Maine and saw all the graves of those who died fighting the greatest evil America has ever committed, enslaving fellow humans. Their descendants needn't pay anything, but instead should be proud, proud that without their family members buried there, slavery might have existed for a long time after the Slave States gained independence.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
4
If there are to be reparations - anywhere - would there be a statute of limitations? Should Italy recompense England for the subjugation and slaughter of the Celts by Roman Emperor Claudius?
11
It is not just the adverse effects of slavery but the failures during Reconstruction and the backlash to the even minor gains made then with many decades of racial oppression following that might call for reparations. If anything the decades of Jim Crow laws, racially biased policies and state sanctioned violence from the 1860’s on has affected the overall prosperity and opportunities of African Americans today.
But I haven’t heard any concrete proposals as to how this would work. It seems like there are a lot of problems with payments to individuals and figuring out who would qualify. Would Barack Obama - whose father was from Kenya and whose mother was white - qualify? What about Michelle Obama and their daughters - maybe a stronger case could be made for them. What about my friend who emigrated from Jamacia? What about his kids? Or my friend whose black grandfather GI had an affair with her German grandmother before returning to his family in Philadelphia - the child from that affair (her mother) married a white American so she is American with a black grandparent but grew up “white”. And so on. Should amounts vary and if yes, how?
Or do some kind of investment in distressed African American communities but that idea has been rejected by some on the pro reparations side. And has it’s own problems of course.
So, waiting for a proposal that deals with those tricky details...
3
Listened to a southern white grandmother weep on the radio yesterday. She had participated in a series of conversations about race. Had learned that her white grandsons didn't need to worry about getting arrested, but heard first hand from black grandparents about their warnings to grandkids. She LISTENED and heard.
Reparations needn't be about money. It's about LISTENING and hearing with full heart attention. It's about putting yourself, even for a bit, in the shoes of the other. Don't get all tangled up in the money argument and don't ease your mind momentarily by saying "it's over." That's just an avoidance. But willingness to listen and talk? Whole other thing. And if you think that's just naive, maybe think about how it's felt in your life when you've been truly heard. It's healing. We should do it.
4
@Amy Haible Nope. It's about the money, period. You are naive if you think this isn't about money and revenge. Also, no group in the US is less "heard" or listened to than working class whites, especially those over 50.
4
Reparations for who? Our country has spent trillions on social programs for minorities. When does it end? Wasn't the death of 600,000 soldiers who died during the Civil War enough? We cannot live in the past. Should whites be given reparations from England for what their soldiers did during the American Revolution to my ancestors? The answer to any reparations is NO.
20
There was a time when we could shrug off reparations as so improbable to ever be approved we didn't need to give them any serious thought. But this is the second op-ed in the Times in the last week or so recommending them.
The Democratic Party (which is my party) has already reached the point where it can't win elections in most jurisdictions without the black vote. Its responsiveness to that fact (i.e. its stepped-up pandering) has been obvious.
Within a few years, when whites have become a despised and constantly vilified minority, how much louder will the calls for reparations be, how much angrier will the accusations of white guilt be, and how much more eager will the politicians be to reinforce those calls, double down on those accusations, and further divide our society into warring tribes?
This has to stop. We have to build a fair society with real opportunity (NOT laissez-faire capitalist "opportunity") for everyone. We DON'T need to single out one group and make it give money to another.
14
Morality aside, this is political suicide for anyone or any party who suggests even a serious discussion of reparations, as Elizabeth Warren has,for example. If the primary goal is to defeat a racist like Donald Trump, then put aside your fantasies of social justice. Do Democrats have any idea of how divisive and how unpopular this idea is? Apparently not. Even many of my liberal friends find the idea abhorrent. we need a message of economic justice, not identity politics.
15
I'm always saddened when I hear "slavery" referred to as an historic phenomenon in the past. As Steve McQueen stated when he accepted his Oscar for Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave, 21 million people still suffer slavery today, many of them in our own country. In the United States, thousands of children are forced into domestic sex slavery each year and the average age of entry is 13 years old. The people exploiting these enslaved children are members of our own communities. The pornography industry makes billions of dollars normalizing the sexual predation of underage girls and boys in plain sight. While we're considering making reparations for the past, perhaps we could also spend some time figuring out how to stop enslaving children today.
5
This is a very thoughtful and indeed insightful piece. It is a breath of fresh air to read in this moment of load and shrill voices.
1
Reparations is a form of reconciliation that happens effectively only after the irreconciled parties come together to state truths - the facts - of the atrocities committed. To even contemplate reparations absent a full and unvarnished acknowledgement of the odious is a waste; it creates resentment among those who are ignorant of history.White America has almost always been permitted ignorance of the jaw-dropping hatreds set upon African-Americans by the US government.The history - the truths - were omitted or erased. All Americans must first learn of the grotesque -- 250 years of slavery that: prohibited black literacy under threat of criminal sanction; wholesale destruction of families and hence humanity and dignity; emancipation and hopeful Reconstruction swiftly followed by the backlash of 100 years legalized second-class citizenship; systematic denial - by law - of government economic benefits (jobs, real estate, deliberately sub-standard public secondary and elementary education, higher education at State colleges and universities) fully available to whites and yet supported by black tax dollars; and reliable, consistent and highly effective black disenfranchisement that has continued now for generations. And black efforts to secure rights were met with government complicity of inaction and silence even in the face of white violence and terror. Only after truth will the need for repairing be known and understood. It must be told. "Earth cover not my blood." Job 16:18
1
"It called for a formal study of the impact of slavery on African-Americans living today." The way this sentence is worded assumes that when we talk about "slavery" in the U.S. we are talking about 1) African-Americans and 2) a practice in the past, not something happening today. While our country certainly must continue to examine the effects of our historic enslaving of Africans, it's important not to word those discussions in a manner that makes today's enslaved people invisible, as this op-ed does.
As Steve McQueen stated when he accepted his Oscar for Best Picture for 12 Years a Slave, 21 million people still suffer slavery today, many of them in our own country. In the United States, thousands of children are forced into domestic sex slavery each year and the average age of entry is 13 years old. The people exploiting these enslaved children are members of our own communities. The pornography industry makes billions of dollars normalizing the sexual predation of underage girls and boys in plain sight. While we're considering making reparations for the past, perhaps we could also spend some time figuring out how to stop enslaving children today. And we certainly should not use language that makes today's enslaved people forgotten and invisible.
1
I think the United States government should offer a deal to Black America: reparations in return for an end to affirmative action. I like to think that Martin Luther King marched so that African Americans would be treated just like everybody else, no more, no less. Yes, @Lefthalfbach, Faulkner was right about how " The past is not forgotten. In fact, it is not even the past." Nevertheless, the deal I propose might well be a way to at least modify our thinking about that past.
4
When Ta-Nehisi Coates published his Atlantic article calling for reparations to “the descendants of slaves”, I made the mistake of assuming that a thoughtful listing of the reasons why the demand was unreasonable and illogical - including the inability to quantify the amount and who was to pay and who receive - would cause supporters to concede the fundamental flaws in their argument. How silly and naive of me. The intent of this demand is to establish political power. And it’s largely an internecine conflict within the ranks of the Democratic Party. Reparations will NEVER be paid. Ever. The broader population will never countenance it. But the different groups within the Democratic Party’s coalition are fighting for primacy. African American voters are the most valuable Democratic vote bloc and it’s essential for Democratic politicians to clearly signal their intention to support their interests. Supporting reparations sends the right signal. It clearly flags that the candidate acknowledges the primacy of African Americans in the party. The demand will be toned down, forgotten entirely or redefined by the ultimate Presidential nominee. Politicians’ cynicism at its finest.
25
@Shiv I agree. "Reparations" is a dead-on-arrival proposal with absolutely zero chance of becoming law now or ever. It's another classic case of the virtue-signaling, identity-politics, do-gooder wing of the Democratic Party thinking of new ways to sabotage their next political campaign (for president and Congress). And I say this as a person who usually votes for Democratic candidates. "The perfect is the enemy of the good" is a saying this group of Democrats apparently have never heard. Which is why I won't support with money, time, or a vote any Democratic politician who advocates this dead-end sidetrack of an issue.
21
Stop using the word "conversation", you have no interest in a "conversation". What you want is to lecture us and then enact legislation to take assets from hard working people who have nothing to do with what happened and whose ancestors came to the U.S. long after the events-all based on the color of our skin. And should we dare to speak, you call us racists.
Your "national conversations" are nothing more than pandering to a group whose votes you need to take power. We have been talking about the effects of slavery and segregation for 150 years. We have enacted all sorts of remedies and than discussed whether they worked or not. We've fought in the courts and at the ballot box.
If Georgetown University wants to enact a fee on incoming students to create scholarship funds for the descendants of its slaves from the 1830s, I have no objections. Incoming students have free choice to not go if they object. But don't tell the rest of us to pay for something we had nothing to do with.
The resuscitation of an idea whose time passed a century ago, and has been debated, legislated, and argued for years, is disingenuous and an attempt to divide us into victimhood groups so as to obtain power and then obtain government control. Americans of all races have unfathomable opportunity and dividing us by race only reduces opportunity for all.
You want to have a conversation? Have one with the mirror. I have no interest in being called names because I disagree with you.
71
@jkemp Beautiful! I completely agree.
17
@jkemp
Agree completely. Typical Democratic tactic, unfortunately.
12
@jkemp
Amen. Well stated!
9
If I am not mistaken, the current understanding is that the U.S. Civil War (1861 -1865) was fought to eliminate slavery in the U.S.; in other words, to free the slaves. History has few, if any, other examples of a population in power being willing to die for an oppressed group residing in its borders. In the case of the U.S. Civil War, however, 400,000 (perhaps more) Union Soldiers died for this purpose. Please look at that number again:400,000. To speak of additional reparations in the face of this level of slaughter in support of freeing a enslaved people strikes me as disrespectful at best. The world is unfair. It always has been and always will be. You want someone to pay for your particular episode of injustice? First look and see if the debt has already been paid. I feel the blood of 400,000 men and boys is adequate. Don't you?
66
The issue of reparations is an unnecessary distraction, whose validity is extremely suspect. reparations are made to those who have directly suffered harm, like the Jews who survived the death camps. There is, in the US, no-one alive who has directly experienced slavery, so no-one, in the US, is entitled to reparations. More than 3000 years ago, the Egyptians enslaved my ancestors; I do not believe that I have a legitimate claim to reparations from the current Egyptian government.
History is something to be remembered and learnt from, but not as the basis for dubious claims. Besides, for me and many others, our ancestors didn't come to the US until the early 20th century, almost half a century after slavery officially ended. We certainly never owned slaves, so there is no reason we should be on the hook for something we didn't commit.
40
@Danny: I agree. And if folks are adamant about getting 'reparations' and are researching their lineage to prove that they're descendants of American slaves, why not go a small step further and find the owners of these slaves? Make *them* pay, not all white people.
4
@Danny. Unlike Jewish victims of the holocaust, African slaves got nothing for their suffering and centuries of free labor. By your logic, the next time a museum's valuable painting or artifact is discovered to have been sourced by Nazi plunder, the victim's family has no right to it because victim is deceased?
You seriously comparing the obligations of an extinct ancient civilization 3000 years ago to those committed less than 200 yrs by a state that still functions off of the wealth created by its slavery, is beyond asinine.
Your ancestors probably didn't own slaves any more than Turkish immigrants to Germany operated Nazi death camps. It doesn't matter, they all chose to live in countries that did pretty awful things and as taxpayers, they are on the hook.
Thou shalt not transfer the sins of the fathers onto the heads of the sons. Doing this is called in the Constitution "corruption of blood".
20
Maybe the reparations could come in a bundle of benefits, similar to the GI Bill, such as free college, guaranteed mortgages, etc, for descendants of slaves?
Reparations were paid to Japanese Americans for the putting them in internment camps for four years.
African-American slaves and their descendants were brutally oppressed for nearly four hundred year. Without their unpaid labor this country would not have developed.
It is time to pay for our national sin.
We paid reparations to the Japanese
Americans held in interment camps. We honor ancient commitments to Indians which have allowed them to build valuable casinos and enforce environmental protections that others are not granted. One of the complaints about reparations for slavery is that they are outdated. But that is not true about segregation, which continues into the present. The legal basis for reparations has to blacks has been stated by the Supreme Court—separate is not equal.
Blacks have every bit as much right to reparations as Japanese Americans and Indians. The ongoing hostility to their claims is more racist than legal.
In which element of the reparations equation are the Union Soldiers who died in the Civil War factored in?
7
In my opinion, the way to go about making reparation for transgressions as a nation is acknowledgement of what our government has inflicted on its people, all of us. That would include the oppression and brutality of slavery, the cycle of poverty that many groups have suffered, racial prejudice, trauma inflicted on those we have sent to war, seizing of land that did not belong to us, discrimination of any kind, and much more. That would probably include most of us.
Then, instead of awarding individual windfalls that would be impossible to determine and would neither satisfy nor eradicate the problems, we work together toward strengthening unions, devoting ourselves to stamping out income disparity, provide fair housing and adequate health insurance to all, resist the cavalier call to wars that our presidents and Congresspeople inflict on us, address the climate change that resulted from greed and negligence, stamp out discrimination in all its ugly forms, etc.
In other words, pay attention to what's happening in the present. This does not preclude having a fair and honest reckoning with our past. Sometimes the simple acknowledgement of transgressions is the most important and cathartic thing we can do. Lying and misrepresenting the past just inflicts a deeper wound on all who have suffered.
It would also help not to revise the histories of those who have contributed to destruction, people like George W. Bush, for example.
Let's simply tell the truth.
5
I generally consider myself a moderate and centrist Democrat, but I absolutely would support some form of reparations to African Americans who are descended from slaves.
I think it would be possible for a commission to come up with a formula or algorithm that could determine - based on family histories of incarceration, neighborhoods of residence past and present, patterns of racially motivated violence, etc - the degree to which every individual African American in America has been deprived of property and the opportunity to build wealth not only from slavey, but also from redlining, the threat of lynching, Jim Crow, the Drug War, denial of benefits from programs like Social Security and the GI Bill, etc.
Then they should be sent a check, a significant one, along with a connection to a free financial counselor.
This isn't a handout. It's not a "liberal" or "conservative" thing. If you steal from someone or from their parents and grandparents, you should give them restitution. Redlining, exploitive financial practices, and exclusions built into government programs with the deliberate purpose of keeping black people poor were all forms of theft, and not in the distant past. Providing restitution is matter of simple justice.
1
@A F Then surely some of the reparations should be paid by the people who sold them into slavery, no? Why do they get a pass?
1
@A F
Its not a liberal thing?
I heard Sen. Cory Booker explaining the proposed legislation on the radio yesterday. The legislation calls for a conversation about what can be done to help those who have landed in poverty, in low-paying jobs, or even in jail because of their race and the impact that the enslavement of their ancestors has made on them. My own ancestors came from Europe long after the Civil War but I would not mind contributing a little something to improve the lives, the health, and the education of my fellow Americans.
7
@Denny So make it voluntary.
1
Yes, I am an immigrant who came to the US 60 years ago, got good education and had a reasonably good career in the North. I am now retired with pension, IRA and SOCIAL Security. And like many, I did not practice or support slavery. That is true for all non-white Americans who think that "we did not benefit from slavery so why do we owe any reparations?". The baare fact is WE HAVE ENJOYED THE FRUITS OF THE TREE - TODAY'S AMERICA" THAT WAS NURTURED BY SLAVE LABOR. Let us not forgethat we need to pay the price of thise fruits we have been enjoying.
8
@Wonderfool You want to pay, you pay. No one is stopping you from donating to whatever charity you want. But you do not have the right to destroy the lives of millions of working class whites because of your particular guilt trip.
3
An apology for wrongs done is always worth offering.
Slavery was wrong - but it was also a feature of the worldview that America was born into.
We should apologize for it - and the harm done to all concerned.
We should also apologize for those instances where white settlers ran roughshod over the rights of Native Americans.
The question is what we can strategically do about this harm in the year 2019 or 2021, in an America in which the Republicans have deployed "the Southern strategy" for nearly 50 years.
The sad truth is that any effort to pay cash-based reparations, or even extend affirmative action, would play right in the jaws of the Southern strategy. It would likely only intensify the resentments of those poor and middle-class whites who themselves have either become, or at least perceive themselves as having become, victims of globalization and the decimation of America's former robust manufacturing base.
The great seal of the United States is the Latin phrase "e pluribus unum" or "out of many, one".
The continuing archetypal power of that enduring seal, even in these days of Trump, suggest to me that the best remedy for the wrongs of the past remains a remedy for all - for all who have been made the victims of a voodoo economics and globalization run amok in our time.
IMHO, we will rise or fall in the 21st century as either one nation and one people - or as separate and unequal interests.
"E pluribus unum." Our strength lies in our Union.
19
I think we need a national museum and "wailing wall". We need to do a thorough geneological study to name and honor the originals. Their families can take it from there. The spirit of reparations needs to be a rejoice in resilience, and it needs to include things like: Harriet Tubman on at least one form of currency and other national symbolic gestures....Maybe, once the reckoning and studying is done, it will be obvious where cash reparations to families and communities need to be made.
The reparations debate is complicated, no doubt. Many facets and emotions are attached to these debates, and if we as Americans are to, today, address the wrongs (not just of the past) suffered by the ancestors of the enslaved, how do we not also address the near-genocide and wholesale theft suffered by our Natives? Also, as a first-generation child of immigrants, my ancestors suffered great losses in other nations, not that long ago, which should probably be compensated.
At this point, the only "fair" scheme would be to pool and redistribute all the world's wealth and property in some random manner, which I don't see happening.
4
@Mike B
"At this point, the only "fair" scheme would be to pool and redistribute all the world's wealth and property in some random manner,"
or, to work more fruitfully on the problem of wealth inequality (or maybe inequality in general), which is really a global problem.
10
@Mike B Note that if you redistribute wealth around the world, over 95% of Americans would have to give up their wealth to others who do not live in this country. Even with the current inequities, the "poor" in the US live better than almost all of the poor in other countries. A brief visit to any developing country makes this obvious. Are you willing to give up your earned wealth?
7
We want to deal with present unequal conditions. So why not skip the unnecessary extra step and deal with present unequal conditions directly? Study, the possibilities? Sure. But the past provides very incomplete information and any political action based on what we know would be less accurate than action based on the undeniable reality of current circumstances. Most plans for reparations involve forcing outcomes based on a broad outline of history, forcing those outcomes on a population of unique individuals.
4
Dr. Casteneda, you have a unique point-of-view related to the U.S.-Mexico relationship, and the historical factors which have had a significant impact on these important North American countries. I'm ambivalent on the issue of reparations in the U.S., especially in this day and time. The country is sharply divided politically and there is no national consensus on this issue. On the other hand, the adverse effects of slavery continue to persist and there has been little progress on this in the past four decades.
4
23andme says I am 0.04 percent West African — specifically Congolese. I would assume there’s a strong possibility that one of my distant ancestors, who lived sometime in the 1700s, was a slave. Most slaves were abducted from West Africa. Of course I am white and the rest of my ancestry is Northwest European. Should someone like me qualify for reparations? How do you decide who does qualify? I doubt many people can produce papers proving their genealogy. There is also no American living who was a slave owner or a slave. Bad idea, all the way around. There should be more funding for health care, housing, child care, education, nutrition — things that help all Americans and won’t cause division.
118
Actually 0.4 percent and 99.6 percent European.
2
@Bookworm8571 - Strange isn't it that not even Ta-Nehisi Coates takes into account this basic fact, that if reparations were to go to individuals and/or groups criteria would have to be stated and met.
I have a comment waiting for review that addresses the impossibility of doing this since the US Census Bureau categorizes people by their own self-stated "race" and genome analysis cannot solve this problem.
We are one human race, each of us with a long trail of descents.
Notice that you will never see in the New York Times a single article on the archaic nature of the USCB system, never.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
3
@Bookworm8571
While the direct living connections are gone there are many among us who knew former slaves. I suspect people like John Tyler's grandsons, both in their 90's, knew some as well. I remember reading in the Times in 1968 about a lady living in Harlem, who had still been enslaved as a young teen when the Emancipation came.
By the time I was born, the last Civil War vets had passed, but only as recently as the last 15 years, the last two Civil War widows passed away. So it's not so long ago.
But how to determine "who", by DNA, is less important than finding effective means for actually battling and overcoming what has kept so many POC far behind their fellow Caucasian citizens (like me). The fact that Black and Brown people do significantly less well than Whites is not realistically debatable. I see Reparations as a drastic re-prioritization of how we attack poor education and lack of opportunities for minorities up and down the whole chain.
There was and article by a college student here weeks ago about how even getting college funding aid at city colleges is a nightmare of obstacles the disadvantaged are TOTALLY unprepared to face--like comprehending FAFSA's requirements and submission dates. Just making the whole college application and aid process transparent to inner city High School student would go a long, long way.
And that's one of a thousand steps that need to be taken. Reparations, done right, won't cost America, it will make us ALL better off!
3
Apologies are meaningful in certain cases but the heart of the reparations debate centers on the past acts that create unequal present conditions.
For example, there is no question that the US owes reparations to Native Americans. It is shameful in a country with a 20 trillion dollar a year economy that Native people that were driven from their land rely on gambling and similar gimmicks as economic development.
In that case an apology is in order as is honoring treaties and working out an economic model for those communities to be viable.
For African Americans a similar case can be made. Slavery could not have existed without the rule of law. Similarly, the entire Jim crow era was a legally imposed system of racial subordination.
Even in the aftermath of Brown, when the lower court found segregation created harm it continued, often for decades despite court orders.
The state enforced these conditions through law and so the state should assume responsibility to rectify this harm. Reparations is not just about the distant past.
Of course this doesn't suggest a check in anyones mailbox. But it does point to new and different models of equality and an economic model designed to turn apologies into different social relations.
More importantly, reparations is a moral issue. We cannot change the past but we can atone for it by how we choose to go forward.
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@Drspock First, Native Americans have been given benefits and special arrangements - ie Indian lands, exemption from taxes. Secondly, Affirmative Action, which advantages blacks, has been in existence for 50 years. If citizens of Mexico don't even want to be bothered with an apology, why should white Americans be punished with financial ruin? And 15 trillion is financial ruin.
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@Drspock The U.S. has paid "reparations" to Indians. They are called reservations, land given forever to Indian groups in compenation for for lands lost. Case closed, but thanks for asking.
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@Lotzapappa Yeah but.... ALL of this land was theirs. How is it fair that in repayment for keeping the vast majority of it, we leave them some tiny (often not very hospitable) portion of it?
On the other hand, when what was taken by force was so great, it's not clear how to compensate for it.
My grandparents and great-grandparents, and my wife's grandparents fled the Tsar and the Austro-Hungarian Kaiser in the Great 1880-1920 migration, years after the Civil War.
But they came to THIS nation where we and our parents were born and this nation's history is ours as well, good and evil.
"40 acres and a mule" might well, had it been honored, changed the nation for the better. It wasn't, of course. And the repercussions, from the active South, and inactive North, truly damaged the only people who came to the New World against their will, kidnapped and ripped from everything they knew. We've been trying to fix it for 150 years--well, some of us. Others have fought it.
But just HOW would reparations work? Reparations from Germany after WWI was catastrophic, not just for Germany but for France as well! (see how the 1923 Ruhr invasion failed). But after WWII, the Marshall Plan, and the GI Bill, neither of which were "reparations", were a smashing success, rebuilding a peaceful Europe and a post-war middle class. We've had feeble, somewhat ineffective and expensive programs that are pale shadows of the Marshall Plan. Yet they have provided us with business leaders, political leaders, and even a Supreme Court Judge and President.
Instead of calling it "social welfare", call reparations the "Marshall Plan for Americans" and, like the GI bill, make it work!
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@Dadof2
Well said ! The only problem with your idea is that it cannot be put on a bumpersticker.
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@Dadof2
“..the only people who came to the New World against their will,”
Isn’t so. Learn your American History.
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@Dadof2 You are welcome to send a check anywhere you like. You are not welcome to destroy the lives of white working and middle class Americans over something they didn't do, out of your own idealism.
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To whom are the reparations owed? How far removed can be one be from a slave to be deserving of money? Would Elizabeth Warren’s small Native American heritage entitle her to reparations? What about those who are descended from slaves but are now wealthy? If this discussion occurred while freed slaves were alive, it would be worth having. Now, as was the case with Obrador, as the author points out, reparations are nothing but a political football tossed around by tone deaf politicians and attention-grabbers.
This is not a conversation worth having.
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@Matthew
I cannot think of a better way to assure that moderate Democrats leave the party than to push this issue.
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@Matthew - There are at least 3 comments making this point and if mine is accepted there will be 4.
Strange that neither Castaneda nor Ta-Nehisi Coates admits to any recognition of the impossibility of defining the individuals or group who are to receive reparations.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
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@Matthew
Why think of reparations as money? There is much evidence of the harm done over the centuries to the enslaved and their descendants. It continues before our eyes today. We have not even begun to talk about what reparations could look like in this country because from the moment it’s mentioned someone starts complaining about handing out checks. That wouldn’t even begin to undo the damage that has been done to the prospects for most African Americans. Surely we can do better than that, if we are sincere about it.
5
No one has brought up the most oppressed group, either here or in the positions of various democratic candidates:
native Americans. Consider their plight then and now.
And quite recently in terms of history, the Japanese interned during WWII, deprived of home, business, most possessions.
How do we begin to make reparations to them?
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@Stephen Moore...The Seminole tribe has six reservations.[22] They have developed more extensive hotels and related resorts for gaming on some of their reservations. Since 2007, the Tribe has owned the Hard Rock Cafe franchise, and established it in their hotels and casinos. They now have a total of seven casinos.[23] Tourism, both as related to the casinos and in terms of attracting people to the reservations for hunting, fishing, and guided tours, is also a part of their economy.
Other significant parts of their economy are based on production of the citrus groves and cattle farming on the Brighton and Big Cypress reservations, and forestry.[18] Beginning with a small group of cattle brought from the West in the 1930s, the Seminole Tribe has developed the 12th-largest cattle operation in the country. It is located primarily on the Big Cypress and Brighton reservations. In a related development, since 2008 the Seminole Tribe has marketed its beef under the brand, Seminole Beef. They are featuring it in their Hard Rock Cafe and hotels, and intend to market it to other Indian tribes, military installations, restaurants and supermarkets throughout the country.[24]
According to a tribal audit, in 2005 the tribe took in $1.1 billion in revenue. Imagine what it is today, and they have less than 4,500 members if I'm not mistaken. I doubt they need any more money.
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@Stephen Moore
Japanese Americans who were interred WERE paid reparations.
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@Stephen Moore
Yes, the Japanese-Americans were given $20,000 during the first Bush presidency. My neighbor received it. Wasn't considered controversial. Today's reparations consist of education and true equality. Why is that so controversial ? Accurately acknowledging history does require an effort but we can do it.
1
The continuing relevance of history.
I am a descendant of Irish Americans, refugees of the potato famine, who fought for the Union in the civil war, one intended to preserve the Union and to free the slaves.
I know that the Pattersons, my relatives, knew oppression and fled starvation in Ireland, fought on both sides of the war.
In the case of my own direct ancestors, the Pattersons came back from the war with a nasty case of post traumatic stress syndrome.
Great grandad was brought home to an Indiana farm by my great, great grandad.
Great grandad, veteran of the civil war, had a fearsome temper and beat his children with an iron poker.
The disposition of my grandad was not improved by that treatment.
He, in turn, was a vicious man.
Two of my paternal uncles spent time in Indiana prisons. A third was placed in a mental institution where he murdered one of the caretakers.
There is much, much more.
My point is that, in addition to the horrors of slavery, other people on both sides of the civil war suffered unbelievably and their descendants still feel the pain.
All of the civil war documentaries, as good as they are, give the impression that the civil war, with its consequences, is long past.
But the consequences live on in the lives, northern and southern, of the descendants.
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@Meta1
Right now we are back in the 1850s. The South, now augmented by States that were mere territories back then, is once again trying to moose its political and economic views on the larger, more populous and far wealthier North.
Alas, your state and mine fell for it. Wisconsin, too. That is the Iron Brigade, Custer’s Wolverines the Bucktails, the Philadelphia Brigade and many another Union formation-.
3
@Meta1 All of us can point to some generational trauma that has shaped our lives. My great great grandfather was 16 when a rich man paid him to take his place to fight for the Union in the Civil War. One of my Finnish ancestors came to the U,S, to avoid being drafted into the Russian Army. He had a tragic life that undoubtedly impacted the lives of his children and grandchildren. I also had ancestors who came to the U.S. because of the potato famine. I know more about my family history than most because I have researched it. I am not responsible for what they did, either the good or the bad. I support funding for social welfare programs that will help people live better lives but I do not support reparations.
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@Meta1 You are talking nonsense except for one point: How much does the sacrifice of over 400,000 Northern troops count towards reparation. The slave's freedom was bought with Northern white's blood. Reparation enough I would think. So, if the qualification for reparation payment is to trace back your lineage to slave, the qualification for payment of reparation should be to trace back your lineage to fighting for the Confederacy that supported slavery.
2