Interesting how so many people seek to dismiss reparations but have to problem with embracing history when it matters to them. Our US Constitution is soaked in racism from its sanctioned of slavery and defining Black people as fractional human beings during the impeachment it was referenced daily.
Of course the our history impacts the present day reality as such damages awarded today to ancestors of victims of Slavery should be compensated now .
There is statute of limitations on evil nor the outcome of evil damages should be awarded for this contractual breach of humanity.
BLM
BLM
30
@Thrasher
Can we let the past remain the past? I agree that the reverberations of slavery remain to this day, however making reparations to those who have not been directly impacted is not the way to do it. It has been about one and a half centuries since slavery was legal, and these reparations are merely a very obvious virtue signaling. Any argument saying that $400,000 is not enough is clearly looking past the fact that you should be glad Georgetown would give money at all. Present revenge for past crimes is not the policy decision that should be carried out, nobody should be punished or rewarded for the actions of their ancestors.
8
@Thrasher
The ancestors of Obama sold slaves to the ancestors of his mother. He himself was not descended from slaves, although his wife may have been.
How much are his daughters owed in reparations?
8
@Turner '...those who have not been directly impacted...'?? Man I've got friends who are out of their minds with guilt and self-doubt, self-loathing, fear of strangers, all kinds of mental daggers around their relationship to past centuries of slavery and it's present fallout. Thank goodness they haven't been 'directly impacted!'
3
Thousands of years ago the Egyptians enslaved the entire world population of Jewish people. The slaves were forced to build the pyramids.
I demand reparations from Egypt!....and the deed to the pyramids!
3
Interesting how all of the top comments are against reparations but virtually all of the comments nominated by the paper with a gold star are in favor. Talk about liberal bias.
10
Slaves built the Pyramids.
How about we start there?
Good luck with that.
2
The article has present value wrong. The sale amount converts to $4.1 million. That should be the bare minimum.
I commend Georgetown Univ. for addressing the topic of reparations although it was forced by someone uncovering the documentation of the 1838 sale of 272 slaves. However, $50 a year won't make much difference in anyone's life.
2
Whites are STILL profiting from the slave trade today!! You know it, and more importantly? We know it. You just think that by denying it, we will forget about it.
https://youtu.be/0w3o8uHVkKQ
This video is a lecture done by Shawn Rochester. Trust me. It’s worth watching!! He explains so much about the slave trade, share croppers & Jim Crowe Laws etc.
How is someone 'owed' from an act that occurred nearly two centuries ago? This is really getting ridiculous, and I say that as a mixed race American. If you are still suffering from an event that befell your family after 180 years, I think you have more to worry about than this. If the argument is that we need to help disenfranchised people (black, latino, asian, white, etc etc.), then count me in. Enough identity politics and excuses for failing to elevate our poor populations. Let's stop the insanity, and come together for the common good.
2
You are not owed a dime in reparations. There is no way to connect the dots to say that an event 180 years ago has carried into your lives in any unique way which would require compensation. Actual Japanese-American victims of internment got checks from our government. Actual victims of German concentration camps got checks from the postwar German government. The ancestors five generations removed have no similar claims. The school can do whatever it chooses to make themselves feel good, it's their money. But you are entitled, morally, legally, any which way to nothing.
6
I don't believe that any of the authors of this article were ever personally enslaved. Therefore, one feels reluctance to compensate them for the sufferings of their ancestors.
3
Liberals need to get past the victim schtick. It’s 2020. Not 1865. Pretending that slavery over 150 plus years ago still merits a handout today is intellectual dishonesty.
The entire idea rests in a contrived psychological conscientiousness, political machination and self-serving virtue signaling.
Worse, the victim mentality induces its own species of slavery; it maintains a socio-economic order that justifies stagnant and regressive development in perpetuity.
5
I agree with this conclusion. When Georgetown U. announced its plan, I thought it was pathetic, a very poor attempt to make up for past wrongs.
Here's the deal: no one knows how many billions have been taken from black people not just by slavery but the very long affects that continue to this day. In our society, if you have money, you have standing, social, political and, in terms of access, educational. If you don't have money, you are either a bum (nothing) or just another person struggling along.
Money screams, in other words. African American citizens were robbed and, in some unfortunate ways, they are still being robbed. Each generation held down forcefully leads to the next generation with nothing on which they might rise.
We need some sort of forensic accounting. This would include, for example, largely black neighborhoods being disrupted or destroyed by building freeways over the top of them or putting toxic waste sites next to black families.
No, we can't make up for the past nor should we pretend we can right the wrongs of 200 years ago. But, we can understand and acknowledge what has happened and make efforts to go from there to a better accommodation of all citizens and toward more economic fairness. Okay?
3
Reparation discussions are unreasonable and a distraction from finding real solutions to injustice. The forces of history are cruel and unforgiving, and this is not the way to address to past wrongs. Dollars paid to descendants of people held as slaves will not change history. The amount of money discussed here ($400K for 8,000 descendants) is just tokenism. Even if you could develop a reasonable plan, how could it possible be implemented equitably?
Also, where does this end? What about the Native American land upon which Georgetown's campus was built?
Slavery was a terrible thing. Over 500,000 Americans--Black and White--died in the Civil War fighting over the issue. It's legacy is equally terrible. Sharecropping and systemic racism disenfranchised African-Americans for another 100 years. Today, we still see too many examples of American citizen being prevented from realizing true equality. The fight needs for justice needs to continue--but reparations will only divide and prevent the type of reconciliation that needs to happen.
2
If we are going to pay for past wrongs, then what about Native Americans? We stole an entire nation from them. Or the Chinese who were enslaved to build a railroad? Or the Japanese who where evicted from their homes and sent to prison camps during WW II? Or the Hispanic families who have had their children ripped out of their arms then those children were thrown in cages, abused, shipped off and lost, some of whom have died? What about reparations for wrongs that are not a part of our history but are happening right now?
3
I have no problems with reparations as long as the African tribes in places like Ghana pay reparation for selling fellow Africans into slavery.
4
The school decided the amount since that which the law can compel is zero. It shouldn't go to the descendants though anyway since their injury is no greater than to the class of such people. General scholarship fund for black students if anything.
1
You are owed nothing, hopefully Georgetown admin. will wake up and do the right thing.
3
@Knute
Farmers aren’t owed anything either but have been getting welfare/subsidies since the 1930s.
1
Congratulations to Georgetown University for taking the first step in a process of atoning for unconscionable decisions of the past. The institution should be commended for taking steps which not many other institutions, including our state and federal governments, have not. Is $400,000 per year enough to make up for 272 lives placed in slavery? No. Will any amount of money ever be enough to make up for this disgraceful treatment of humanity? No.
So this is not about money. It is about changing attitudes now so that the terrible inhumanity of slavery and oppression never returns again. Georgetown University is taking the first step in changing attitudes- speaking the truth about right and wrong. May their plan be recognized as a positive step in a process.
11
I am a staunch believer in reparations. It is very much part of our society that when material harm is done, material compensation is owed. Slavery and the period of active discrimination against African-Americans that followed the end of it cannot be thought to exist outside of that paradigm of harm done, harm compensated. Fair is fair.
That said, it is always going to be tricky deciding what amount of compensation is just. In this instance a $3.3 million dollar lump sum payment to descendants seems to be the starting point. That is what Georgetown reaped from the iniquitous deal and they appear to have it on hand. So, pay up immediately, Georgetown, and then stay at the table to see what else you might offer. Free tuition for a few generations of deserving, qualified descendants seems worth thinking about.
And then it should be over for them. They were not alone in this and they can't be on the hook forever. The idea has to be that we all move on from this at some point. Right?
2
So what is the acceptable solution? 8000 descendants x $200,000 per person equals $1.6 Billion. Should Georgetown pay this and shutter its doors? Some amount in between? Should the Northerners be exempted for giving life and blood to end slavery? (my ancestors died freeing slaves as part of the Iron Brigade). What if you were born in the North but moved to a southern state? Can we document these movements and give a reprieve? What about Native Americans? Should we pay reparations for stealing their land? Should even African Americans pay reparations to Native Americans since when they were freed they too eventually purchased this land? What about Chinese who were forced to build the railroads? Who pays them? And the Irish and Italians who were outcasts and had their labor stolen from them for pennies on the dollar? I fear trying to go back and right the wrongs of history when, will only create resentment and exacerbate the racial divides now. Slavery is and was horrible, as are many other things about our history.
3
As the Harvard Professor from the beer summit noted in a recent article, more often than not it was other Africans who were selling Africans into slavery in Africa.
That said, having arrived in this country people of color have lived through the egregious double-standard of racism for centuries. I am uncertain that asking for reparations for slavery compensates for the actual societal sin involved.
I say that conscious of the ongoing "No fill-in-the-blank need apply" attitude this country has taken since her birth. You can trace this countries love/hate/mostly hate relationship with immigrants through the centuries with Irish and Italians and Oriental/Chinese and Mexican (twice)and Oriental(Vietnamese) again immigrants who were both needed and used as labor yet abused as "fereners who is teken our jobs" (or however the phonetics play out).
The argument for reparations has an emotional appeal but little modern societal grounding. A better answer may lie in Professor Gates suggestion rather than payment to individuals.
1
Georgetown received only $12,000 in today's dollars per person. As slaves, and probably as hired hands, people were not worth much in 1838. Probably similar for small farms where the hours were long, the work hard, and medical care inconvenient.
Most Americans of the times lived either on and, starting as youth, worked on small farms or were hired hands, or as women were homekeepers with no income allotted to them directly. Free, but hardly advantaged financially by slavery. Not the people who wrote history or were frequently in newspaper reports; so mostly they have been forgotten.
Then the Civil War came and those others did most of the fighting on both sides. Do their children owe reparations?
$12,000 each in today's dollars. Not much, but it could not have been much more for the median American. Those median Americans could not have had the wealth available to free the enslaved, so should their heirs be responsible for reparations on that basis?
If we consider the median American today, again we see that they lack sufficient wealth to cover reparations.
A difficult problem in social justice; but most Americans could reasonably argue against having a moral responsibility to pay reparations.
1
The sale of the slaves occurred before the end of slavery and freedom. The survivors have descendants whose lives are probably no more affected than all the descendants of former slaves. It's really hard to estimate since the biggest factor related to race seems to be all the policies of this country through the mid-sixties. Georgetown is offering a settlement very late. The true reparations related to that sale is not rationally determined, it's a guess in lieu of knowing with any reasonable accuracy.
Vengence is a natural emotion of human beings. Maybe Georgetown should be liquidated and the proceeds given to the existing descendants of the slaves sold off. Would that be satisfactory? I truly doubt it. Vengence is never satisfied.
EXCUSE ME? Some simple math. $400K per year divided by 8000 descendants means that each descendant of a human being sold as a piece of property would get FIFTY BUCKS A YEAR? That doesn't even come close to what is owed. Georgetown has a 1.6 BILLION dollar tax-free endowment. Georgetown pays it's basketball coach $3.6 MILLION dollars a year, and that's one person. And they are likely profiting off the players who play for them too. How actually digging deep into your endowment and show at least a tiny bit of respect for those you so grievously harmed?
1
History is full of horrible abuses by governments, but trying to right these wrongs 150 years after the fact is an exercise in futility. First off, which wrongs do we right? Asians, Jews, even white people such as Italians and the Irish faced historical discrimination. Black Americans have surely faced more hostility than these groups with more modern repercussions, but we cannot right one evil and leave other cruelty be without being arbitrary. If a person with a victimized ancestor is incredibly wealthy today, should they still receive reparations? Further, who should pay? Georgetown presumably bought those slaves from a slave trader who, in many cases, bought them from tribes in Africa. I believe we can agree that country’s government in Africa shouldn’t owe these descendants reparations, but they are also indebted by this logic. What of a descendant of slaves and slave owners? Family lineage is so vast that we are all related to perpetrators and victims. If we owe debt for the sins of all our ancestors, we are all indebted. Moreover, no sum of money is ever enough to right a wrong like slavery. It would be more effective to identify downtrodden groups today and help them because of their need not because of a crime, however terrible, perpetrated against their great-grandfather. Historical wrongs are too complex and horrific to be settled by cash payment.
2
why dont they go after the buyers? Oh, i forgot the prime edict of law suits=go after the money!
1
What is motivating those in favor of reparations?
Is it vengeance? The need to inflict harm on someone – anyone – for wrongs in the distant past.
Is it to diminish personal responsibility? To hold accountable those who are blameless.
Is it greed? To obtain the unearned from those not in debt.
Perhaps it’s to right some wrong? Well if that’s the case, reparations will not do that. It’s too late, everyone involved in slavery is long dead. All we can do is learn from their errors and get on with our lives, not committing the same errors again. We have done that. In the US slavery is gone for good. We need to concentrate on modern inhumanities, not on inhumanities from centuries ago.
3
I think the most productive question to ask and consider seriously at this point is what amount IS going to "Do it." I mean that sincerely, and it should be the descendants of slaves who answer that question. I do not believe that the moral impossibility of fully redressing African Americans for slavery means that we can't or shouldn't do anything at all. Putting redress into actual numbers, numbers that do some kind of justice for the scale of the sin, is necessary, difficult work that will have to be done to move forward.
1
Reparations make no sense. If we’re going to compensate people for wrongs inflicted on their ancestors then are mixed race individuals (and most people have ancestors from multiple races) going to pay themselves? Give me a break here. Enough is enough. This kind of ill though out policy fuels the right wing nut cases who support Trump and exacerbates the political polarization in this Country. And if it’s government mandated it would violate the policy and values underlying the attaint of blood clause in the US Constitution.
2
Georgetown is not the only school to benefit from slavery and the sale of slaves, but it is the only school to address these sins in such a comprehensive way. Saying "it's not enough" is true, but perhaps that anger should be directed at the hundreds of schools (many with larger endowments) that are silent on this issue.
1
Georgetown was a Roman Catholic college in a vast majority protestant country where few people attended college. The great influx of Roman Catholics occurred later. What this means is that the sale of the slaves and the prosperity of the endowment are independent. The sale of the slaves saved the institution in 1838, that's all.
I don't understand why reparations are being paid to descendants of slaves generations later. Yes, slavery was an abomination and a stain on this nation's soul. It seems like many current descendants now have a far better quality of life than if they were raised in resource starved areas of Africa in the present day. I think reparations are a good gesture, but arguments can be made forever about how much will make things right (short answer: no amount). The money would be far better spent on minority scholarships.
2
My Great grandfather was executed by the British in Ireland for resisting the occupation of that country by the Crown. So, I want a nice townhouse in London, tax free, in perpetuity.
1
‘$400,000 Is Not Going to Do It.’ So what is going to do it? What is your counterproposal?
11
I agree that you can't really put a price tag on selling someone as a field slave. $400,000 seems like too small of an amount.
It also seems a bit crazy to make 19 year old college students on student loans pay reparations for something they had nothing to do with and that happened 180 years ago.
6
Slavery goes back thousands of years and covered every continent. Every shade of people were slaves and every shade of people profited off of slavery. There is still slavery today. I don't know how we give reparations for past injustice, when injustice was and is so prevalent. Every group of people have been treated badly at some point in history.
6
Another reason why Trump will be re-elected.
8
As many have suggested, legacy tuition, room, and board is a great idea. If recipients take full advantage of a Georgetown education and the associated connections, the value will exceed $400K for each individual easily.
3
Yes, reparations can be a start. The danger is that once they are paid we may feel that no further action is needed going forward.
So it begins, and where will it end? If we take this reparations concept to logical conclusion, we might as well re-title all of the United States back to the descendants of the original Native Americans who were living here first. They suffered a genocide and outright seizure of their property at least as comparable, when reinterpreting history with our 21st century perspective, as was the slavery that was imposed upon the Africans.
History happens. Not only the good, but the bad and the ugly as well. Many descendants from many groups can no doubt seek some form of "reparation" from someone else. Armenians from Turkey, many other native Americans from Spain in Central and South America, Rohingya from Myanmar in a contemporary situation, to name a few.
Aside from Georgetown who benefited from a documented private transaction and has taken steps to fund some measure of reparation from their own resources which will amount to millions of dollars over time, in the larger sense where is all this money on a grander scale supposed to come from? Who determines eligibility? Are only white people supposed to pay for it? What if you're mixed race, do you pay out of one pocket, then receive in the other? In theory it sounds like a noble idea, but I'm not sure of the implementation. If $400k per year going forward "is not going to do it," what do people expect, a lottery payout?
5
Slavery is still paying large dividends, a century and a half (not such a long time; Kirk Douglas, who portrayed Spartacus, just died at 103; at his birth, abolition had been a mere half century earlier) later, to institutions that trafficked in humans.
This article's claims are persuasive.
However, I submit that in this election year we take up a similarly important claim about slavery's ongoing, high-dividend-paying legacy, one which in my view touches directly on the 2016 election, yesterday's acquittal, and a nasty festering toxin in our culture: Alexander Hamilton. Ishmael Reed's play about MIranda's blockbuster gloriication of plutocrat-&monarchy-glorifying, slavery-embracing "Hamilton."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/theater/the-haunting-of-lin-manuel-miranda-review.html
I've long believed Hamilton the corruptest of the framers for coddling privilege at public expense, steering institutions to support plutocracy and maximally favor monarchist (as we saw in the impeachment defense, Dershowitz's especially, and outcome) and anti-democratic leanings. His economic policies effectively taxed the poor to install an aristocracy of big money, which Hamilton openly worshiped.
Guggenheim/MacArthur Genius Grant winner (he's no fringe muckraker) Ishmael Reed made a play showing Miranda got so much wrong, particularly Hamilton & slavery.
Just as bad, in my view, the musical helped prime so many for Hamiltonian politics that gave us the trump presidency and acquittal.
1
That’s odd. I’ve been waiting for the checks to start rolling in to me for the many members of my own family who did not live to see me born — because they died on cattle cars, starved to death or took ‘showers’ and went up smokestacks in Germany and elsewhere in Europe; after this country decided it didn’t want ‘Jewish asylum seekers’ to darken its door. The mailman never comes with my money.
Slavery is one of this country’s two original sins; genocide of the true Native Americans being the other. There has been a third: the demonization of immigrants deemed insufficiently “white” to merit admission and citizenship (which has variously included everyone from Jews to Italians, to Poles and Turks and anyone else not of ‘Nordic blood). That began in the early 1900s, was codified in racist immigration quotas in 1924, and continues to this day, despite repeal of the 1924 law over 50 years ago.
All three of these sins have had horrific consequences; and all demand atonement. But ‘your check is in the mail’ isn’t the atonement that is required. Fundamental structural changes in our politics and culture are what is due — and both are now long overdue.
6
Money will not redeem those who sinned nor will it compensate those who were sinned against.
1
What’s crazy is everyone is saying that “My ancestors had nothing to do with slavery but came over after the civil war. Well guess what? Slavery was a thing in the world not just America. African families were disenfranchised across the whole world and all of its countries were apart of this ugly institution. Some of your ancestors are still rich from the production of cotton because cotton was King. So imagine running a free farm for 200 years and so forth. What kind of profits would it yield? How much money would it yield for thousands of plantations. Unimaginable profits that the privileged are still rich in today. Imagine if my family had just the profit from just 1. That idea that a great grandfather had would be manifested. We would surely have a family business. Probably a few patents on my family name. We would have had an opportunity at life liberty and the pursuit of happiness but instead my ancestors was given death. There should be more people alive today. Imagine people who were murdered who was never given the chance to reproduce. You have to be an evil culture to sit back and think of the atrocities committed and say these reparations are not deserved or to say you’re lucky to be in America because before European exploitation Africa. If the slave trade never happened the continent would have thrived and been a major player in world politics and business economics. I would have had on gold resting on a beach tripping over diamonds. Keep America give Africa back
36
@Angry black man
From Henry Louis Gates' interview in the NYT last week:
The myth that our ancestors were kidnapped by your (white) ancestors, David, is just untrue. The fantasy is that my 10th-great-grandmother and -grandfather were out on a picnic and some white people jumped out of the bushes and they ended up on a plantation in Virginia. That’s not how it happened. But one of the things that I’ve dedicated my career to is showing that black people are just as complex, positively and negatively, as anybody else. For years, the mythos that undergirded black history was that the slaves were the victims of European dominance. But really it was the Europeans who were selling guns to African kings, who engaged in wars against other Africans in order to defeat them and then sell the victims to Europeans.
38
@Angry black man I think it was in a Michael Moore Film where I saw an interview with a young Asian German. He said, in effect, that now that he was enjoying the benefits of German citizenship, it was right that he should also take on the responsibility to learn from and try to compensate for Germany's crimes during WWII. He made me ashamed that I've never heard an American say that about slavery.
3
@Angry black man
Your anger will perpetuate your animosity. No, my European ancestors came from dirt poor farms in the Ukraine and Poland. They didn't have slaves black or otherwise and they were not enriched by US southern cotton. They came here with the clothes on their backs escaping Communism and wanting a better life. They never received food stamps, government assistance, Medicaid or benefited from equal opportunity programs. They lived in the Detroit equivalent of the Bowery until they gradually improved their economic status from hard factory work. There were no "Polish" or "Ukrainian" studies or history programs in high school or college, no special grants or college scholarships. They unquestionably benefited from being white in a white dominated power structure in the US.
So no as a second generation American I do not feel any need to make financial reparations to black Americans. I do hope and wish for better communications, better understanding and fair an equal treatment. In that we have a long way to go.
29
If enslaved persons had been fairly compensated for their labor their children would have benefited by inheriting money for advanced education, a business or perhaps a home and/or farm. At a minimum their descendants should receive this sum, factoring in interest from the time of their enslavement.
While it is true that many of our ancestors arrived after the Civil War, we all walk in a land that was significantly created by the labor of slaves. How many of you have visited some of the public buildings in D.C. that were built by slaves? Or Trinity Church in Manhattan, partly built by forced labor? Have you been on the slave-built campus of UNC Chapel Hill? Visited Monticello, Mount Vernon or the U.S. Capitol? Did you know that slaves quarried the stone for the first Smithsonian building?
Slave labor built much of early New York and living residents still benefit from that. You know that wall from which Wall Street gets it's name...
1
@Susan -- And whom do you think built the grand cathedrals and castles of Western Europe -- card-carrying members of the AFL-CIO? Ever hear of 'serfdom' and 'indentured servitude'?
I am not in any way suggesting all of us have nothing for which to atone - but 'your checks are in the mail' is not the appropriate atonement. If we're going to start handing out checks, there are an awful lot of others who might well get in the line.
On my father's side, I am the direct descendant of a family that came here less than a century ago, after being dragged from their homes and all but wiped out in ghettos and concentration camps after being forcibly divested of virtually all of their worldly wealth, homes and possessions. On my mother's side, I am the descendant of grandparents who fled here to avoid being murdered in a wave of pogroms, worked in sweatshops and lived in squalor, vilified by "true white Americans" - having been classified as members of an inferior, nonwhite race by the same American pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo that inspired Hitler.
The notion that I must now atone for the sins of those slaveholding Americans who occupied this land in the 19th century and who perpetrated the vicious Jim Crow regime thereafter -- and who reviled, persecuted and at times lynched my own "ancestors," just as they lynched African-Americans -- is a bit difficult for this kid to digest.
3
This is a very complex question. Clearly, the impact of slavery and Jim Crowe filters down through the generations (as described brilliantly by Isabel Wilkerson in "The Warmth of Other Suns".
However, people alive today are probably 7 generations removed from the slaves sold in 1838. That means the people making claims had 127 other ancestors, in addition to the one they can trace back to those slaves (or perhaps two, if they are descended from two of the slaves). One or two ancestors out of 128 (assuming 7 generations) perhaps gives too much importance to those individuals (in terms of the impact of that sale on those individuals) and makes it very difficult to calculate what an appropriate reparation might be.
Perhaps the most appropriate approach would be to offer Georgetown scholarships to descendants of those individuals, or perhaps to descendants of any slaves from the plantations which purchased human beings from Georgetown -- though I imagine it is very difficult to figure out who those descendants might be.
1
It's $400,000 a year more than they should devote to it. Funny how people complain about not getting enough of what they're not entitled to at all.
7
You mean like farmers getting subsidies?
2
Here’s an idea all neat and tied in a bow. Legacy tuition at Georgetown.
All the complaining, sins of my father, "who didn’t suffer", they fed Christians to the lions—all of that is said repeatedly.
Simply... Legacy tuition to descendants of those enslaved people. They were sold and shipped to be cruelest of the cruel places. Georgetown University people who did it should be held to a higher standard, what with higher learning, and their religion.
Since there was work to be done to keep Georgetown doors open, why didn't they hire the slaves to do the work.
Simply provide legacy tuition to defendants of the enslaved people. Students have to make the grade, but doubtless most will.
Slaves had language and culture violently ripped from them, we can ensure that their children and their children’s children have an education. It’s already been paid for, with labor —sun up to sun down.
All that can be done now is direct action, in peace, asking forgiveness— educate these young ones so as to acknowledge a wrong to be made better.
Year after graduating year, the oral history will be passed on by simply providing Legacy tuition.
Alumni can make it so, refuse endowments or speaking engagements until it happens. Legacy Education.
Requires no more than a stroke of a pen......just like that 19th Century Bill of Sale.
44
Yes!!! And like the lady said in the video, this is an opportunity for Georgetown.
@dogma vat
They could offer them $400 million and they'd want more. It's perpetual blackmail.
3
@Doug Ballard
Perpetual. As in the farm subsidies/welfare that farmers have been getting since the early 1930s and that trump has earmarked $28,000,000,000 for.
2
As someone whose family members never got sufficient reparations to make up for even the direct, calculable financial losses of internment, and who goes back and forth over whether paying off survivors was necessary versus insulting, I really sympathize with this. At the same time, I also feel like, at a certain point, if nothing is ever "enough," a lot of generally well-meaning people will give up on trying to do anything right at all. Four hundred thousand dollars a year isn't a lot, spread across the number of descendants. What it is, as the author notes, is absolutely historic. I feel like we should be able to celebrate that.
1
Now its time for UNC to continue the research to where it leads: inevitably to this first public university being built by slaves and partially funded by selling slaves. I know since my forebears William and Matthew McCauley had given land and money to found the place near their mill and farm in Chapel Hill in 1793.
Then William in 1822 sold a slave and her two children and five days later made a contribution to the struggling university.
The methodology for tracing where the money came from and allotting responsibility has been worked out by the University of Glasgow.
What is lacking is for NC politicians to have the honesty and courage to support such an accounting for UNC.
1
Anyone who thinks the horrific institution of slavery hasn't impacted the way blacks have been treated since abolition took effect needs to open up their eyes.
The sharecropping that blacks were forced into during the Reconstruction and into the 20th century wasn't too far off from slavery, and violence against blacks may not have been government-sanctioned post-Civil War, but blacks certainly were not safe from harm once they were granted freedom.
Any white person who argues that slavery was a long time ago and that recent generations of African Americans simply need to pick themselves up by their boostraps should read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. If that doesn't change your perspective, you're simply too ignorant to pay attention.
As a woman who benefits from white privilege, it's not my place to make assumptions about the black experience in today's America and I'll leave the reparations talk to people much more qualified than me. But it's impossible to deny that African Americans are -- and have always been -- marginalized in this country.
3
@Randi - Bravo!
It seems that we are right back where this all started- "they tell them what's best for them" and "they should be happy to hear it".
From the video, it's clear that economic depravation due to marginalization spawned from the formal and informal structures of slavery, coupled with racism and influences of unintentional and socialized bias have led to red lined communities for which success is measured in simply, staying alive.
My 1st question: how did Georgetown come to $400K/ year- this formula is key to understanding their willingness to do more or better, key to understanding their motivations and clues into their “plans”. Without the formula, we’re really where we started- accepting anything for fear of getting nothing. Understanding the influences of those sitting across from you, helps to manage expectations of reaching your goals.
I declare that we are better than that.
We should be careful not to focus on the money allocated, but instead- what could and will prevent communities from the fate of the community highlighted in the film.
But, $400K/ yearly matched by every “slave-grown” and “slave-backed” institution (public and private sector) held in a trust for African Americans seeking educational, economic and social support- not inclusive of other programs. This level of investment
will lead to improved health outcomes, wealth, infrastructure, increased investment in education and housing disparities, career paths, etc.- literally endless possibilities.
1
Pitiful amount and unchristian ...I grew up catholic ..my whole education was through the Catholic church including a Jesuit University. I left the church because of the hypocrisy..this is also the organization who did away with birth control for their employees but will pay for Viagra for male employees and protect child molesters within their own ranks. I wouldn’t expect more but more empty promises and hypocrisy.
4
The solution is to add Georgetown to the illustrious roster of Historically Black Colleges.
The transition can begin with the next entering class to be fair to currently enrolled students.
3
It would be neat and tidy if Georgetown decides to "pay" for the labor of that group of slaves they've identified. But, how does that recompense for the lives that were lost, the generations crippled, the systemic racism that was endorsed and institutionalized by Georgetown, and others like them? Slavery cost millions both their past and their future. Reparations has to reflect that.
1
There is karmic justice that this history was exposed by Rachel L. Swarns, an alum of Howard University, an HBCU not far from Georgetown.
1
Wouldn't it be nice if Georgetown made a commitment to help each of those 8,000 people every year until each person receives a college education, finds a well paying job and has healthcare? I don't know if a simple check is the answer. A University commitment of time and love together with necessary funds seems more appropriate and more Jesus-inspired. Indeed, Georgetown could fund some of its graduates each year to perform the social services. Maybe give out four year scholarships to social work students in return for a four year commitment at a set salary after earning a degree.
6
Slavery didn't end when the last slave was sold. It will end when its consequences are also history. That is not even close to the case today.
This was a crime of unbelievable brutality that continues to impact a whole people. They are still suffering. Georgetown U. continues to benefit.
I am a white person.
8
The way Georgetown is going about this is no different than the arguments given by slave owners, segregationists, and other bigots and racists. 'It was then and god fearing people believed it was right.' It was never right. The only difference between the racism that was accepted then and the racism that is not accepted now, is that then they got away with it. Jefferson and the rest of the 'fathers' may have been great in some ways; but they were racists and evil in that respect. It was never acceptable. It was a case of might is right. The greatest sin was these racists going to church and believing themselves christians.
4
As a Georgetown University graduate, I benefited by Georgetown’s sale of its slaves in 1838. While it certainly isn’t enough to repay what was taken from these families, I am glad that the University has taken the first step in paying reparations to the families. This is just one of the ways I have benefited as a white person in our white privileged culture.
22
Oh this news makes this 65 year old white privileged woman so happy! How can we ever get to real equity without making reparations for the sins of the past?
4
Why the act of being sold is the trigger rather than the act of being enslaved is beyond me.
And there are many people of color in America today that are not descendants of slaves but are subject to institutional racism and that's a larger issue.
7
Does canon law require that Georgetown, a Catholic institution, seek absolution?
Pay penance?
1
Oh, goody. A handful of college educated people of color will get a lump of money. Children of uneducated single mothers who are themselves still children will continue to perpetuate misery in poverty. A handful of board members will crow about how woke they are, like roosters thinking they caused the sun to rise. And the Senate, White House and courts will remain in the hands of criminals and traitors, as this issue easily causes white people to circle the wagons.
27
Good for your families but worthless for my Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia enslaved black African American ancestors and their heirs including me.
The notion that reparations for the crime against black African American humanity that birthed and built our Constitutional republic of united states can be fixed and repaired by the payment of mere money is not fair nor just nor moral nor objective nor truth and reconciliation
Prison is the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude.
With 5% of humanity America has 25% of Earth's prisoners. And 40% of America's prisoners are black like Ben Carson, Will Hurd, Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott because blacks are persecuted for acting like white people do without any criminal justice consequences.
While by every positive educational, health, housing, medical, political and socioeconomic measure being black African American still makes you separate and unequal to any white European American Judeo-Christian.
On the eve of the Civil War the 4 million enslaved Africans in America in a nation of 30 million were worth more than all of the other capital assets combined. Except for the land.
See ' The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism' Edward Baptist
5
@Blackmamba Interesting, ~ 13%, just like now. That's suppression.
"With more than 8,000 known descendants living today, is the school’s fund even close to what’s owed?"
No, much more is owed.
I think that's great that Georgetown is applying 2020 "wokeness" to an act which occurred in 1838.
Now, the Dutch paid the Munsee Indians about $25.00 for Manhattan island in 1626. The descendants of the Native Americans whose land was all but stolen by fraud and duress certainly number a lot today.
All persons residing in NYC, people of color or of no color, should start depositing their funds in collection cans set up around the City until reparations are paid.
Conservative estimates of Manhattan's land worth today are about 1.4 trillion dollars.
https://ny.curbed.com/2016/1/7/10849000/how-much-is-all-of-the-land-in-manhattan-worth
Let he who is without sin cast the first dollar.
13
@Jubilee133
Instead of distributing the money, create an investment fund which will support descendants with loans and awards from earnings based.
1
Fair enough, but it seems odd that the only ones willing to do reparations are another egregiously oppressed group from America's past. For heavens sake some of the Ivy League colleges were still discriminating against Catholics well into the 1960s, it was even admitted in the Yale alumni magazine. Targeting Georgetown over the reparations issue seems to me just another episode in this saga. Where are the stories about Princeton and Yale doing nothing to make amends.
8
It's impossible to make reparations to the now-deceased people who died and suffered. All of their decedents worthy by legacy? Doubt it. People are all burdened and enriched by legacy to varying degrees. Seems our job is to make the here and now less burdened by these things, and reparations to certain individuals aren't the way.
21
I am a bleeding heart liberal Democrat who finds racism and discrimination in all its forms completely abhorent and unconscionable. Slavery was a horrible sin and injustice. But the notion that descendants of slaves are "owed" anything nearly 200 years after the fact is totally and completely ridiculous.
78
That Georgetown University continues to thrive and represent the elite, backed by a huge endowment, is unconscionable.
The endowment should be wiped and the proceeds devoted to a program designed to bring up the level of educational resources of slave descendants such that the huge social/educational disadvantages they continue to suffer are erased. $400,000 is an insult.
47
@Stephen Reeders what I've noticed is that people are all for reparations when it's not their own money.
Anyone who lives in Boston is on the ancestral lands of the Massachusett tribe. Maybe you can start by giving their ancestors a chuck of your assets, maybe your home that's built on stolen land.
Not going to happen, is it.
77
@Stephen Reeders
Are you joking? It is hard to read this seriously rather than as a parody.
This is not an issue that should or would rightfully call for the label of racism when someone opposes the idea of reparations.
Please recognize that someone who is honest, not bigoted and well educated can hold a view opposite yours, and still be a good person, just as I value your belief that reparations are of value, which I strongly disagree with.
That being said, realize that by you, in your wisdom, have come up with a sum that you think is 'right' for the institution to pay to assuage their feelings of guilt, along with one of the measures you use as to how deep their pockets are, shows that one of your major indicators and goals is to get money.
No matter how you argue that a larger sum would be more appropriate (and make your bank account bigger) since it would hurt the institution, as if that would have a helpful effect. It would only weaken the chances for the university to offer lower cost tuition, high quality education, and of course do absolutely nothing to enhance elimination of bigotry and racial tensions.
Bad idea. Not everyone thinks that it will accomplish what is being forwarded as the goal of offering reparations was intended to do.
And the "I didn't get enough" card was played, loud and clear with this opinion piece.
17
Can the good Georgetown University has done in its 4 centuries of existence be measured? It is a living institution prepared to do more good. It has recognized its moral errors of participating in the U.S, slave economy. It has identified the descendants of the original group sold off, and has made arrangements to educate their descendants. I think that is a good offer, a balanced arrangement. You know. in mediation there is rarely a flat out winner. All parties give way, more or less. Know when to stop and get on with your life.
13
Reparations by Georgetown are a decision for Georgetown. But reparations for a long history of mistreatment to all African Americans is in order but impossible to adequately and fairly distribute. Will they be paid by all Americans even black Americans, the descendants of Union soldiers, whites who opposed salary, the descendants of Selma marchers or the millions whose ancestors recently arrived here? Hard questions to answer. think we need to lift a!l people who need help whatever their DNA.
12
I'm not sure what harm is being compensated here--selling the slaves? Sounds like Georgetown's crime was deciding to get out of the slavery business (and keeping good records). If they had kept the slaves, then no harm no foul?
25
"Deuteronomy 24:16 says “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin” and that “The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself” (Ez 18:20)."
-Where does this end?
24
@Rob Perfect considerations for right now re: modern concepts of LEGACY and Good and Evil. Seems like we're caught up in some serious legacy issues of all sorts right now, socially, politically---even bizarre idol worship and false pride. A lot of smoke and mirrors.
Slavery is one of the most abhorrent of institutions ever created by humankind. And Georgetown (of which I am an alum) should have a campaign of atonement for its part in it.
However, reparations are not the answer. The potential recipients were not wronged by the repulsive system that was the law in the early 19th century, their long deceased ancestors were.
Better to use the resources gathered to repent for Georgetown’s role in this horrific system to help address racism and the other lingering consequences of slavery in our society, and to fight the trafficking and slavery that is still so widespread here and in the world.
89
@Andrew A much better way for the school is to offer those descendants a free education. Slavery was just the beginning. Exclusion from economic advance has had a far more harmful effect than anything else. $400,000 is chump change and the school know it. Free tuition is of much greater value as it offers advancement for generations.
8
@Andrew I I would posit a guess that you are not a descendant. Yet you appear to know better than they what is "best" for them. Descendants are, as we see in the video, still impacted by the ills of enslavement.
Yes, Georgetown can show its commitment to eradicating slavery in the present, but first it must thoughtfully and fully address the lingering harm that it wrought by commercializing black bodies.
2
@Andrew ...."The potential recipients were not wronged by the repulsive system that was the law in the early 19th century, their long deceased ancestors were."
By your logic the Jews should have never received any reparations for the Nazi atrocities. Thousands of Jewish reparations recipients were never directly "wronged" by the Nazi regime. However, many of their respective family members were - which (rightly) qualified them to receive the reparations.
How then, in your mind, is the African-American experience different (fundamentally) from the Jewish holocaust experience - other than that the African-Americans were never lined up and marched into poison gas chambers (of course, this would have happened had they existed at the time).
I hope that you read this and will answer.
I do not believe that there is any fair way to compensate anyone for actions taken more than two decades before anyone involved was born. Nor is slavery the only (or even the worst) behavior of even American entities which has happened in the last two centuries - that would be our treatment of native / aboriginal Americans. I would strongly agree that more recent mistreatment e.g. Jim Crow, denial of voting rights, institutional racism such as "driving while black" currently require compensation. Reparations for slavery seem to me silly in comparison.
4
So they want to get paid because horrible, unspeakable things happened to *somebody else* in 1838. Again, I have to emphasize: in 1838. When people talk about "identity politics" this is the kind of thing they are bemoaning. It stretches the limits of credulity to claim any kind of victimhood for things that happened to your ancestors almost 200 years ago.
23
I’m not African-American, but think that the best way to make reparations would be to finance the college and graduate educations - at any accredited college or university - of all of the descendants of the enslaved people sold by Georgetown.
8
Up to you and them. Complain if you want. Don't take the money if you don't care to... Argue some more. Fine by me. The general problem here is who sold the slaves to who sold the slaves to Georgetown? It wasn't "white men" rounding up slaves to sell in Africa, it was "fellow Africans." Slavery was the "accepted" way of the world - then - and slaves came in all colors and were sold and "de facto" mistreated. "De facto" because who'd want to be a slave? So that must "bad" - even if you sold yourself into slavery; an "option" now illegal - in many places, but not all, even today. Meanwhile, the Viking economy was largely slave based. (Did you think the Viking were just in if for the beer?) So, who do the Danes of today, for example, owe reparations to? You can always find a bad buy when there's a bag of money to be had... Good luck with all that. My guess is "they" can always come up with a "Trumpian" defense to whatever you present: "It wasn't explicitly illegal then - as far as I still know."
13
I am very sympathetic toward the idea of Reparations paid to African Americans for the loss of ancestral wealth, but I don't see how handing out money to descendants can ever be fairly accomplished. Who gets to decide who qualifies for payment, who exactly is a "descendant", and to what degree has each descendant been harmed?
A better idea was the Affirmative Action programs that gave individuals harmed by racism who possessed ability and ambition a fair chance to develop their talents and intellect. It worked pretty well, but it too was a political minefield. As with everything else involving race, it becomes very complicated and there are no simple fixes.
5
No one at a Georgetown in the past 150+ years sold your ancestors into slavery. Slavery was a plague upon the earth and nothing, including money, will ever erase that fact. But the idea of paying reparations to anyone at this point is absurd.
35
The reparations movement is a huge mistake. There is no reasonable way to undo the wrongs of the past. And how would you pass on such a windfall? Considering the historical records are woefully incomplete how would you decide if someone is of sufficient slave ancestry to be entitled?
And what about the idea of ancestry itself? Ancestry is at the core of bigotry. It reinforces the very essence of bigotry and xenophobia. The past is gone. Deal with the present.
That does not mean that we should not take actions that
will undo the damage of discrimination. Any substantive action will cost money so money is not the issue. It's a matter of doing the most good possible for that cost.
Reparations will always be an empty gesture that does nothing to mitigate the bigotry and disadvantages that black people and the disadvantaged are subjected to.
14
Slavery is an abomination. It still exists, all over the world. And reparations will not “fix” it. Georgetown can do whatever it wants as a private institution. The call for reparations represents the dangerous extreme of identity politics that is confounding and further dividing our nation, and has got to go. Spreading the entitlement around just generates further victimhood and resentment.
19
It is impossoble to determine how the ancestors of their slaves have been damaged by the institution of slavery from over 150 years ago. However, with a $1.69 billion endowment, Georgetown can afford to give them a free education. That should be more than enough.
5
How strange to see comments that separate people by color here, at least one of the descendants clearly had European heritage, probably others did as well. Heritage is not the issue, the issue is the damage done by the sale - which is impossible to quantify by anyone of any color. Trauma is individual first. It's a question of justice by the University - for those affected. Already being enslaved is a strange criteria for not justifying repair, discrimination based on color doesn't work any way you apply it. Clearly the community needs help, they were hurt in ways we can't imagine and any journey begins with the first step. 50 bucks in an insult, but let the negotiation begin.
4
Georgetown exists because their ancestors were sold. The only equitable solution is for Georgetown to sell all its assets and divide the proceeds among all the descendants. Yes, it will go out of business. But it would never have continued to exist were it not for the value placed on their ancestors and their labor.
Yes, were in the new millennium where what exists must be torn down because... well, just because. And Georgetown’s accomplishments as a university educating thousands? Yah, worthless. I get it.
14
I see that many commenters don't really understand the case for reparations- and this article didn't really make it, it just assumed we understood the basics. Clearly we don't. So here's a short summary for the white folks who aren't getting it.
Most of us white folks have inherited wealth and advantages from our parents, who inherited from theirs, etc. If you go four or five generations back, you've got dozens of individual ancestors, and doubtless some were better-off than others. But on the average, they're putting away money for their children. They're moving to neighborhoods with better schools. They're hiring their kids into family businesses. They're paying for college. Every generation is better off than the last. If your ancestors had been enslaved, that process wouldn't have ever gotten started. The fruits of their labor would have gone to someone else. Someone white. The institution of slavery represents a gigantic transfer of wealth from black families to white families. White families didn't just keep that wealth- they invested it, multiplied it (often in ways that black families, even if they had wealth, were legally prohibited from doing). They passed it to you. So yes, it still matters today.
Imagine somebody stole your grandma's $200 paycheck every week and used the money to buy stocks, and now they're a millionaire. Your grandma never bought any stocks- how could she, without her paycheck? How much would you feel your family was owed?
8
@Kate
Nice theory.
Unfortunately there are more poor white folks in America than poor black folks.
African American Poverty Rate: 9.0 million people who fell below the poverty line in 2017
White Poverty Rate: 17.0 million people who fell below the poverty line in 2017
https://talkpoverty.org/basics/
A short summary for those folks who don't get it.
1
Most of us white folks inherited wealth really?. I have a bunch of white friends and family and none of us got anything . Our grandparents were murdered in the holocaust , and out parents worked in factories 6 days a week
And by the way , the holocaust reparations for my in-laws amounted $300.00 a month . A pittance considering everything that was stolen from them . And that’s not counting the pain of knowing that your family was murdered in the cruelest ways ever devised by mankind .and the damage to their physical and mental health .
You should educate yourself about white folks who apparently don’t have what you do .
2
@Mike
“Unfortunately there are more poor white folks in America than poor black folks.” And there are more white folks on welfare than black folks, including farm subsidies which mostly white farmers have been getting since the early 1930s. Too bad white people haven’t pulled themselves up by their bootstraps like white people are always telling black people to do.
Reparations advocates would do well to examine Canada's current policy to award, to date, $4.7 billion as part of the Indian Residential Schools settlement for children subjected to abuse, and cultural denigration - to, so far, 38,000 former students at these institutions. This receiving group can be accurately and directly identified as students at these former institutions, going back between about 1920 to 1960. [Wikepedia is a good starter source on this.]
Rigid politically correct media self-censorship in Canada prevents any discussion as to what the recipients have done or will do with the money. Because of this, there is no discussion of how this flow of money has helped the lives of these recipients or their on-going families. So there is no analysis of whether this flow of money has achieved anything in reducing on-going poverty, ill health, social misery, poor education , and unemployment in our First Nations people - which is currently at a disgraceful level.
Canada's Residential School Settlement is a case study waiting to be undertaken as to what, if any, long term improvements come from reparations payments.
10
I am not taking a position in this debate, but as I read Comments and Replies, it seems as though the very notion of reparations--let alone the actuality of them--is only stirring up racial anger and social divide. These are the last things we need in the world around us. Is it possible that reparations could actually cause more harm than they resolve? How can a later generation offer reparations for the sins of earlier generations? Are there more effective ways to address the legacy of slavery than reparations? As others have stated, it is right and proper that we return Australia to the Aborigines; America to the Native Americans. And Spain should pay reparations to South America, and England to India, and the Holocaust, and destruction of the various once "uncontacted tribes", and Muslim conquest of North Africa . But we can't raise the dead; we can't remedy the past. How do we move forward?
12
I am a Georgetown graduate and this history is a tough pill to swallow. Like most institutions in the country, it could be buried and hidden. But I applaud Georgetown for recognizing and at least attempting to be one of the few institutions that will pay reparations.
Now, 400,000 feels ridiculous. Whether more or less than that amount, what is 400,000 going to solve on the font of institutional racism, poverty, and inequality. Money is great, but that will go away and we are back where we started. The original 272 and ALL descendants are Georgetown family, and as such, the university must take care of them like family and see through their healthcare, education, and well being. And give them a path towards safety and wealth that a lump sum of cash will not provide. Give all of them a chance to best escape the institutional bias against them, however impossible that might be.
If you just remove their endowment, they will raise more. And they will profit as a “good” institution that paid reparations. They need to teach this history and show how to change institutions through eduction, healthcare, and opportunity by supporting these members of Georgetown.
2
I’ll take reparations seriously when all descendants of immigrants, of whatever color, start signing over the deeds of their houses to Native American tribes. Otherwise it’s just pious left wing virtue signaling and grievance politics. Keep on focusing on reparations if you want to re-elect Trump in a landslide.
34
Georgetown is a private institution free to do as it pleases. Since I have no affiliation whatsoever with Georgetown, I do not feel entitled to opine on its actions. Having said that I do feel public or government sanctioned and financed reparations would do nothing but add to our bitter divisions, increase racial animus and empower bigotry. We need to do better going forward. There is no one alive today who needs to atone for or is liable for the sins of the past. All of us however need to do better to assure absolute equal treatment for all of God’s children and to confront and overcome our own fears and biases.
9
I think free college tuition she be given to those that qualify, in addition to educational assistance programs.
5
MLK Jr was for reparations of or the black descendant s of American slavery.
https://www.theroot.com/exclusive-martin-luther-king-jr-talks-reparations-wh-1837907942
American slavery, foundational as it was, laid the ground work for american economic greatness of which we still enjoy to this day.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist.
National / federal government policies, since the inception of this nation, sustained slavery/racial apartheid/ econmic marginalization via policy: the 3/5ths compromise, the Slave fugitive act, Plessy v Ferguson, Berea v Kentucky , excluding blacks soldiers from GI BILL post WWII are in black and white.
Notice, I did not mentioned you as an individual committed these atrocities. But, one could argue, to this day many still largely benefit from our ADOS degradation as reflected above as examples.
1
So here's the test case proving that we need to stop the national discussion on reparations before it gains more steam. Putting aside the political, logistical, financial obstacle, the entire enterprise is doomed to fail for exactly the reasons outlined here. There is no way that we can expect people to receive reparations checks and not turn around and say, "do you think this is fair compensation for slavery?" And if we're going to be in the same place the day after reparations that we are right now, there's no sense further dividing the country over this issue.
29
Giving cash to people does not make them self sufficient, proud or more productive. Far better to offer education or an opportunity to work to those descendants.
23
Where does it end or how much is it going to cost. Do you really believe the US government is going to spend billions for reparations. What about the AMERICAN Indians. They lost their country. What about the Irish and Italians who were equally discriminated against in the late 1800 and early 1900 . Do they deserve anything. If you want trump to get re-elected by an unanimous vote make reparations a campaign issue.
29
@Vincent Papa you are incorrect and misinformed, the discrimation against italians and Irish was not the same as slavery or even the discrimination that african-americans still face to this day.
As one man said in the film accompanying this article, $400,000 works out to $50 per descendant which is not only a slap in the face, it's a kick in the behind. Georgetown's very existence was salvaged by the sale of slaves. Georgetown's board should review its endowment and alumni resources for a substantial contribution not this paltry amount. The one billion for a foundation that is being requested sounds eminently reasonable as compensation for descendants of five generations whose lives were wrecked by uprooting, lack of churches, poverty, poor health, the worst and hardest jobs and every kind of discrimination.
2
As a Catholic I am ashamed of the behavior of the administration of Georgetown University. This a case of adding insult to injury. Georgetown needs to do better--much better. This was a shameful chapter in the history of the Catholic Church in America. Let's not pretend that damage was not done to innocent people. I am grateful that the writers have brought this new scandal to light. Now Georgetown needs to do the right thing. Will they?
1
This makes no sense. Georgetown doesn't owe reparations to the descendants of slaves it sold 182 years ago. It was a participant in society as it existed in the early 19th century and nothing I have seen about this story indicates that Georgetown did anything sufficiently inconsistent with the norms of that society so as to create a debt lasting nearly two centuries.
This is just a sop to student activists who shouldn't be encouraged,
51
@Joel At no point in human history was were humans incapable of knowing that enslaving other people was unjust. This idea that participating in a societal evil that was the norm at the time absolves one from responsibility for that action is at best disingenuous.
1
How do the living descendants of the sold slaves claim pain and suffering to legally justify reparations? Seems like reparations, legally and by definition, should be for the living, and there are no living slaves from that sad chapter.
20
I know this will not be popular, but from a strictly political standpoint, the issue of reparations will guarantee us Trump-like (and worse) administrations for the indefinite future.
40
@Tim H The constant refrain by those who have not borne the brunt of the legacy of slavery is always, not now. If not now when? When will there ever be a better time to fix this wrong? The threat that we will continue to have Trump and his ilk rings hollow for those who have been impacted b y the constancy of systemic oppression. It's why Make America Great Again is particularly offensive to non-white people.
1
@Tim H You need to brush up on American history. The problems for Africans and their descendants did not end with the abolition of slavery. African Americans were denied opportunities for more than a century after the abolition of slavery. We are still feeling the effects of this very sad chapter of American history, Attitudes such as your certainly don't help.
1
I like the use of the phrase "enslaved people" rather than the dehumanizing word "slave". I suspect it's a regular thing that I just haven't noticed before.
Sometimes it seems that people have a greater capacity to nurse a wound than to forgive. A university other than Georgetown could come to regret this move, because rather than be praised for a noble gesture, they may be cursed for the inadequacy of the payment. The university probably won't be surprised by such a reaction, because of course no amount of money can atone for the sin of slavery.
Georgetown's roots as a Jesuit university may give them a different, perhaps longer-term, perspective. It's not my perspective, but I respect them for acting according to their principles.
3
Why are you owed anything? Regardless of the wrongs done to your ancestors, it was not you who endured the hardship and oppression. If you go back far enough, most of us could claim ancestors that were enslaved, tortured, and/or murdered at the hands of oppressive rulers, monarchs, and dictators... do we deserve anything? No, I say we should not profit off the abuses experienced by our forefathers. People have been horrible to one another throughout history. The only thing any of us deserve is to be better in the future.
42
@M But why then are the descendants of those who enslaved others perpetually able to profit from the enslavement? At the heart of this country's wealth is enslavement of Africans and the theft of land from native people. And while the enslavers and exploiters and their descendants perpetually benefit from these wrongs, the enslaved and exploited and their descendants are never able to benefit from the value of the labor that was used to build this country or the value of the land that was stolen to create this country. Is that your assertion?
1
Japanese internment camp subjects deserved reparations, but not from the U.S. The Imperial Japanese leadership's actions were the root cause of this sorrowful episode, and they are the ones who should have paid the bill. Likewise claims of American slave descendants' should be presented to the kings of Benin and other African potentates who made slavery possible by rounding up their own people by force of arms and selling them like raw materials to slave ship captains.
15
I applaud the NYT for creating this piece and vehemently encourage them to produce more videos depicting the stories shown and arguments made for reparations in America, so that we can ensure that this ridiculous, unfounded and truly absurd idea NEVER happens in this country.
Not one person, not a single one, gave a single reason or made a legitimate argument for reparations, other than to complain that the one university in the country that is trying to appear woke enough (PR stunt but fine) isn't giving them ENOUGH money. Laughable.
It has been nearly 200 years. In no way is anyone condoning or arguing that slavery wasn't an awful institution, but why is the time for reparations now? Not one person in that video was a slave, nor were their parents or generations before them. 200 years. And they feel that they are owed money for their ancestors work? What?
Mentioning reparations is one of the most sure ways to lose in 2020, and if this scourge picks up momentum and finds itself being mentioned by the Dem candidates, the NYT can run a new digital short asking those same people how they like having Trump for four more years, and likely another GOP candidate after that. Americans do not care, and will not be OK with this. Simply put. Get over it, go to school, get a job, and beat us at our own game for once.
21
A ridiculous exercise is wealth appropriation. No one today was ever a slave, nor were their parents,...or their grandparents. Nor is giving bags of cash to individuals going to solve any societal problem. Finally, we could spend the rest of our days chronicling every instance of one ethnic, religious, gender or other group mistreating another. Yet, how to deal with the very obvious disparities across lines of race and gender. Perhaps society could devote real resources to giving all people the resources that they need to succeed. If we recognized that we are all in this together - that society is better when everyone has a fair shot - we are better off.
29
Georgetown (and all others with private wealth) are free to pay reparations to whomever they wish.
7
So long as not one of my tax dollars is used do whatever you like.
17
What if reparations were offered contingent that the decendents of slaves receiving the payment return to Africa? Surely there is a positive aspect that decedents of slaves have a better standard of living than those currently living in Africa? Seems like there are quite a few Africans wanting to immigrate to America.
11
I’ll consider reparations anything less than a ridiculous - and dangerous - idea when African Americans offer to pay reparations to Jewish Americans for the 450 years our ancestors were enslaved to build the pyramids in Egypt; it is my understanding that African Americans consider themselves direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians. Ridiculous? Of course. But any less legitimate than Jewish Americans paying reparations for black slavery? Please explain why.
26
What about me?
Due to the English, my ancestors in Ireland starved/were murdered/attacked/left in deep poverty for hundreds of years and some of those left standing took off for America.
Can I make a claim against England?
18
So do you pay the descendants of white child laborers in this country, of which there are tens of millions, who were paid a dollar a day to toil in dangerous factories for 16 hours a day?
Didn’t think so.
19
Reparations for slavery are a good idea. Slavery has had a negative impact in the lives of African-Americans since its abolition.
Reparations will put that issue to bed, once and for all.
@Jp Have you read the comments in this section? I don't think reparations are going to put anything "to bed."
8
In the mid-1990s, the state of Florida paid reparations to victims of the Rosewood massacre, which happened back around 1923, so Georgetown's action would not be the first.
2
Like most long-term debt, it compounds with time. In this case, with a growing number of dependents, it compounds exponentially with each new generation. This is a warning and a reason to settle all reparations for slavery ASAP.
Does this then give me the right to sue Italy because some of my ancestors were held as slaves by others who may have been their ancestors?
14
Reparations? Who all should pay? What about collecting from the European countries that first transported slaves to their Americas colonies, including the West Indies (especially Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica)? Let's be inclusive! The West Indies descendants of slavery are surely more in need today than anyone in the USA?
7
Reparations for all decedents of slaves is owed. I suggest free college tuition for all who qualify and trades schools for those who don't. Also, accumulating wealth through interest free mortgage loans that can be passed on to offspring with no taxes attached.
1
At over a billion dollars in assets (that we know about), they can certainly afford any reparations they distribute.
31
@Leo
why not 10 billion dollars ?
4
Dorothy Taylor Dorsey (one of the women extensively interviewed in the op-doc) is actually the GRANDDAUGHTER of one of the Georgetown slaves. (That's a fact, not a typographical error). Georgetown University literally owned and sold her granddad. So much for the argument that slavery happened a long time ago, to ancestors no-one remembers.
78
@Cantab
The sale took place in 1838. This was 180 years ago.
13
@Cantab Good point! The very last person born into slavery in the United States died in the 1960s. Add a couple of generations and voila: Dorothy Taylor Dorsey. Her grandfather was a mere child when the Jesuits sold him in 1838, and he apparently lived long and prospered.
So yes, slavery did happen a long time ago, but then again, it was not that long ago.
5
@Cantab The key here is: her *grandad.* Not her. Her grandfather is the victim here. She is not.
27
"In 2019, Georgetown students pushed the school to create a reparations fund."
I think you mean Georgetown students (those who's parents pay their tuition) pushed the school to create..
11
The US Govt should be issuing reparations. Look up the UN’s “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation.” It states, “statutes of limitations shall not apply to gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law which constitute crimes under international law.” For some reason, when we talk about descendants of slavery, people begin to question the validity of reparations as a form of acknowledgement of state-inflicted human rights violations. But this is not a foreign concept. The US has already paid reparations to survivors of Japanese American internment camps and other human rights abuses.
13
@Miriam H This was not the US government. Read the artilcle.
4
@Miriam H "The US has already paid reparations to survivors of Japanese American internment camps "
Correct, money was paid to those who were harmed. No money was paid to descendants 9 generations removed.
If “statutes of limitations shall not apply to gross violations of international human rights" should we not be demanding reparations from the Italian and Greek governments for their slavery thousands of years ago?
When is enough enough?
20
@Miriam H
I don’t feel guilty, my parents and grand parents had nothing to do with slavery and cane to the states after the civil war. No one penny of my tax dollars should be spent on reparations.
26
No it's not close. There is no amount of money that can repay those who had their lives and labor stolen by slavery.
It is shameful that reparations never happened in this country and that this many years later we are trying to figure out what is right and fair.
Glad Georgetown is doing something. More should be done, including more education about the history of this country.
29
As the great granddaughter of slaves I struggle to see how reparations can fairly be assigned a number and distributed. I could see how my great grandmothers lives might have been improved which might have put our family on a slightly better financial path but it would not have significantly changed the outcome for the 3rd, 4th, and other generations to come. My paternal side of the family significantly benefitted from moving to Texas from North Carolina. My maternal side sent their kids to the US after the Revolution freed them sparing from possibly being killed in the Holocaust/WWII. Being relocated isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Then there is the question of how much is fair. My family has done quite well because the former slaves demanded their kids achieve high educational standards, hard work, and to never whine about things that are out of their control. Most importantly they were told they could do anything they wanted to do. Most in our family are very successful. I know not everyone had such an upbringing.
Any reparations need to be in the form of opportunities to improve one's lot in life. Paying for a college education for the 8000 should be more than enough. And if education is not the person's thing, the money could go towards a business or trust.
6
When the rich are given money it is called economic incentive; when the poor are given money it is called creating dependency. Would reparations for this generation of descendants cancel lingering obligations into the future for housing and opportunity lost to color? Would it lower the value of the blood shed by so many to end slavery? Can it be done for only those whose ancestors worked for a now wealthy institution? I am all for justice in all forums; in courtrooms and in economic opportunity. How this is sorted out will be intensely watched.
1
I am a woman. My female ancestors were treated like brood mares and second class citizens from the beginning of time. They were raped, molested, beaten and denied basic human rights solely because of a genetic twist of fate.
I think I am entitled to receive compensation for the wrongs done to my female ancestors.
Sounds crazy? Why should anyone receive any compensation for pain inflicted on my great great grandparents?
17
Reparations can work well in specific instances.
1. You can identify who was harmed.
2. You can identify who or what performed the harm.
3. Group #2 pays group #1.
That is why the Georgetown reparations worked. They kept detailed records of those enslaved, and they are paying reparations to their ancestors.
It also describes why general reparations does not work. Many people or their ancestors arrived in the USA long after slavery ended. Why hold them responsible? My parents arrived in the 1970s. No way I am accepting reparations.
76
@Concerned Reader
You may not accept reparations,
but I'll bet you do accept the benefits of being white.
8
@Zetelmo Tell my poor Appalachian neighbors about their white privilege. Yes, those whose jobs were shipped overseas.
7
@Lee Herring - and your poor Appalachian neighbors have their civil rights to move to another location and use their white privilege for jobs.
3
The people of color that I know and have a relationship with would say: "Keep the money. I/we have made of ourselves all that we need to be. Do not debase us by buying us again."
10
That's all well and good, but, don't expect the taxpayers to pay for anything.
It's not our job or our responsibility to make you feel better about the past.
Today's Americans don't owe you anything.
16
Historically, Georgetown sold slaves.
Was that ethically worse than keeping slaves?
We don't know the impact on the slaves themselves. Maybe they ended up in better conditions after the sale.
Considering the context of the times and many unknowns, it's impossible to definitively determine a level of moral liability on present-day Georgetown University.
6
So, if one of my distant forebears was treated very badly, I'm entitled to some dough? Where do I sign up?
22
This is a good start but this country needs to step up and do more.
Well, this will make more Trumpists.
11
Reparations from known slave owners to known descendents of slaves is one thing that I am OK with.
Reparations from non-slave owners, descendents of Northern soldiers or of people who were not here at the time, that is, the general taxpaying public, is not something I can support.
Reparations from the State of South Carolina is one thing, reparations from the state of Maine is far different.
12
Reparations solve nothing, resolve nothing and mean nothing. You cannot compensate the 272 people sold by giving money to distant relatives. Payment for slavery was made, en mass, during the Civil War when 360,000 med died to free the slaves. Righting the wrongs of Jim Crow and civil rights issues is an entirely other matter and should not be swept up into a generic "slavery reparations" plan. Only more funding for low income schools, better job training, easier access to low interest loans and capital for businesses can provide a sustained and meaningful way to address these wrongs. Writing a check solves nothing.
12
The people Georgetown sold were already enslaved. They were not enslaved by Georgetown. Why is all this Georgetown's responsibility to compensate?
11
Maybe to effect real change would be less to give money to descendants of slaves but randomly and arbitrarily take money from white people so as to render them unequal and financially insecure. Place obstacles in the paths of white people such as low-performing schools, poor transportation, food deserts, radical pay disparities, uneven rates of arrest and incarceration, and more maybe they will see that "reparations" are not that at all because they don't repair the built-in and reinforced racism that exists in American life. This is compensation and it's hardly enough.
1
After hundreds of years, the U.S. has yet to come to terms with its original sin and continues to suffer for it.
3
No one is owed so much as a dime for the suffering of their ancestors, let alone out of the pockets of folks who did them no wrong.
Anyone who believes that Americans owe him anything needs to find another country of which to be part.
22
“With over 8000 dependents is the school’s fund close ...to what is owed.”
How can these justice-seeking descendants put a number on the life of a slave? How do they address the in-between generations, those who lived and died as free people?
Talk about a can of worms. The intention is noble, but the outcomes will be negligible.
2
Not the first. In 1783, Belinda Sutton petitioned a Massachusetts court for a pension to be paid out of the estate of the Royall family, who had held her in bondage for fifty years. She won her pension.
Much of the Royall family fortune, built on the backs of enslaved humans, was given to Harvard and would go on to provide the foundation for the Harvard Law School.
1
Reparations are a very dangerous precedent. It opens a Pandora’s Box in the sense of where does it all end? Shouldn’t there be reparations for Native Americans? What about Japanese-Americans interred during WWII? Don’t they deserve reparations too?
1
If European companies could pay out settlements to the descendants of Holocaust survivors (as the French national rail company did in 2017), I can't see why a university can't pay compensation to the descendants of people it enslaved.
3
The whole movement for reparations is based upon a fallacy that the people paying the taxes to fund the reparations are the beneficiaries of those who profited from the slaves owned long ago.
Those beneficiaries pay very little of the taxes that would fund the reparations. Most of the taxes paid today are paid by people whose ancestors didn't even come to the US until after slavery ended.
The reparations movement is really just another scheme to take wealth from those who are productive and give it to those who produce little.
5
As a white man, I have absolutely no problem with paying reparations. I doubt any amount will really make amends for what people had to endure. Look at it from the viewpoint of pain and suffering. If you are harmed, say by talcum powder, a jury awards like $50 million or something. But if you were sold off as a slave, your descendants should get a fraction of that? Doesn't seem right. But my concern with the whole thing is that white folks in America will feel the debt is paid and the matter is now closed. Racism, in a new context, can thrive because the slate has been wiped clean. Equality achieved. No more grievance. As long as the big B is not on the rental application, there must be another non race related reason you can't get an apartment at a particular property. I guess my feeling is don't be so eager to let us off the hook.
1
Does Georgetown get to decide the value of Reparations? I don't think so.
For those who argue against Reparations, I suggest you read upon Germany's response to the Holocaust or American response to Japanese internment.
Then, I suggest you go back into American history (or just listen to Dr. King's last Sunday sermon at the Washington National Cathedral where he laid out plainly and clearly how America had given land to European peasants in the Midwest, built land grant universities to teach them how to farm, and I might add, built and infrastructure to get their products to market.
Now, for a people who were held for 244 years in enslavement, another 100 years of Jim and Jane Crow, they should just get over it or look to some/maybe future, undefined opportunities or equalities.
No, Reparations are the order. Every wrong needs to be righted, and the Georgetown's do not get to decide the compensation package.
@OColeman Of course Georgetown gets to decide; they are offering the compensation. Do you actually think it's a good idea to allow people to decide how much other tax-paying citizens should pay them for something that happened hundreds of years ago? When will it end? Do you really see a descendant of a slave saying "Yes, that's enough, I've been fairly compensated?" I don't see that happening.
8
I’m concerned, how exactly would it be determined who is a descendant of a slave who lived almost 2 hundred years ago and who is not? What percentage of a person is related to identified slave, and what percentage of the person is related to non-slaves or unknown? Does slave ancestor need to be African, or could slave ancestor be Native American? (Why have we not paid for Native peoples’ lands?) Would individual reparations lead to whites claiming a payment for their beloved great-great-great-great ancestor who was part slave, and would it matter?
4
It would almost be worth it to pay reparations if we had any assurance that the people who seek them would finally let go of the past and begin to live in the present.
3
Holocaust reparations went to survivors.
They did not go to the descendants of the survivors, nor should they have.
16
Reparations by perpetrators for victims sounds great, but it's hard for dead people to make reparations to other dead people. None of the perpetrators and victims of slavery have been alive for a hundred years.
7
Its like the $500M settlement that Equifax had to pay for the data breach. It all went to lawyers, consumers never saw a penny.
So I doubt these descendants will even see a penny of the $400,000. The Lawyers and Banks will take it all as fees.
Welcome to TrumpMerica
Writing checks to individuals is a ridiculous way to compensate the black community for the injuries of slavery. What we need to do is lift up the entire community as a whole. We need to commit to the schools in their neighborhoods being just as shiny and well-staffed as the schools in white neighborhoods. We need a fully funded system of public defense lawyers so people of color can get the same justice as those who can pay for it. And yes, we need affirmative action in many areas of American life, even though there will be screeching from the white community of unfair bias. Well, what was slavery but extremely unfair bias? If we really mean to compensate, to address, to admit, to regret -- then there must be some sacrifice. An apology with no sacrifice is no apology.
This is why reparations will never get passed. This happened nearly 200 years ago, Georgetown doesn’t owe you anything.
You should take the gift of preferential admissions, financial aid and make something if yourselves other than complaining that it’s not enough. My guess is that it will never be enough for the descendants of these people who were treated horribly.
I’m begging you to stop the whining and move on with your lives in today’s free society.
5
During my adult life, the Feds have spent billions to fund Affirmative Action programs, "Upward Mobility" and enough in funding for welfare programs and food stamps that you could feed all of India and China.
No one alive today and anything to do with what happened 180 years ago. Yes it was tragic, yes it was wrong, but no one today bears any responsibility for back then for the sins of the past.
At some point, the endless demands have to stop.
9
Reparations?
Revisit Civil Rights and the Great Society of the 60's--recommit, knowing more than we did then. Dispense and disperse money and resources. Go bigger if you have the knowledge and resources to justify.
But keep squarely in front of you...
The moral goal of is to seek a transfer from each individual according to their liability to each individual according to their loss. (To paraphrase Marx, which is perhaps, here, a wicked thing to do.) Every individual experience is different, in terms of both injuries endured and benefits derived. If you don't acknowledge this, then the conversation and the enterprise is doomed; if you frame reparations as some kind of group to group transfer, they become manifestly unfair and politically untenable. Consider some oversimple examples... Is the injury to the descendants of someone freed in Massachusetts in 1720 the same as that to the descendants of someone freed in Louisiana nominally in 1863 but who lived for decades thereafter as a sharecropper? Is the 'liability' of a recent immigrant from India the same as that of a descendent of General P.G.T Beauregard? To give it a big data spin, reparations for the United States is a directed bipartite graph between two fuzzy sets with tens of millions of members each and with an infinite number of possible edge weights. Only God knows the actual graph. So, have the discussion! Let the politics play on. But claim valuation or even its shadow, and you may be struck dead for hubris.
1
I am a Georgetown grad and I'd much rather see the money go to/stay at the school -- even black students at the school, or scholarships. What Georgetown did, some of our former presidents did. You cannot go back and reexamine history with today's eyes (imagine how Trump and cages will look in the future). Be better now. Be better going forward. But it's ludicrous to think a massive giveaway to descendants can repair a thing, and frankly, I see it as the school throwing away money. And I'll remember that when it's time to give.
161
@Andy Your thinking is shameful. Calling reparations to people who have been violated a "massive giveaway"is shameful. If you refuse to contribute to your alma mater that is your business. Just don't pretend that it's the right or moral thing to do. I'm sure that there are many decent people who make up for the loss of your generous donations.
16
@Andy This issue is specifically about Georgetown and the slaves that they sold and the reparations due to those specific descendants. It is not a give away to repay that debt. And it's rather offensive to those descendants that you describe an attempt to repay them for this grave injustice as throwing away money. It is also not for you to say that the rightful way to address the harm is to provide scholarships for black students at the school when the actual decedents of those slaves exist.
16
@Andy This country got 400 years of a "massive giveaway" -- free labor -- and it seems to have worked out pretty well. At least for some. That was followed by another 150 years of disenfranchisement, segregation, discrimination, and targeting by the criminal justice system. But I'm sure everything will be ok as long as we all commit to being better moving forward!
29
A quick thought I have is to bring forward the sales price to today’s dollars, the $3.3 million cited, as well as the value of the free labor they provided. E. g. Sarah worked the fields for so many years, James was a blacksmith, Paul a butler. Value that labor in today’s dollars and divide among direct descendants. But that only accounts for inflation and an enormous risk premium would be in order as well. The slaves were never guaranteed fair wages in their lifetimes and for many generations thereafter. So their free services should really be treated as highly speculative investments with concomitant high return.
Even this of course lacks the systematic basis the Great Society programs used to provide before being mothballed.
All of us Americans are descendants of enslaved, persecuted or disenfranchised peoples. Even the "indigenous".
Slavery has existed since recorded history began. It's not some American invention. It's not even the invention of the white man.
All of us regardless of how we (or our ancestors) got here, have benefitted from all this glorious land has provided for us and our children.
On balance, I feel my life in America more than offsets any grievances my ancestors may have endured. I am grateful for the blessings being a citizen of this country has provided me in my own lifetime. I imagine our ancestors would be quite proud of the USA today and how their descendants have fared.
Apparently I reside in the minority.
Pity.
12
@V
>All of us regardless of how we (or our ancestors) got here, have benefitted from all this glorious land has provided for us and our children.
Some of us more so than others. Pity you don't understand that.
@Kate Agree. Some more than others. Not sure how equal outcomes and/or experiences is the goal. Many have prospered or been advantaged more than me and my family. Many are more talented or driven. Many had advantages I did not. Life or society shouldn't offer equal experiences. We can't all be the CEO or play in the NFL. That doesn't mean the system is "rigged" or unfair.
1
All of the countries of Western Europe developed what we now call Western civilization on the backs of colored people. The details differed, but the result was always lucrative for the upper and middle class Europeans and brutal for everyone else, including poor Europeans (who admittedly had it better than the colored people they helped exploit).
At the time slavery ended in America, every so-called great civilization that you can name became great on the backs of exploited people.
What can we do? Give it all back? How would that work? All the descendants of Europeans go back to Europe and leave the rest of the world to everyone else?
I have another idea. Let's develop a civilization that doesn't need to exploit others to provide a good life for its citizens.
I'm not about to say the we have achieved equal rights, or that we should quit trying. I'm not even advocating against reparations. I'm just adding a layer to the conversation; as long as we allow the conditions that cause exploitation, it will continue. Extending white privilege to everyone would do a lot more than simply identifying some victims and giving them money.
1
@mlbex Look at what Holland has just done. They allowed the Nazis to use their railways to deport Jews. Now they're making up for it. I've no time for haters who say money means nothing, while worshiping money (their personal tax dollars). Not saying that's you.
OF COURSE that 'layer' has already been added. There are many organizations that work to end slavery and exploitation. I might add that it's NOT the trump administration, nor the republican party in general, that cares. They are the ones sneering about the concept of reparations, although they understand the concept of court cases, and the importance of SCOTUS. Foolish money lovers.
@deb : Totally agree about Trump and his ilk.
Yes, money helps. Equality of opportunity and a fair non-exploiting society would help more. They are (as we seem to agree) a work in progress.
Keep the arc of history bending towards justice, even if it hits a speed bump now and then.
A cynical affair. Descendants looking for a cash grab thanks to ancestors so distant they've long since disappeared from family memory. A luxury-brand university gauging how big a payout is needed to restore the woke shine to its logo.
32
@harrym As a Baltimorean you should be aware of the legacy of slavery and segregation. It's all around Baltimore. I am old enough to remember when Catholic hospitals and orphanages were segregated. Segregation meant the loss of opportunities that whites enjoyed. We are paying the price of the mistakes that reached down to the modern era.
Maybe I can sue the descendants of Elizabeth I for the loss of land and the deaths of my ancestors. How can anyone be be a plaintiff or a defendant for events that happened before they were alive? Reparations are for victims not the great, great, great, great grandchildren of victims. How far back in history should we go in search of ancestors who were victims of cruelty? We ALL have ancestors who were victims. Cruelty is, in history, the rule and not the exception.
If reparations become a serious political issue it will rip this country apart. It will allow people to say the impact of slavery is over because the "victims" were paid.
22
Catholics were second class citizens in all but Maryland when this country started. Many of the 50M Catholics in the US are their descendants. Mexicans living CA, TX and other areas suffered second class citizen treatment for generations. Native Americans. enough said. Chinese suffered post the building of the railroads with the Chinese Exclusion Act and didnt receive full citizenship rights until 1965. Women lacked full rights to jobs, voting, etc for generations. Atheists received workplace protection in 2016 and LBGTQ still do not enjoy protections. Everyone has a grievance and if you live your life constantly complaining and believing that your circumstances are defined by others, you lose. This entire grievance based movement is bad policy, bad for the soul of the country and bad for the individuals who outsource their success to blame and government solutions
28
None of those 8000 descendants were ever slaves. No, they were born into freedom just like every other American of this age. Why does Georgetown owe these people anything? Everyone involved with the decision to first own and then sell these human beings are long dead. What justifies this redistributing of money? What justifies this assigning of guilt or virtue based on what one's ancestors did or experienced? Why can't we be celebrated or condemned by our own achievements or transgressions instead of being celebrated or condemned by the actions of ancestors whom we've never met or influenced?
27
Slavery in the South in the early 1800's was common and was abhorrent. Georgetown's actions occurred over 180 years ago. That is approx 8-generations ago.
Where does this stop?
What about the Native Americans?
What about each new wave of immigrants that were discriminated against?
31
@GTM Just because something / may be difficult to do / does not make it wrong.
1
@Drifting Clouds
Or right.
3
@Drifting Clouds it does because the calculus will never be taken into account and every living human being has ancestors who have had bad things happen to them, from whom you want to steal
2
The British starved and killed my ancestors in the 1840s and 50s and made a ton of money off their suffering. The survivors that staggered off the coffin ships were treated like bacteria when they got to America.
I have yet to receive a cent, nor an apology, from either government. I hope this starts a trend.
28
Reparations is a crucial piece of unfinished business for America. But a piecemeal approach is a very big mistake.
It’s easy to identify particular institutions that profited from the exploitation of slavery. But the underlying rationale for reparations is not that any single institution benefitted from the peculiar institution. The rationale rests on the fact that slavery did not and could not exists without the sanction of law.
Law made the degradation of the African American mandatory. It reached every institution in both the public and private spheres and so reparations really requires a national reckoning.
If individual institutions are really sincere in their atonement they need to be part of the national reparations movement.
Short of that I fear that schools like Georgetown will say we’ve paid our debt and simply move on.
Justice must be a whole cloth, not a patchwork quilt.
7
There is no way to compensate enslaved people for their loss. Compensation is many things, but it conceivably does little more than put a floor under the trajectory of effects (disadvantages) of their enslavement. Their descendants systematically suffered due to their enslavement. Dealers in life are rarely overseen by tribunals to ensure fairness. We should start there.
3
Money doesn't heal, doesn't respect, doesn't bring equality. Money is apart of the equation, but it's not going to change 100 years of Jim Crow laws on top of 250 years of enslavement. People deserve opportunity, a community where they feel safe, and have upward mobility in society. We need to address concentrated poverty, the lopsided prison system, and public education. We need to stop tearing apart families and we need to ensure that employers are paying livable wages. In a system that only provides for some, many will lose before getting the opportunity to succeed.
11
@Stephen
Money does one thing very well, it corrupts absolutely. It destroys every conversation, trashes every priniciple.
Here it is again: no comment on the process that led Georgetown to act today, little comment on the forces that allowed Georgetown, encouraged Georgetown, to behave so beastly in the past.
Suddenly, its all about the\ price of a clean(er) conscience. Both sides have already lost, and the issue remains unexplored and polluted.
One kind of slavery has been abolished in Americas, goes the claim, but many other kinds persist. Maybe we should spend this energy looking there. Maybe we could invest in doing away with all slavery in America for good.
I'm not looking for anyone in the present conversation to volunteer their financial support.
Here's the most frightening aspect of this article: "Georgetown sold our ancestors, and the school has decided how much money we’re owed."
What? You want to dicker?
1
@oogada I completely agree.
1
The issue with the heritage of slavery in the United States is that freedmen and -women were never truly integrated into the society and economy, post-Emancipation.
The disenfranchisement that African Americans have faced is fundamentally structural and systemic. Hence, it will require equally structural efforts to rehabilitate and lift the descendants of enslaved peoples up, to provide the equal footing in American society that they never received. The prospect of reparations or affirmative action would be such efforts.
However, considering that racism and racial disadvantage in this country have their ultimate basis in the application of the Law, I feel that the government, along with private institutions like Georgetown, shoulders a large portion of responsibility. One way forward might be channeling federal funds towards the proliferation of student scholarships, even a system of loans for entrepreneurs and business owners or targeted initiatives to improve funding for schools and other essential services in African American communities.
Though, as we have seen, many white people in the US refuse to acknowledge that personal or structural racism even exists ("anymore"), and see the insufficient and failing initiatives already in place as inherently redistributive ("Socialism!").
Sadly, that is the myopia of privilege - to not perceive just how privileged one is.
9
All descendants of American slaves should receive vouchers for housing, education, job training, and anything else that the Federal Government can come up with to help advance this group economically. Corporations could receive tax credits for participation. Grants could be given to help jump start small businesses. These are better ideas than just handing out cash.
8
The psychology and logic of reparations is similar to that of childhood abuse but even further removed. Grievances for reparations of slavery are in poor form comparatively. Appealing for money as a compensation doesn’t correct childhood abuse, nor would it correct any real ills of the past. Psychologist would recommend confronting it and moving on. Humans discriminate daily. This particular agitation seems consistently provoked by the northeast, where the skin color and monetary disparities seem most pronounced. It’s also where we tend to find comfortably self-segregated and non-American homeland areas within cities (Little Italy, Chinatown, Harlem, etc.) Memphis and Atlanta are very different than NY and Boston. The south has a more integrated history and more of a direct mixing of colors and cultures, primarily based on the commonalities of economic conditions. Population density, shared poverty, religion, music, and food have helped southerners rise up successfully to life’s disparities. Surprised these Louisiana citizens took this road. Not surprised they looked towards the NYT or that it agreed. I wish everyone peace and understanding.
9
I wonder what percentage of the non-black US population actually has a direct ancestor who owned slaves. I suspect that it is a very small percentage. And, since about 44% of Americans pay no income tax, the percentage even lower of those who would have to pay the taxes that would fund reparations.
I also wonder what percentage of the black US population actually has a direct ancestor who was a slave in America. I suspect that is smaller percentage than most people would assume (albeit a larger percentage than are descendants of past slave owners per above).
12
@Errol What about the percentage of the non-black US population that benefited from institutionalized racism like Jim Crow laws and residential, educational and occupational segregation? These things prevented Black Americans from enjoying the same opportunities as white Americans for well over 100 years after the end of slavery.
@Errol Statistically look at all the immigrants since 1865 - why are they even involved in this?
1
Reparations were paid to the victims of forced relocation during World War II for two reasons: 1) many of the victims were still living and 2) Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, himself a victim, led the way.
I must respectfully push back when I read that slavery has disadvantaged its descendants. It was Jim Crow and codified discrimination for a century after slavery was abolished that created this disadvantage.
America has a long history of such behavior. We encouraged Chinese emigration to help build the railroads. Once done we passed the Chinese Exclusion Act and pushed them out.
"No Irish Need Apply" sums up America's view, at one time, of emigrants not just from western Europe but central and eastern as well.
As a person of Irish descent should I expect reparations?
We have far to go to create a fairer and more open society.
Paying such reparations as this, no matter how well intended, does nothing to solve our problems going forward.
69
My late parents were Auschwitz survivors. They were paid reperations by the German government until they passed away. As their children my brothers and I each received a lump sum payment of about $250. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren received NOTHING. Only the actual camp prisoners received any reperations of great value. Of course they could never be compensated for the loss of family members. This is a model that worked.
32
@Steve Daniel
Steve, you break my heart. We did receive reparations of the most beautiful and exquisite kind. Open your heart, boyo and join in:
On March 23, 1847, a group of Choctaw leaders, only a fifteen year after their own tragic "March of Tears," met in eastern Oklahoma to raise money for "the relief of the starving poor in Ireland." They collected $170, This gift from an American Indian nation was recognized as extraordinary even at that time."
"Last year, at the beginning of a St. Patrick’s Day visit to the United States, the Irish head of state visited Oklahoma to thank the Choctaw Nation and announce an Irish scholarship program for Choctaw youth. It is not the first time the Irish have remembered the Choctaws' extending their hand. In 1992 a group of Irish men and women walked the 600-mile Trail of Tears, raising $170,000 to relieve suffering in famine-stricken Somalia— “These people were still recovering from their own injustice, and they put their hands in their pockets and they helped strangers,” County Councilman Joe McCarthy pointed out at the ceremony. “It’s rare to see such generosity. It had to be acknowledged.”
3
The important difference to note here is that Holocaust reparations were paid directly to its victims, within their lifetime, who were able to provide personal testimony of their experiences. In cases of those compensated, there was specific evidence of their individual monetary losses, (loss of home, confiscation of wealth, etc.), physical suffering, first hand witness of murder of family, and the long term effects thereof. When considering reparations for slavery, these elements are much harder, if not impossible to establish. For those that can prove a direct lineage to ancestors who were sold by an identified institution, perhaps a case can be built for restitution. But how much Georgetown should pay for its role in slavery, and to whom exactly, is difficult to say at best.
7
Actually, the formula implied in the article is an interesting approach to the question of reparations. If we can value the price at which slaves were sold adjusted to current dollars, as is done here, then why not use a formula wherever records show slave ancestors to reimburse their descendants equal portions of the current value of their slave price? That ties the family remuneration directly to existing records. For others who can prove slave ancestry, but not a specific record of sale, use an average value from other records in that area.
American law allowed those slaves to be sold and sometimes resold over four score and nine years. The 3 million dollar current value estimate mentioned in the article would certainly not break Georgetown University financially, and it is clearly the case that the United States could likewise reach a valuation that could then be reimbursed over time in substantially more direct and appropriate compensation to the actual families.
It beats the heck out of tax cuts for the rich.
3
giving money to these particular people is arbitrary and absurd. there's simply no proximate relationship 200 years on. set up a general scholarship fund..
27
Reparations are an emotionally charged issue, but America owes its citizens of color for continuing to operate under systemic and institutional racism and being in denial about it. Educating Americans on that fact will help people to understand why reparations are necessary. Changing those systems will be a first step. Actual reparations can be worked out, such as federal matching of per pupil funds so schools in poor areas (that includes areas that are predominately white, too), will be able to offer the same quality education as affluent suburban areas. Alleviating student loan debt (or making all public colleges free), rent control, a $15 minimum wage that will increase to $21 by 2030, and the elimination of bias in mortgage lending would go a long way, too. On the top of my list is to eliminate "law and order" militarized policing in communities of color so that citizens of color can rely on police to protect and serve rather than profiling and using excessive force. Most white Americans are afraid that reparations will take away from their quality of life, but that isn't true. Our political leaders need to be truthful about the inequality that rages across this country and in our institutions and systems, and educate the deniers, or the ones who just didn't know, to accept that change needs to be made.
6
@Dianne Liuzzi Hagan "Most white Americans are afraid that reparations will take away from their quality of life, but that isn't true." I don't know any "white" Americans who fear that reparations will take away from their quality of life. I do know many "white" Americans who hold, accurately, that they did not own slaves and should not have their tax money go toward reparations for unpaid labor that build the southern economy and, over which, the north fought a civil war. The Georgetown reparations don't flow directly from public money.
5
Reparations seem like a great way to take a half measure to address systemic inequality and claim victory. Look for real change, don’t be bought out.
7
@NKM Seems like people think in absolutes. Reparations does not absolve Georgetown of the responsibility. The real change begins with the admissions for the education of the descendants.
1
Slavery is one of the worst things humans have inflicted on other humans, though genocide may be worse. But I don't see why we should be paying money, many years later, to the descendants of people who have suffered. My ancestors may have experienced injustices at various times throughout history, but I am not expecting financial payback now. Let's move on and improve our behavior going forward, especially with regard to disadvantaged minorities.
136
@A Realist If your world view does not include all debts will be paid or what goes around comes around you are entitled to your "opinion." You won't find guilt, cosign or agreement of your opinion from the great majority of a people robbed of their legacy, language, customs, and actual bodies (through lynching and Jim Crow peonage and modern mass incarceration). We will have to work against your opinion out of necessity to repair damage of this American heritage otherwise history has show we can continue to expect your buy-in to the additional burden of outright theft of wealth through state sponsored terrorism and ultimately legalized American Apartheid, the pain of which I still see in the eyes of many older black folk born prior to the late 20th century.
3
@A Realist My parents received money from the German govt for property lost to the Russians but it wasn’t 200 years later. The Romans took slaves from everywhere - possible reparations there? Italians won’t abide that nonsense.
7
I post this in the spirit of dialogue to respond to your assertion that we should pay for injustices.
When this point is raised and dig into a bit, most people seem to be okay with reparations to holocaust survivors but balk at the thought of the US (and institutions) being held accountable in the same way.
The systematic and institutionalized enslavement of Africans wasn’t even set up as for example in antiquity where in some societies, people who were enslaved due to debts (for instance) in theory could “earn” their freedom eventually. It was centuries (1619 - 1863) of industry ( in the sense of production and output) by labor that was never compensated.
The average generation is 30-33 years, so for over 300 years, we are talking about 10 generations of lost wealth and capital for an entire part of the population.
That is what advocates for reparations point to as a deficit in opportunity that slavery perpetuated.
Personally, I don’t believe it’s the wholesale solution to the issues that still exist as a result of slavery but it can be a significant part.
A few links to show reparations to holocaust survivors below.
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/692376994/holocaust-survivors-and-victims-families-receive-millions-in-reparations-from-fr
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_West_Germany
1
Paying reparations to all those who have been mistreated by the US government will open up Pandora's Box. It is unfortunate that people in government, like all people, don't always do the right thing.
It would be impossible to accurately determine how much everyone should get, just for starters.
And what about the Japanese who were incarcerated during world war 2 for being Japanese?
Shouldn't we begin with reparations to the indigenous native Americans who used to live here and were virtually destroyed by the Europeans who invaded?
With all due respect to those who have suffered as a result of US Government actions, let us focus on other, more fairly solvable problems. We don't have to look hard to find them.
31
@Richard Phelps "And what about the Japanese who were incarcerated during world war 2 for being Japanese?"
Survivors of internment camps received $20,000 each from the US government back in the 1980s as reparations.
10
The interred themselves received compensation. It wasn’t their descendants years later. Apples and oranges.
20
@Richard Phelps : The US was built and profited heavily on the backs of slave labor. We can calculate that value. Reparations are overdue.
If the people were already enslaved, it's hard to see why this particular sale is the trigger.
That doesn't at all take away the fact that a) slavery is evil, and b) the university already owned slaves. However, it seems like the _purchase_ of the slaves would be the appropriate trigger.
That's assuming that reparations are a practical or useful tool. If so, we should also be examining many, many other reparations - for Native Americans, ethnic Chinese, etc.
18
Giving out cash is the worst possible solution. Giving out opportunity would be a much better result. Setting up a fund for relatives children to attend college would provide some measure of recompense while still requiring those alive today to earn (versus being given) something. And Georgetown has actual expertise in administering it.
Cash in these circumstances never solves anything.
39
@Richard Roberts If cash never solves anything then how about if every company or family with generational wealth simply pay a tax to the US Government for the inherited freebies. All the free land, free labor and favorable/welfare law should be put back into the pot. They don't really need all that free unearned wealth and privilege. Let all of us wipe the slate clean.
@Richard Roberts : Perhaps white people should stay out of the conversation. Leave it to African Americans to decide on reparations. They've had a long history of white people telling them when, why, how and what they should or should not do. I think they can handle this conversation and this decision on their own. They got this. Let them be free to do so.
64
I think that comes out to $50/year. Not much.
But why don't the authors of this piece suggest a number for Georgetown? Would there be some awkwardness or embarrassment to saying how much they would like?
7
This is a start. I agree with BigBill from NYC that it is time to address the reparations issue.
Good for Georgetown for moving it forward, but before you jump to conclusions, watch the video and listen carefully. Georgetown will decide what to do with the money in order to "benefit descendent communities." So, that may take any number of forms: direct payment, tuition assistance, community development are the first three that come to mind. There are many more.
Leave aside the math, the what's-my-share mentality. Or the I-didn't-own-slaves. Or slavery-has-been-going-on-through-all-time-and-place. This is our nation's legacy of American slavery. It is not and cannot be considered a zero-sum game, and there is much more grappling to come. But it must come. It's complicated, not easy. No matter; it's time.
7
$400,000 a year? For 8,000 descendants? That's $50 a year per person!
The acknowledgment of wrongdoing is a start but the reparations proposed are hardly commensurate with the crime committed. That's what reparations are, after all. They're meaningful compensation to the victim(s) for wrongdoing by the perpetrator.
The obvious question? Is this more about PR and less about a serious effort at compensating the victims? The corollary question is... did the decision-makers at Georgetown all sit together in a room and ask themselves the question, "How little in the form of compensation can we get away with and still appear to be doing something?" The present proposal is, quite frankly, laughable and/or an insult worthy of tears. Make your choice.
Since Georgetown's crime was a social crime in which there were millions of victims and millions of perpetrators I think that a more serious proposal on the part of Georgetown would include a MAJOR, ACTIVE, and PERMANENT campaign to devote the institution's considerable political resources to lobbying and educating the rest of American society as to the necessity for a meaningful, universal effort to aid those millions of descendants who do not enjoy the educational and related lifestyle opportunities their perpetrator descendant brethren enjoy.
Anything less than that is a pathetic insult. If this is to be a truly serious beginning in addressing past wrongs it needs to rise to the level of being... veritably serious.
14
@Garrett why only target the Catholics. The likes of Princeton and Yale are far more culpably in creating and exploiting the institution of slavery. Their alumni were running the country during those evil days. Georgetown was a tiny sectarian boarding school until Patrick Healy, a Jesuit and himself born a slave, became president and started the poor boarding school Georgetown on the path toward being a great university. There's some kind of irony, or maybe justice, when a school built by a former slave pays reparations to the children of slaves.
1
And this is why Trump will win again. Concentrate on equal rights and opportunity. That’s the meaningful reparation.
218
@Philip While white folks (and eventually white immigrants) were building wealth, enslaved people & their descendants were denied every meaningful opportunity to do so. Slapping an "equal rights and opportunity" band-aid on top of 400 years of history (including 246 years of slavery) is not an adequate solution to the persistent problems rooted in slavery and its aftermath.
7
It is time to address the reparations issue.
For decades we have failed to directly do what was morally required. Germany did what was necessary but without the passage of time. Our nation must be held accountable---no matter how complicated it is to decide on a course of action.
This is a formidable task. There is no guidebook---just like there was no guidebook regarding the multifaceted form of American slavery.
My thought would be to form a group of theologians to discuss how to deal with the problem from a moral perspective----not political not financial and non paritisan. They could sub out certain technical questions but the final binding recommendation would be submitted to Congress to be debated and decided. Amendments would be limited but the core decision would not be altered.
Reparations is a real issue----let us hope we can come to terms with tis reality and move forward.
6
@BigBill Theologians? A lot of us don't allow "theologians" to dictate our morals, much less "sub out" the technical questions. What god would you have as Chair of the Reparations Committee?
3
This is not something that the University has to do. It’s choosing to do so. This is a completely voluntary act so the amount is largely irrelevant. Hopefully, the people who receive funds will use the money to make meaningful investments to improve their lives and that of the people in their community.
17
Why wouldn’t Georgetown use today’s value of the proceeds - $3.3 million? It’s their decision, but it isn’t clear how $400,000 was calculated as the “right” number. The amount should be meaningful in light of the generational loss of opportunity for the descendants.
14
@Mary L Cusick That’s $400,000 per year, not $400,000 total. The article does not state how much the grand total will be.
2
@Mary L Cusick - maybe they don't want to take the hit all at once, I'm sure they want to stay in business, so they put the money raising on the 10 yr plan.
@Mary L Cusick It's $400,000 per year
There needs to be some bounds placed on the very notion of reparations for past events. I'll start with a count of the number of generations that have passed. 1838 is 182 years ago. A new generation comes along roughly every 20 to 25 years. The folks who perpetrated the crime, and the victims requesting reparations are at least 7 generations removed.
I propose a 4 generation bound, a kind of statute of limitations. Anything that happened before one's great-great-grandparents were born should be off the table.
48
@oldBassGuy I think *maybe* your grandparents, but certainly no further back than that.
2
@oldBassGuy Great idea as there are still descendants of the victims of government sanctioned discrimination alive today.
It's a school, offer free education to people who would qualify for these payments. In the end, the recipients would end up much richer than if they just received cash.
131
I agree, but go a step farther: those not of college age should receive the equivalent amount of money for tuition, room, and board for four years. Each of them missed their opportunities and this would be an effort to compensate them financially though they lost so much more than money.
8
@Fred Rodgers Have you checked the price of tuition? At $50,000 a year it equals 8 students a year. Then there's room, board and spending money.....there's no dollar stores in Georgetown.....
But you are right - once you put a dollar figure on it, it's never enough.
A meaningful, structural change - such as a scholarship guaranteeing a free college education for every descendant for a generation, could be more meaningful over the long term.
5
I agree.
Then after they graduate, donors can employ them.
1
The math implications are interesting. If there are 8,000 descendants, with so many passing generations, each descendant wouldn’t be more than a slight fraction of a descendant. So if the sale of slaves was in 1838 and a generation is 20 years, each present-day descendant is about nine generations removed, which means that he or she has around 512 ninth generation grandparents. (Maybe someone can check my math.) In other words, only one of your 512 grandparents of that ninth generation was a Georgetown slave so you are only 1/512th of a descendant. If a person should be awarded, say, $20 million in today’s money for having been a slave, then you should get 1/512 of that, which would be about $40,000.
35
@Paco $20M may be a bit rich, but your logic suggests that the limiting factor for the descendant is that only one of the ancestor's owners is paying.
2
Not if you consider the legacy of slavery, that has not been compensated or healed, as continuing to wreak havoc on dependents who’s live are degraded, lack opportunity and still are actively segregated, repressed and exterminated by the the dominant culture. In this case, you must add the continuing impact of of an inhuman policy.
4
@Paco if this generation gets a payout, why wouldn’t the following generations also demand a payout? The reasoning being that one generation has no more right to it than the next.
5
> With more than 8,000 known descendants living today, is the school’s fund even close to what’s owed?
That pretty much sums up the unworkable nature of trying to make amends with payouts.
111
The acknowledgement of what occurred in another era is an apt gesture. But reparations only mimics an antiquated biblical mindset- where the 'sins of the father are cast upon the children'. There is no end to how wrongs can be tallied for rectification in our society. At the end of the day it is simply better to put effort into solving the nascent problems of education and access to resources- that's the hard part that Georgetown is simply lazy in trying to buy off. A windfall for one generation will not solve the problems of the next, indeed may make it worse as incentive to excel is suppressed by reduced need to achieve.
139
@Victor Lacca It's not "sins of the father are cast upon the children." It's "The profits of the father are bequeathed to the children" -- and when those profits are ill-gotten, that's wrong.
11
@Paul Lukas
But there were no "profits" bequeathed to many. And even in those situations where the slave owner did bequeath "profits", they were somewhere along the way through the many generations since. The result is that those who are forced to pay the reparations now did not benefit from those "profits".
Furthermore, the whole concept of reparations is unjust unless there is a economic structure akin to a caste system. If for most people, their financial success is largely determined by the value of work that they do, then reparations are a discriminatory tax on them and a discriminatory benefit to the reparations recipients.
For reparations to be just, you must identify the particular beneficiaries of the slave owners, and the amount of that financial benefit which the current living descendant received. Then it would be just to take those benefits from each such person. And, then you have to determine who the current living descendants are of the slaves owned by the ancestor of each such person you taxed. They should get only the taxed revenues from the descendants of the owners of their ancestor/slave.
26
@Paul Lukas I'm not sure that's what's happening here as Georgetown was near bankruptcy at the time. Your point is taken though as ill gotten gains are stolen by exploitation- wrong though it may be, such inequity can best be addressed by current legal action by the direct victim. If we allow descendants to make claims generations later our legal systems will be overwhelmed.
4
It seems absurd to me. To make amends for the appalling suffering of normal life 180 years ago seems like an extreme case of virtue signaling. Human enslavement is the norm, from ancient Egyptians, Mayans and Romans to 19th century Turks Spaniards and Belgians. Most historians acknowledge that the industrial revolution brought slavery to an end, and not abolitionists per se. Abolitionism is the steam rising from the locomotive of technological revolution. A more compelling case might be to reimburse the native tribes of Australia and the Americas for the loss of their territory.
268
@Chuffy
No, the case is not stronger for native Australians or native Americans.
Nearly all land the world over has been taken by force many times. The concept of purchasing land to "own" it is recent. Even then, the concept of "ownership" only exists within the nation, it is not recognized by the rest of the world outside that nation except by those outside the nation who find it more convenient and advantageous for themselves to recognize it.
Even if the "natives" whose land was taken were the first humans ever to occupy a particular area, that does not change the fact that nations taking land from other nations by force has been the way of humans since humanity began. All being the first humans in a place means is that they were the first link in the chain, not that they have any greater "right" to the land since they lost the battle that resulted in them losing dominion over the land to the next link in the chain.
12
@Chuffy - Actually, there are still a number of slaves in various countries in Africa, and in Saudi Arabia and places like that they have workers who are pretty much the same thing.
5
@Chuffy The real benefit about reparations will be the discussion and revelation that the bulk of the economic harm done the African Americans in this country happened with racist, and Jim Crow policies in the TWENTIETH CENTURY.
2
"Reparations" are intended to compensate slaves not just for the economic value they provided their owners but also for the pain and suffering etc. they endured. Mere reimbursement of the monies the slave owner received in a financial "distress" sale for the slaves is a token payment. And raising funds through donations to the university to pay the descendants of slaves the equivalent of that payment is a publicity stunt.
17
Reparations are recognition of a wrong and an acknowledgment of the harm and suffering inflicted. No one can erase the pain of the past but our collective approach has been to ignore, deny, minimize the impacts and that causes more suffering and anger. Public assistance programs are for all people in need it’s not at all the same as a specific reparation for a known wrong.
Georgetown could offer free education to all descendants for the next 100 years ....I wonder if that was even considered as an option. It seems that Georgetown intends to spend the money to ‘help the communities’ which implies the University still thinks it knows better than the defendants themselves what is needed for them. Not a great message.
I hope the University and the families are in real dialogue only there can the reality of the situation be known and understood and good solutions defined most of us will NEVER know what it is like to be black in America, to grow up as a descendent of people enslaved. The closest we can get is to ASK FOR and LISTEN to the stories of people who really do have this experience.
25
@Adriene Bailey Free education at Georgetown as a reparation? Since Georgetown is a highly competitive school, that might work well for slave descendants who are highly competitive students. For those that aren't, it would probably not work so well.
12
Yes it should be at any institution the person chooses, including trade/technical school.
1
@Gordeaux
Interesting... What leads you to think that any slave descendants would *not* be highly competitive?
i did not enslave anyone (in fact, my great-great-great uncle, Rabbi David Einhorn, was a leading abolitionist who had to flee Baltimore to escape a pro-slavery mob) and it would be unjust to use government funds to pay reparations. if private institutions choose to use their resources (not obtained from the government) to pay descendants of slaves who the institution profited from, or for any other purpose, that's their business.
196
@Richard Gaylord
And Georgetown is a private institution and the funds are coming from a student fee, so it is exactly what you are proposing. Your third great uncle would be proud that society is finally facing the sin of slavery.
4
@Richard Gaylord Sorry, as a society we are responsible for each other's actions as a whole.
1
@Richard Gaylord You may not have enslaved anyone, but if you are a white American, you have benefitted from slavery, and from a system that unjustly gave privileges to your ancestors but not to others. Reparations are entirely appropriate.
4
The article says that the three ladies are receiving reparations because Georgetown owned their ancestors but sold them to a plantation in Louisiana. So I take it that if Georgetown had merely kept the slaves, they would have paid no reparations.
It seems like 272 people would have more than three living descendants. Is reparations going to create a huge demand for genealogists to track ancestors who were enslaved? Do you have to prove that your ancestors were slaves to get reparations?
What about descendants of former slaves who have done well in life and are financially successful? There are some. Do they get the same reparations as those who have not been financially successful?
Reparations seem like a good idea when first mentioned, but if you study it, it gets complicated. Reparations don't really address the problem of racism which still exits big time.
80
It still seems like a good idea, based on your “complicated” assessment.
For example, if a crime is committed against someone who is financially successful, does that exclude them from both criminal and civil justice? Are they not legally within their rights to be compensated for damages because they have been successful in other areas of life.
It’s not that complicated, just you’re feelings on the subject are.
1
Nothing is "owed" by Georgetown to any of the descendants of slavery. If the students are so concerned and want to make voluntary charitable donations to descendants of slaves, they were and are always free to do so. Or, the University can do so voluntarily, again as a charitable contribution, and raise tuition to do so.
But you are not "owed" a penny.
253
@hula hoop Why not? Do we not even compensate victims of auto accidents? Whether it happened days ago or years ago it doesn't matter once a guilty party is determined.
2
@Chico There is a statute of limitations on nearly every law and lawsuit. One could argue the same here.
21
@Chico we compensate
victims or maybe children of victims if they can show damages, not their descendants 180 years downstream.
1
The closing rhetorical sentence says it all: "With more than 8,000 known descendants living today, is the school’s fund even close to what’s owed?" Those who want reparations would never allow that any reparations could ever be enough. We could pay billions, singling out this one group to pay when everyone has persecuted ancestors, and afterwards we would still be told that the United States is irredeemable.
188
@ed, that’s the “this is hard to figure out, so let’s not do anything” argument.
That’s just lazy.
We determine compensation for past wrongs all the time. That’s what tort law is all about.
But even without thinking very hard, I can tell you that 400,000 divided amongst 8,000 people is 50 bucks a head, and that, in my mind, isn’t reparations, it’s an insult.
2
@Objectively Subjective
Georgetown has voluntarily decided to give away $400,000 a year and its an insult? Why would any other organization try to address past wrongs?
2
I do not believe that reparations have the power to end discrimination. Each of us and all of us together are the ones who can end discrimination, one act at a time, or as Maurice Sendak wrote, "in and out of weeks and through a day and into the night."
Our reparations do have the power to shift power and currency to the progeny of the tasked who labored long and built the wealth of their "owners." Our reparations may begin to awaken us to the toll on the soil and forests as well as human beings that 400 years of slavery and "ownership" have taken.
15
Every person of color person in America ought to get 20% off the cost of private education, and/or a stipend to go along with public education. Slavery isn’t what needs to be addressed, racism is. A person doesn’t need to be the descendant of slaves to suffer the consequences of slavery in this country. Congratulations to the people in the article, they won the lottery, but it doesn’t address the problem. Call me a clueless old blue-eyed white man, but I think all we need to do level the playing field going forward, and forget about addressing the particulars of everybody’s family history. My family suffered injustices in the past as well, but what matters is that the system isn’t rigged against me today. Fix today, not yesterday.
42
This is wrong. Georgetown’s leaders are seriously misguided, and will cause undue pressure for anyone who touched slavery - and there were a lot. As another commenter said, we have funded billions of dollars in programming - SSA, Affirmative Action, preferential programs of other kinds, Head Start, to lend a hand of help and apology. Who knows why those programs have not paid off as the nation hoped - but it’s time to be more careful with that money, too. Huge cash payouts like those Georgetown is planning will satisfy no recipient, will humiliate and anger others, and will bring about no tangible benefit whatsoever.
220
@Ed Pittsburgh "Who knows why" these programs have not paid off?" Perhaps institutionalized racism has something to do with that? You could start by reading "The Color of Law" by Richard Rothstein, that might help you understand the mystery of why "preferential programs" haven't worked. And to get a true sense of how the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow have gotten us to this point. Too many white Americans, myself included, have an incomplete education on these matters.
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@Ed Pittsburgh
Do all these programs serve exclusively descendants of enslaved persons? If not, then you have done nothing to actually softened the inequalities caused by hundred of years of slavery, and even worse Jim Crow laws that disfranchised millions and kept for another hundred years African Americans as second class citizens. America needs to deal with its racial past before it can deal with its future.
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We do, in fact, know why social programs aimed at compensating our African American citizens for the harms of slavery have failed. They have not addressed the founding legal doctrine of white supremacy. Head Start is great. It makes a difference for poor kids. But not as much difference as insuring their parents the right to buy a house in a town with good schools. Affirmative Action has helped individual folks get jobs, but it’s not as good as enforcing fair lending practices that would allow them to get loans to create and run businesses. Much of our economic structure reserves premium opportunities for whites only. And, on top of that, there is still plenty of race hatred to contend with on the individual level. Worst of all is the hypocritical nature of our judgments about the inability of African American communities to thrive in spite of the “help” they receive from these programs. Reparations isn’t just about slavery, it’s about leveling the playing field from all that’s gone on since. Good for Georgetown for trying this approach. Something is owed from American institutions who’ve profited from our racist past. It’s time and past time that those debts are paid.
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Actually, reparations in the form of Great Society programs like food and housing assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, and affirmative action policies (in higher education, employment, and government contracts) have been flowing to the descendants of slaves for several decades now.
How much more will need to be paid, and by whom, before the debt is paid? Who gets to decide? Proponents of reparations never say, because the goal posts keep moving.
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@Michael
Great society programs benefit everybody, and affirmative actions have mostly benefited white women. Other forms of government assistance that are all but unheard of in other countries (like the mortgage deduction) dwarf public housing budgets and go to wealthier predominantly white communities...
In order to truly repair the harms of slavery and the ills that followed, such as Jim Crow, exclusion from the GI Bill, redlining, refusing the recognize black children as gifted, hardening the school to prison pipeline etc, American society has to make a true commitment to equal opportunity. Until equal opportunity truly exists and the country is truly committed to enforcing equal protection, the evils of the past will continue to live on.
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What you are referring to is money paid to all who are living in poverty. It is an way for society to modulate the effects of our Malthusian system. It is a band-aid that has nothing to do with the legacy of slavery. Reparations must be specifically granted to those who’s families were forced into servitude. Anything else will leave the wound festering and add to the debt.
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@Michael - Ironically, blacks were doing well before they got all this help. If you look at black education, employment, and self-sufficiency in the 50s and 60s, it was trending upwards. Since then, not so much. So it seems like at least some of these policies backfired, and made things worse.
I can't say that reparations would bring much improvement. It would be better to try to find effective policies that would help those who are struggling find better jobs and start getting ahead.
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$115,000 is worth much more then 3.3 million dollars. 115,000 in property in nyc over 100 years ago worth about 3 billion now. Who decided on that valuation?
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@Ralph Petrillo
NY was a state that sent soldiers to fight the slave states. Why use them as an example? Look to the value of a slave holding plantation as comparison.
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So once reparations are paid, does this mean that there will no longer be discrimination and claims of discrimination? Will our racial acrimony decrease? Will we cease evaluating each other based on the color of one's skin and focus on the content of one's character? Reparations do not mean reconciliation, only that money has changed hands.
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@HPower This is a straw man argument. Nobody claimed that reparations magically solve every problem. But they are a necessary step toward doing the right thing.
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@HPower
Exactly correct. Money paid by people who didn't do anything to people who didn't have anything done to them.
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