Birth Right and Race Reparations for Slavery

Should white people who have a black slave ancestor get a check?

 

If there is a generation of people who were directly affected by the government's actions, like the Japanese internment camps during World War II, those people would be entitled to compensation. It should not apply to any of their future generations. This becomes especially true once you reach the third generation and beyond. A good way to describe that program would be racism because by then the slate will have mostly been wiped clean. They are then responsible for their lives and are not entitled to mooch off of future generations.

The Black reparations scheme is a way to open old wounds which works to the benefit of race bating politicians and race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. It does not address the real issues which can benefit Black people, like crime and substandard schools. It’s nothing but an undeserved and unearned handout.

 

The interned Japanese got reparations already. The Indians have casinos. The Chinese have convenience stores.

 

Since you seem to think that the government owns all the property and lets us use it until we die, why should anyone be entitled to reparations? Didn't that claim die when the ex slaves died? The kids started off with nothing, just like your 100% wealth tax is designed to do.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the issue reparations?????

 

If the ancestor was a slave, then under this, yes they would.

 

I know that the Japanese got reparations, what 20 years ago? I was bringing them up as one of the few groups who still had survivors with a case for reparations.

 

Correct. I didn't say I support the argument in the OP. I do not. It is an argument I heard and wanted to examine in this thread.

 

Yeah, I bet that would never happen...lol

 

I have no birthright, perhaps that's where the cognitive dissonance lies. It is solely the option of my parents to both acquire wealth, and then decide what is to be done with it after their death. Although my State does not allow a person to disown their spouse, no such prohibition exists for children. They could have left me nothing, and perhaps they did, as I'm not intending this to be so focused on me personally.

But they had the right to dispose of their wealth as they saw fit, which is proper in a free society, which we purport to have. Is that your objective, to rob individuals of that right?

As that theory applies to reparations, no such freedom was exercised, nor in virtually every case does even a trace of that centuries old wealth stil exist, so it is not at all a derailment, it's as on topic as is possible to be. Sure, you don't like my analogies, perhaps because you can't think of a response that fits your agenda, but that does not make it irrelevant.

Just because someone got an inheritance of wealth, regardless of its size, does not mean it was a birthright. Very few of those exist, especially as an adult.

 

Legislation exists here (based on common law) that establishes that if a person dies without a will, their children are entitled to inheritance. Yes, you can write a will to exclude your kids, but you have to do so explicitly.

So in relation to the enslaved person's debt from the nation, I suppose an enslaved person could have written down that they didn't want their ancestors to inherit anything from them, but I doubt that ever happened.

So again, where is the disconnect? Is it because it's going through multiple generations?

 

Have you been mistreated by the government of this country? I think I have, and a I think millions of others feel they have too. I don't ask anyone to fix that.
The concept of reparations is based not on justice, but greed and the absence of morality and justice.
If we were going to try to balance how things might have been if they had not been slaves in America- first you would have to discount the 96% of slaves that were sent to the new world- but not to America. So- let's just take the American share.

Slaves that were sent here had brothers who did not become slaves, and there is a line of inheritance for both. So- let's compare the descendants of the non-slave brother with the descendants of the enslaved brother.

The brothers were most likely from what is now Angola.
The standard of living for the average person in Angola today is strange. They can't live it it's capitol city of Luanda, because it is the most expensive city in the world. Special interests there chasing the countries natural resources have made it a modern city- but only for the players gouging the system. The government is of course black. A few years back, the presidents daughter, who was the administrator for the state-owned oil company, quietly transferred about 98% of the money it had to various banks around the world one day, and disappeared. A person committing a crime at nearly any level can buy themselves out of consequences. Not like a fine- but like a payoff. Standard practice; but of course only the rich can afford to be criminals.

However, the average Angolan lives in a thatched roof hut with a dirt floor. Their children will be lucky to get a 4th grade education. The availability of potable water for most is around 50%, the availability of a sewage system less. Lifespan averages one of the world's lowest, along with infant mortality and dozens of other factors.

That would say, as distorted as it may seem- that having an ancestor come to America as a slave dramatically improved the quality of life for their descendants today, compared to what they would have inherited.. Now if your quality of life is at a level many multiples better than it would have been if slavery hadn't changed the future, perhaps- "reparations" aren't in order, because great benefits for the descendants came with the great injustice to the slaves. Or- perhaps the descendants of slaves are they entitled to be restored to the level they would be if slavery didn't alter their destiny? Sounds reasonable to be restored to the position you would be in if an event hadn't happened. Free one-way ticket to Angola would cover it.

All people are "dealt a hand" in the game of life. As Kenny Rodgers "Gambler" song states- every hands a winner, and every hands a loser- depends on how you play the game.
Most of my family grew up in conditions of hard poverty and dealt with great difficulties. As a child- my mother was sent out to pick dandelion leaves to they would have green food on the table. She also suffered injuries with inadequate medical care, developed Osteomyelitis and as a result over her life was hospitalized dozens of times.... 26 bone operations on one leg. Someone brought a typhoid epidemic to my grandfather's town- and he lost his father and three brothers, in one week. Bad things happened to most people, especially back then. They were immigrants who arrived in the mid to late 1800's, after the civil war. Yet despite never taking any kind of help from government or anyone else, they gave their children the values, the work ethics and the self-respect to become successful people- who have never abused anybody, who contribute to but do not take from society. Hardships only cripple the people who hold tightly to them, and blame them on others.

 

I haven't been mistreated to the extent of something like slavery by my government, no.

That depends on how you approach it. If an actual person from that time somehow miraculously survived until today, who was enslaved under the laws at that time permitting and enforcing slavery, would you oppose their case against the government for compensation?

Again, I don't think you read the OP. That isn't the argument. It isn't about making things as if there had not been slaves in America. It is about specific individuals being harmed by the government and if they would be entitled to compensation for that, and if that compensation should be transferable down generations or not.

Doing so makes for an interesting argument of its own, but it doesn't address the OP argument, so its off topic.

 

Yes, but more than that. Not just multiple generations, but multiple centuries, to the point where no evil doer is still alive, and nobody who was done evil to is either, in fact neither are their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and maybe even great-great-grandchildren. It's ancient history, and just like we don't go after Italy for the expansionistic wars started by the Roman empire, it's time to drop it and move on.

That I even need to say that, to you or anyone else, is a crying shame, and I suppose reflective of the state of education in the US today. Or, it could just be blind partisanship and a fear of being cancelled for not going along.

We do not, and never have punished the son for the sins of his father, with apologies for being gender specific, which is no longer appropriate I'm told.

 

The national goverment still exists (is still alive). That the victim, the person to whom a debt is owed isn't still alive doesn't hold us back in transfering other debts owed to deceased to their heirs. I suppose the argument would be that its too many generations.

BTW, you seem to be under the mistaken preconception that I support reparations or this argument in the OP for them. I don't. I just wanted to explore this particular argument made by people who do, and was hoping some people who support that argument would come along so I could see them thinking it through and ask questions of them. Seems the vast majority here are against the argument, which I find encouraging.

 

this tweet lists a shitload of whites who were murdered in February by POC. It shows pics of the victims and killers. It’s possible these murderers would have gotten reparations money from the people they murdered. I don’t know if the 35-0 number is true, but I’m willing to believe it’s probably close.

If the white race is responsible for slavery even though very few whites had slaves, then POC are responsible for their violence even though only a percentage are violent. The sins offset each other. No reparations.
…………….

For Feb 2023 in the USA
blacks murdered 35 whites
whites murdered 0 blacks

https://twitter.com/the1351project/status/1634401668111683584

 

The same government that went to war at least in part to rid the nation of slavery? That one? It inherited the slavery problem, and though there were some who wanted it banned when the Constitution was originally written, they knew well enough to know if they did so, it would never have been ratified. But that is the kind of thing I would expect someone to know if they choose to participate in a forum like this.

In any event, the government has no money. It produces nothing. It is a net sink on the economy, and the money it does have, belongs to us living people, and the debt belongs to our kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. We need to be cutting spending, DEEP, not adding to it. Reckless spending is why our economy is in the ******* and we've had, what, 4 banks collapse in the past week or two?

The 'American Rescue Plan', that was a week late and $100 short (inflation) was in fact the proximate cause of the inflation we've been experiencing, and the side effects thereto. Without that bill, we would not be in this situation.

But you still have not addressed my comments about the difference between my father giving me a $100 bill as a graduation gift, and leaving me my share of his net wealth, along with his other kids. I'd really like to hear how you differentiate between the two.

 

It wsa an offhanded comment, and I'm still not interested in it becoming a derail of the thread and question that i'm actually interested in.

 

I'd like to see how Australians have or will pay restitution for the inhuman treatment of the Aboriginals! You know, the indigenous people on Australia! Then we can have an honest discussion about this subject!

 

OK. You don't want to answer it because you don't have a good answer. Gotcha.

 

great question!

 

I now identify as a black person with slave ancestry...don't you deny my truth.

 

My pops was born and raised in Alabama, seventeen miles from Selma... So I'm sure I must have some negro in me! At least as much as Elizabeth Warren has Indian in her ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm looking forward to my check and then I can put all this sadness in my life behind me

 

They were given 40 acres right after the war. Too bad it got taken back. Regardless, let's look at some math.
40 acres today in SC is worth about $120,000. Divide that number by the number of descendants each slave had. If each generation had 4 kids, that would be about 4100 decendants. 120,000/4100 = $30

During Covid, they were given thousands of dollars. Should everyone give back their thousands and then give the descensnts their $30?

 

how many freedmen actually saw the 40 acres and why take back a war surplus mule when there are no longer cannon to drag from atlanta to the sea?

gen sherman's proposal, 40 acres and a mule, could have ended this silly talk of reparations.