The issue of reparations to african americans for slavery is coming up. This time many more politicians on the bandwagon. But it does not help when a 6 year old black kills a 6 year old white girl, or a man goes crazy and kills only whites because he is mad. Maybe instead of money we can be exempt from HATE CRIMES. The Juice Man

-- Orange Juice (OJ.@kill.com), March 02, 2000

Answers

If blacks get reparations, then it would be racist to exclude the Native Americans whose lands were stolen. All Native Americans have every right to get reparations as much as African-Americans do. No group has a monopoly on injustice and suffering.

-- haha (haha@haha.com), March 02, 2000.

Better not make me or mine pay, we weren't here before the civil war, and did not benefit from slavery. See this thread:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000ERE

ps. you cannot equate reparations to the Japanese during WW2 to reparations to slaves descendants. The Japanese internment was an act of the government, and slavery was not.

-- (formerly@nowhere.zzz), March 02, 2000.

Formerly,

Are you sure that slavery was not a U.S. government act. I guess you never heard of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1950 or the Dred Scott Decision.

-- Jazzman (jazzman@aol.com), March 02, 2000.

Can I get some for what was done to my ancestors? The Romans conquored them and made them slaves! That has caused me much mental stress. Our lands were stolen, our women raped, it was terrible and they have never had the courtesy to fight a war to free us. They owe big time!

Really I would be more upset with the people that sold them into slavery. Their own people! Americans bought them but many were sold by other tribes. If the US pays we should get what was paid for them back from Africans. With interest at todays prices.

My ancestors weren't even in this country until after the civil war. Why am I guilty and of what? Why should I have to pay? My wife is a Philipina and only been in this country 6 years. Why should she pay anything.

-- Mr. Pinochle (pinochledd@aol.com), March 02, 2000.

I want to post a much longer answer, but it is breakfast time and the kids are yelling.

I am opposed to reparations being paid to any group. That is a nasty kettle of fish to delve into. Some of the responses above bear me out. Some folks just weren't here at the time. I wish all of us could live in peace, but if some folks here are that disheartened with their lives that they think a little bit of money will make it "all better", then they should look at the lives of previous lottery winners (It screwed up more lives than helped in the long run).

Let's see, we give every African American in the country say what....$250,000.00 like they want. They are a minority, right? How many skinheads , klanners, nutz in general will it take to "take" that money from them? Think that won't start a race war? How many poor Koreans,chinese, vietnamese,armenians, turks,hispanics, etc... do you think won't be a bit "perturbed"...

Nope, you'll really start something that you don't want to if you start trying to right wrongs from a hundred or more years ago. It was WRONG. Let it go! To nurture that kind of grievance and anger in your heart is to destroy yourself.

Points to ponder....

-- Alice (Looking@glass.com), March 02, 2000.

Well there's a whole flock of problems with this nasty concept. But at root, it's a moral issue.

Is it moral to take by force? No.

Now, is it moral to RESPOND to force with force? Yes.

Did I, or anybody I know have slaves? No.

Therefore, I did not INITIATE force, and therefore should not have force used against me. Taking my property by force and giving it to anybody else is immoral.

This obviously extends to the current tax system, and myriad other fees and excises taken from us every day. But only one problem at a time I think.

As an irrelevant, but interesting corollary to this whole specious argument, *my* ancestors were indentured servants when they arrived, and their children (on my maternal side) were in turn indentured as well. And I mean for their entire lives! They all died pretty young, so (which was normal back then), but effectively, they were ALL slaves their entire lives.

They were white. I want my reparations, too.

Jolly

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), March 02, 2000.

Why is the current generation responsible for the actions of its forebears (and the British and the African leaders who supplied the slaves).

Would we demand compensation for the crimes of German Nazis, Russian Communists, the Spanish Inquisition etc etc.

Why not seek compensation from those responsible for current crimes committed across racial boundaries (both ways).

-- Sir Richard (richard.dale@unum.co.uk), March 02, 2000.

What about all the white boys that died fighting against the Confederacy so that the slaves could be freed? Doesn't that blood reparation count for anything?

How about if blacks paid reparations to the descendants of families of Union troops slain to free them?

Logic is perZACKLY the same.

-- HUFFENPUFF (HP@CYBERJOINT.COM), March 02, 2000.

Gee- flashback time here. Reminds me of this young, black punk working on a roof with me. Started in with this "My great-grandfather was a slave so you owe me whiteboy."

I asked him "What about you? What has thta got to do with you now and today?"

See, I'm 33 and legally blind. Can't drive legally but I did because I had to. I was homeless and living in a state park, worked 3 years as a rent-a-drunk because with the eyesight I'm a diabetic and deaf as well as suffer nerve damage in my hands and feet.

So no one wants to hire me. So this uneducated asshole is making $15 an hour to my $5.50, getting strong working a decent job, motel bills paid by his company as well as food. While I'm going back to my camp at night in the rain and cold to suffer. And I owe him something?

I don't get disability or anything else. Had food stamps 2x in the last 12 years of my deteriorating eyesight. They get my paperwork with the notes from the doctors saying I'm legally blind-buuut, since I don't appear blind- no dog or cane, they decide I can function normally in a work environ and cut me off after 'X' amount of days- usually 30. How many fat, lazy, junkie, alcoholics and baby-makers get the aid and money they want? [not just blacks-I'm not predjudice, I hate everyone equally.]

So in my personal opinion-the blacks and anyone else that think I owe them something can bite my ass.

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), March 02, 2000.

Personally, I think it's a good idea. We take every dollar currently being spent on social welfare programs (plus a few more) and we divide it up among all of the benighted masses. Put $1 mil in the hands of every man, woman and child. Give them all Cadillacs and Lincolns and 40ft sailboats. Build them all a nice house. Send Jr. to college for free. Let Bill Gates garner a little "guilt" publicity by making everybody have a fully equipped PC and one or more laptops in-house. Satisfy every material want. Make them "equal" and then some. Then we warn them. They must take responsibility for their lives. There will be no further tolerance for what was. If they don't do something with what they've been given... find a job; start a franchise; keep their houses up and their sailboats painted, they will starve. Not go back on welfare. Starve. Adapt or die. No more crutches-no drugs, no alcohol; no more young girls getting pregnant in order to get their monthly check; no more young men joining gangs because that's the only social outlet they've been given, blah,blah-no more hand wringing professional minority "leaders" like the Rev. Jackson (what's his fee for extortion from a Corp.?) and Federal apologist bureaucrats hoping to convince the rest of us that violence against the big, bad white boys is understandable and merely angst manifesting itself -just their way of playing "catch-up", don't you know, because the big bad white boys did in all of the native culture hundreds of years ago.

Now, about this "Saxon" question...

-- chairborne commando (what-me-worry@armageddon.com), March 02, 2000.

my,did someone open up a big can of worms!my thoughts on this subject may be a little different.i have worked for every thing i own.this country is set up so each person has the means to make as much money as they so desire.all i hear from alot of people is you owe me,i've heard it from all races .i feel leaders of groups such as nation of islam,kkk,skinheads,blackpanthers,ect.make a pretty good living off the misery of the people that support them.you have to pay membership dues ,then if you want to be a good supporter you have to buy your t-shirt and other stuff to proudly display your loyalty to your group.how about forgive and forget.

-- harry huges (daddyo56@hotmail.com), March 02, 2000.

My ancestors were part of the Underground Railroad. Will they/we be compensated for all the work done to move run away slaves to freedom?

All must be free else there's no freedom.

Besides, it's cheaper to set everyone "free", let them handle it on there own then pay them slave wages. Same, same, IMO. That way no racial problems re: who is a slave.

Besides that, IMO, again. Freedom is a state of mind and Spirit!

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), March 02, 2000.

Native American tribes suffered more killing and misery from other tribes than they did from the white man many years ago. So that must mean the Cheyenne owe the Blackfoot and on and on. Let's get on with living.

-- John Thomas (cjseed@webtv.net), March 02, 2000.

At a certain point we are talking about repentence and forgiveness, not money per se. There's alot of hurt out there. Money doesn't mend the heart. There are things which have developed in America as divine retribution due to abuses of the past. I view our tobacco addiction and deaths as a living reparation to the American Native Peoples. Similarly our drug and alcohol problems as a living reparation to those we abused with slavery (see the connection there slavery = addiction). These two plagues will not end until we repent from our forefathers sins and ask forgiveness of the children of their miseries. IMHO

Ya pay. One way or another, ya pay.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), March 02, 2000.

The political party (e.g., the Democrats) that take this up are doomed, and they know it. So let it go fester a while and threaten people who would not be on the receiving end.

-- matt (rfp@mail.com), March 02, 2000.

My Yankee ancestors fought in the courtroom and on the battlefield to give blacks equal rights. I demand reparations.

-- mil (millenium@yahoo.com), March 02, 2000.

I am with the two whose forebears were from New York and New England, and who fought in the Revolution and the Civil War. Also, the New Englanders helped in the Underground Railroad. As an adult, I put my own body and reputation on the line in a really racist city in N. England, worse than ones in the South, and fought for civil rights, so that the black (or any other color, for that matter) people of the nation could choose to purchase a house in my neighborhood, or attend my church and be welcomed, not shunned or insulted. I taught in the first remedial after-school program in the nation as a volunteer two afternoons a week, and took these kids I loved on outings of all sorts, and got boxes of free toys for them at Christmas from my aunt's toy drive in NYC, going all the way from above Boston to NYC and back to do so, when we barely had gas money. On and on I could go.

However, when I was promised a scholarship to finish my education, to become a MSW so that I could work with the needy, I never got it because it went to a person of color, who were the only ones being given "reparations" for slavery at that time, and I bit the bullet. Couldn't afford to stay on a student loan, what with a small clergy stipend my husband received, so didn't finish my education until 1990 at age 55, when a friend got me a scholarship...finally.

My brother in NYC could not become a bus dispatcher when he was a driver because they were meeting quotas and only promoting black drivers. However, when two black men boarded his empty bus near the end of the line, and in the attempt to rob him, slashed his forehead around his eye (thankfully, the bone kept it from gouging out his eye!) and broke all the fingers on his right hand, he had to work in the depot for months of physical therapy. THEN he protested SO loudly and got legal help, and he DID become a dispatcher, passing the test with flying colors.

I was mugged in Chicago in 1988 on the elevated train to Oak Park, through West Chicago, and was told by the police who came to drive me the rest of the way home that "you are lucky you aren't dead, like the young lawyer last week, father of two boys, who was shot through the heart when he asked the man if the gun was real that he was brandishing. Or the three women who've been raped at razor point on the steps of the stations, having been dragged from the cars."

Twice more I had attempts on my purse, and saw six other incidents to others in Chicago in the five years of working downtown, where there is a big ring working the Loop, the police tell me.

Now, what more should I do? I've given my youth to the cause; I've not had my scholarship, which would have resulted in my being able a couple of years later to have a decent job and income as a single mom then, and to have had a much better income that by now would have allowed me to have a decent social security retirement, when I'll have to work til I drop; I've had $500 worth stolen with my pocketbook, and have paid since to learn how to use the gun I've had to buy for protection; my brother was denied his opportunity to be promoted and make more money until he was attacked. Should our family now be "hyper-hyper-taxed" (we're all already hyper-taxed as it is!) to pay these so-called reparations? Then to whom do we take our case?

When one looks also at the larger picture, right now Sudanese are killing, capturing and selling off their Sudanese brothers and sisters and their little children as slaves! Human nature does not change.

-- Elaine Seavey (Gods1sheep@aol.com), March 02, 2000.

If a person was a slave, he _might_ deserve reparations. Since there are no living slaves left, let the subject drop. After all, the constitution only guarantees the _persuit_ of happiness, not its attainment.

I am not now, nor was I ever guilty of owning slaves, and I don't intend to be treated as if I were.

George

-- George Valentine (georgevalentine@usa.net), March 02, 2000.

For anyone capable of a single new thought on the subject of race relations in America, I have a suggestion. In the book "The Redneck Manifesto", read the chapter on how poor white immigrants (the majority of white immigrants to the New World) fared during the time in question.

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), March 02, 2000.

If I had known it was going to be like this I would have picked my own cotton.

Harvey

-- Harvey Fartz (Harvey_Fartz@Hotmail.com), March 03, 2000.

I am sure I must have some black ancestors in my family tree. I like them too much for it not to be true. Does this mean I get $250 or $2500? Do I have to prove my black blood percentage to get the corresponding amount of compensation?

-- canthappen (n@ysayer.com), March 03, 2000.