Slavery reparations gain momentum

[Woodmonkey]

Advocates quietly push for slavery reparations
With global attention and cases in court, scholars say issue has momentum


Katrina Browne stands June 30 near a house in Cambridge, Mass., where an attorney for freed and escaped black slaves once lived. Her ancestors were the biggest slave traders in U.S. history, and she has been working for seven years on a documentary about their trade. She expects to finish within the next six months.

Advocates who say black Americans should be compensated for slavery and its Jim Crow aftermath are quietly chalking up victories and gaining momentum.

Fueled by the work of scholars and lawyers, their campaign has morphed in recent years from a fringe-group rallying cry into sophisticated, mainstream movement. Most recently, a pair of churches apologized for their part in the slave trade, and one is studying ways to repay black church members.

The overall issue is hardly settled, even among black Americans: Some say that focusing on slavery shouldn’t be a top priority or that it doesn’t make sense to compensate people generations after a historical wrong.
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Yet reparations efforts have led a number of cities and states to approve measures that force businesses to publicize their historical ties to slavery. Several reparations court cases are in progress, and international human rights officials are increasingly spotlighting the issue.

“This matter is growing in significance rather than declining,” said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and a leading reparations activist. “It has more vigor and vitality in the 21st century than it’s had in the history of the reparations movement.”

The most recent victories for reparations advocates came in June, when the Moravian Church and the Episcopal Church both apologized for owning slaves and promised to battle current racism.

Episcopalians take point on issue
The Episcopalians also launched a national, yearslong probe into church slavery links and into whether the church should compensate black members. A white church member, Katrina Browne, also screened a documentary focusing on white culpability at the denomination’s national assembly.

The Episcopalians debated slavery and reparations for years before reaching an agreement, said Jayne Oasin, social justice officer for the denomination, who will oversee its work on the issue.

Historically, slavery was an uncomfortable topic for the church. Some Episcopal bishops owned slaves — and the Bible was used to justify the practice, Oasin said.

“Why not (take these steps) 100 years ago?” she said. “Let’s talk about the complicity of the Episcopal Church as one of the institutions of this country who, of course, benefited from slavery.”

Also in June, a North Carolina commission urged the state government to repay the descendants of victims of a violent 1898 campaign by white supremacists to strip blacks of power in Wilmington, N.C. As many as 60 black people died, and thousands were driven from the city.

The commission also recommended state-funded programs to support local black businesses and home ownership.

1921 riot as global rights violation?
The report came weeks after the Organization of American States requested information from the U.S. government about a 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Okla., in which 1,200 homes were burned and as many as 300 black people were killed. An OAS official said the group might pursue the issue as a violation of international human rights.

The modern reparations movement revived an idea that’s been around since emancipation, when black leaders argued that newly freed slaves deserved compensation.

About six years ago, the issue started gaining momentum again. Randall Robinson’s “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks,” was a best seller; reparations became a central issue at the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa; and California legislators passed the nation’s first law forcing insurance companies that do business with the state to disclose their slavery ties. Illinois passed a similar insurance law in 2003, and the next year Iowa legislators began requesting — but not forcing — the same disclosures.
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Several cities — including Chicago, Detroit and Oakland — have laws requiring that all businesses make such disclosures.

For critics, a movement ‘based on a fallacy’
Reparations opponents insist that no living American should have to pay for a practice that ended more than 140 years ago. Plus, programs such as affirmative action and welfare already have compensated for past injustices, said John H. McWhorter, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

“The reparations movement is based on a fallacy that cripples the thinking on race — the fallacy that what ails black America is a cash problem,” said McWhorter, who is black. “Giving people money will not solve the problems that we have.”

Even so, support is reaching beyond African-Americans and the South.

Katrina Browne, the white Episcopalian filmmaker, is finishing a documentary about her ancestors, the DeWolfs of Bristol, R.I., the biggest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She screened it for Episcopal Church officials at the June convention.

“Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North,” details how the economies of the Northeast and the nation as a whole depended on slaves.

“A lot of white people think they know everything there is to know about slavery — we all agree it was wrong and that’s enough,” Browne said. “But this was the foundation of our country, not some Southern anomaly. We all inherit responsibility.”

She says neither whites nor blacks will heal from slavery until formal hearings expose the full history of slavery and its effects — an effort similar to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid collapsed.

The Source

[Carnage_59]

He11, I'll give 'em reparation if they want it... a check for $10,000.00 and each one must accept a one-way to Liberia and in order for him or her to get it, he or she will have to give up his or her US citizenship.

[Snowden]

“A lot of white people think they know everything there is to know about slavery — we all agree it was wrong and that’s enough,” Browne said. “But this was the foundation of our country, not some Southern anomaly. We all inherit responsibility.”

Hogwash. It was a worldwide practice - it's only been the last few years that slavery was abolished in Saudi and most likely in other countries. This is not a sin of the people of this country; are the other former slave-holding nations in on this reparation crap? We should give them what was promised. A donkey and 40 acres, or the equivalent in todays money, if anything. Not one cent more.

She says neither whites nor blacks will heal from slavery until formal hearings expose the full history of slavery and its effects — an effort similar to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid collapsed.

My family owned slaves - I got over it years ago. I am responsible for my sins only - not those of my forebears. And at that, they educated their slaves and freed them. I'm rather proud of them; nobody forced them to do that. They gave those who wanted to stay on an acre and a house. Then, a job.

[Woodmonkey]

This article, though, is only about slavery as it was practiced in this country and not the world. What was done in this country was evil. As for reparations? No. How would they begin to find the descendent of slavers anyway? They would be the only ones who 'should' pay reparations (and I don't think they should). Those of us who's families arrived long after slavery have nothing to be sorry about. Our ancestors were not part of the American problem.

We should give them what was promised. A donkey and 40 acres, or the equivalent in todays money, if anything. Not one cent more.

The modern day equivalent. No. No reparations. That promise was not made by our elected officials.

The slave owners and the slaves are all dead now. Their descendents neither owe, nor are owed, anything at this stage.

[Snowden]

Originally Posted by Woodmonkey

This article, though, is only about slavery as it was practiced in this country and not the world. What was done in this country was evil. As for reparations? No. How would they begin to find the descendent of slavers anyway? They would be the only ones who 'should' pay reparations (and I don't think they should). Those of us who's families arrived long after slavery have nothing to be sorry about. Our ancestors were not part of the American problem.

This article creates an aura of guilt by simply narrowing down its scopt to this country. That's intentional and I don't buy it. The hypocrasy of a free nation having slave holders is one thing; collective guilt is hogwash. I have nothing to be sorry about either - except that it would be lovely to have a slave or two now!

The modern day equivalent. No. No reparations. That promise was not made by our elected officials.

The slave owners and the slaves are all dead now. Their descendents neither owe, nor are owed, anything at this stage.

They are free people in a country where people who cannot even speak the language come still, and in one generation those people are making decent livings. Not all, but certainly a great many. Others, by applying themselves do the same.

Many of the former slaves have made places for themselvex in this country - all could have by now and have selected dependency instead. They were better off as slaves, and only the inequity of the practice, not the morality or lack thereof, has made them free. That and the need to unite the Yankee states to fight against the South. Mr. Lincoln was "the great emancipator" because it was helpful - not because of any feeling of guilt or love of the slaves. This is not throwing stones at his memory. It is fact.

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." —Abraham Lincoln, fourth debate with Stephen Douglas

Reparations? Hell, no. Help them advance? By all means. Get the kids in school, the fathers able to live at home without losing pay, and the mothers able to raise their children. This was done until LBJ's "Great Society," I believe - and look at the difference with the world then and now.