Slavery reparations gaining momentum

[Zipp0 1]

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But hardly untrue, either, at least re: the whiteys living in the USA up to 1865, and their descendants.

I come from post WWI immigrant stock, so don't look at me!

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

[wmw999 2,171]

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I come from post WWI immigrant stock, so don't look at me!

Me too. One thing to consider (note I'm not weighing in on the reparations thing in particular) is that most white American adults have benefitted from the legacy of slavery; they have benefitted by being white in a white-dominated US.

You don't get looked at strange when you walk into a store at night when the clerk is alone. You look and talk more like the guy interviewing for jobs might hang out with. You are less likely to have been stopped simply for being in the right place at the right time. You are more likely to have successful business owners in the mass market (rather than targeted) in your family.

This doesn't mean that every white person is rich and advantaged, nor does it mean that every non-white person isn't. But there is still prejudice out there, and even if we don't contribute, we benefit from it. It's not wrong to (you don't see me dressing crappy so I'll get looked at funny at the store), but it's wrong not to recognize it.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Zipp0 1]

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You don't get looked at strange when you walk into a store at night when the clerk is alone.

You obviously don't know me.

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Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down.

[mirage62 0]

How about the "few" people who died fighting in the civil war. I mean the ones that actually were motivated to fight to end slavery? I know that the actual numbers were low but some did fight for "the cause" shouldn't there familys get some of the money?

How about the money that has been spent on AA? Does that get deducted from the bill?

It's simple. First ask for a trillion, then billions and "settle" for a lot of millions.

The whole thing is silly

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[nathaniel 0]

What about all the discrimination that took place against Italians, Irish, Chinese, Scandinavians, etc when they successively arrived in waves in the 19th century.

Suffering through indentured servitude should get you at least 25% or 50% of what slavery does.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[billvon 2,473]

>I wonder, if they do receive reparations how much more will
>they have to borrow to pay back all those servicemen for their efforts
>to keep our country free of tyranny?

Fortunately, servicemen get paid. It's sorta different from slavery in that respect. But if you were forced to be a soldier, and paid nothing, then I'd be all for you getting the money back, with interest.

[Andy9o8 0]

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What about all the discrimination that took place against Italians, Irish, Chinese, Scandinavians, etc when they successively arrived in waves in the 19th century.

Suffering through indentured servitude should get you at least 25% or 50% of what slavery does.

I'm not advocating for reparations, but...a weak link in your argument is that the Italians, Irish, Chinese, Scandinavians, etc immigrated here more or less......voluntarily...

[rickjump1 0]

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Fortunately, servicemen get paid. It's sorta different from slavery in that respect. But if you were forced to be a soldier, and paid nothing, then I'd be all for you getting the money back, with interest.

The servicemen I remember, paid with their lives.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[warpedskydiver 0]

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Gee like they all need that money and BTW Obama is in favor of reparations but the funny thing is his family were never slaves nor US Citizens.

I seem to remember a lot of press on the Illinois senate campaign about Obama disagreeing with Keyes about slavery reparations. Do you have any other concrete information about Obama believing in slavery reparations besides "some TV appearance" with the black caucus? I'm not buying it, and there's nothing on his website about slavery reparations.

Brie

If I remember it correctly it was before he was elected to the senate, he was running for office at the time.

[Royd 0]

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Had those slaves been paid a fair wage, their decendents might have had a different life for generations.

Imagine is your ancestors were slaves, not too long ago. Do you honestly think your life would be the same?

It should only take one generation of having an equal opportunity in education and job opportunity for a group of people to get their lives on track.
I might bite the bullet once for someone, but I will not be held hostage for my whole life, because someone's great great grandfather was a slave.
That is the intention of people like Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. They don't really want blacks to grab the brass ring.

[nathaniel 0]

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...voluntarily...

Forced labor is forced labor. Once you're in it, you can't get out of it even if you want to. Indentured servitude is just as illegal today as slavery.

Perhaps we should take into account the actual working conditions, give less to slaves/servants that worked indoors, and give more reparations to field laborers.

What about all the descendants of feudal serfs in Europe. Surely we should pursue the descendants of nobility. Why stop at our contemporary national borders?

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Shotgun 1]

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Ever try to enter grad schools as a white person?

Do you have any statistics showing how many grad students are white?

If I go by my personal experience, I'd say that the majority of grad students are white. But you seem to think that white people are at a disadvantage, so I'm curious to see how you came to this opinion.(?)

[Andy9o8 0]

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It should only take one generation of having an equal opportunity in education and job opportunity for a group of people to get their lives on track.

The principle behind that point sounds logical, but in practical reality I think both the ripple effect from a legacy of racial discrimination, plus the ongoing racial discrimination that still exists today (although thank God not as badly as it used to) means that, at least for black people, it will take more than one generation.

And where do we start the clock? For blacks, equal educational opportunity might start in the 1970's. Equal job opportunity..hm...I think a convincing argument can be made that there's been a lot of progress, but that goal has still not yet been acheived.

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I might bite the bullet once for someone, but I will not be held hostage for my whole life, because someone's great great grandfather was a slave.

Again, that seems logical on its face, but that only presupposes that the discrimination ended within 1 generation after slavery ended. But, of course, it didn't. So a legacy of 100+ post-slavery years of institutionalized, as well as informal, racial discrimination must still be factored into the formula.

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That is the intention of people like Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. They don't really want blacks to grab the brass ring.

Maybe not, but I think people like Obama does. Jackson and Sharpton have little credibility outside their own group. But when people like Obama speak, I stop and listen to what he has to say.

[SpeedRacer 1]

whatever you do re. reparations, people are always just going to say it isn't enough. so what's the point.

Speed Racer
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[ThunderCat 0]

You already owe 28 gold eiffel towers.
I think they deserve it.
It's the least we can do.

[billvon 2,473]

>The servicemen I remember, paid with their lives.

So did the slaves. About six million african slaves were killed before slavery was abolished in the US. It was customary to allow for a large fraction of a slaver ship's 'cargo' to die before reaching its destination.

[rushmc 18]

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>The servicemen I remember, paid with their lives.

So did the slaves. About six million african slaves were killed before slavery was abolished in the US. It was customary to allow for a large fraction of a slaver ship's 'cargo' to die before reaching its destination.

.....and the rest of the story is that black slaves were sold to white slave traders by???

....blacks in and from Africa.

Not saying that is makes any slave holding right but......

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,473]

>and the rest of the story is that black slaves were sold to white slave
> traders by??? blacks in and from Africa.

Right. So?

[rushmc 18]

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Any wealthy company or family that can trace their prosperity back to slave labor owes the decendents of their slaves a huge chunk of money. Had those slaves been paid a fair wage, their decendents might have had a different life for generations.

Imagine is your ancestors were slaves, not too long ago. Do you honestly think your life would be the same?

Is it your contention they would be better off today if their ancestors had been left in Africa?

Don't put words in my mouth.

Non sequitur. The fact is, they were brought here against their will.

And I will point out again that nearly all black staves were sold to white slave traders by black slave gatheres. Do they owe something.


I suspect that you have (in your family tree) someone that did something wrong or illeagal (I do) do you owe the families of the wronged one compensation??

This is nothing more than a money grab no better than the (you fill in the blanks)

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

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>and the rest of the story is that black slaves were sold to white slave
> traders by??? blacks in and from Africa.

Right. So?

You, like everyone has bad history in your family tree somewhere. Do you owe someone for the mistakes of your forefathers?

This whole topic is a fucking joke!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,473]

>You, like everyone has bad history in your family tree somewhere.
>Do you for the mistakes of your forefathers?

Do you mean "should I pay for the mistakes of my forefathers?" Like when my grandfather let a flock of sheep escape their farm in Ireland? He paid for that one.

>This whole topic is a fucking joke!

But I have confidence that you will make many more posts on it.

[psipike02 0]

Ok, so I've glanced at a few posts on here and decided to put in my two cents being a black male in america right now. Take it how you want....but its my opinion...

Reparations.....first, do I feel that we deserve them?

IMHO. Absolutely not. Did I have Great great great great (keep going) grand relatives who were slaves? Quite possibly. Is it affecting me today? No. Is racism still present in america? Absolutely, but I'm not gonna go and carry this chip on my shoulder saying that america should be paying something back to me and the rest of the black community for something that happened before we were even thought of nor did it have an affect on us.

You live your life and plan for it according to what you want and how you want to live. This isn't about white people being right or black people being right. Its about people waking the hell up and shutting up for two seconds about who has it worse or who can't get this or why we can't get in here.

If you want more for your life, then go for it. I want to be an astronaut and i'm busting my ass to get there. I go to the University of Michigan. No, I did not get in there because they had to fill a quota of black kids to get in. Its because i worked my ass off in high school, graduated with a 4.2, attained a 1390 on the SAT and did every single activity there was. I know what I want for myself and i'm not letting anyone or anything stop me. I also didnt go to one of those huge, awesome high schools with the AP classes. We had advanced college classes and that was it. I was the first and only kid in my school to ever take the AP Calc Exam and to ever get accepted to a Big Ten School. I'd say 1/4 - 1/2 of the kids in my graduating class are either still in my hometown doing nothing or doing drugs or have died or are pregnant, sadly.

What does this have to do with reparations...my problem with some parts of the black community is that we as people are often times so quick to put up the blame on everyone else before we put it on ourselves. Then when we don't get what we want, we're quick to walk around with this chip on our shoulder and say "reparations" or "racism." NOW, don't get me wrong, i'd say 4 out of 10 times, it just might be racism and if you don't believe racism doesn't exist still, PM me and I can give you some examples.

Anyways, i just feel we need to stop trying to blame others (and this goes for every race) for whats wrong with us now. Take responsibility. My dad is a preacher and I've heard him say this too. We're quick to say REPARATIONS FOR US and you guys owe us this amount of $$$ when we can't pay the rent or pay our bills. Why is that? Because we bought those $160 Jordans or that $3000 TV. (I know whites and blacks who do this)

Stop looking for handouts....thats all that is....is a handout....work for what you want. yeah I would love to be a millionaire with my house on cribs living the good life with a great job and still skydiving...but I know the only way I'll get there is by shutting off all the haters around me, not blaming everyone else for my own faults/failures, sacking up and working harder than ever for what I want.....not waiting on the government to give it to me. I know the world or government owes me nothing but If I walk around like it does, i'm never gonna get anywhere.....i'm willing to bust my ass to get anywhere and everywhere I wanna be as long as I'm treated just as fairly as everyone else at the same time...

Sorry for the rant....I dont normally come in SC, but I wanted to give my opinion on the matter. This post wasn't meant to attack anyone, just thought I'd make a point from another POV, hopefully it made sense...

Puttin' some stank on it.

----Hellfish #707----

[Lindsey 0]

Without a doubt racism is a problem and black people, on the whole, are disadvantaged compared to whites.

But what I don't know that we can say is that black Americans are worse off today because of slavery than they would have been had slavery not been.

I don't think that racism is a consequence of slavery as much as it is about differences. Nowadays I think there's as much an issue with Mexicans as there is with black people....if not more. Mexicans weren't enslaved to whites.

I think the issue of reparations is ridiculous myself. It sucks that it happened, but it's history.

linz

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A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[psipike02 0]

I completely agree. I don't believe racism is a product of slavery.

I believe you hit the nail on the head when you said:

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I don't think that racism is a consequence of slavery as much as it is about differences

Regardless had we came over voluntarily or through slavery, at that time, we were different. Many times I know even myself, when something new comes along thats different that I'm not used to, i'm very apprehensive about it and cautionary.

But as I said, I agree. I think that if we as black people are ever going to move on and become stronger, then yes, we have to let go of it and look to the future.....but not everyone can do that....

Puttin' some stank on it.

----Hellfish #707----

[Royd 0]

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Ok, so I've glanced at a few posts on here and decided to put in my two cents being a black male in america right now. Take it how you want....but its my opinion...

If you want more for your life, then go for it.

Thank you for your response. You have proven my point that if you want it all , you can have it without putting undue burden upon another person or group of people. Especially today.
The whole victim mentality is so lame across the board, no matter your race or upbringing.