Next Up on the Agenda: Slavery Reparations
Posted by Bill Dupray
on Feb 18 2009 Filed under Politics.
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So is none of Obama’s $1 trillion pork bill going to African-Americans – his primary voting block? Last I heard, Obama was a black guy (at least I seem to recall the MSM saying something about that during the campaign). Do blacks need something extra? Did their guy leave them off his Christmas list?
Congress seems to think so.
Looks like we are going to have a Blue-Ribbon Commission investigate slavery and decide how much more free government money blacks should receive as reparations.
Note that the Commission will not only investigate the damage caused to African-Americans by slavery while there was slavery, and during Reconstruction, they are going to look for damage from slavery caused to blacks living today.
From Old Glory Radio. The bill is H.R. 40 IH.
(b) Duties- The Commission shall perform the following duties:
(1) Examine the institution of slavery which existed within the United States and the colonies that became the United States from 1619 through 1865. The Commission’s examination shall include an examination of–
(A) the capture and procurement of Africans;
(B) the transport of Africans to the United States and the colonies that became the United States for the purpose of enslavement, including their treatment during transport;
(C) the sale and acquisition of Africans as chattel property in interstate and instrastate commerce; and
(D) the treatment of African slaves in the colonies and the United States, including the deprivation of their freedom, exploitation of their labor, and destruction of their culture, language, religion, and families.
(2) Examine the extent to which the Federal and State governments of the United States supported the institution of slavery in constitutional and statutory provisions, including the extent to which such governments prevented, opposed, or restricted efforts of freed African slaves to repatriate to their homeland.
(3) Examine Federal and State laws that discriminated against freed African slaves and their descendants during the period between the end of the Civil War and the present.
(4) Examine other forms of discrimination in the public and private sectors against freed African slaves and their descendants during the period between the end of the Civil War and the present.
(5) Examine the lingering negative effects of the institution of slavery and the matters described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), and (4) on living African-Americans and on society in the United States.
(6) Recommend appropriate ways to educate the American public of the Commission’s findings.
(7) Recommend appropriate remedies in consideration of the Commission’s findings on the matters described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), and (4).
And here is, literally, the money provision.
In making such recommendations, the Commission shall address among other issues, the following questions:
(A) Whether the Government of the United States should offer a formal apology on behalf of the people of the United States for the perpetration of gross human rights violations on African slaves and their descendants.
(B) Whether African-Americans still suffer from the lingering effects of the matters described in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), and (4).
(C) Whether, in consideration of the Commission’s findings, any form of compensation to the descendants of African slaves is warranted.
(D) If the Commission finds that such compensation is warranted, what should be the amount of compensation, what form of compensation should be awarded, and who should be eligible for such compensation.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I personally have never owned a slave, and to my knowledge, nobody in my entire clan, stretching back to the mid-19th century, when we arrived in America, has either. But I am going to have to pay more money to the government so it can be given to people who were never slaves, whose families may never have been slaves (how does one accurately prove that anyway?), and who have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in welfare payments, affirmative action, racial preferences and set-asides, and anti-discrimination laws?
If we are going to investigate this issue going back hundreds of years, why don’t we take a good look at the African slave merchants who rounded up prisoners from neighboring tribes, sold them to slave traders, and pocketed the cash?
From Wikipedia (citations omitted).
The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by African kingdoms against weaker African tribes and peoples. These mass slavers included the Oyo empire (Yoruba), Kong Empire, Kingdom of Benin, Kingdom of Fouta Djallon, Kingdom of Fouta Tooro, Kingdom of Koya, Kingdom of Khasso, Kingdom of Kaabu, Fante Confederacy, Ashanti Confederacy, and the kingdom of Dahomey. Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance. . . .
The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery, who otherwise would have been killed in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs. As one of West Africa’s principal slave states, Dahomey became extremely unpopular with neighbouring peoples. Like the Bambara Empire to the east, the Khasso kingdoms depended heavily on the slave trade for their economy. A family’s status was indicated by the number of slaves it owned, leading to wars for the sole purpose of taking more captives. This trade led the Khasso into increasing contact with the European settlements of Africa’s west coast, particularly the French. Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin’s shore soon came to be known as the “Slave Coast”.
And these guys were very proud of their business model and defended it fiercely.
King Gezo of Dahomey said in 1840′s:
The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth…the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery…
In 1807, the UK Parliament passed the Bill that abolished the trading of slaves. The King of Bonny (now in Nigeria) was horrified at the conclusion of the practice:
We think this trade must go on. That is the verdict of our oracle and the priests. They say that your country, however great, can never stop a trade ordained by God himself.
Let’s see if we can have these reparations paid by the descendants of these villains in Africa without whom there would have been far fewer slaves brought to America in the first place. We could start in the numerous places in Africa where slavery still exists.
If the Democrats like punishing corrupt CEO’s of big business, those Africans might be a good place to start.
Correction: Joy in the comments correctly notes that the Reparations Bill is H.R. 40 IH, not 45, as I had orginally written, the latter of which is an anti-gun bill (another post for another day). Thanks Joy for the heads-up.
Also see my columns on Examiner.com:
Related Posts
- HR40;Commission On Slavery Reparations
- The friend of my enemy is my enemy – even if it’s Lincoln.
- Why didn’t Media Matters catch Limbaugh’s “slavery” quote when he “said” it?
- Texas Michael Williams On Bill White’s Racist Words
- ‘Embarrassed’ is a strong word, and Americans are of the dems and their agenda
Short URL: http://libertypundits.net/?p=3259
Yes.
Racism is still mostly committed by white people against people of color
That may be the most inaccurate thing you’ve ever said on here, Alex.
More importantly, racism is not illegal unless acted upon in a way that violates another person’s rights. Nobody has to like anybody, Alex, and I would fear the government that thinks it can change that more than I fear anyone not liking me.
Good.
If you want to focus only on illegal forms of racism, then I’ll adopt your viewpoint and take a look. Let’s look at hate crimes statistics for the United States. The most recent figures I can find are for 2006. (I’m not a big fan of hate crimes legislation. It seems to me to criminalize mental intent which is very hard to prove. However, it seems OK to me to use hate crime statistics to document incidence of crime that is likely to have been motivated by racism.) The figures for hate crimes reported to the FBI are as follows:
Of 7,722 hate-crime incidents, 3,216 or 42% were anti-people of color (2,640 anti-black, 576 anti-Hispanic), 967 were anti-Jewish, 910 were anti-homosexual, 890 or 12% were anti-white and 156 anti-Islamic. 1,583 hate-crimes did not fall into any of those categories.
If this reflects in any way the actual incidence of racially motivated crime, then it would indicate that racially motivated crimes directed toward people of color are about 3.5 times as frequent in the United States as racially motivated crimes directed at whites. This is not that surprising, not necessarily because of a higher intrinsic level of racism among whites but simply because there are so many more whites than blacks in the United States. Therefore, it is also not surprising that, as I wrote above, racism is still mostly committed by white people against people of color.
The FBI is with me on this. What’s your backup?
Alex, it seems to me that you’re making Scott’s point perfectly. “Racism” is not something you can “commit”. I doubt very much that the FBI would agree with you there. Crimes are crimes. If a person is treated less than fairly, less than equally, because of color — that’s also against the law. It seems to me that this post was about the notion of slave reparations, which very clearly separate the victim from the beneficiary. No other kind of personal legal claim in American jurisprudence is hereditary.
This is very telling:
“I don’t deserve the benefits I get from happening to be white and English-born, and I don’t get those benefits without someone else who is not white suffering a concomitant disadvantage.”
You are expiating your hereditary guilt. That’s fine — but I don’t feel guilty for working hard and succeeding, nor do I believe that I have done so at the expense of anyone, of any race. Success is not a zero sum game. I went to public high school and there were many, many black students that had the very same advantages I did.
If you want to simply say that this bill is window dressing with no chance of enactment, then fine; say that. If you want to argue that generation of generation of black Americans are still being held back because of slavery, prove that — or even just make a decent argument. Racism is not born of slavery; it’s simply racism. If you want to enforce discrimination law, have at it. Personal bias is not a crime and I am not guilty for acts I have not committed.
Rose,
Scott seemed to be trying to limit the sphere of the racism being discussed to “racism that violates another person’s rights.” When he told me that I was inaccurate to suggest that most acts of racism was committed by white people against people of color, he was suggesting that most cases where racism violated another person’s rights were not cases where a white person violated the rights of a person of color – is that a fair interpretation, Scott? So I presented FBI evidence that suggested that hate crimes, which intrinsically involve violations of rights, are in fact directed much more against people of color than against white people. I don’t think that was unfair to do.
I do think that racism extends far beyond what is or should be legally actionable. It’s not illegal to show contempt to someone because of their race, to call someone a f**king n**gger, and so on. The First Amendment protects such things, but they are still racist.
I have said repeatedly on this thread that I don’t believe in hereditary guilt or hereditary claims, and that I don’t think reparations are the way to go. When I talk about ways I’m advantaged by being white and English-born, I’m talking about present-day benefits that accrue to me personally. It is logical that if I am treated better than an average person would be on account of these things, then someone else is being treated worse than average – not as a result of my being treated better, but simply because we don’t live in Lake Wobegon “where everybody is above average”.
I argue that present-day people of color often experience more difficulties and challenges in their everyday lives because of present-day racism. I think that’s something we should feel able to acknowledge and talk about how to improve, without people going off the deep end about reparations and how unfair reparations would be and how they personally are guiltless of any bias towards people different from themselves so everyone should just shut up about race. If present-day racism were not an issue, I wouldn’t come across so many white people who freak out when the topic comes up.
I suggest giving anyone seeking reparations a one way ticket back to Africa to the decendants of their relatives who ‘SOLD’ them into slavery in the first place. It’s not like the merchants came to Africa and kidnapped them from the friggin grass huts. Their own people sold them off like cattle.
A sale implies a willing seller and a willing buyer. If someone buys, say, child pornography, then it’s no defense to say, “But the guy I bought it from sold it to me willingly.”
I agree that African slave traders participated in the slave trade. Any reading of contemporary slave narratives makes that clear. Nor do I argue that reparations are the answer. You just can’t claim that America, among other countries, bears no responsibility for having facilitated the slave trade.
“If this reflects in any way the actual incidence of racially motivated crime, then it would indicate that racially motivated crimes directed toward people of color are about 3.5 times as frequent in the United States as racially motivated crimes directed at whites. This is not that surprising, not necessarily because of a higher intrinsic level of racism among whites but simply because there are so many more whites than blacks in the United States. Therefore, it is also not surprising that, as I wrote above, racism is still mostly committed by white people against people of color.
The FBI is with me on this. What’s your backup?”
I’ve seen white people get jumped in my neighborhood by black people screaming “cracker”, and it’s treated as simple assault and battery without the “enhanced” hate crime penalties when they’re found guilty. And yes, I’ve witnessed this with my own eyes on more than one occasion and yes, I also check up on the resolution of these incidents thanks to my county and city being very “wired”. Out of five instances of the above scenario that have happened where I live, ONE has been considered a hate crime. This implies that a politically correct agenda is at work.
I really do not worry about it though; I work in higher education and many of us behind the scenes are dismantling affirmative action piece by piece and others will do so with hate crime statutes as well.
And before you even start, yes, I voted for Obama… and yes, whitey is the reason he’s there. If he screws up badly, we can vote him out next term. For you see, swing voters own this nation.
I’ve seen white people get jumped in my neighborhood by black people screaming “cracker”, and it’s treated as simple assault and battery without the “enhanced” hate crime penalties when they’re found guilty. And yes, I’ve witnessed this with my own eyes on more than one occasion and yes, I also check up on the resolution of these incidents thanks to my county and city being very “wired”. Out of five instances of the above scenario that have happened where I live, ONE has been considered a hate crime. This implies that a politically correct agenda is at work.
District attorneys are not noted for their “political correctness”. They are, however, noted for wanting to bring to trial only those cases where they are confident of getting a conviction. There may have been many reasons as well as political correctness why a district attorney might not have been confident of getting a conviction in the other cases. Usually, I would think, they would charge as a hate crime only those cases that are severe enough that they could be confident of a conviction.
Here’s the key. The same calculus applies, across the country, for white-on-black crime as well as black-on-white crime. What evidence do you have for thinking that district attorneys do not also prosecute only a similar minority of white-on-black assaults as hate crimes?
Damn,
I thought making this country multicultural was the reparations in addition to welfare and the other crap, and now Health care. Does it end?
At some point, you begin to think it is worth paying something more direct — anything — just so liberals shut up — but then they will always find another groups:
Like how the media now refers to Hispanics as being historically oppressed. Thr majority just came here within the last 25 years. Where is the history? Because they suddenly don’t represent now 16% of the CEOs and congress?
I agree though — I wish conservatives would support some direct payment and just end it. Because the issue is just used to support one liberal reform after another — which most conservatives accept kicking and screaming ,accepting it as reparation, but most blacks just think, ‘oh thanks, but where are my reparations?’ — not making the connection.
So at this point I think it is important to be explicit about this spend 100 billion and cut every Pre-60′s African American 3k and make it clear what it is — have a parade, ect.
Imagine is Bush 2 did that instead of his silly war — there wouldn’t be this mess.
Alex
Actually, the non-white hispanic population is closer to 66% (200,000/300,000). Minus whatever when non-citizens are included. And ‘white’ of course includes Middle Easterns, North Africans, Jews ect — many of whom don’t exactly vote republican. So if you mean European-American and you mean total population (not just citizens) your at around 61%.
Most media doesn’t report this because the original ideas was that if Europeans saw the decline from 86% in the 70′s to 61%, 40 years later, they might protest immigration; the upshot is that ‘whitey’ as European is a bit conflated.
European — 61
Hispanic — 16
Black –12
Asian –7
Non-European white -3
Other — q
I make the European/ white distinction — in light of voting patterns.
So glad to see an informed, rational, and mature perspective trying to contribute to this rather sad conversation. Why must the very people who so uncompassionately preach self-reliance and personal responsibility, whine so peckishly about historical discussions that complicate our American sense of ourselves, and our understanding of the complex nature of this truly amazing country?
Instead self-inducing a fenzied paranoid seizure on par with that kid in The 6th Sense: “I see Black People.” Why not take a deep breath, and realize that there are consequences, some long deep and hard consequences to actions, social constructions and economic policies which gain some privileges and create some penalties. This is the inheritance of EVERY AMERICAN. So why not deal with it like grown-ups instead of this cartoony whining. Catch up with the world. Pinch you pimples, tuck in your shirt and analyze the situation like 21st century citizens rather than 20th century babies.