Should US pay reparations for slavery? U.N. appointed experts think so.

As a symbolic gesture, I can see the point. We probably do need to apologise for many things done in our name by previous generations. "This was wrong and we are sorry".

But it's a little harder to get my head around the idea of financial reparations. Who would pay who for what? The UK probably ought to chip in for our part in the slave trade, but then we could also ask the former colonies for the back taxes they owe us. (Only kidding, folks!)

Better to try to fix where we are now, I think.

If that happens, I am totally suing the Catholic Church for killing and torturing (some of) my ancestors in the extermination crusades against the Cathars in the 13th century.

You know what I see this as? This is the US getting some of their comeuppance through the International Channels.

Think about it.
The US is no longer the top of the heap. It's sliding, fast, down the hill. And people are seeing their opportunity to punch it on the way by. So making almost impossible demands is there way of getting back at the US for all the times that the US controlled things in previous decades.

I suspect we'll see more of this. Lots more.

Imagine the reparations due to people in Russia, in China, in Cambodia, and elsewhere. And just for the 20th century shit.

I have an idea. Since everyone who has anything or access to anything has it in part--however small--because of ill-gotten gains or despicable actions somewhere in the history of their ancestors, we could just have everyone fork over everything, then appoint a commission to fairly divvy it all up to the world's population. Sunshine and lollipops would follow, until the end of time.

Maybe FIFA could be put in charge...

There are still undeniable repercussions from US Slavery echoing in everyday life even this long after we finally decided owning people was wrong. White privilege exists, and White people benefit from it all the time. Racism, racial profiling and discrimination are all very real and have very real negative consequences.

However, I don't see any mechanism for paying reparations that's actually going to make that better. In fact, it has a great deal of negative potential, and not just in all the "It's not my fault/where's my reparations for XXXX" talk. The bigger negative is in reparations letting Americans off the hook.

It's not something we can pay off with a one time check and be done with it. Addressing the racial problems in this country will be long and difficult and we can't ever stop just because we've paid our fines. It's not a parking ticket we can pay and be done with. It was massive kidnapping of people from their homeland to own them and their descendants for generations, in many cases treating them worse than livestock, followed by decades of legally sanctioned oppression, followed by even more decades of both overt and subtle injustices.

There is no amount of money that will fix all of that. It's WAY harder than money.

I think seeing it as "collective guilt" is the wrong way to look at it. My tax dollars go toward a lot of things that have nothing to do with me, personally. Should I rebel against having to pay for public schools, or Medicaid? If reparations did happen, I don't think it would be right to bill all white people individually. But I wouldn't object to a system where some tax money is set aside, and maybe the people receiving reparations get a tax credit so that they're not just getting back their own money.

It is probably impossible to compute the damage, though negotiations could be made. Then sorting out who gets it is the next problem. Once all of that is done, most of the debt should go England and some to the Dutch and other countries involved, including the tribes who gathered up the slaves in Africa after we sort out which victims came to what is now the US and not manumitted prior the formation of the United States. We can pay off on percentage share as the others pay off their contributions. It's that simple.

grandma2isaac said:

. . . I feel an affinity to anyone who gives me a chance. . .

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That's a pretty beautiful thing to say.

Once! said:

As a symbolic gesture, I can see the point. We probably do need to apologise for many things done in our name by previous generations. "This was wrong and we are sorry".

But it's a little harder to get my head around the idea of financial reparations. Who would pay who for what? The UK probably ought to chip in for our part in the slave trade, but then we could also ask the former colonies for the back taxes they owe us. (Only kidding, folks!)

Better to try to fix where we are now, I think.

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That's pretty much how I see it.

The UN report is not about some court ordered reparations to specific individuals or groups. It's about alleviating the troubles which still plague African Americans to this day, as a step closer to normalization of their status.

That CBS article just seems like shoddy and irresponsible journalism to me. Title is incendiary and misleading clickbait, and the text only superficially deals with parts of the UN document which contains the word "reparation", one passage quoted twice. Standards fit for Breitbart.

I suppose taking some other detail like "Males should be separated from females in detention. Younger prisoners should be separated from adults. Alternatives to imprisonment for youth, such as intervention and diversion, should be explored" just wouldn't yield enough shares on social media.

"The Working Group urges the United States to consider seriously applying analogous elements contained in the Caribbean Community’s Ten-Point Action Plan on Reparations, which includes a formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities, an African knowledge programme, psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation."

Text of the document is here:

Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to the United States of America

As others have noted, what else would be on the hook for, historically speaking? And though my ancestry in the US dates back to the late 1960s, and given I am brown and a woman, I would still pay as much as someone who's actually profited long term from white privilege. I could see doing it if the monies would help move our country in a progressive fashion. Maybe. But let's say we do pay reparations. Then what? Do black people now forfeit the right to raise race-related issues forever? Can they not assemble in defense of their own rights?

This seems poorly thought out, at best. Money is no excuse for enlightenment, and has never been.

That said, I do like the recommendations of how reparations should be made, specifically "a formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities ... psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation."

This is something concrete we can talk about, but in unlikely to have effect if labeled as 'reparations.'

Alessandra Kelley said:

It seems possible, especially since Congress just voted overwhelmingly to override President Obama's veto of a law allowing people to sue foreign governments for acts of terrorism committed by their citizens.

Now that Congress has opened the door for US citizens to have unprecedented clout against the Saudis, there is little to no reason for other countries' governments -- many of which are sketchy or corrupt -- to not do exactly the same to us.

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That whole suing SA thing is so incredibly stupid. It's basically a bill pitched at dumbasses who have no concept of how anything works.

vsrenard said:

As others have noted, what else would be on the hook for, historically speaking? And though my ancestry in the US dates back to the late 1960s, and given I am brown and a woman, I would still pay as much as someone who's actually profited long term from white privilege. I could see doing it if the monies would help move our country in a progressive fashion. Maybe. But let's say we do pay reparations. Then what? Do black people now forfeit the right to raise race-related issues forever? Can they not assemble in defense of their own rights?

This seems poorly thought out, at best. Money is no excuse for enlightenment, and has never been.

That said, I do like the recommendations of how reparations should be made, specifically "a formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities ... psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer and financial support, and debt cancellation."

This is something concrete we can talk about, but in unlikely to have effect if labeled as 'reparations.'

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Ohh I know an official memorial to slaves! I know the Smithsonian opened up that new African American Museum--which looks so cool--but I think the government should at least give a formal apology and a proper memorial. I feel that as a country we haven't acknowledged the issue properly and the school books must change the way the that awful chapter or our history is discussed. (I'm white but I work at a historic plantation and the comments I get regarding slavery are...scary sometimes. I strive really hard everyday to make sure I tell the story of those enslaved individuals who built the home I work in.). Okay, I'all climb off my soapbox.

draosz said:

Text of the document is here:

Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to the United States of America

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Draosz has it right. The document says, in effect: Affirmative Action. All right! Keep up the good work! Black History Month. All right! Keep up the good work. Martin Luther King Day. All right! Keep up the good work! Affordable Care Act. All right! Keep up the good work! Mandatory sentencing. Dude! You can do better than that. Disproportionate incarceration for the same offenses. Dude! You can do better than that. Police/community relations. Dude! You can do better than that. Poor quality schools in predominantly Black areas. Dude! You can do better than that.

I was about to submit this to Snopes, but they already looked at it.

CassandraW said:

Oh, I need to do a homemade one. I'm going to start growing some fungus for the wig and putting together a pair of massive papier-mache hands tonight.

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Anyone else old enough to remember those shaggy toilet lid rugs that people had sometimes in the 70s? If you could find a bright yellow one of those...

It's either that or the flannel moth caterpillar.

As for the OP and reparations for slavery. I don't think we should underestimate the symbolic importance of such things, though it would be even better if we accompany formal apologies with money spent on targeted programs to purge racism from our country's institutions.

draosz said:

Text of the document is here:

Report of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on its mission to the United States of America

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I can't get the link to work, can anyone tell me if any of the 'Experts on People of African Descent' are actually 'People of African Descent'? Or are they just the usual 'Experts'?

frimble3 said:

I can't get the link to work, can anyone tell me if any of the 'Experts on People of African Descent' are actually 'People of African Descent'? Or are they just the usual 'Experts'?

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Here's the working group.

Well, this thread is going in some interesting places.

I've been thinking about this idea of reparations for awhile. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an article in the Atlantic "The Case for Reparations" back in 2014. Sadly, I haven't read it yet, which is my loss. But it should probably be part of this discussion.

The Snopes link is really useful. It's interesting that the first tweet they show is from the Drudge Report. [I had to delete two sentences for fear I'd get sued for libel or slander or both.] I will just throw out these several words not connected to anyone in particular: troll, unethical, unprofessional.

So the real issue here is reparatory justice. I'm a Jew, and those of us who are so inclined involve ourselves in social justice. A lot of Jews call this Tikkun Olam, which translates into repairing the world, but The Algemeiner has a contrarian view of that terminology. I have my own view, and I'll express that in a bit.

I was thinking of an analogy of a spouse in an abusive marriage. Imagine you're the abused spouse. Let's say the abuse is emotional and psychological, not physical. You have no way to establish economic stability on your own (or at least you believe that to be the case), you have no one to turn to for help (or you believe that to be the case), you have nowhere else to live, and so on. Now, imagine you CAN'T leave. You can't escape the abuse. There really is nowhere else you can go. (FYI: I will be using the singular "they" to avoid clunky "he or she.")

Now suppose that although the emotional and psychological abuse are real, your abuser doesn't know that they are doing these abusive things. In fact, your abuser thinks they are just living a normal life like everyone else. You try to talk to your spouse about the issues, and they act as if they understand. For a few days, things improve. But after a short time, things go back to the emotional and psychological abuse.

Now you see that not only are you being abused, but your abuser's world view is so different that they are completely unaware of what they are doing to you. They are not malicious in intent, just unconscious. They might even say that they love and respect you. And yet, every day they hurt you. They wound you deeply.

This situation, in many respects, is the essence of life in the U.S. and maybe elsewhere for our African American citizens, even those who are wealthy.

We have actually tried throwing money (financial reparations) and programs at institutionalized racism, and it has not gotten us very far at all. So reparations have to extend far beyond the financial realm. It's not about money.

I can think of a couple of handfuls of individuals who have risen above the social swamp we live in: James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, Martin Luther King Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Wes Moore, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Shaquille O'Neil, Michael Oher (you should read his autobiography), Colin Powell, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Roxanne Gay. I'm sure I'm leaving out many, many people. And I'm sure that some of the people on my brief list are not wholly "nice" people. In fact, I'm quite sure they are all HUMAN.

When I was a teenager growing up--well maybe I was a little younger--the world seemed full of hope. And then MLK was assassinated, and I could see that hope began to die a bit. And now here we are. We are all innocently, mindlessly, perpetuating this terribly abusive situation.

Someone back on page 1 said the perfect thing: If we want to create reparative justice, then we should stop being racist. I should have written myself a note about who said that. I apologize.

In a way, I know how to stop being racist. I pay attention to what I'm thinking. When I see an African American I make sure to pay attention to thoughts that automatically arise. And I purposely set them aside and remind myself that is not who I want to be. I treat any, every African American person I meet as a person first and with respect. I write about it and post it where other people can read it.

The sad thing is that I know no matter how much I practice, I will only be changing my own life and my own self. The world around me stays the same. There aren't very many African Americans moving into my town. I think there are still some schools in Boston that have predominately African American student populations, although I'm not 100 percent sure of that. I know it's that way in enough U.S. cities and towns that it's a disgrace. It is a further disgrace that the students in those schools are not getting the same education as their white counterparts. There are still ghettos in major cities. There are still few or no grocery stores in those ghettos, so the people who live there have little access to affordable healthy food. I'm not going to catalogue all of the disgraces.

It breaks my heart. One of the reasons it breaks my heart is that life used to be like this for a lot of Jews living in Europe. My ancestors lived in Eastern Europe, and I'm sure some of them lived in shtetls and experienced pogroms and all manner of indignities. It took the Holocaust to create change. In the U.S. things are pretty good for Jews. We seem to be safe here and not subject to all that much anti-Semitism. Sure, there are several incidents every year in the Boston suburbs where swastikas are drawn and slurs are written. These incidents and worse occur far more often in Europe. And I'm not sure it is as bad or as prevalent as what African Americans experience in the U.S.

What breaks my heart is that we really do not need to go through this again. We do not need another lesson in how to be inhumane. I guess it also breaks my heart that as an individual, I'm helpless to effect change.

I'll explain my point of view about Tikkun Olam with a story that I love. When God began creating the world, the angels gathered around and watched. After the first day, the angels told God that what God had made was extraordinary and beautiful. And they asked if God was done. God said no, and continued on with God's creating work. At they end of each day, the angels asked if God was done, and God said no. Eventually, God created Adam and Eve. The angels were a bit agitated about Adam and Eve the way a first child gets agitated when a sibling or two comes along. They went off in a polite and respectful huff. God gave a secret smile when the angels fluttered off. God sat down with Adam and Eve and talked with them awhile. They were having a good time in the Garden of Eden. Eventually, God asked Adam and Eve if they would be God's partners, kind of like business partners. They said it sounded like fun and said yes. Right about then, the angels came back. One of the stepped forward, or maybe the others took a step back, and asked if God was done creating. God said I don't know. Ask my partners.

The Jewish New Year starts on Sunday evening. It's traditional to wish people a sweet New Year, and so I wish all of you that.

Myrealana said:

However, I don't see any mechanism for paying reparations that's actually going to make that better. In fact, it has a great deal of negative potential, and not just in all the "It's not my fault/where's my reparations for XXXX" talk. The bigger negative is in reparations letting Americans off the hook.

It's not something we can pay off with a one time check and be done with it. Addressing the racial problems in this country will be long and difficult and we can't ever stop just because we've paid our fines. It's not a parking ticket we can pay and be done with.

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This sums up my feelings very well.

It's not really feasible, and on top of that, if the US has to do it everyone else should to for the crap they've done in the last two hundred years. Hell, the UK would actually have to chip in since slavery in the Americas predates the US and was done in other colonies. I agree with what Zoombie said. The better solution is to simply try to make the present better for minorities and to stop any current racist institutions.

A formal apology from the President (not Obama for obvious reasons), is a good idea, in my opinion.

I see some practical difficulties with implementing financial reparations for slavery, or for mistreatment under Jim Crow.

1. There are roughly 42 million black people in the U.S. If the government announced that it would pay reparations - in whatever form - to black people, all of a sudden there would be 70 to 80 million black people. There would be people as pale as cream claiming to be black. Some people would say that their family has been "passing" for white for several generations, but they are really black. How would the government determine who is really black? I don't know how accurate genealogical records were for slaves, so it may not be possible to rely on those. What about people who are mixed race? Should they get half or a quarter reparation?

2.What about recent immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, whose ancestors were never enslaved by the U.S.....should they benefit from reparations?

3. If reparations were paid to black people, whether as health benefits, scholarships, debt cancellation, or some other form, this would create resentment among poor white people. Some (or many) whites would say "My life has been very hard and no one paid me any reparations, so now all you black people shut up, you have no right to complain any more, because you got paid and I didn't." Aside from whether such an attitude is fair or kind, it is the attitude many will have. Do black people really want to be the target of such resentment?