Guest Post by Walter E. Williams
Calls for slavery reparations have returned with the publication of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic magazine (May 21, 2014). In making his argument, Coates goes through the horrors of slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and gross racial discrimination.
First off, let me say that I agree with reparations advocates that slavery was a horrible, despicable violation of basic human rights. The gross discrimination that followed emancipation made a mockery of the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. I also agree that slave owners and slave traders should make reparations to those whom they enslaved. The problem, of course, is that slaves, slave owners and slave traders are all dead. Thus, punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is out of the hands of the living.
Punishing perpetrators and compensating victims is not what reparations advocates want. They want government to compensate today’s blacks for the bondage suffered by our ancestors. But there’s a problem. Government has no resources of its very own. The only way for government to give one American a dollar is to first — through intimidation, threats and coercion — confiscate that dollar from some other American. Therefore, if anybody cares, a moral question arises. What moral principle justifies punishing a white of today to compensate a black of today for what a white of yesterday did to a black of yesterday?
There’s another moral or fairness issue. A large percentage, if not most, of today’s Americans — be they of European, Asian, African or Latin ancestry — don’t even go back three or four generations as American citizens. Their ancestors arrived on our shores long after slavery. What standard of justice justifies their being taxed to compensate blacks for slavery? For example, in 1956, thousands of Hungarians fled the brutality of the USSR to settle in the U.S. What do Hungarians owe blacks for slavery?
There’s another thorny issue. During slavery, some free blacks purchased other blacks as a means to free family members. But other blacks owned slaves for the same reason whites owned slaves — to work farms or plantations. Are descendants of these slaveholding blacks eligible for and deserving of reparations?
When African slavery began, there was no way Europeans could have enslaved millions of Africans. They had no immunity from diseases that flourished in tropical Africa. Capturing Africans to sell into slavery was done by Arabs and black Africans. Would reparations advocates demand that citizens of Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya and several Muslim states tax themselves to make reparation payments to progeny of people whom their ancestors helped to enslave?
Reparations advocates make the foolish unchallenged argument that the United States became rich on the backs of free black labor. That’s nonsense that cannot be supported by fact. Slavery doesn’t have a very good record of producing wealth. Slavery was all over the South, and it was outlawed in most of the North. Buying into the reparations argument about the riches of slavery, one would conclude that the antebellum South was rich and the slave-starved North was poor. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. In fact, the poorest states and regions of our nation were places where slavery flourished — Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia — while the richest states and regions were those where slavery was absent: Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.
One of the most ignored facts about slavery’s tragic history — and it’s virtually a secret today — is that slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years. It did not become a moral issue until the 18th century. Plus, the moral crusade against slavery started in the West, most notably England.
I think the call for slavery reparations is simply another hustle. Advocates are not demanding that government send checks to individual black people. They want taxpayer money to be put into some kind of reparations fund from which black leaders decide who receives how much and for what purpose.
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What about the welfare and Medicaid over the years. Like trillions worth. Oh yea and the free housing. Free education. Paid in full and then some. Stand on your own two legs.
Another indian casino scheme, it is getting other people’s money to give to a select group. My family never had slaves.
Stucky’s Slavery Reparations Plan: Send the fuckers back to Africa.
Problem solved.
The end.
For cripes sake, they were still holding OPEN AIR slave markets in Mecca in the early 2000s.
Where is America’s moral outrage and demands for reparations over this? It happened NOW, and the perpetrators are likely still alive and wealthy.
What the fuck ever. What’s a few trillion more of fake money to drown our inner cities in MORE corruption, nepotism and despair?
Bring it on. Pay ’em. Then pay the Native Americans, Mexicans, South Americans, Asians, Polynesians, maybe someday when nothing but ruins is left they will send some scratch to us Caucasian families that paid to build the country, shed our blood, and now are being forced to pay again.
Tools again. Sit on top of the continuous destruction of our families, then demand MOAR of it.
All while enriching the top 0.001% and killing off those that actually paid for today’s free ride.
Brilliant. Prosperity must surely be right around the corner.
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Barack, descendant of slave owners, would have to pay Michelle, descendant of slaves. I’d love to see the political fallout from Americans of Hispanic, Asian or recent African origin get a tax increase to give money to, say, LeBron James. Wonder where Hillary stands on reparations. If we had an independent media, maybe someone would axe her.
LOL. Hilarious picture of “The Cure”. What a bunch of fags.
Origin of SLAVE:: from the frequent enslavement of Slavs in central Europe during the early Middle Ages
First Known Use: 14th century
My ancestors were of Slavic descent …..I want my money first !!!
C.U.R.E. – every one a flaming libtard. BC-LR to all.
Not sure who I detest more .Blacks yelling for more free shit or stupid , loathsome white people. I think I have more contempt for liberal white people like the ones pictured above.They are always wanting to give people free shit as long as someone else pays for the free shit.
Stucky,
We can’t send them back, much as I would like to. Even the actual AFRICAN Africans don’t want them. They think “African Americans” are spoiled, whiney, agitating little bitches. And they’re right. “African Americans” are ridiculed and belittled in Africa, and much hated.
The only way we could send them back is to actually PAY some random African nation (or rather, the “emperor” or “general” who rules there) to take them off our hands…
It is a nice dream, just throwing them all on a boat supplied with buckets of extra crispy, Purple Drank, crack, waddymellons, etc and then ship them to Liberia. I wouldn’t even ask for the boat back – the Liberians can have it. But, it’s just a dream.
RE: Slavery generated wealth.
Individual families/landowners became very wealthy because of their slaves, however they were predominately an agricultural area, where slaves exhibiting only basic levels of skill could still be useful.
The north’s wealth was borne on the back of industry, requiring skilled or semi-skilled labor. The north’s approach to an economy is better for a nation, the south’s slavery was better for an individual.
They can have their reparations when they pry them from my cold dead hands.
Williams briefly mentions the role of “Arabs” slaving in Africa. The history of the damage Islam has done to the African continent is absolutely horrendous and drwarfs by several orders of magnitude anything the European countries managed to do.
“… a minumum of 28 Million African were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. Since, at least, 80 percent of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave market, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Arab and Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 Millions. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the trans-Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 Million people. — John Allembillah Azumah, author of The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue.”
Funny, I don’t see the reparations crowd marching on Mecca or Medina.
You can read about the entire body count from the religion of peace here:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/the_greatest_murder_machine_in_history.html
It is north of 200 MILLION people killed by Islam since the founding of the “religion”.
Just wait what they will do when they get their bloody hands on nuclear weapons.
Leaving aside what’s been paid for the 50 year War on Poverty, I don’t really care if “reparations” are paid or not. If reparations are paid, buy Apple stock (they now own “Beats by Dre”) and Diageo (they make Cîroc).
TPC , finally something intelligent coming from your Nickelodeon little mind .Good boy.Now bark!
Some swallow the bait more deeply than others…
Excerpt;
“Reparations…
All Have Been Victimized
Reparations for all — not just the few used as a deflection — the scope of the problem of AGC and its deflection by the wealthy elite… There has been much debate in America about giving reparations to black people for the atrocity of slavery that was foisted upon them by the wealthy elite in past generations. Reparations were called for because the oppression and exploitation of slavery by the rich was so severe and so debilitating of black people that it disadvantaged them culturally as an identifiable group. The intent of the movement was to allow a compensatory advantage to those who suffered and it was ultimately responsible for some marginal beneficial change. But it also fulfilled another purpose that allowed for and created great harm.
The reparations debate in many ways acted as a foil and a deflection of the gross overall oppression and exploitation of all people by the past wealthy gangster elite. It served to deflect from the clawing back of all of our stolen wealth — reparations that are justified for all of us. By spot lighting the debate on slavery — and not the total effects of AGC that have enslaved us all — the debate served as a limiting deflection away from the total AGC, and, at the same time it advanced the false and divisive meme of racism which is still with us today. It kept the race baiters employed. When the con man is in fear of being discovered he always deflects attention to the differences in the crowd.
This is not to say that blacks did not suffer a very disproportionate and severe exploitation. They did. And they do deserve greater compensation for those past wrongs. The reason for bringing it up is to point out the process of the deflection away from the gross total AGC and how the debate worked as an advantage to the rich by causing further divisiveness and bickering in the masses. This is important, especially when one considers that in the present day, the masses (blacks included), are most all now contract debt slaves and wage slaves. What has happened is that the chains and physical whippings of the past slavery have incrementally over time, through AGC, morphed into debt slavery and wage slavery by contract, with self inflicted emotional whippings (think scam FICO score anxiety here), debtor prisons and homelessness as enforcement devices. We are all due reparations. We are all due our stolen wealth that must be clawed back. Lincoln did not free the slaves, he merely changed the form of slavery from the Southern white plantation master’s chains, to the Eastern bankers and the corporations mental debt and work contract chains for people of all color. The civil war was not about slavery; it was about control of the form of exploitation and oppression used by the wealthy self anointed elite scum bags.”
Forget the skin color — focus on AGC;
http://www.boxthefox.com/deceptionology/10aggregategencorruption.html
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
I’m sick of the term “African-American”. Technically, someone can’t be both an African and an American unless they hold dual-citizenship in both an African nation and the U.S. Probably less than 1% of blacks in America even have a U.S. passport. It’s doubtful that many of those calling for reparations could prove they are descendents of slave-owners.
I will be happy to pay if they promise to go back to africa
You don’t have to take ’em all the way back to Africa. For all those seeking reparations (whites included), load them onto a “Reparations Cruise Ship™”, hand each one a dollar as reparations and just sprinkle them a few hundred feet offshore along the African coast line. They’ll find their way after that. Think of it like PT Barnum’s “Great Egress”.
They better brush up on their knowledge of Islam on the boat trip so they can pass their TEST in case they meet one of their muslim brothers.
Years ago when I used to listen to Michael Savage he called it Rape-a-Nations.
Reparations Cruise Ship
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Free one way ticket to Nigeria and when they arrive they can pick up $10,000 in crisp new $100 bills at the US embassy in exchange for their US passport.
When speaking to black friends who were in favor of reparations I ask them this :
If your father committed a murder; he was sentenced to 75 years in prison. He dies 15 years into his sentence, should you be placed in prison to carry out the remainder of his sentence ?
The answer is always no, because they didn’t commit the crime. Likewise I tell them I didn’t commit the moral crime of slavery so I shouldn’t be required to pay for it .
Then they’ll tell me,”You won’t have to pay for it, the government will pay us “. The conversation goes down hill from there VERY fast .
If you can’t spell reparations or define it………no reparations for you!
I would support reparations under one condition. Once paid the recipients can NEVER receive ANY government funds, subsidies, SNAP, welfare….they are own their own. I will predict within two years after the reparations, they will all be broke and destitute. It is not a money thing. It is a cultural thing. Their culture is one of self destruction.
“Even the actual AFRICAN Africans don’t want them. They think “African Americans” are spoiled, whiney, agitating little bitches. And they’re right. “African Americans” are ridiculed and belittled in Africa, and much hated.”
—-Billy
Never been to Africa, doubt I will travel there. So I’ll take Billy’s word for it
But his observations apply in spades to the blacks living in the Caribbean and Central America. They REALLY don’t like African Americans.
The bible does call the Great Whore, the mother of whores. I suppose it is a place where men sell their dignity for a few dollars reparations. A proper response is fuck you, you don’t have enough money to buy me off. But today, prostitution is socially acceptable. men sucking dick for a few bucks, breeding for welfare and selling your ancestors for pay. Will the money they get discharge their children’s anguish?
Most people have stories about how their parents instilled in them a habit of studying, my dad only taught me one thing: (and two principles, men don’t hit women, you don’t go gay) you work for your money. I was in 7th grade at Houston School in El Paso, someone nominated me to get free lunch. After I did not go to the cafeteria for a few days, our principal, Mr. Smith called me in to ask why. I struggled to explain my problem. If I could work there like some boys do, I would take it but otherwise, it’s like I didn’t do anything to earn it. I guess I didn’t understand the concept of ‘free’. He assigned me to the cafeteria detail.
Dave Chapell and Reparations .
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Chappelle+Show+Reparations&Form=VQFRVP#view=detail&mid=1A9FB4F714D41D9869AF1A9FB4F714D41D9869AF
You think this is bad, wait until da wimminz (of every color) start demanding reparations for all those centuries of oppression they endured (like sitting at home with the little ‘uns while hubby was lolling about in the coal mines).