Reparations.  It’s a rather hot topic these days.  American companies are being sued because they once sold insurance policies on slaves.  In a recent discussion in California, it was even suggested that all companies and individuals profited from the slave trade because they received the benefit of cheaper goods derived from the slave labor.  Jesse Jackson has suggested that the reparations payments not be made to individual African-Americans, but to non-profit organizations that promote civil rights.  Like his organization no doubt.  With a few hundred years of compounding interest, the total payout could be in the trillions of dollars.

I too feel that my ancestors have suffered the horrors of slavery and I am due reparations payments for their burdens.  I am a Christian, descended from Adam and Eve.  At one point in my family history my ancestors were held as slaves.  You can check my family tree for the details.  I suggest the King James Version, the language is more poetic.  To be specific, they were held as slaves by the Egyptians.  Egypt is part of the African continent.  My ancestors were held as slaves by Africans and fairness demands that I receive reparations payments for their suffering.  With the interest compounding over a few thousand years, the payout would be huge.  I might even be able to retire.

Oh, and I guess that since Jackson’s ancestors are from Africa, he’ll be paying part of my reparations.  He can take my reparations payment to him out of what he owes me and pay me the difference.  

Slavery is probably the most abhorrent thing that has yet taken place on this continent. No doubt. But it is well stated that at some point in history just about all of our forebearers were slaves. Get over it.
Otherwise where will it end. Every people at some point has been victimized(I hate that word anymore) by just about every other.
Finally, Jesse Jackson is interested in only one thing. That is furthering his OWN cause and quest for power.

I'm right there with you drjarhead.  All people have been victimized.  And, I'm sick of that word too.  Everybody is a victim of something and not responsible for themselves.  When people don't take responsibility for thir own lives, they are victims of themselves.  And I agree on Jesse Jackson.

Hey, are you my good twin?  I'd really hate to think that I was the good one.  :)

I never have owned a slave.

I'm basically half-Polish and half-Swedish.

Now the Poles are definately in the running for reparations from the Germans for that whole "hey, we get your stuff" concept of the 1940s.

But, the Germans were invaded many times centuries earlier by Viking hordes - some of which are modern day Swedes.

So, do I have to sue myself?  If so, could someone tell me what the total sum of reparations for each side would be and the present amount due after interest?  This damn reparations thing is tricky!  

Edited because...well, I'm half-Polish.

Can I sue the British Government for the enslavement and abuse of my Irish Ancestors? Where does it end? Every race and ethnic group has been enslaved at one time or another. What we must do is make sure it never happens again. All of my relatives came from Ireland, Germany, and Hungary after the Civil War.

This pursueing of reparations can only hurt the strides this country has made towards race relations. If anyone thinks it is so hard to make it in this country today. Let them go back to the place they or their relatives came from and see how well they prosper then.

I'm a RedHeadedWhiteBoy and I like FUNK...who can I sue?  SUCKAH! [;D]

I agree.

Since everyone is basically a victim, I might as well jump on too.  

You can send me payments via Paypal, money order, personal check, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Beer, or whatever.

Jerosu

[b]Every King is descended from a Slave.

Every Slave is descended from a King.[/b]

We must be identical twins. I've got 49% "dark side". The other 51% has been keeping tabs on it for a long time.

I bet the Native Americans would think otherwise.

I am part Native American. So is my wife, my kids. All will be better off when they quit whining and quit blaming the white man for all of their problems.
FWIW, I happen to believe that the alliance of the tribes with the French during the French-Indian War was what led to their demise to a large extent. Great atrocities committed. It was not forgotten. It is far more complex than that obviously but it played a very large part.

They lost. For about the 4th time in the last hour-Get over it(not directed at you QCMGR).

What's the big deal about insurance policies? Most, if not all, of today's Fortune 500 companies take out insurance policies on key employees. The corporations pay the premiums and the corporations collect the insurance if the employee is unable to work. Does the existence of an insurance policy make key corporate employees eligable for reparations?

Well. My ancestors were slave owners. I'm sure they paid what they considered good money for their chattel.Now I'm expected to pay for what was at the time a perfectly legal activity. I don't know how the african americans that they owned were treated, but I do know that after manumission they worked for my ancestors for wages.After I'm forced to pay up for a second time, what I want to know is this; Can I use the word nigger?

As would the souls of 'aborted' children.

Over 35 million of them...

[:\]

Whenever I want to say something to make an impact, someone else has already said something and in much better phrases. Here it is.

Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too


One

There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible For The Crime Of Slavery

Black Africans and Arabs were responsible for enslaving the ancestors of African-Americans. There were 3,000 black slave-owners in the ante-bellum United States. Are reparations to be paid by their descendants too?

Two

There Is No One Group That Benefited Exclusively From Its Fruits
The claim for reparations is premised on the false assumption that only whites have benefited from slavery. If slave labor created wealth for Americans, then obviously it has created wealth for black Americans as well, including the descendants of slaves. The GNP of black America is so large that it makes the African-American community the 10th most prosperous "nation" in the world. American blacks on average enjoy per capita incomes in the range of twenty to fifty times that of blacks living in any of the African nations from which they were kidnapped.

Three

Only A Tiny Minority Of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives To Free Them

Only a tiny minority of Americans ever owned slaves. This is true even for those who lived in the ante-bellum South where only one white in five was a slaveholder. Why should their descendants owe a debt? What about the descendants of the 350,000 Union soldiers who died to free the slaves? They gave their lives. What possible moral principle would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?

Four

America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct Or Indirect) To Slavery

The two great waves of American immigration occurred after 1880 and then after 1960. What rationale would require Vietnamese boat people, Russian refuseniks, Iranian refugees, and Armenian victims of the Turkish persecution, Jews, Mexicans Greeks, or Polish, Hungarian, Cambodian and Korean victims of Communism, to pay reparations to American blacks?

Five

The Historical Precedents Used To Justify The Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And The Claim Itself Is Based On Race Not Injury

The historical precedents generally invoked to justify the reparations claim are payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans and African- American victims of racial experiments in Tuskegee, or racial outrages in Rosewood and Oklahoma City. But in each case, the recipients of reparations were the direct victims of the injustice or their immediate families. This would be the only case of reparations to people who were not immediately affected and whose sole qualification to receive reparations would be racial. As has already been pointed out, during the slavery era, many blacks were free men or slave-owners themselves, yet the reparations claimants make no distinction between the roles blacks actually played in the injustice itself. Randall Robinson's book on reparations, The Debt, which is the manifesto of the reparations movement is pointedly sub-titled "What America Owes To Blacks." If this is not racism, what is?

Six

The Reparations Argument Is Based On The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer From The Economic Consequences Of Slavery And Discrimination

No evidence-based attempt has been made to prove that living individuals have been adversely affected by a slave system that was ended over 150 years ago. But there is plenty of evidence the hardships that occurred were hardships that individuals could and did overcome. The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago? West Indian blacks in America are also descended from slaves but their average incomes are equivalent to the average incomes of whites (and nearly 25% higher than the average incomes of American born blacks). How is it that slavery adversely affected one large group of descendants but not the other? How can government be expected to decide an issue that is so subjective - and yet so critical - to the case?

Seven

The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt To Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message To The African-American Community.

The renewed sense of grievance -- which is what the claim for reparations will inevitably create -- is neither a constructive nor a helpful message for black leaders to be sending to their communities and to others. To focus the social passions of African-Americans on what some Americans may have done to their ancestors fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago is to burden them with a crippling sense of victim-hood. How are the millions of refugees from tyranny and genocide who are now living in America going to receive these claims, moreover, except as demands for special treatment, an extravagant new handout that is only necessary because some blacks can't seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others -- many less privileged than themselves?

Eight

Reparations To African Americans Have Already Been Paid

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) - all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. It is said that reparations are necessary to achieve a healing between African-Americans and other Americans. If trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in order to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a "healing," what will?

Nine

What About The Debt Blacks Owe To America?

Slavery existed for thousands of years before the Atlantic slave trade was born, and in all societies. But in the thousand years of its existence, there never was an anti-slavery movement until white Christians - Englishmen and Americans -- created one. If not for the anti-slavery attitudes and military power of white Englishmen and Americans, the slave trade would not have been brought to an end. If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?

Ten

The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against The Nation That Gave Them Freedom

Blacks were here before the Mayflower. Who is more American than the descendants of African slaves? For the African-American community to isolate itself even further from America is to embark on a course whose implications are troubling. Yet the African-American community has had a long-running flirtation with separatists, nationalists and the political left, who want African-Americans to be no part of America's social contract. African Americans should reject this temptation.

For all America's faults, African-Americans have an enormous stake in their country and its heritage. It is this heritage that is really under attack by the reparations movement. The reparations claim is one more assault on America, conducted by racial separatists and the political left. It is an attack not only on white Americans, but on all Americans -- especially African-Americans.

America's African-American citizens are the richest and most privileged black people alive -- a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under assault. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea. For it is this idea that led to the principles and institutions that have set African-Americans - and all of us -- free.

-David Horowitz

If race relations were to ever smooth out and 95% of the population got along with each other, what would Jesse and Al do for a job?  (The other 5% are racists and will never get along.)  That's why they keep stirring the pot.  Without, they have no job in the public eye.  They'd have to do real work or something.

misanthrope747

By the way drjarhead, that wouldn't be Cherokee blood would it?  :)

misanthrope747

I'm an American Indian and virtually the entire continental United States land mass was taken away from my ancestors. Therefore, I believe that we (descendants) are owed the whole property value of most of North America, since we American Indians would have inherited the land had it not been stolen.

I'm sure the monetary value would be end up being considerably more than any "slave reparations". What comes after a trillion anyways?

[:)]

No, that would be my wife. Not sure of mine. Gotta find out some day.