I’ve heard this topic mentioned recently in other posts, and I wanted to get some opinions on what path we should persure as a country.
Personally, I completely disagree with reperations for slavery. Let me tell you why I think this way.
First: The whole idea is completely racist. The reperations idea generalizes by saying that all blacks were victims and all whites were the villians. In reality, this is simply not true. There were MANY white people who gave their lives trying to fight for the anti-slavery cause. On the flip-side, there were MANY black people in Africa who actually sold their own people into slavery. Now, that’s only one of the reasons that I disagree with this topic for.
Second: They need to open their eyes. The people who are fighting for free money (reperations, if you prefer) need to open their eyes to the real problems in their society. Many advocates say that they are still affected by the slavery movement, and that, for some reason, they deserve payment as a result of their life being crappy. We need to look at the facts:
41% of black males aged 15 and up are married.
36% of black children live in two-parent families.
Those are huge problems right there. Reperations advocates need to confront the real problems, and stop blaming their troubles on something that happened 136 years ago.
(P.S.- 85% of black children grew up in two parent families in 1925…therefore, unless the affects of slavery skip generations, there’s no excuse for this.)
I’m sure the liberals in this forum will argue this with me, but I’m curious to see what you guys think. :)
Agreed. I believe people today shouldn’t have to pay for the wrongs of their ancestors (or countrymen) in the past. If this is the case, I’ll be awaiting my check from Germany for the wrong done to the Hungarian, Czech, and Ukrainian people by the Nazi’s…
I’m against reparations also but one counter-point I have been dealt is that the Japanese-Americans who were enslaved in camps during WWII receieved reparations. I believe also that the relatives of the Japanese-Americans who were in the camps received reparations too. So it opens up the doors for the Blacks to get pay back also. If the Japanese-Americans got reparations why can’t the Blacks? That’s what many have been saying to me regarding this issue.
Yea, I’ve come to address that issue also.
First of all, Yes, Japanese Americans who were interned during WW2 DID get reparations from the United States govnerment. However, the ONLY people who recieved this payment were SURVIVORS. Not the 6th generation ancestors on the mother’s, brothers’, uncle’s side as is the situation with many blacks.
I’ve got absolutely no problems repaying a slave who is still alive for the oppression that they had to endure, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a person who fits this requirement. Being a relative of someone who was a slave 140 years ago is a weak argument. :roll:
This is an interesting topic for me (as a non-American - curious about these issues).
We are paying reparations, however, to the native people, in the name of “treaty settlements”. I realize that this has been addressed in other forums, and many people might say that Canada is just honoring it’s agreements established hundreds of years ago between British and French (and American) settlers, but today it looks like little more than reparations.
Also there are “reparation payments” that go towards “victims” of the school system that many native people were impressed into 50 or so years ago.
personally, I am not for reperations for slavery. However, I think anyone who can prove that they were severly hurt by any Government employee (fire hoses during march, dogs, ect), should get paid.
A resounding “NO”.
i think the idea is completly preposterous. if black people wish to have reperations for thier ancestor’s inslavement, then i advocate giving reperations TO ALL peoples, regardless of color or nationality, who have been inslaved. it must be pointed out that blacks were not the only race to have ever been slaved in history. think of the hundreds and thousands of serfs in the middle ages–they were slaves from thier inception to death who owned absoultely nothing, not even themselves! also the millions of eurpoean jews who were forced to preform manual labour at concentration camps during the nazi regime-- and then horriably slaughtered! and lets not forget the thousands of women and pagan individuals who suffered heinous crimes from the hands of clergymen during the Inquistion. i say if you give reperations to one race for thier hardships in the past, they you better be willing to reperate ALL who have been enslaved. the idea to reperate blacks, or any one race, is just absoultely ridiculous!!!
D_:S_,
Is the quote fer real? Where’d ya find/hear it?
I await reparations for . . .
. . . the American slavery of my Irish great(x12) grandfather(1610- 1616) . . .
. . . the lands the White eyes took from my people(Mingo tribe , Iroquois Nation, 1700’s) . . .
. . . the suffering of my family during my Japanese grandfather’s(he was paid, whoopie!) interrment(1942-1945) . . .
. . . the suffering of my Jewish grandmother (the only death camp survivor of her family)and the financial losses inflicted upon her by the German and Swiss governments(1940-1945) . . .
. . . the suffering of my Polish father and his family under the Russians, then the Nazis, and again the Russians(1939-1946[escaped the Russian occupation and fled to America with his family]) . . .
. . . SHOW ME THE MONEY! . . .
. . . . . . . . . cha-CHING! . . .
. . . oh, if only life was fair :roll: - Xi
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The truth shall make you free. - CIA motto
You mean my George W. Bush quote?
If so, yes, it’s for real. I believe he was referring to Bill Clinton. He was talking about when Clinton fired off a few cruise missiles to combat “terrorism” in the Middle East.
But, YES, the quote is for real.
I have not made up my mind on this issue. I do not believe that a simply payment justifies 400 years of bondage that my ancestors had to undergo before me. Nor to I expect every Afro American to receive millions of dollars in payment, especially those like the Tigers Woods or Michael Jordans who already maintain the highest standard of living. If any reparations are to be made, it should be made to the improvised blacks growing up in the ghettos and the cruel injustices they had to face. Of course, even from my pro-reparation friends, the means of setting up a government operated system seems hazy at best.
