American Thinker:
The passage of local reparations in places like Evanston, Illinois last fall and Asheville, North Carolina more recently are worrisome on many levels, not least of which because they invite potential for inciting even further racial division. Their passage also prompts the uncomfortable but entirely legitimately requisite questions of who is responsible for black enslavement in America and therefore who is responsible for paying?
A reading of the 1860 census reveals some fascinating details into the realities of slavery. While it’s universally known is that whites owned slaves in the early United States; almost universally unknown is that free blacks owned a fair number themselves.
In the lead-up to the Civil War, the free population of the entire United States, which also counted approximately 10% the black population (the other 90% of blacks were enslaved in 15 southern states), stood at just over 27 million. The slave population was just under 4 million.
Of the 25-27 million whites, 1.6% of them individually owned slaves. That number has been cited frequently as being misleading, given that most whites belonged to a greater family unit. And indeed, that is the case; when accounting for families as opposed to individuals, an argument can be made that about 7.4% of all white families in the United States owned slaves. Obviously, all of them were in the South, but it is worth sticking to nationwide totals given that the entire nation today is being held responsible for this sin. It wouldn’t be consistent for Black Lives Matter to say that just 25-30% of southern white families owned slaves while at the same time demanding fully 100% of all white families today repent for past wrongdoings.
Importantly, it needs to be observed that more than just 7.4% of white families were involved in the slave-based economy of the south. Whether that was through transporting slaves, selling slaves, or manufacturing cotton or tobacco products procured through slave labor, the prevalence of slavery dominated the southern economic infrastructure. more here
“To the treasure of my people no man has a claim, because Smaug who stole it from us also robbed him of life or home. The treasure was not his that his evil deeds should be amended with a share of it.”
-JRR Tolkien, “The Hobbit”
…just because someone who looked vaguely like you was treated mean once, does not mean the rest of us owe you anything, even those of us that are allegedly a similar hue as the meany. The guy YOU want died 170 years ago, take it up with HIM…
If they get a thin dime, the American Indian should get $10000.
I think just stop killing each other here and in Africa might be better. But that’s forward thinking, and doesn’t get you money for nothing.
I’m whats known, ethnically, as Scots Irish. My grandfather was a sharecropper when my father was born. When other white people owned slaves, my ancestors didn’t own shoes.
We were dirt farmers – fighting for states rights, in NC.
Seeing as how Yankees have now RUINED VA, NC, and GA in particular, I’d like to sue New Yawk, New Joisey, and Taxachusetts for reparations – for running their own states so CRAPPILY, that their residents have come down and ruined OUR states! 😡
Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” wealth transfer was?
https://i.imgflip.com/37k420.jpg
…that’s right. A wealth transfer, payments to pacify Black people for sins, real or imagined, of the past.
Besides that, I don’t owe you shit anyway. My ancestors weren’t even here then, and the Irish ones were treated more like shit than YOUR grandmas were. My wife’s folks occupy the Union parts of a few different cemetaries.
You, on the other hand, have systematic, invidious, government-sponsored discrimination FOR you because you’re Black, and against my son for no reason other than he’s White.
Fuck off with that.
…anyway, only Democrats should pay repatations anyway, because only Democrats ever owned slaves.
No Republican EVER did.
Go see Nancy, Chuck, Joe, and Hillary, leading lights of the Party of Slavery, for yours TODAY.
And don’t forget that Barry Soetoro had slave-trading ancestors TOO. Go get YOURS from HIM…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/09/mitch-mcconnell-says-barack-obama-ancestors-also-owned-slaves/1685753001/
No one today owes anyone anywhere reparations for any reason for something done in the 17 or 1800’s
…also, what holding all White people responsible as a group, without trial or defense, for the crimes of someone in the past is legally called is a “Bill of Attainder”.
Which is Unconstitutional.
“A bill of attainder is a legislative act that declares someone guilty of a crime and assesses a punishment without providing a trial to prove the crime. Our U.S. Constitution prohibits bills of attainder through Article I, Section 9, Clause 3, along with ex post facto laws and laws impairing contracts.”
https://study.com/academy/lesson/prohibiting-bills-of-attainders-ex-post-facto-laws.html
…sorry, no sale. I am not a criminal for being the same color as one a couple of centuries ago, any more than you’re a victim because YOU have a similar hue to one a couple of centuries ago.
Every one’s had enslaved ancestors some time in the past. Germans were enslaved by Romans. I’m of Teutonic ancestry. Do modern Italians owe me anything.
NO.
Every OTHER race dropped their chains and moved on.
Black people seem to REVEL in THEIRS…
…tell you what, you want to fight against Black slavery? Go to most African countries, ALL Muslim countries, and now parts of Dearborn MI and Omar’s Minnesota district.
Where it’s going on NOW.
Free THEM, if you will.
Leave those of us who never enslaved anyone ALONE…
The reality is blacks who descend from slavery are lucky their fore-parents were chosen. If not they would be living in an African country and there is not one African country worth living in anymore. They are lucky to be honest, if they don’t think so Ghana is offering free citizenship.
It’s highly probable the ancestors of slaves in the new world owned slaves in Africa. They need to look back at their own family trees for reparations, too.
I can’t help it….I’ve got to post this from Dave Chappelle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdH1YQTMYis
You never picked cotton and I never owned a slave. I owe you nothing
Author unknown.
if that’s the case, Kamaltoe Harris has got a lot of ‘reperatin’ to do …
https://freebeacon.com/politics/kamala-harriss-ancestors-owned-slaves/
Creepy Joe too ….
https://cloverchronicle.com/2020/06/26/joe-bidens-ancestor-reportedly-owned-16-black-slaves/
We will all need to take a DNA test to see what percentage of black we are and be paid accordingly.
We will also need to trace our family tree to see if they were slaves under U.S. jurisdiction. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Haitians, etc. will not qualify.
I thought we had been paying reparations since Johnson was president. We’ve been paying for head start, section 8 housing, welfare, Wix cards, free student lunches and school books, etc. Blacks have been given more opportunities to succeed than any other race in this country.
What about those of us who identify as ex-slaves?
SNS you have to stop making so much sense.
They Are going to cancel us.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/the_truth_about_slavery.html .