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| Slavery Apology Headed for
Congress (06/13/00) WASHINGTON – "Members of Congress are planning to introduce a resolution next week that would put the Congress on record apologizing to blacks for 200 years of slavery. "The resolution, introduced but not passed in the 105th Congress, would apologize for the role of Congress in establishing and perpetuating slavery until the passage of the 13th Amendment on Jan. 31, 1865. "... The legislation is likely to be the centerpiece of a "Juneteenth" celebration and rally on the Capitol grounds June 19. June 19 is the traditional date celebrated by black Americans as the true date of emancipation because slaves in Texas, California, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma were not told of their emancipation until that day, six months after passage of the 13th Amendment.
"The rally this year is part of a campaign to have Juneteenth declared a national
holiday, though it would not require employers to give workers a paid day off."
(UPI, via NewsMax.com, 06/13/00) Reparations: Yes or No? (06/09/00) " What do you think of reparations? If you're not sure, that's understandable. Reparations probably aren't among the top 10 topics you think about after your feet hit the floor in the morning. That may soon change. The word is going to get a lot more play in the nation's capital, especially if Ward 7 council member Kevin Chavous has his way. The two-term lawmaker and possible D.C. mayoral candidate in 2002 introduced a resolution this week calling for the country to pay "reparations to the descendants of African American slaves." "... Given that timetable, maybe it's time to start mulling over reparations in your mind. One person who has is Myron Magnet, an editor with the urban policy publication City Journal and the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He does not approve. In the "Race and Reparations" chapter of his book "The Dream and the Nightmare," Magnet concedes that two centuries of slavery and another of discrimination and segregation have produced victims "on a world-historical scale," black poverty being the most visible reminder. "But while agreeing that racism has not been expunged from the fabric of American life, Magnet maintains that the force of the civil rights movement and the '64 Civil Rights Act have knocked down most barriers blocking blacks from the economic mainstream. Reparations are not the answer for those who haven't made it, he suggests. Magnet says reparations rest on an ideology of victimization, a hopelessly self-defeating notion because it assumes African Americans are too damaged by racism, too much the helpless victims of a grossly unfair society, to seize and make the most of the opportunities now available. "If poor blacks are not advancing at a rapid enough pace, counters Magnet, it's not because they are being put upon by a bad system, but rather because they have been robbed of responsibility for their fate by welfare and a way of thinking that encourages them to feel entitled to restitution, including advancement on the "basis of racial preference rather than mere personal striving and merit." "To which, as might be imagined, reparations proponents Randall Robinson of TransAfrica and African American economist Richard America have much to say in response. "The destructive moral crime that began in Jamestown in 1619 has yet to end" writes Robinson, in his latest book: "The Debt--What America Owes to Blacks." He cites "an unbroken story line of evidence" from slavery to contemporary America that documents the massive wrongs and social injuries inflicted upon African Americans. …. Is someone shouting: "Why should sons and daughters be held responsible for the sins of their fathers?" "Richard America responds. "We are not accountable for our fathers' actions. But we are responsible for our own sins. One of those sins is accepting and keeping inherited benefits that were wrongfully bequeathed to us as members of a large class, that helped deprive other people of their rightful place," America writes in his book, "Paying the Social Debt: What White America Owes Black America."
"… Reparations? Today, because of how Gwen spends her working hours, we find
ourselves in a tax bracket which, for someone like me who simply types for a living,
borders on embarrassing. If I'm entitled to reparations (and that's a stretch), just give
my share to Jubilee Jobs, Healthy Babies and the NAACP. That said, this nation has a
shameful history of exclusion that it has a moral obligation to remedy. But this is more
than "a black thing." Count many Hispanics, native Americans, Asian Americans,
and poor whites among the aggrieved, too. Remediating economic and social inequalities
rooted in race, gender, sexual orientation and class remains an inescapable duty of a just
society. And government ought to be proactive, not passive." (Washington Post, Page
A23, by Colbert I. King) Black Pharaohs and Reparations (06/08/00) [In this article, author Richard Poe explores the ancient, pre-U.S. slave trade practiced by Egypt.] "LIKE MOST AMERICANS, I am appalled at the prospect of having to pay reparations to blacks. But my reason for being appalled is somewhat different from the mainstream. Having written a book about the relationship between Europe and Africa in ancient times, I have learned that whites might have just as much reason to demand reparations from blacks as the other way around. "My book Black Spark, White Fire points out that the ancient Egyptians were a mixed people, at least partly black, a fact which no anthropologist disputes. According to the one-drop rule favored in America, partly black means black. "Egypt was the dominant imperial power of its day. It subdued and enslaved neighboring peoples. Under the conquering pharaoh Thutmose III (1479 –1425 B.C.), Egypt's vast empire stretched from deep in the Sudan to the Euphrates River in Syria. "My book takes the controversial position that the Egyptians were also accomplished seafarers, whose war fleets may have reached Greece, parts of which they conquered and colonized. "There is real evidence for such a conquest. Greek legend holds that an Egyptian king named Danaos landed in the Peloponnese with a great fleet, made himself ruler, and ordered the natives to call themselves "Danaans" in his honor. In the earliest writings of the Greeks – the epics of Homer – Greeks do not call themselves Greeks or Hellenes, but Danaans. "...Black people seem to enjoy contemplating the possibility that their kinsmen may have conquered, enslaved and ruled Europeans. And why shouldn't they? It is only human to idolize the conqueror, the explorer, the colonizer, the empire builder. Blacks are no different from whites in admiring this sort of behavior. Deference toward the conqueror is encoded in our genes. "Yet many blacks who have read my book seem not to realize that the sword cuts both ways. They exult in their own ancestors' conquests readily enough. But then they turn around and tell whites that we must be ashamed of similar aggression in our ancestors. "One such selective reader is Randall Robinson. In his book The Debt, Robinson actually uses my book to prop up his argument that whites owe blacks huge cash reparations for past wrongs. ...In Robinson's view, the failure of European scholars to fully acknowledge Egypt's greatness constitutes an insult, just one more in a long list of grievances for which whites must now pay. "It is true that Western scholars have given Egypt less credit than it deserves. But Robinson overlooks a more important lesson of Black Spark, White Fire, which is that white people are not the only ones who have conquered, colonized and enslaved their neighbors.
"If black people truly believe that their ancestors conquered parts of Europe –
and judging from the enthusiastic response to my book, it seems that many do – then
perhaps it's time we just called it even. No people, it would seem, can claim
innocence." (Richard Poe in FrontPagemag.com, June 8, 2000) Richard Poe's book "Black Spark, White
Fire" is available from Amazon.com at: A Game of Racial Envy (06/07/00) [FrontPage reader Johnny Reb responds to Horowitz] "MR. HOROWITZ, you really should not go so easy on Mr. Hutchinson and the other grievance-mongers of slavery. Of course, one can only go so far in this argument without appearing pro-slavery, but you really ought to consider pushing the argument a little further along... "1. In their monumental study of slavery, ``Time on the Cross," Fogel and Engerman estimated that roughly 85 percent of the economic output of American slave labor was consumed by the slaves themselves in the form of food, clothing, et cetera... "2. As Fogel and Engerman further demonstrate, the conditions of African slavery in the American South were the mildest of any place in the New World. Cuba, Brazil and other Caribbean slave economies were forced to continually import slaves because the death rate was so high on the tropical plantations... "3. The idea that, because their ancestors were held as chattels in the United States over the course of a century or two, that modern blacks are entitled to some compensation for that experience, is absurd...
"4. All of Hutchinson's argument along the line of ``blacks are bad off in the United
States'' begs the question: Compared to what? Are blacks worse off in the United States
compared to blacks in Cuba, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Eritrea? Are they worse off than Asians
in Indonesia, Chinese in Communist China, Mexicans in Chiapas, Afghanis under the
Taliban?..." (FrontPageMag.com, 06-07-00 by Johnny Reb) Reparations Are Still A Bad Idea (06/05/00) [In this Front Page Magazine piece, author David Horowitz responds to reparations-supporter Earl Ofari Hutchinson.] "THE STRAW MAN QUESTION "Does Oprah need reparations?" with which Earl Ofari Hutchinson begins his reply to my article "10 Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks-and Racist too" is a Salon.com tag line, not anything I wrote. Anyone reading my argument who intended to frame a responsible reply to it, would have seen that clearly. "I brought up the case of Oprah to highlight a problem with one of the central claims of the reparations' camp - that blacks alive today still suffer significant damage from a system of slavery that was ended 135 years ago, and from the regime of segregation that was brought to a close 35 years ago, and that other Americans should pay them compensation. "Or, even if it could be proved that they do so suffer, that Americans should pay them more compensation than the trillions of dollars they have already provided in the form of welfare and other transfer payments and in special privileges afforded by the racial preference arrangements called affirmative action. "The invocation of Oprah was only to point out the tip of an iceberg. The existence of millions of very successful, middle-class African Americans refutes the idea that the deprivations of the black underclass are, in fact, caused by any historical forces like slavery and segregation...
"Hutchinson's failure to deal with the argument I actually put forward unfortunately
is not unique to this aspect of his reply, but pretty much sums up the "reply"
itself. One gross instance of this failure is his unsupported claim that my 10 reasons are
really only 4. Since he provides no argument that this is so, the claim merely allows him
to dispense with 6 of my arguments without really dispensing with them." (Front
Page Magazine, 06-05-00, by David Horowitz) David Fights The Racial Goliath (06/02/00) [FrontPage Magazine writer Robert A. George examines David Horowitz's position on reparations.] " ONE OF THE MANY HATS that prolific author David Horowitz wears is columnist with the online magazine Salon. Horowitz clearly enjoys being the house provocateur on a site that many would consider liberal (though it does publish a few right-of-center views, including, ahem, those of your humble columnist). Horowitz takes particular glee in tackling issues of race. "As his best-selling autobiography, Radical Son, attests, the former lefty comes to his current positions honestly. He was there on the front lines (or perhaps we should say, "ramparts," to use the title of his New Left '60s journal) of the counterculture revolution. He hung with the Black Panthers, whom he now castigates with the venom of a reformed smoker. Actually, he goes well beyond that - he recites chapter and verse the crimes (murder, among them) of the Panthers. "His current book, Hating Whitey, is largely a collection of his race-focused Salon essays. Horowitz's latest column tackles the "reparations" debate. He notes correctly that, whereas a few years ago, only a few marginal individuals seriously discussed the idea of America paying reparations to American blacks for slavery, the idea is now gaining traction. "Randall Robinson, long-time leader of TransAfrica, has written a book entitled The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks that tries to make the case. Horowitz lists ten reasons why this is a bad idea. On the whole, he is correct.
"...One point that Horowitz does not mention is one that several blacks - and not
just conservatives either - have raised. How do you seriously put an economic figure on
the totality of the degradation that occurred during the slave trade? Slavery - and Jim
Crow, which followed it - was not just a simple taking of property and unfair internment
as happened with the Japanese in World War II. It was the separation of families and
dehumanization on an unequaled level...." (Front Page Magazine, 6-2-00, by
Robert A. George) 10 Reasons Why Reparations For Blacks Are A Bad Idea For Blacks And Racist, Too (05/30/00) Author and racial historian David Horowitz writes: "IT BEGAN AS a fringe proposition favored by the politically extreme. But the idea that taxpayers should pay reparations to black Americans for the damages of slavery and segregation is no longer a fixation of the political margin. It is fast becoming the next big "civil rights" thing. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has already introduced legislation to set up a commission that would examine the impact of slavery as a foreordained prelude to some kind of legislated payback. (Conyers will become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if Democrats win back the House.) A coalition of African-Americans is claiming a debt of $4.1 trillion. A coalition of African nations is claiming a debt of $777 trillion against an assortment of governments including the United States. "So what is wrong with the idea? In truth, just about everything. Examined closely, the claim for reparations is factually tendentious, morally incoherent and racially incendiary. Logically, it has about as much substance as the suggestion that O.J. Simpson should have been acquitted because of past racism by the criminal courts. Its impact on race relations and on the self-isolation of the African-American community is likely to be even worse. "If the reparations idea continues to gain traction, its most obvious effect will be to intensify ethnic antagonisms and generate new levels of racial resentment. It will further alienate African-Americans from their American roots and further isolate them from all of America's other communities (including whites), who are themselves blameless in the grievance of slavery, who cannot be held culpable for racial segregation and who, in fact, have made significant contributions to ending discrimination and redressing any lingering injustice." "America's black citizens are the richest and most privileged black people alive—a bounty that is a direct result of the heritage that is under attack. The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens. But African-Americans also need the support of the American idea.
"Dredging up a new reason to assault this idea is not in the interest of
African-Americans. What would serve the African-American community better would be to
reject the political left as represented by people like Robinson, Jesse Jackson and every
black leader who endorses this claim. What African-Americans need is to embrace America as
their home and to defend its good: the principles and institutions that have set
them—and all of us—free." (Salon.com, by David Horowitz, 05-31-00) It's Futile to Put a Price on Slavery (05/29/00 Pay Site) [New York Times writer Glenn C. Loury reports on reparations.] "BOSTON -- A visit to any courthouse, public hospital emergency room or welfare office in a large city confirms that our society is still marred by the social and economic disadvantage of African-Americans. "Yet, with overt racial discrimination less prevalent nowadays, many Americans are asking why a concern about social deprivation should take particular notice of race. This is a fair question. "One answer is that black disadvantage remains a special problem because it originates from slavery, to which there is this conservative retort: "So what? Slavery ended a long time ago." This has prompted a new demand from advocates of African-American interests: reparations, a money settlement that is to be given as compensation for past racial injury. Prominent intellectuals, including Charles Ogletree, a professor at Harvard Law School, and Henry Louis Gates, chairman of Harvard's Afro-American studies department, were considering a class-action lawsuit asking for reparations, according to a March article in The Boston Globe. "Although I am not without sympathy for this position, I believe that framing the argument in these terms is a mistake. We need some reckoning with the racist past, but reparations encourage the wrong kind of reckoning. Winning compensation would, in the end, allow conservatives to get away with their "so what?" retort. "... The tort-law model underlying reparations advocacy -- he who causes damage to another is obliged to make the injured party whole -- is hopelessly insufficient here. It relies heavily upon being able to demonstrate in quantitative terms the nature and extent of injury. How would one even begin to arrive at a sum for the reparation payments? Who can say what the out-of-wedlock birth rate for blacks would be, absent chattel slavery? How does one calculate the cost of inner-city ghettos, of poor education, of the stigma of perceived racial inferiority? The severity of slavery's "injury" is far more profound than any cash transfer will be able to reverse. "Moreover, reparations would allow the majority of Americans to look at the situation as one where "we" do something for "them"-- alleviate their suffering, solve their problems, quiet their protests and then, once the debt is paid off, wash our hands of society's inequities.
"Instead, we should follow another model, one that decrees that "we,"
meaning all Americans, should right the inequity for the sake of our country. We must
attend to this matter so that our national fellowship and comity will not be emaciated, so
that our moral pronouncements on the world stage will not be made into a hollow
mockery. (New York Times 05-29-00 by Glenn C. Loury) Reparations idea won't fix the past (05/24/00) [Orlando Sentinel reporter David Porter examines reparations in this article.] "...[T]he Self Determination Committee [is] pushing a national campaign to demand that every black person who is a descendant of African slaves receive $500,000 in reparations to pay for our ancestors' uncompensated labor -- slavery -- and the pure misery of enslavement. "Even if it was assumed that only half of today's African-Americans were descendants of African slaves, the reparations bill would be nearly $9 trillion. To put those numbers in perspective, Congress in April approved a $1.8 trillion federal budget for the 2001 fiscal year. "During the next few weeks expect to hear more about this subject, because a rally advocating reparations will take center stage during the Juneteenth celebration set for June 17 and 18 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
"The Juneteenth observance is as significant to African-Americans as the Fourth of
July is to all Americans. Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865 -- the day when slaves in Texas
learned about the Emancipation Proclamation that set them free. ...it's important for all
Americans -- regardless of ethnicity -- to celebrate the impressive progress that has been
achieved. Celebrating those gains and working on the future seems to make a lot more sense
than investing in a fruitless battle for $500,000." (The Orlando Sentinel, 05-24-00
by David Porter) When Sorry Isn’t Enough (05/04/00) Columnist William Raspberry of the Washington Post writes: "What's the proper response when someone says he's sorry? I guess it depends. The pope recently lamented the Holocaust, and the response by some Jews was that the lamentation stopped short of an apology. President Clinton, some three years earlier, considered apologizing for American slavery, then thought better of it. "The response from those to whom he would have apologized? Mostly silence. Similarly when the Maryland House of Delegates in late March rejected a bill that would have asked Gov. Parris Glendening to apologize for slavery in that state, there was mostly silence again. "Now the West African state of Benin is apologizing for its role in the American slave trade, and, I confess, I don't know what to say. "It's okay, forget it," sounds a little too offhand a response to a country that (under its 17th-century name of Dahomey) may have rounded up as many as 3 million people for sale to slavers. The 18-member Beninese delegation, visiting Richmond and Washington on behalf of President Mathieu Kerekou, seems perfectly sincere in tendering the apology. "… Should the rest of us apologize to American Indians for taking their land--even if we have no intention of returning it? Does it matter that my ancestors didn't do the taking? Should white Americans apologize to me--on behalf of the American society--for slavery? But wouldn't that imply that I'm outside the American society? Otherwise, I end up apologizing to myself, which doesn't make much sense to me. Indeed none of it makes very much sense to me. If the apology is not followed by remedial action--compensation, reparations, something--then what's the point?
"If you're truly interested in justice, forget apologizing for something you didn't
do and get busy doing what you can do to help set matters right. Oh yes, President
Kerekou, don't sell any more slaves." (Washington Post, Page A27, by William
Raspberry, 05-05-00) Reconsidering an unpaid debt - Momentum grows for slave reparations (11/22/99 - dead link) (MSNBC) "The subject is scalding hot, untouchable as public policy. Even the brave run from it. And it is only a question: Should the U.S. government pay reparations to the descendants of slaves? "Ask one question and it leads to another and another and a few more. Why should American taxpayers who never owned slaves pay for the sins of ancestors they don’t even know? And what about those whose ancestors arrived here long after slavery ended? And how would the economy be affected? How do you put a price tag on 2½ centuries of legalized inhumanity? In what form would reparations be paid? How would you establish who’s a descendant?" [At this writing, an on-line survey showed that 89% of Americans opposed the concept of "reparations for prior discrimination against minorities and slaves", while a paltry 11% favored such reparations. Of course, the survey failed to ask if European Americans should receive reparations for reverse discrimination. Editor.] "Questions start debates. Which is all [Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)] wants. A raging debate. He is speaking from an anteroom off the floor of the House Judiciary Committee, which this day is debating, by comparison, something tame — physician-assisted suicide. Conyers is the ranking Democrat on the committee, a 34-year veteran of Capitol Hill, dean of the Congressional Black Caucus. But these credentials are not worth diddly when it comes to the subject he has sat down to discuss. "In every legislative session since 1989, Conyers has introduced a bill that would establish a commission to examine slavery and its lingering effects on African Americans and contemporary U.S. society. "The commission would comprise historians, legal scholars, genealogists, economists, lawmakers — the brightest minds to be found. Hearings would be held across the country. A report would be issued with recommendations for Congress to act on. "Should the U.S. government issue a formal apology for sanctioning slavery? Is a debt owed to the descendants of black people who helped build this country but spent their lives in forced servitude? These questions would be addressed. "All we’re trying to do is compile a body of intelligence and data on the subject," says Conyers. "The most organized body of material on the subject in American history." "You would think a man in his position could at least get a subcommittee hearing on his bill. But the legislation, known as the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, has never been debated in Congress. It doesn’t matter if Democrats or Republicans are in charge. The bill just sits.
"Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, did not return phone
calls, but here’s what he said on the subject several years ago: "The notion of
collective guilt for what people did [200-plus] years ago, that this generation should pay
a debt for that generation, is an idea whose time has gone. I never owned a slave. I never
oppressed anybody. I don’t know that I should have to pay for someone who did [own
slaves] generations before I was born." (MSNBC 11/22/99) Race riot commission considers reparations (11/22/99 - dead link) "TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A commission investigating the 1921 destruction of Tulsa's black business district by a white mob took up the issue of reparations Monday, even as it still asked: Who is to blame? "The Tulsa Race Riot Commission considered scholarships, museums, memorials and direct payments to race riot survivors and victims' families as restitution for one of the nation's worst acts of racial violence. "I think money talks. It shows you're serious. It's a justice issue,'' said commission member Eddie Faye Gates, who lobbied in support of payments to survivors. [Eddie Faye Gates did not mention any similar effort to pay reparations to European American citizens who have suffered from reverse discrimination at the hands of affirmative action. Editor.] "Who's at fault here? ... I have not yet seen the evidence that the state of Oklahoma was culpable,'' said state Rep. Abe Deutschendorf, a Democrat, adding that it would be difficult to convince others of any state culpability. "A proposal by the commission's committee on reparations suggested direct payments based on the precedent set by the Florida Legislature in the case of the 1923 Rosewood Massacre. Florida awarded victims' families as much as $150,000 each.
"Proposals include 500 scholarships, with a preference given to students living in
affected areas of north Tulsa; funds for an interactive museum in Tulsa detailing the
history of the riot; tax breaks to encourage business development in north Tulsa.
"It is understood that while a valuation of personal and real property is feasible,
no valuation of human life is ever truly feasible or capable of being done,'' said Currie
Ballard, the committee's chairperson." (Associated Press via FoxNews, By AP's
Kelly Kurt, 11/22/99) Additional News Links and Background: NEWER News storyies about reparations Johnny Reb, A Game of Racial Envy
(FrontPagemag.com/June 7, 2000) Robert A. George, David Fights the Racial
Goliath: Salon's House Provocateur, (National Review/June 2, 2000) Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Debt Wrong: David
Horowitz is Incorrect. It's Time for the United States to Pay Up for Slavery
(Salon.com/June 5, 2000) David Horowitz, Reparations Are Still a
Bad Idea: Reply to Earl Ofari Hutchinson, (FrontPageMag.com/June 5, 2000) David Horowitz, Ten Reasons Why
Reparations for Blacks are a Bad Idea for Blacks, and Racist Too (FrontPageMag.com/June 5,
2000) END Reparations OLDER News Summaries and Links |
| Reparations: More Historic Facts Against Reparations | Reparations: NEWER Summaries and Links | Reparations: OLDER News Summaries and Links | The Censored Anti-Reparations Ad 03-12-01 |
