Real points on reparations Part 2 - 10.9.2007.2

Continued from Real points on reparations Part 1...

And lastly there is the FACT of precidence.

“Yet reparations have been made to Japanese Americans and Native American Indians, at least to some degree. Remorse has been expressed by the Government to both groups. Yet the United States Govenment has never apoligized nor acknowledged the wrongs done with slavery and its actions/attitudes in the over a century since that time.”

Perhaps Michael Medved would like to dispute these facts. He cannot nor can any person against reparations. That is why they seek out any and every other argument.

As for how to pay the reparations I offer this idea. Provide a tax credit, of say $3,000 for any African Americans that can provide proof of heritage. This will also cover all children of those African Americans from the inception date to 18 years later, thus covering all children born the year of the reparation. The proof would come from authenticated family trees that date back to at least 1865 and can show slavery. This tax credit is a lifetime credit, meaning that you have a total of $3,000 for life, being used over that lifetime. If you use it all in one year its gone. If it take 10 years at $300 a year then so be it. You don’t get more and the max is the start amout of $3,000.

This plan builds the economy, providing jobs for researchers and companies providing authenticated certificates. The Government would increase workers that would manage the list with the I.R.S. Oversite groups could be created to ensure that the fund is not mismanaged. Enforment jobs could be created to protect that scams could not take advantage.

Plus there is the fact that the economy would get a boost from the additional money being used to pay for goods and services. Credit cards coulds be paid off, downpayment and improvements on homes, pay for college tuition and supplies, investments in 401K’s and the stock market. Not to mention purchases of food, clothing, and whatever else.

Explain where this is a bad, or impossible thing to accomplish?

America had slaves, and made them build the nation. America profited and grew from this slave labor. Some of the worst attrocities known to man were commited to the slaves and their descendants, for centuries. America refuses to acknowledge what it did, or the benefit it received. At the same time America has apologized and made reparations to others of its people who were arguably far less abused and persecuted.

I will not put my head in the sand. I will not allow half-thought, tangent laden, slippery-slope arguments to obfuscate and distract me and others from the facts. I do not accept the romanticized arguments and media imagery.

America owes reparations and an apology to African Americans. They can be paid and must. America will always have over it’s head this division of it’s people while avoiding the honest debate and response.

Medved may enjoy this denial, and others like him, but the fact is that this is a rot in America. And given time, any rot will eventually destroy whatever is rotting. The same holds true for America.

This is what I think, what do you think?

Real points on reparations - 10.9.2007.1

This is a continuation of a discussion based on the comments by Michael Medved against reparations. It can be seen at Responding to Michael Medveds rant against reparations - 10.9.2007.1

It is long, but I feel it's worth the time.

**This post can also be found at Black & White Blog a forum for both sides of controversial issues.**

So how about I actually discuss the reasons why reparations make sense? How about we actually talk about American slavery and not detract from the subject in discussion of eras and societies that are not American?

There were millions of slaves that were forcibly taken from Africa to America, and died. That means families experienced the loss of fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, in a boat under duress. Murder is punishable, and as we have abundantly seen with the OJ Simpson case, profitable. Genocide, since this was a willful act done repeatedly to a singular and specific group of people, would seem to up that exponentially.

Of the surviving Africans, they were sold of without regard to their families or any factor other than their perceived ability to work, in the most humiliating manner. They were placed on display similar to a car in a showroom, with potential buyers pawing and prodding them. That is further duress and suffering.

Once sold, the slaves were guaranteed a lifetime of work. This work was menial at its best, without breaks, without pay, without time off. Medical care, which was not guaranteed, could range from intense to minimal and provided no guarantee of time off to recover.

Slaves were routinely beaten, mutilated, physically and mentally abused, sexually harassed and raped while forced to work. Any one of these is enough to cause the employer to be jailed, then or now, if it were done to another human being.

Slaves were denied their right to freedom of religion. They were denied an education. They were fed and clothed just enough to allow them to continue to work. They were denied freedom of speech. They were denied the right to have and/or raise a family.

Slaves built cities, roads, infrastructure, and agriculture. Every aspect of any business and establishment that exists in America today that has a tie to colonial America is connected to the slave workforce. That’s North or South.

If the average slave worked only 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 360 days a year for 4 decades of life that’s 158,880 hours of work per slave. If we assume that there were 3 million slaves from 1619 to 1865 (which is a low-ball estimate) then that is 476,640,000,000 hours of work done. Those are BILLIONS of hours. This does not even touch the Jim Crow era. Assuming a pay of just .05 cents an hour in 1865 money (no adjustment for actual worth in money today) that means $23,832,000,000. If I adjust by taking an increase of just 10% for each year for 55 years that’s a 9150% increase to $2,180,628,000,000. That’s TRILLIONS of dollars, adjusted just 55 years at 10%. There’s still another 87 years to go and we are adjusting from .05 cents. If anyone feels that more than TRILLIONS of dollars of work did not change America, they are stupid in my opinion.

In addition

“Jim Crow and other equally repressive laws and actions hindered Black African Americans. Incidents have occured even in the 20th century and include the Tuskegee syphilis experiments in the 1930’s, the destruction of Tulsa’s Black neighborhoods in 1921 and the loss of life and property when the all-Black town of Rosewood was destroyed by a white mob in 1923.”

Continued in part 2...