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MrFun
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of Iowa
Nov 2000
time: 23:17
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I found an interesting article of an argument in support for slavery reparations.
Title: The Legal Basis of the Claim for Slavery Reparations
Author: Anthony Gifford
Source: Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights & Responsibilities, Sping 2000, Vol. 27 Issue 2
I did not have time to type out the entire seven page article, so where I have ommited the author's word, I noted the ommission. I'm sure you can locate the complete copy on the Internet or in your local library if you wish the complete copy. Below, are the author's words on slavery reparations.
PROPOSITION ONE
"The enslavement of Africans was a crime against humanity.
OMMISSION
Historians can show without difficulty how the invasion of African territories, the mass capture of Africans, the horrors of the middle passage, the chattelization of Africans in the Americas, and the extermination of the language and culture of the transported peoples constituted a continuing crime against humanity."
PROPOSITION TWO
"International law recognizes that those who commit crimes against humanity must make reparation.
The right to reparation is well recognized by international law. It was defined by the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1928.
OMMISSION
*In 1952, the Federal Republic of Germany reached an agreement with Israel for the payment of $222 million, following a claim by Jews who had fled from Nazi-controlled countries.
OMMISSION
*Japan has made reparations payments to South Korea for acts committed during the invasion and occupation of Korea by Japan in World War II.
*The UN Security Council passed a resolution binding in international law, requiring Iraq to pay reparations for its invasion of Kuwait.
*In 1988, the United States government passed the Civil Liberties Act, in order to make restitution to Japanese Americans with respect to losses resulting from their intermment and ill-treatment at the hands of U.S. authorities during World War II.
OMMISSION
*In November 1995, Queen Elizabeth personally presided over the signing of the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Bill, giving reparation for the seizure of Maori land by British colonists in 1863.
OMMISSION
PROPOSITION THREE
"There is no legal barrier preventing the claim for reparations.
The New Zealand case is an example of a claim by the descendants of the original victims; they suffer from the loss of their anscestral land and dislocation of their social fabric.
OMMISSION
PROPOSITION FOUR
"The claim would be brought on behalf of all Africans, in Africa and in the diaspora, through an appropriate representative body.
Who would be the paintiffs in a claim for reparations? All Africans on the continent of Africa and in the diaspora who suffer the consequences of the crime of mass kidnap and enslavement have an interest in it. (OMMISSION) It is true that a minority of Africans collaborated with the slave trade and prospered as a result; but that should not undermine the overall truth that the rape of Africa was the responsibility of the European nations that established and promoted the trade.
Who should process the claim on behalf of so many? This is a matter that transcends national governments. Many African governments have been unfit representatives of their peoples. Even so, governments are the chief implementers of social policy and are responsible for the repayment of the foriegn debts that have become a new kind of shackle.
OMMISSION
Some form of appropriate, representative, accountable, and trustworthy body is required. Its size and composition, and the mechanisms for setting it up, will become clearer as the movement for reparations develops. A start has been made with the Group of Eminent Persons on Reparations (GEPR), set up by the Organization of African Unity in 1992.
PROPOSITION FIVE
"Claims would be brought against the governments of those countries that promoted and were enriched by the slave trade and the institution of slavery.
Who would be the defendants? Here it is appropriate to concentrate on the governments of the countries that fostered and supported the slave trade, legitimized the institution of slavery, and profited as a result.
An alternative approach would be to identify the companies and families who have made vast profits from slavery. (OMMISSION) This approach however, would create more problems than it would solve.
PROPOSITION SIX
"The claim amount should be asserted by experts in each aspect of life and in each region affected by the institution of slavery.
The assessment of what should be claimed is perhaps the most pressing and onerous task to be faced by the reparations movement. Each affected country will have to be studied. Different considerations would apply to people of the African continent, people of the now independent countries where slavery flourished, and the people who are minorities in Europe or the Americas.
OMMISSION
The damage may be classified and researched under different headings: economic, cultural, social, psychological, to name a few. To put monetary figures on any of the elements of the claim raises difficult questions. (OMMISSION)
The process of researching and answering those questions could have a value beyond the calculation of figures. I could be an educational process, even a healing process . . . . . (OMMISSION)
PROPOSITION SEVEN
"The claim, if not settled by agreement, would ultimately be determined by a special international tribunal recognized by all parties.
There is at present no court that would be competent to hear a claim for reparations. The settlement of such claims would require a new mechanism commensurate with the uniqueness and vastness of the issues.
OMMISSION
There remains much to be done before the case for reparations is really on the global agenda. It is a task in which lawyers can make a significant contribution. Lawyers, historians, social scientists, political scientists, community leaders, and all people of good will of all races who perceive that the crime of slavery was a monstrous evil for which atonement and reparation are long overdue are a part of the panoply of forces that will be needed in this effort." END QUOTES
This is only part of the long article, with various sections ommitted, as I saw fit. To read the complete arguments, and to give the author a more fair interpretation, one should locate the complete copy. If there are some questions that could be answered by the ommissions, I will refer to my copy and try to answer them if possible.
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Caligastia
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PROPOSITION EIGHT
Give us all your money you white devils.
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Caligastia
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A few questions for you MrFun.
1. How will it be accurately determined who is "suffering due to past slavery"?
2. Who will be expected to pay reparations?
3. How will it be accurately determined who should pay what amount of reparations?
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Caligastia
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These are the answers I get from what you posted:
quote:
1. How will it be accurately determined who is "suffering due to past slavery"? |
All africans wether they owned slaves themselves or not.
quote:
2. Who will be expected to pay reparations?
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Anyone whos ancestors were remotely connected with slavery.
quote:
3. How will it be accurately determined who should pay what amount of reparations? |
No answer for this one.
Doesnt seem very fair to me...
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Caligastia
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quote:
Originally posted by MrFun
For your last question, the answer is already in the part of Proposition Six and Proposition Seven that I presented on here. |
Sorry, but its all so vague that it really doesnt answer to my satisfaction.
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Transcend
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Boulder, Colorado, USA
Apr 1999
time: 22:17
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By the same logic, I think the French have a right to demand reparations from the English for the misery they caused during the 100 years War.
By the same logic, Russians, Persians, and Chinese should demand reparations from Mongols for the destructions they caused.
By the same logic, Blacks should demand reparations for slavery rather from Arabs and Turks, as opposed to Americans.
By the same logic, Germans should demand reparations from the French for the mess they caused during the 30 years War.
I'm all against reparations for actions committed centuries ago, otherwise there will never be peace on this planet.
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DinoDoc
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AECCP loves Democracy
Sep 1999
time: 23:17
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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.
Thus concludes the cut and paste war. 
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Albert Speer
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Puerile Polemic
Mar 1999
time: 00:17
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alright there was too much in this thread for me to read at one go. I skimmed through much and have to say this...
The idea that reparations should be given on the assumption that blacks today still suffer from previous wrongs is a difficult one to defend or contend. Objectively, the idea that any black person today suffered directly from slavery (ie- they were slaves themselves) is untrue, and this is the general legal basis behind all other reparation precedents. However, there is the issue that indirectly blacks still suffer.
Though freed, the vast majority of black american following the civil war were impoverished and lacking in education. They had no initial capital nor the capital of the mind that is education. Essentially, though such organizations as the Freedman's Bureau made attempts (some of which such as their short-lived education programs actually had much success), the Reconstruction period did not help blacks attain a position of social, economic, or political equality with whites. Obviously, thus, blacks for the next several decades had much against them compared to native born whites (i contend immigrants had perhaps as many problems as free blacks in the late 19th century). With the natural progression of the standing of blacks over time, many blacks improved in their lives. A blackman who worked hard could give his child an education and this child could then get an even better job and so on. Though it took many years, the emergence of blacks as equals to whites began to appear in the last half of the 20th century.
Now here, however, comes the disagreement. Have blacks attained equality? Or are they still behind? If they are, how may they rise up? Through natural improvement over time or through governmental intervention (reparations, affirmative action)?
I contend that the life of the average blackman in america is improving rapidly and, if not equal to that of a white man, is nearly so. Though there are plenty of poor blacks, there are just as many poor whites or people of other races. The black middle class has emerged and there are more and more members of the black upper class. Times are improving I think on the whole. No need for anything special.
However, it can not be denied that there are still plenty of poor blacks (and others) who must be paid attention to. I dont think such things as 40 acres and a mule would do much good to the poor in the ghettos. **** reparations. What the poor need are new economic oppurtunities and new moralities. Businesses should not be scared to give job oppurtunities to the urban poor... banks should not be scared to give loans to enterpreneurs... all poor should try to teach their children to not turn to crime... all fathers should take care of their children and not leave them... then and only then, by focusing on improving the core problems, will there be some improvement.
thanks
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22-02-2002 11:22
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