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In the World? That was mainly the British, who outlawed the slave trade in a series of agreements & enforced it by force of arms. That was by early 1820, as I recall. The US Civil War outlawed slavery in the US, in 1865.
It's ironic that the British Empire outlawed slaver only AFTER they lost the southern US colonies, as they could no longer profit from the institution to the degree they had before. Slavery existed in the British Empires where it was profitable to them - the Caribbean, and India, until the 1840s I think. After that time it was replaced by the term indentured labor (i.e. - slavery using a different name).
All the slaves from-the USA are dead. It seems the only reparations that might make sense at this time is to compare the status of the persons home country (where would they likely have been if they had been left alone) to where they re now. So for example if their family member was captured in Kenya and made a slave, and the average Kenyan makes $50,000 a year, they could pay the descendants of slaves the difference between what they are making as a result of slavery and the amount they would have been making if their ancestor had been left alone in Kenya. Generally, civil law tries to put you back int he place you would have been in if the bad thing had not happened to you. another option might be to compare the incomes of people from your country whose ancestors were never slaves (e.g. they move here from Kenya ten years ago) to someone who is descended from slaves and give them the difference if it is a positive number.
I would love it if you could go back and step into the shoes of your ancestors and collect from those who wronged them. On my wife side is a very wealthy Boston publishing family who got illegally cheated out of their wealth by people whose descendants are now extremely wealthy. Suddenly I would have married into a wealthy family without even realizing it.
Another alternative might be for all of the countries of the world to contribute to a fund to be used to make repatriations to the hundreds of thousands of current slaves. Seems like it would be more laudable to re-pay actual slaves for their lost time than their distant descendants. First however you would have to address the fact that their current owners would just take the money.
All the slaves from-the USA are dead. It seems the only reparations that might make sense at this time is to compare the status of the persons home country (where would they likely have been if they had been left alone) to where they re now. So for example if their family member was captured in Kenya and made a slave, and the average Kenyan makes $50,000 a year, they could pay the descendants of slaves the difference between what they are making as a result of slavery and the amount they would have been making if their ancestor had been left alone in Kenya. Generally, civil law tries to put you back int he place you would have been in if the bad thing had not happened to you. another option might be to compare the incomes of people from your country whose ancestors were never slaves (e.g. they move here from Kenya ten years ago) to someone who is descended from slaves and give them the difference if it is a positive number.
I would love it if you could go back and step into the shoes of your ancestors and collect from those who wronged them. On my wife side is a very wealthy Boston publishing family who got illegally cheated out of their wealth by people whose descendants are now extremely wealthy. Suddenly I would have married into a wealthy family without even realizing it.
Another alternative might be for all of the countries of the world to contribute to a fund to be used to make repatriations to the hundreds of thousands of current slaves. Seems like it would be more laudable to re-pay actual slaves for their lost time than their distant descendants. First however you would have to address the fact that their current owners would just take the money.
That wouldn't work. The 37 million black Americans today are descended from the 388,000 people shipped to what is now the United States from Africa. Obviously, it's not a one-to-one thing. A lot of the current people had the same ancestor(s). How would you manage the split then?
That wouldn't work. The 37 million black Americans today are descended from the 388,000 people shipped to what is now the United States from Africa. Obviously, it's not a one-to-one thing. A lot of the current people had the same ancestor(s). How would you manage the split then?
I think that's the point he's trying to make. The mechanisms at how one would even calculate reparations, independent of the idea's rightness or wrongness, pretty much make it impossible to do.
I don't recall that hemp was mentioned in the book. Cotton seems to have been the crop that primed the pump for the economic & industrial rise of the US in world markets - especially for British linen.
How about tobacco? Cotton didn't grow in the Upper South - tobacco was the cash crop.
Might not that be cultural appropriation for the rest of us?
Sounds like fun though. Already got some stone axe heads, but they're from a nearby creek, date back several thousand years from all evidence, and are not Neandertal. Look-alikes, though.
Way back in elementary school, I was taught that every king descends from a slave - and every slave descends from a king. Probably a lot of truth, there.
While slavery was and is horrendous, trying to rectify or compensate for it with reparations would be a nest of worms to sort out, and I don't see how it could be done.
Would descendants of slaveholders need to pay out to descendants of those enslaved by their ancestors? Again, we all have multiple ancestors - do they all get included, and if so, how many generations back should we go?
Would they need to be direct ancestors, or if a maiden aunt was a slaveholder way back when and left her ill-gained fortune to her nieces and nephews, does she count, and should the descendants of those nieces and nephews pay up now?
Or would this be done by the government or businesses which can be proved to have profited by slave labor?
Far better to focus on eliminating slavery in the world today and providing more opportunities to slave descendants and others still negatively impacted by it, in the interests of making life better all-around.
Oh, yeah, and educating people of all kinds about history and current events, with a view towards "never again".
The inability to communicate maturely about race that is highlighted on this thread is an indicator of why race is still an issue in America.
There is nothing mature about paying someone because of their skin color.
Perhaps there was a time where reparations would’ve been beneficial to former slaves and their descendants but that ship has sailed a long time ago.
If there is any demographic you don’t want to give money to, it’s the demographic that has yet to prove they can manage money properly or be self-sufficient without government help and handouts. And I say that as a black man.
Reparations won’t work. What works is assimilation and until you assimilate, you will continue to struggle and wonder why other demographics (Asian Americans and African immigrants) pass us African Americans up on the social ladder.
No one is coming to save African Americans. Not Democrats, not liberals, not legislation, not raparations, and not Obama. If you haven’t figured out how to do something the world wants done in 2018, you’ll never figure it out and no amount of money can help you figure it out.
Hondurans are walking thousands of miles in a caravan, risking life and liberty, to come to America and here we are whining about some damn reparations
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