Chicago has become the de facto center of the slavery reparations movement. Alderman Dorothy Tillman organized the first national reparations conference in 2001 and was the prime mover of a city ordinance that supports congressional hearings on reparations. Tillman later successfully lobbied the City Council to pass the Slave Era Disclosure Act, an ordinance that requires companies doing business with… return to article
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Reader Comments (17)Page 1 of 1 pagesCould somebody come up with a realistic plan on distributing reparations? Let’s just say, o.k., we’ll pay. Now just tell me exactly who gets what.
Black leaders never provide a specific plan. Why? “We’re not there yet, we have to say we get them first”.
If you don’t provide a reasonable plan and settle obvious difficulties this will never, ever be settled.
And to be honest this has to be done in Congress. Every failed lawsuit damages the movement more and more. Its never going to will on legal grounds. Its a pipe dream to think otherwise.
So I suggest: Come up with a specific plan and take it to the people and the Congress.
Posted by Tokki on Feb 2, 2004 at 2:30 PM great- so my parents that came from sweden, who had nothing to do with this, have to pay african-americans reparations? what are they guilty of exactly? and what about the families of the northerners who fought the south? so a great-grand child has to pay reparations b/c her great grandad died fighting a war that freed the slaves? oh, and i suppose we pay money to all the haitians who have come here recently?
right. right
Posted by Thom on Feb 2, 2004 at 8:12 PM “How else can we explain our nationís wide racial disparities without factoring in the legacy of slavery?”
Try, for starters, the fact that 70% of black children are born bastards. I think it’s safe to say that has a lot more to do with the black population’s problems than anything that happened to their long-dead ancestors.
One thing is for sure, though. Racial disparities will continue as long as black “leaders” continue to blame their peoples’ problems on others instead of addressing the real problems. Blacks will never see any reparations, that’s for sure.
Posted by Tom on Feb 2, 2004 at 11:31 PM The U.S. government’s greatest fear concerning the Reparations Movement is not suits which can be easily blocked within its own biased judicial system. Rather it is the seldom-publicized legal battle which has been unfolding inside the United Nations for the past decade. Diverse African-American activists and scholars, including the Honorable Silis Muhammad, have made many interventions before the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and presented detailed evidence of how the USA has been violating U.N. Covenants by imposing ethnocide and forced assimilation upon Afro-Descendants as a people. The goal of this arm of the Movement is to secure Human Rights, Reparations and Restoration for our people, including the right to Self-Determination. Enough evidence has now been presented to warrant the U.N. placing a Reparations Sanction upon the U.S. government, hopefully within a short time frame.
Sincerely,
Malik Al-Arkam
www.AllForReparations.org
Posted by Malik Al-Arkam on Feb 3, 2004 at 6:58 AM Ha Ha Ha! Malik, get your head out of your ass. Do you really think the US is going to cough up that money just because the UN might tell us to? What a great service you’re doing your people, telling them that their plight is everybody’s fault but their own and that, one of these days, the government’s going to give them a pile of money and that will make everything better. I hope Castro, Gadhafi, and the rest of the killers on the UN Human Rights Commission do sanction us. That might be the only thing that could make all this talk of reparations more ridiculous.
Posted by Tom on Feb 3, 2004 at 8:46 AM I wish people would not put hurtful things on these readers comments. There’s got to be a cool-headed way to look at these problems in search for a solution. Is someone going to suggest that African American people were not harmed by slavery? This article made me think of my grandfather’s father, whom I never met since he died in the 1890s. He was a white Union soldier during the Civil War, shot in the chest at the Battle of Chancellorsville, survived, but was captured. When he finally came home, no one recognized him he’d become so skinny and disfigured. He married and had a few children before he died, but was a poor man unable to work regular jobs. He paid a price for the sin of slavery, and never owned any slaves. But would he be satisfied if he knew so many decendents of former slaves were still an underclass 140 years later? I don’t think so. I wish we could collectively come up with a solution that would benefit all the working people of America. Correcting labor laws so people are able to organize to improve their own lives would be an important start. - H. Scott, Pittsburgh
Posted by Howard Scott Jr. on Feb 3, 2004 at 12:10 PM Dorothy Tilman is a grand-standing joke, and the first smart thing she says will be the first.
This whole reparations bullshit is ridiculous. Those misguided zealots will get a loud slap back to reality when the Constitution is read at the first such trial.
Since slavery was LEGAL before the end of the Civil War, it is illegal to go back and try to prosecute/make restitution for something that, while heinous, unjust and immoral, was also considererd legal at the time.
You want “reparations”? How about the countless hundreds of thousands who gave their lives in one of the bloodiest massacres in history to end the abominable practice?
And I’m sorry...this isn’t how you build unity and good will, this is how you trash it. The precedent has been to award these types of decisions to those directly affected by an action.
Since anyone directly enslaved is long gone, that leaves a bunch of people waiting for handouts. It is insulting, and patronizing. This is what is wrong with typical leaders in the “black movement.” REAL leadership is needed, with forward, progressive goals and ideas. Wallowing in the past and spending energy on a losing, divisive cause is just plain stupid.
Posted by Gary on Feb 3, 2004 at 9:21 PM dorothy tillman does have her look though you can’t deny that!
man, if we go down this road things are going to get nasty nasty nasty. i live in a place called joliet and its seriously a completely divided city with blacks and whites. things are not good here and wow you start this up and i can absolutely promise cross my heart major major issues. everybody will hate each other. now it ain’t right, but you have to trust me on this, black and white will launch away from each other. you writers need to get away from your desks and come into our communities. you see this place with your own eyes and then you know you’ll tell me i’m even.
Posted by trey on Feb 4, 2004 at 11:02 AM This push for reparations looks suspiciously like the Southern Strategy the Republican Party used to polarize blacks and whites during the fight over segregation. Obviously that controversy was a lot more mainstream than reparations but the “leaders” behind this jackleg reparations campaign must have the same goal in mind, namely, to breed bitterness towards whites.
Posted by Tom on Feb 4, 2004 at 12:31 PM white mastery
reparations
for slaveryopposition white allignment
fear of a black planet
Posted by bojinka on Feb 5, 2004 at 2:09 PM Surprisingly, my opinon has changed in the last month and I now am in favor of reparations.
It was a huge surprise to me - from out of nowhere a 180 degree turn. I knew the reasons all along - I just didn’t pay attention to myself.
First, I think because I was in favor of reparations to the Japanese-Americans for our actions during WWII. We paid them which I thought was right. How can I not think it right to pay reparations to African-Americans?
Second, it really isn’t just the actions during the slave-holding era that actively oppressed blacks in this country. No of us can deny that our local, state and federal governments actively oppressed blacks at the very least into the 1960s.
Third, we as a society generally have gone along with it, even after we knew or should have known better. We could have fixed the problem if we wanted to. If your Swedish immigrant ancestors weren’t marching in the streets of Selma, then sorry, they WERE part of the problem.
This isn’t history - this is my lifetime.
It is not like the money is coming straight out of our pockets. How much say do you have in the other ways government spends your money?
It is not going to happen in the courts. I agree with the latest appellate ruling that classifies the reparations issue as a “political problem” which is the legislature’s domain.
But I think it should happen.
Posted by Nus on Feb 5, 2004 at 3:44 PM Nice try, Nus… and still very much incorrect. Japanese-Americans were NOT awarded “reparations,” at least not via the courts.
This was a political action, and there’s a major difference: the payments were made to only those DIRECTLY affected.
Keep in mind, too, that slavery was legal at the time, and regardless of how horribly wrong, the law and Constitution BOTH explicitly state you can’t go back and prosecute a crime that simpy didn’t exist at the time it occurred. There are also statute of limitations involved, too.
And the “Fear of a Black Planet” poetry was a nice touch, too. Only, it’s more like “Fear of a STUPID Planet.”
Wake up, already. This is a dead issue legally, politically, and is a waste of time, resources and what precious strands of goodwill exist between peoples of different backgrounds and “color.” The very idea of reparations is odious; it doesn’t “solve” anything, and is perhaps the MOST condescending slap in the face that African-Americans have suffered in quite some time.
Enough already, I say… let’s move on.
Posted by Gary on Feb 5, 2004 at 8:30 PM NUS??? Is this the same guy who blasted me a few months ago for my comments about media bias?? really, are you the same person?? You havent taken a 180, your a completely different person, must be.
Remember Hitler?? Killing Jews was legal in germany at the time but somehow the jews have managed to force germany to pay reparations till this day. what about all those innocent germans who had nothing to do with that holacaust? Should they have to pay?? they were just doing what they were told.
Distributing reparations...Step one..Identify any company or family who directly benefited from slavery. Big tobacco, levi-strauss, big steel, the kennedys, the walkers(bush), sears and roebuck, big oil etc. (dont forget...you didnt have to own slaves to benefit from their labor)
step two....Prove your ancestry. Are you really a descendent of slaves?( Do the research and write yourself a five part made for TV mini-series) if so proceed to step three. If not its back to scratch-off tickets for you.
Step three....collect your cash and buy all the Nelly records you want.
pretty simple huh.TREY...huh????? I live in north eastern Ohio. All the blacks live in Youngstown and all the white have got them surrounded. We all hate each other already and reparations wont make it any worse, besides think about the trickle down affect all that money will have on the economy.
Oh and one more thing. This oft-mentioned constitution thingy isnt even worth wiping my ass with(not soft enough) let alone even talking about anymore.
Posted by Just for laughs on Feb 5, 2004 at 11:24 PM I already noted that the issue of reparations is a political issue suited to legislative resolution.
‘payment only to those directly affected’
Okay. What pecentage of blacks living in the US from 1860 through the present do you think have not been not directly affected by social, institutional, and/or government sponsored racism?
Sure I am the same guy that blasted you for wildly inaccurate statements previously. Monolithic thinking is for slaves, whether of mass media or “independent” media. I am conservative in some areas, radical in others, but foolish in none.
Posted by Nus on Feb 6, 2004 at 11:46 AM Nus, the issue here is not one of racism, ignorance or cruelty - all hallmarks of this country’s proud but tattered history. No, the issue surrounding reparations is the instution of SLAVERY, and the point still stands: there is no one living who was directly enslaved.
End of story.
Posted by Gary on Feb 7, 2004 at 5:33 PM “the issue here is not one of racism, ignorance or cruelty”
Who says? And why not?
What it says in the article is “the issue of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow apartheid.”
Likewise, that is what I said in my initial post.
The defense you claim is ludicrous and manifestly unjust. - ‘Everyone I murdered and stole from is dead. There is no reason for me to give back what I unjustly gained.”
That really is it in essence. All former slaves are dead. The companies made millions of dollars in interest from the money they made in the slave trade. through slave labor and through unfairly recompensed labor are still extant.
Once the victim has died, there is no need for justice?
Posted by Nus on Feb 10, 2004 at 3:49 PM Nus, you’re not looking at things like affirmative action. Could some of these programs not be considered “reparations?”
And I’m sorry if you don’t like a little thing like THE LAW getting in the way of things, but again - slavery WASN’T a crime!
Heinous, despicable, immoral - yes, absolutely! But in the context of any possible litigation, it would be thrown out if not for its inflammatory nature. From a “legal” perspective, there is no “crime” to prosecute!
And let me ask this: where does it end? My ancestors came over in the early part of last century, and believe me - they didn’t enslave ANYONE.
But they were discriminated against, and many miniorities have suffered due to prejudice. Do they all get reparations, too?
I mean come on man, I see where you’re coming from, the whole thing is a tragedy. But reparations won’t heal anything, and will only make things worse.
Posted by Gary on Feb 10, 2004 at 5:36 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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