Well, the Democratic Party should be concerned about this, as their membership openly practiced chattel slavery, started the Civil War by rebelling, and started the KKK.

Ah, Detroit where the city council told a white man pitching a revitalization project that "his kind" weren't welcome there. Read those words however you want. Let them keep Detroit for their reparations and make of it a new African-American utopia city. Oh, wait, they're already working on that.

Find me a living former slave-owner and a living former slave, and I will be the first to demand that the one compensate the other. Anything else is just a scam.

I wonder if Ms. Watson wants to pursue the descendants of the Africans who actually did most of the capturing of slaves in the first place? It was Africans who rounded up the slaves for the most part and brought them to the coastal cities in order to sell them to the highest bidder. So, fair's fair, right Ms. Watson? Those African slave traders were just as complicit in the institution of slavery at the time as were the slave traders from other nations and they made lots of money doing it, so you're going after them too, right? Do you want an apology, money and 'consequences' from them, or is this just another racist witch-hunt being conducted against those of European descent? It's time to play Face Your Racism, Ms. Watson.

Reparations are usually part of the settlement of a war and are usually begun almost immediately following the event which precipitated the need for them. The case for reparations grows weaker with time. So, I'm wondering what's the cutoff for owing reparations? 25 years? 50 years? 500 years? One generation? Three generations? Ten generations? What is fair, really? Of course that's an absurd and rhetorical question, because there can be no answer.

Even more interestingly, if you accept the idea of reparations being owed one group, in order to be consistent and logical, you'd have to support the idea of reparations for all peoples who've been enslaved, run off their land, repatriated involuntarily and robbed of their wealth. And since virtually every group of humans, whether by nationality, by ethnic origin, or by religion, has been: a)enslaved, b)robbed of their land and possessions, c)persecuted for their nationality, ethnic background or religion, doesn't that mean that virtually every group of people is due some sort of cash from at least one other group? Everyone reading this has some ancestral history of enslavement. Anyone who denies that is either looking to either be contentious, is lying, or is completely ignorant of his/her own history. So getting back to Ms. Watson, the question becomes whether Ms. Watson is willing to do the enlightened thing and support reparations for all humans, or whether she is just looking to join the ranks of modern American racists and only support the idea of reparations for blacks but only if the reparations come from whites?

But more tellingly, Ms. Watson advocates for 'consequences' for those who perpetrated the sin of slavery. What does she mean by that? Jail time for every descendant of a family which owned slaves? Prison terms for the descendants of people who were in the government before slavery was abolished? Maybe she means that the current leadership of the US should be chucked in gaol to atone for the sins of our forefathers? Now that would be interesting, wouldn't it?

If we show them the money will they finally shut the fuck up?

If we show them the money will they finally shut the fuck up?

No, they'll just get louder when they realise the tactic works.

Another question: What is she going to do with those who are the descendents of both master and slave? Will they compensate themselves or will it depend entirely on skin color?

After hundreds of years of the systematic opression of blacks don't we owe them reperations. It's because of this opression that poverty in inner cities still exists today. Between segregation and red lining we held blacks back for over a hundred years.

Even though blacks now enjoy equal oppurtunities for those families that have made it out, those who still live in inner cities are still being held back by historical inequality.

Of course, an exceptional individual can make it rich in America but overwhelmingly if your born poor, you remain poor. If the only education you have acess to is what passes for a school in detroit then it's no wonder these kids don't make it out.

The idea of handing people a check for slavery is absurd. We do owe blacks an investment in inner city infrastructure.

Well, the Democratic Party should be concerned about this, as their membership openly practiced chattel slavery, started the Civil War by rebelling, and started the KKK.

Posted by Dick_Nixon

Then the democrats supported black rights thus losing the south.

Ahh, old troll day at RWN. GUM returns, of course, he is neither of those thungs, but is ok with showing bigotry, homophobia, and funemployment.

Setting up another google bomb Nixon guesses.

Northern democrats were the strongest supporters of civil rights.

Apologise? Hell no! My family lost four men in the Civil War fighting for the Union. Maybe Denmark should apologise for allowing slavery in St. Croix? Maybe the Haida should do so for enslaving the Makah? The Arabs for running slavery still? Perhaps the Romans for enslaving the Gauls?

Reparations? To hell with that! When some dirt poor Asian or African whose grandparents grew up in dirt floor shacks, illiterate and held back because of class and family comes to AMERICA and becomes wealthy, influential and a valued member of society, there is NO FRIGGIN' EXCUSE for ANYONE! PERIOD!

If ANY polititian votes for this kind of vile robbery, no matter the party or affiliation, that person will earn my emnity for good.

And gayunemployedmexican, you want to pay back the mezoAmericans in Mexico? Go ahead. Send them your pesos. Idiot.

Northern democrats were the strongest supporters of civil rights.

Posted by gayunemployedmexican

2009-09-30 18:27:57

Robert Byrd and Al Gore Sr despised blacks. Byrd does to this day. He is the elder statesman of the Democratic Party.

After hundreds of years of the systematic opression of blacks don't we owe them reperations.

Who's this "we" you speak of?

I never enslaved anyone. Why should I, a person who never owned any slaves, have to pay any phony-baloney "reparations" to people who were never enslaved themselves?

Between segregation and red lining we held blacks back for over a hundred years.

"We" did nothing of the kind. I don't know what you've been doing in your free time but I have not been "holding back" anyone anywhere.

I defy you to explain why I should be punished for something I was not involved in, responsible for, or even alive to witness.

Well said, mighty. If anyone ever comes to my home looking to extract "reparations for slavery", they'd better be armed and wearing some kind of protective gear. I'd resist a burglar, and that's exactly what anyone seeking reparations from me would be.

Black people want something from the people curently holding them back…..? Look in the mirror or find a white democrat.

This old and very stupid argument seems to resurface every time the left regains power. Slavery in America died with the Civil War, the price was very steep 600,000+ dead and many more wounded. More American soldiers died during the Civil War than in all the other wars American has been involved in combined. The Civil War saw some of the most bloodiest battles every known even to this day. I for one am sick and tired of this cry for a appology and reparations, no appology or reparations is warrented today, tomorrow or ever, those who owned slaves, (which includes blacks as well, yes people there were freed blacks that owned slaves in America this little bit of info. is conveniently not talked about in your indoctrination camps called your public schools), are long dead, those who were slaves are also long dead. This issue should have died with them. The ones trying to keep this issue alive are the race baiters who profit off of it aka Jesse Jackson, Al Sharton, and white liberals who feels they must appologize for the exsitence of America.

The ones trying to keep this issue alive are the race baiters who profit off of it aka Jesse Jackson, Al Sharton, and white liberals who feels they must appologize for the exsitence of America.

Posted by beastdog

2009-09-30 21:11:08

Add barak hussein obama to your list and its nearly complete.

Hay tblrk2006 thanks for the the addition, I dont know how the king of the race baiters could have sliped beastdogs mind, long day at work today thanks again.

"I'm wondering what's the cutoff for owing reparations?"

You could do the biblical "sins of the father are visited onto the 7th generation…" But then, we're in the 8-9th generation since the end of the civil war… So oops! The statute of limitations has run out…

Not to mention that I'm second generation American, my ancestors weren't here during slavery. But then I'm white, so it's kind of like 'the concept of original sin'…there's no escaping it for whites right? Because reason has no place when the motivation is victimhood and vengeance, right?

"It's because of this opression that poverty in inner cities still exists today. We do owe blacks an investment in inner city infrastructure."

No, it's because black 'culture' doesn't value education. The proof of that assertion is the lack of widespread Asian poverty. They were subjected to historical oppression too, right? Those pesky facts, they are sooo inconvenient, aren't they?

Since 1964 we have spent $8–10 trillion on antipoverty programs. How much more do you suggest we 'invest'?

We've been fighting this War on Poverty for almost 50 years!

It's a quagmire I tell you! How many more trillions of dollars and countless lives are we going to allow to be wasted? What's the exit strategy?

The more you subsidize something the more you get of it. Keep subsidizing poverty and that's exactly what you'll get. More poverty.

What about the blacks that owned slaves in America? Do their decendents pay or get money?

Frankly, if I thought one round of "reparations" were enough to finally put America's race hustlers – Jackson, Sharpton, Obama, ACORN & others of the same ilk – out of business once and for all, I'd bite my lower lip and support them.]

But I think we all realize reparations would be an endless exercise, don't we?

Personally I'd love to see the plan that takes into account the waves of immigrants that came to the US after the Civil War (including blacks from Africa and the Caribbean) as well as those blacks descended from Slave owners and why the first group should pay money to the second. It is simply not a workable premise.

When these folks talk seriously about stopping slavery now, in Sudan and other parts of the middle east, rather than about slavery long dead in the US I'll start to think they are more than just money grubbing racists but the fact is they want a free check and think it should be paid for by non-blacks.