The guilt and victimhood of the fathers – reparations for slavery
Here’s what Oregon is contemplating:
In Oregon, they’re trying to figure out racial justice.
Hence, Democrats have introduced a bill that will grant $123,000 to black Oregonians in an effort toward reparations.
Among the requirements, as stated by the legislation:
“A person is eligible…if the person demonstrates that the person: (a) Is descended from an American slave; (b) Has identified as African-American on legal documents for at least 10 years before the date of the application…”
I have quite a few questions.
–How far back can the ancestor be?
–Is just one ancestor enough?
–What if the claimant is very successful and/or very rich?
–And does it matter if that same person has slave owner ancestors, too? Because this is fairly common among black people in America, for obvious historical reasons.
–Or, what if the person is to all intents and purposes white – white looking, raised as white, and only found out about the ancestor through DNA testing and/or genealogical research 10 years ago?
–Would grandparents and their children and each of those children’s children all be separately eligible? In a large family, that could be quite a bit of money.
Also, I wonder what effect such payments would have on black people who receive them. It’s over a lifetime, and would amount to between two and three thousand dollars a year per person. I believe it would be likely to increase antagonism between the races (which seems to be a major goal of the left lately), augmenting the feeling of victimhood among some black people and the feeling of resentment among some white people, particularly those white people who are hurting financially.
And what about white descendants of fervent abolitionists from the past? Or of men who died fighting for the North in the Civil War? Do they get a pro-rated tax reduction? And what about descendants of those who came to this country after slavery was abolished? Is it just tough luck for them? I’m sure the left would say they all are the recipients of white privilege. But if so, why limit the payments to black people with slave ancestors – why not all black people?
[NOTE: The way we’re going these days makes me think of the Borges story “The Lottery in Babylon.” It’s a great story, if you haven’t read it.]
[NOTE II: It occurs to me that both posts I’ve written today, although seemingly unrelated, are on the topic of payments involving race.]
If no records exist it would be impossible to meet this requirement. Maybe that’s what they are counting on.
I recently saw a cartoon that had a king standing on the top of a crenellated tower, worried, looking down at a crowd of people with pitchforks. An advisor tells him “Oh, you don’t need to fight them. You just need to convince them that the torch people want to take their pitchforks away.”
That’s what I think this talk of reparations is really about: pitching whites and blacks against each other. Useful idiots have taken the talk of reparations further by trying to force it into reality.
Most of the population of the US today is descended from immigrants who came after the Civil War. And for those who have ancesters who arrived before the Civil War: There is a sizable chunk who is descended from people who fought for the Union or who were active abolitionists. And a sizable chunk who is descended from people who never owned slaves.
Almost two decades ago, David Horowitz (once upon a time, a red-diaper baby from Queens, and, over the past several decades, the most famous and most brilliant apostate from leftism) wrote the definitive book demolishing the utterly indefensible concept of reparations. It is entitled Uncivil Wars: The Controversy over Reparations for Slavery, and it has never been bettered as a well-argued refutation of this toxic idea. One of the many curiosities of this idiotic debate, which never seems to vanish, is that there has never been any demand that the descendants of those black African chieftains who sold other Africans into slavery or that the North African and Middle Eastern Muslims who enslaved more blacks than Europeans ever did should be held similarly to account.
If we are to pay reparations, not only should we pay to blacks, but also to all Irish whites who’s ancestors were sold into slavery.
Only people that live in the former slave states should be required to pay all of the reparations and the court costs to assess how the reparations should be divided, and to who.
And to top it off, only wealthy people should pay the reparations, as it was the wealthy that owned slaves which in turn made them wealthier.
After all the nastiness is over we shall return to watching pigs flying, while eating snake-hips and chicken lips…
I have a question. If everything is going to be sliced and diced by race…
When do we discuss the wildly disproportionate numbers of murders and rapes by blacks on whites versus whites on blacks today?
If not, why not?
Were any slaves brought to or held legally in Oregon? It was a free territory, and a free state when admitted to the Union. Why should Oregon taxpayers foot the bill for this?
Were any slaves brought to or held legally in Oregon? It was a free territory, and a free state when admitted to the Union. Why should Oregon taxpayers foot the bill for this?
Kate is correct. Oregon was never a slave state nor a slave territory. Oregon did not in any way benefit from slavery. Oregon raised a regiment of cavalry and one of infantry during the civil war. They were used to protect the frontier from Indian attacks and and to protect trade routes as the regular army was withdrawn from the frontier to engage in the war. They were not involved in fighting the Confederates.
Still, if one is persuaded by the logic of reparations, Oregon is mostly white and has mostly benefited from inclusion in the white supremacist enterprise known as the United States of America.
Blacks have been paid reparations in the form of welfare checks and food stamps for the last 55 years.
Ben Crump’s net worth skyrockets every time a black miscreant dies in police custody (an evermore rare outcome).
Black youth need to learn English and STEM skills in order to avoid ongoing resentment and lack of self-esteem.
A majority of US blacks reside on the Democrat plantations in the blue cities.
” . . . grant $123,000 to black Oregonians in an effort toward reparations.”
Among many others, here’s one of the problems that I have with this. The word “toward” – notice it does not say this will end reparations once and for all.
This is just the beginning of reparations. Once the recipients of this “free” money have frittered it all away they, and their enablers, will come back to demand more. They will, of course, blame whitey for not teaching them how to invest the money into a future that will benefit them and their heirs.
Kate:
It makes no more sense that Oregonians should be paying than that anyone alive today and not alive back then should be paying, or that anyone not descended from slave owners should be paying. But Oregonians will end up paying if they vote for people who think they should be paying.
If it wasn’t such a corrosive idea it would be fun to watch a state try this idiotic idea. The arguments about who would and wouldn’t get it would be identity politics gold.
And what about Indians, by which I mean “ Native Americans” , whose ancestors owned slaves? Do they pay money to blacks who are squatting on their ancestral land? After all, the blacks have been free for generations to get off the Indians land. I bring this up, because during the debate about gay marriage, I saw a posting saying gay marriage should not be opposed, in part, because the land is stolen…..
They want to force people to work for them because their ancestors were slaves?
Yes, Neo, of course the whole idea is nonsense, but we get what the majority vote for.
@Huxley:
Yup.
Crime aside, Blacks are a net charge on the American Public and have been since at least the 1960s and always will be short of some kind of back to the land movement and re-segregation.
I’d be inclined to throw them some politicians, civil rights and tort lawyers for Kwanzaa BBQing perhaps.
@David+D:
Your taxes already support n Black Single mothers and if you refuse to pay up, eventually their fly by night sperm donors get to have their way with you in the Slammer.
The only good thing about people campaigning for ‘Reparations’ is that the loudmouths have put their names on the public record and have tagged themselves for future attention when push comes to shove.
It’s been sponsored by one of the state Senate’s 18 Democrats. For whatever reason, this modest caucus has two whips, of which he is one. The sponsor’s entire adult employment history has consisted of positions in the media and positions in educational bureaucracies. He’s about 70 years of age and the son of a Howard University professor. His complexion is a wee bit darker than Jeremiah Wright’s.
My wager would be that Oregon’s constitution requires a referendum ‘ere any long-term bond issue can be undertaken. That should prevent it from ever being implemented. Adding it to current spending would require a considerable tax increase; state governments are constrained by limits on pubic sector borrowing in their state constitutions.
Of course, the law doesn’t matter to Democratic pols, on or off the bench.
Figure that half a million men died or were crippled fighting for the Union. For averaging purposes, say that all would otherwise have died at age sixty-five–some earlier and some later–in 1910 and all left a net worth of $1000. This is, of course, a hypothetical.
That’s $500,000,000 of wealth not created. Had it been, compound it to today and that’s what it cost society on a personal level.
I have no idea how much the government spent. It would be huge.
And, unlike after WW II, there would have been little useful left over. Wagons and harness have a short life. Railroads were built to minimal spec for speed. There were not thousands upon thousands of jeeps and trucks and generators and compressors, massive manufacturing plants providing, in some cases, the infrastructure for economical retooling for civilian purposes.
From my experience, Boy Scout troops frequently equipped themselves for outdoor work from surplus stores. We ate C-rations.
Much of the Army and Marine Corps equipment was used in Korea, while little of the Civil War’s equipment was used in the Indian wars or the Spanish American War.
In other words, there was no rebate on Civil War spending. Compound that to today.
And, in the old kid’s books (Poppy Ott, Roy Blakely, etc) the maiden aunt was a stock figure.
I figure the bill’s been paid.
Your taxes already support n Black Single mothers and if you refuse to pay up,
The program which is designed to provide income to single mothers and their children is TANF. Federal and state expenditures on this program amounted to about $31 bn in 2019. About 61% of the program’s beneficiaries have been non-black, so the excess expenditure on blacks amounts to about 30% of the total
(0.61 / 0.87) = 0.70
So, you’re looking at just north of $9 bn on ‘black single mothers’. For comparison, the sums paid out by Social Security to old age retirees, dependents of same, and survivors is currently in excess of $900 bn.
It’s not about recompence for past wrongs. It’s about using white guilt and black resentment as leverage in gaining more power.
Nor would it be restricted to blacks. Once ‘precedent’ was established, the same argument would be made by Native Americans, Hispanics and Asians…
It’s not about recompence for past wrongs. It’s about using white guilt and black resentment as leverage in gaining more power.
Geoffrey Britain:
Bingo!
And so far it seems to be working.
Art+Deco:
My favourite Autist strikes again!
While you’re at it, perhaps you could estimate a monetary value for all the Black on everyone else crime, affirmative action programs, White Flight, etc.
I think one could also argue that the magical number of $9 you pick out of your book of Magical Government Numbers must compound into a pretty big snowball given that in effect white people are forced to pay for the breeding of Blacks.
Additionally, I really *do* find that $9 number magical since there are two generations or sometimes three now of black women who have never worked and just bred offspring. Are they eating grass and sidewalk asphalt?
Obviously black single mothers benefit from a huge raft of other benefits as do the rest of the black population. Food Stamps, Obamaphones, and so on. Gibs gibs…
Let us throw in another variable. Hugh Thomas wrote a thick book called “The Slave Trade”. It is well researched and written. I just finished reading it again in January. One salient fact is that due to disease it was the African tribes that captured and sold other tribes to the Europeans particularly the Portuguese.
So throw in this additional qualifier. If your ancestral lands had captured and sold other tribes to the Europeans you must pay reparations for the sins of your ancestors. You may go back to your ancestral lands you can sue the tribes that enslaved and sold your ancestors.
A skilled interrogator like Cruz, Cotton, Hawley or Jordon would shred the advocates. The best would be Senator Tim Scott but I don’t believe he has the intellectual chops for it….or if he doesn’t believe it himself.
In political theatre this would be rich also. Kama Sutra has direct ancestral ties to slaveowners in Jamaica. Her father warned her about this. Find some ancestors from the slaves her family owned and have them physically present and ask her to pay these people directly for reparations. See people’s heads explode. Oh and in India the other half of her ancestry, the British banned slavery. I would guess she is from an upper caste most likely Brahmin. They owned slaves.
The Spanish had many slaves also. Research the over educated bartender ancestry too. Use their rules and words against them.
L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!
Audacity, audacity always audacity
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070510103545AAYLKRV
And the end game? Do you think black feelings about themselves and about whites will change as a result of reparations?
If they do, I would guess for the worse. Self worth must always be earned, otherwise it only amounts to a shell that’s skin deep.
Surely only current Democrats should pay reparations. Their political history is rife with racism. Supported slavery, the KKK and Jim Crowe, all Democratic institutions.
Obviously black single mothers benefit from a huge raft of other benefits as do the rest of the black population. Food Stamps, Obamaphones, and so on. Gibs gibs…
My favourite Autist strikes again!
The ‘autist’ in question knows the dimensions of these programs and can perform basic arithmetic. You’re failing on both counts.
About 1/4 of SNAP beneficiaries are black. The excess participation by blacks amounts to about 12.5% of the program’s budget. About $60 bn was spent on it in 2019, so the excess amounts to $7.5 bn.
As fate would have it here is an article concerning Indian prejudices here in the USA. I read Vox Day occasionally to see what the QANON folks are thinking. He does have some interesting points to make too. I am a omnivorous voracious reader.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2021/03/another-magic-dirt-fail.html
Unfortunately I can’t get the Bloomberg article to come up.
Zaphod likes to cite the “magic-dirt” theme; stay away from Zaphod’s punchbowl, seems a bit toxic.
Re: caste / hi-tech
I worked at a hi-tech Silicon Valley company founded by Israelis. I heard that among the inner circle, there was your corporate rank and your previous Israeli Army rank, since all Israelis serve, which counted.
As it happened, the manager of the software division had a higher army rank than the CEO, and I was told there was some tension over this.
Of course, I was an ordinary programmer in the software division and not privy to high-level deliberations. However, I did notice that my manager got chopped in the next big layoff to reduce headcount and make the numbers better for the upcoming IPO.
Reparations to the People who sacrificed blood and treasure to confront and defeat slavery and stand up to diversity [dogma], and their [unPlanned] Posterity. Reparations to all Americans harmed by slavery and diversity [dogma], and their [unPlanned] Posterity.
Reparations to the few survivors of Planned Parent/hood, the wicked solution, and the many indoctrinated under the Twilight Amendment, State-established Progressive Church, and Pro-Choice quasi-religion (“ethics”).
charles:
“effort toward reparations”
Yep, that ‘toward’ looked like a camel’s nose to me, too.
To impose “social justice” (as one defines it) on the nation—and to bail out one’s allies, supporters and pals—one is permitted (that is, morally obligated) to bankrupt the country and hollow out its institutions while terrorizing certain racial and social sectors of society.
All the while claiming that such policies are the cutting edge of morality, accountability, good governance, Democracy and progress—oh, and TRUTH—and that such policies are absolutely necessary to “unite” the country even as half the country is vilified and all its problems are portrayed as the clear fault of its previous, MONSTROUS President, who is, it goes without saying, given no credit at all for any achievements (simply because by definition, such a Devil Incarnate cannot possibly have achieved anything positive—proof of which, in the event there is any doubt, is provided 24/7 by the Democratic Party and the media).
Yawn….
In any event, with regard to the bankrupting of the country, might one wonder what Paul Krugman (of Nobel Prize for Economics fame) might have to say….?
(Thought not.)
Reparations money would mostly go to people and groups that did not descend from slaves. The proposed recipients might see a check from the FedGov for $25 to $50 every couple of weeks, but billions will be sent to who knows where. Probably a new bureacracy: the Department for Eliminating Racist People, or something. It will have a budget of billions each year, and no one will be able to tell exactly where that money goes. Lots of overpaying for flashy marketing campaigns.
In addition, the implementation of reparations wont be financed in a straightforward manner. Descendants of slaveholders (or all white people genrally, regardless of ancestry) wont be assessed, say, a 50% reparations tax, where a guy bringing home $1,000 a week is now only bringing home $500. If there is an itemization for a reparations tax on the 1040, it will be a relatively small part of the tax burden. “I’m only paying $100 a year for reparations? That doesnt seem so bad…”
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We need a conversation about WHO was responsible, in Africa, for first capturing and first selling the ancestors of those who became American slaves.
Barack Obama’s father’s ancestors were almost certainly slave OWNERS, as well as SLAVERS – those who capture and make slaves out of people captured. He wasn’t descended from any US slaves.
Another conversation should be about Tribal & intergenerational justice. Human rights oriented justice means that kids are NOT guilty of the crimes of their parents. Individuals live and die – and their crimes with them. Once they die, they are beyond human punishment. Groups can and often do continue for multiple people’s lifetimes. Any “Group crime” means any member of the group can be considered guilty of that group crime as long as there are any members alive. This is the White Guilt angle. As long as Whites exist, today’s Whites are guilty of the crimes of the Whites of the past – tho other races are somehow not considered guilty.
I now favor a simple form of reparations for all Americans – a single one way international air ticket to any country of their choice — where they emigrate to. They give up US citizenship and become a citizen of some other country. If they can find any place better, that will accept them (most will!), the US gov’t should pay their way. Out.
This should automatically mean two additional people on the waiting list from THAT country will be accepted as legal immigrants – most countries have waiting lists of folk wanting to emigrate out and immigrate into the Good Ole USA.
Tom Grey: “If they can find any place better, that will accept them (most will!), the US gov’t should pay their way. Out.”
Amen to that.
I remember my Oregon history from grade school.
From https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/
PDF
Oregon’s racial makeup has been shaped by three Black exclusion laws that were in place during much of the region’s early history. These laws, all later rescinded, largely succeeded in their aim of discouraging free Blacks from settling in Oregon early on, ensuring that Oregon would develop as primarily white.
White emigrants who came to present-day Oregon during the 1840s and 1850s generally opposed slavery, but many also opposed living alongside African Americans. Many were nonslaveholding farmers from Missouri and other border states who had struggled to compete against those who owned slaves. To avoid a similar competitive situation in Oregon, they favored excluding Blacks entirely, although a small number did settle in region. A few immigrants brought slaves to Oregon during this time, taking advantage of the lack of enforcement of Oregon’s anti-slavery laws.
Oregon’s small white population had voted on July 5, 1843, to prohibit slavery by incorporating into Oregon’s 1843 Organic laws a provision of the 1787 Northwest Ordinance: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” The law was amended, however, on June 26, 1844, by the provisional government’s new legislative council, headed by Missouri immigrant Peter Burnett. As amended, the law prohibited slavery, gave slaveholders a time limit to “remove” their slaves “out of the country,” and freed slaves if their owners refused to remove them.
The effect was to legalize slavery in Oregon for three years. Moreover, once freed, a former slave could not stay in Oregon—a male would have to leave after two years, a female after three. Any free Black who refused to leave would be subject to lashing, a provision that was known as “Peter Burnett’s lash law.” Burnett, who later became the first U.S. governor of California, gave this explanation for his support for the law: “The object is to keep clear of that most troublesome class of population [Blacks]. We are in a new world, under the most favorable circumstances and we wish to avoid most of those evils that have so much afflicted the United States and other countries.”
Because the lashing penalty was judged to be unduly harsh, the council substituted a lesser penalty later that year, and voters rescinded the law in 1845 before anyone could be punished. The law did discourage at least one settler—George Bush, a Pennsylvania-born free Black who had been a successful farmer in Missouri. After arriving in Oregon with his wife and six sons, he decided to settle north of the Columbia River near Puget Sound, out of the reach of the 1844 Oregon law.
The second exclusion law was enacted by the Territorial Legislature on September 21, 1849. This law specified that “it shall not be lawful for any negro or mulatto to enter into, or reside” in Oregon, with exceptions made for those who were already in the territory. The law targeted African American seamen who might be tempted to jump ship. The preamble to the law addressed a concern that African Americans might “intermix with Indians, instilling into their minds feelings of hostility toward the white race.” The law was rescinded in 1854.
At least one person was expelled under the law. Jacob Vanderpool, reportedly a sailor from the West Indies, arrived in Oregon in 1850 and was arrested and expelled from the territory. Exclusion orders were issued against at least three other Blacks during this period, but they received enough support from whites that they were allowed to stay.
Delegates to Oregon’s constitutional convention submitted an exclusion clause to voters on November 7, 1857, along with a proposal to legalize slavery. Voters disapproved of slavery by a wide margin, ensuring that Oregon would be a free state, and approved the exclusion clause by a wide margin. Incorporated into the Bill of Rights, the clause prohibited Blacks from being in the state, owning property, and making contracts. Oregon thus became the only free state admitted to the Union with an exclusion clause in its constitution.
The clause was never enforced, although several attempts were made in the legislature to pass an enforcement law. The 1865 legislature rejected a proposal for a county-by-county census of Blacks that would have authorized the county sheriffs to deport Blacks. A Senate committee killed the last attempt at legislative enforcement in 1866. The clause was rendered moot by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, although it was not repealed by voters until 1926. Other racist language in the state constitution was removed in 2002.
Although the exclusion laws were not generally enforced, they had their intended effect of discouraging Black settlers. The 1860 census for Oregon, for example, reported 128 African Americans in a total population of 52,465. In 2013, only 2 percent of the Oregon population was Black.
Interesting, Chases Eagles. Thanks.
Still, in general, current black residents of Oregon are not descendants of people who were enslaved in the territory or in the state. The reparations plan ignores that.
Tom Grey, I met a nice man working at a nearby gas station, who had, I thought, a Francophone accent, so I asked very politely where he was from, thinking he might say, “Haiti.” He’s from Benin. So I looked up Benin, in former times called Dahomey. It was a major slave-exporting site. In some ways, the ones who went onto the slave ships were the lucky ones, as the ruling elite decapitated 10% of the captives as an offering to their gods before selling the rest. I’m sure this nice man never treated anyone so, but some of his ancestors may have. It is quite Eurocentric to think that atrocities are and were only committed by certain groups and not by others.
This is another one of those situations where you’d almost like to see reparations paid in Oregon for how it would completely change the dynamics on the issue of race. I say “almost” because the change would likely empower the kind of white-grievance-mongering we really don’t want to encourage.
Mike
A Quillette article about Portland, OR by Michael Totten makes for interesting reading, particularly the comment section.
https://www.quillette.com
The for the article about Portland OR.
Thanks M Williams!
Re: Portland OR…
M Williams, om:
According to Totten’s article Portland had a history of political violence:
_____________________________________________
Portland was a grim and gritty place in the 1970s and the early 1980s, weighed down by hard luck and decay. The local resource extraction industries, timber in particular, were in decline. Drug dealers and prostitutes set up shop on the street corners. Eruptions of far-Right and far-Left violence garnered the city nicknames like “Skinhead City” and “Little Beirut.”
–Michael Totten, “Leaving Portland”
https://quillette.com/2021/03/14/leaving-portland/
_____________________________________________
This helps explain Portland’s current unhappy state. I’ve been wondering this past year, “Why Portland?” Why not Oakland or Memphis or Chicago?
I’ve had a few friends move from San Francisco to Portland and it seemed they had found a nice, less expensive place to live.
huxley:
Spotted Owl and Marbled Murelett policies decimated the timber industries in the NW starting in the early 80s IIRC. But Portland, although weird, wasn’t full on anarchy until say 2016 or so IMO. See the show “Portlandia” as a satire of the vibe? Its not a very big city, but the left can make even a small place their own little inferno.
Worked at the Hanford site with a GeoProbe subcontractor from Portland in 2009 who from his tats and his talk was a Neo-Nazi, so yes those bozos (killer clowns) were out there.
Tom Grey says:
“Barack Obama’s father’s ancestors were almost certainly slave OWNERS, as well as SLAVERS – those who capture and make slaves out of people captured. He wasn’t descended from any US slaves.”
In spite of the widely spread idea that the Luo tribe of East Africa — Obama’s tribe — were slave owners, there is no historical evidence of this. The notion got to accepted as true because the Kenyan Obamas are Muslims and Islamic entities are mostly responsible for the millennium-long ravaging of the continent to this very day.
But the Obamas are coverts (from BHO’s grandfather) and around 90% of the Luo tribe are Christians. Before colonialism, most of the tribe followed tribal spiritual practices with Islam not being one of them.
It is, true, of course, that BHO is not descended from American slaves — unless one subscribes to the notion that Frank Marshall Davis is his true bio father. But that’s a whole other can of worms.
baldilocks,
I really enjoy your blog. Thanks for all you do!
Hello, baldilocks! Nice to see you here. That’s an interesting point about the Luo and the Kenyan scene in general. It’s funny you mention that since I’m just this week going through a chapter on Kenyan history in the first part of the twentieth century (up to about the advent of Kenyatta so far). It’s Robert July’s book; I like his writing and this was one of the old texts from my African-history course in college.
Hi baldilocks. Nice to see you again.
I’m not sure that reparations can be fairly done, or that it is a good idea at all. Many of the other posters have shown some of the difficulties that would entail.
However, if reparations were necessary, I would think the best way to fund them would be through federal land sales, or oil, gas, and mineral rights rather than directly through taxes. Ultimately, it would all come out of the US treasury, but at least individual taxpayers might not feel the sting and not be made to feel individually responsible for slavery.
“Ultimately, it would all come out of the US treasury, but at least individual taxpayers might not feel the sting and not be made to feel individually responsible for slavery.” – Lovernios
That would totally defeat the Left’s purpose.