Everybody is talking about reparations. The “new” democrats are ringing the reparation bell. Come and get it!! We will see how that works out. Just before the end on the Civil War, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order Number 15, which set aside a thirty-mile tract of land along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts for former slaves and promised the army’s help securing loaned mules. In addition, the Freed-men’s Bureau initially was authorized to divide abandoned and confiscated lands into forty-acre tracts for rental and eventual sale to refugees and former slaves. The Freed-men’s Bureau was actually established in 1865. At the time of Special Field Order 15, it was known as the Bureau of Refugees.
However, significant land redistribution measures ultimately were abandoned, and virtually all southern lands were returned to white owners. The resulting sharecropping system left the social and economic structures of slavery essentially intact in the South. It wasn’t all bad. During Reconstruction, African Americans made significant strides in politics and the accumulation of wealth… relatively speaking. Of course the defeated southerners weren’t going to stand for them “sassy and wealthy negra’s.” By the beginning of the 20th century they started instituting the Jim Crow laws. Those who wouldn’t bend knee were killed or run off.
Anyway, This is not the first time the “Rep” word has come up. In 1999, the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission called for the West to pay $777 trillion to Africa within five years.. dag nabit!! Leaders of several African nations supported this resolution, former Minister of Justice of Sudan, Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin stated that the slave trade is responsible for the current problems plaguing Africa. The West ignored them and as far as I can tell, Hill1news is the only paper that mentions the resolution… twenty years later. Of course there was the time when descendants of Africans enslaved in America enlisted lawyer Ed Fagan in a class action lawsuit against insurance market Lloyd’s of London, and other British and American corporations, stating that by insuring and financing the slaving ships they were complicit in genocide. That made headlines, but the answer was still no, you ain’t getting a dime.
Some African leaders have taken reparations into their own hands by stripping the wealthy land owner of their properties. Some leaders have taken the land and made the upsurper’s leave the country. That tact has not gone well. The West has penalized them by not making loans available on the international market or providing assistance in business and agriculture sciences. Oh well.. Only 37% of Americans believed that slaves should have been provided compensation in the form of cash after being freed. Furthermore, only 15% believed that descendants of slaves should receive cash payments. The findings indicated a clear divide between black and white Americans on this issue. The study summarized their findings, noting: “Only 6% of white Americans support cash payments to the descendants of slaves, compared to 59% of black Americans. Similarly, only 19% of whites – and 63% of blacks – support special education and job training programs for the descendants of slaves.” Wow, you could have knocked me over with a feather..
Now I’m about to piss somebody off, so write your congressmen.
Conservative writer David Horowitz wrote a list of ten reasons why “Reparations for Slavery is Bad Idea for Blacks – and Racist Too” in 2001. He contends that there isn’t one particular group that benefited from slavery, there isn’t one group that is solely responsible for slavery, only a small percentage of whites ever owned slaves and many gave their lives fighting to free slaves, and most Americans don’t have a direct or indirect connection to slavery because of the United States’ multi-ethnic background. Give that man a “Ceegar,” for fighting his way tooth and nail to the highest peak of “Really Stupid Mountain.” I’m not typing one more letter explaining anything to this moron. Really, we are better off with him out there. Conservative political commentator Dinesh D’Souza argues that African Americans are “vastly better off than they would have been had their ancestors not endured captivity and European rule”. He bases this assertion on the better economic conditions for African Americans than Africans, on average. Dinesh… Dinesh… Do you actually know what reparation means? “The making of amends for a wrong one has done.” We not only talking about us fool, but the millions of our ancestors who died and were killed after being kidnapped and force to work in toil all their natural lives. Mind your own business and stay out of this. Some of these people.. really..
Only one major bill demanding slavery reparations has been proposed, the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act,” which former Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) proposed unsuccessfully to the United States Congress every year from 1989 until his resignation in 2017. John Conyers was the congressman who push the bill through making Martin Luther King Jr. birthday a national holiday. He was the longest serving congressman on the Hill at the time of his resignation. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself and had to resign.
The current crop of Democratic Presidential hopefuls have brought up the call for reparation again, or should put it this way, “They will say or do anything to get our vote.” We deserve it. The Jewish people received reparations after WWII and so did the Japanese. Even the Indians have gotten something and Elizebeth Warren is asking for more. I don’t know where all of this is going to come out at, but as for me, that 40 acres and a mule is starting to look real good..
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