Do you think the slaves were owed reparations?

Never mind their descendants, did we owe the slaves reparations?

The govt thought so at the time, as they were owed forty acres and a mule.

That never materialized, even though it was law.

I hear many on the right, saying that the blacks are lucky we snatched them up at risk of 50% death and spiritual death, if they weren't fed to sharks. They are lucky that we are so kind to our guest race. Yes, that term is not one I made up, it wouldn't have occurred to me.

Is being black in America a lucky break, for folks that should be stuck in a shithole? As has ben put to me countless times, right here on this forum? OR were at least the folks we kidnapped, and tortured owed some modicum of humanity?

 

Forty Acres and a mule refers to Special Field Orders No. 15, a promise made by the United States government for agrarian reform to aid formerly enslaved black farmers. Approved by President Abraham Lincoln, the field orders were written by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, and specifically allotted each family a plot of land no larger than 40 acres (16 ha). Sherman later ordered the army to lend mules for the agrarian reform effort. The field orders followed a series of conversations between Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Radical Republican abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens[1] following disruptions to the institution of slavery provoked by the American Civil War. Many freed people believed and were told by various political figures that they had a right to own the land they had long worked as slaves, and were eager to control their own property. Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land (a quarter-quarter section) and a mule after the end of the war, long after proclamations such as Special Field Orders No. 15 and the Freedmen's Bureau Act were explicitly reversed by Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson.

Some land redistribution occurred under military jurisdiction during the war and for a brief period thereafter. However, federal and state policy during the Reconstruction era emphasized wage labor, not land ownership, for blacks. Almost all land allocated during the war was restored to its pre-war white owners. Several black communities did maintain control of their land, and some families obtained new land by homesteading. Black land ownership increased markedly in Mississippi during the 19th century, particularly. The state had much undeveloped bottomland behind riverfront areas that had been cultivated before the war. Most blacks acquired land through private transactions, with ownership peaking at 15,000,000 acres (6,100,000 ha) in 1910, before an extended financial recession caused problems that resulted in the loss of their property for many.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule

 

I don't hear anyone on the right say that the blacks were lucky to be slaves. That is one of the strangest things I ever heard someone say.

 

Maybe YOU owe them something but I certainly don’t. There were no slave owners in my lineage, and I’m fresh out of white guilt.

 

Guyzilla likes to make stuff up then frame it as a legit thing to debate.

Nobody here as ever said that blacks were lucky to be slaves hence his lack of quoting any such thing.

 

Do we owe reperations? Short answer = NO. The actual slaves were offered reperations, and many did accept them, and some chose to decline them. Liberia being the 1st "independent" but tax subsidized black "free state" with other freed slave colonies being proposed, but not established. So most freed slaves opted for "reservation" style accomodation, accepting 40 acres and a mule. Modern reperations isn't a reasonable expectation. Be sure a whole chain of Pocahantas(TM) "DNA Huts" will crop up to meet the demands of system gamers.

 

I totally support people who have been slaves getting reparations from their former masters.

Not from the government tho. The taxpayer is not responsible for crimes that only about 2% percent of the population committed, and only benefited those select few.

 

Going by the questions in the poll, this is just a flame bait thread that has no basis for reasonable and respectful conversation.

Pretty typical.

 

Any former slave still alive today should get their 40 acres and a mule...that democrats denied after Lincoln was assassinated by democrats. But no one else.

 

Especially when only democrats owned slaves...150 years ago.

 

Yes the descendants of slaves are owed reparations. And theoretically, that's exactly what the US has been trying to do since the 1960s. Don't recall who wrote it but changes to our welfare system, for instance, was part of that. That about 87% of the nation would pitch in to help 13% of the nation who were black and deserved that hand up. But everything has backfired. Welfare has destroyed the Black family. Affirmative Action is now 65% of the nation expecting preferences over 35% of America, white males. B.H.Obama is 1/2 white and has a dad who is not from the USA. He was raised by his white grand parents. And I think he owes everything to entitlements to which he had no right. Given all the wealth that is earned by people in their own lives, the focus should shift to helping people to be the authors of their own lives. I'd rather develop the skills (and by that I mean, even knowing how to show up to work on time, practice due diligence, defer gratification) than get a onetime payoff which I may spend on a few fun things and then get ignored while still needing help.

 

Six hundred-fifty thousand lives seem like an adequate reparation. However, anyone currently a slave should receive something.

 

Look how many refugees fleeing oppression cross our southern border with Mexico. You can't IMPOSE freedom. Freed slaves weren't confined and the US / Mexico border was wide open. Unlike Canada, Mexico flatly refused to sign an extradition treaty with the US for escaped slaves. 10,000 escaped slaves made their way through the Tex/Mex underground railroad before US abolition. 40 acres and a mule or freedom? The choices were clear.

 

No, WE do not owe them anything since WE do not own slaves.

 

sO THEN, FOR INSTANCE, we don't owe our descendsents clean air, drinkable water, or any other damn thing? And, we don't owe, as a nation, for the money we owe?

 

Not the slave, but the LUCKY GUEST RACE. The blacks now are LUCKY that we enslaved.

 

Since I didn't promise Indians anything, then shouldn't I be able to throw them off the reservations?

AND , they most certainly have said, that slaves had it better than the blacks under HILLARY and DEMS now, on the SLAVE PLANTATION.

 

That is why they FAKED out the slaves with FAKE promise. As the ex slaves were about to civil suit their previous torturers to hell, and WOULD have owned the land of the white owners. JUST like the white folks now FEAR about blacks in s Africa etc. etc etc.

If the FAKE forty acres and a mule were not dangled, the ex slaves would be the wealthy southern gentlemen now.

 

How dare you SUPPOSE Obama owes everything to unfair advantage, when the RICH are buying the advantage that is not already institutional racism advantage.

 

You left one scenario out! My lineage comes from Slovenia and Italy, so I owe them nothing!

 

Personally, I want to get rid of 7th through college. The whole thing is a fraud meant to create an artificially prolonged adolescence while cementing an elite and some chosen tokens in a privileged strata while putting people into crushing debt, waste important years of their lives and making too many stressed out and miserable.

 

I have a way to resolve reparations, and the left will really hate the simple solution. Should the topic become serious campaign issue I'll proudly unveil it. It's usually just a matter of giving liberals EXACTLY what they think they want. Reparations included. ::

 

England avoided the mess we ended up with, a Civil war, by paying slave owners for their freed slaves.

 

Slavery was a horrible thing to do to someone and it’s a disgusting stain on our history. The upshot though is the black race has advanced themselves more in America than any other place on the planet, far more than their motherland.

 

There it is. They is lucky. So complaining about being pulled over willy nilly, or shot unarmed, is really petty, all things considered.