Korean Job Discussion Forums

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

Why focus only on the US? Shouldn't the bill (if there is going to be a bill) be divvied up among the Portugese, Spanish, English, French and Dutch as well? For example, Liverpool was a MAJOR slave-trading port. How much of British prosperity derived from the profits of their slave trade? Brazil was pretty much entirely built on slave labor. Let them into the action, too.

The British instituted slavery and profited from it for almost 200 years before there was such a thing as the US. I say, send the bill to them.

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

The reparations case, in the U.S., focused on the companies who profited from slavery. The Supreme Court stated that it would not deal with such a case as there are no living former slaves, and remedies, in that case, if they should be forthcoming, is something the legislature should deal with.

I think the focus should not be on the suffering of one particular group of Americans over another. Technically, there are so many Americans who are barely living from hand to mouth, so to speak. They are not officially on the U.S. poverty line, but they may be classified, according to some economists, to be impoverished.

What is really needed is not hand-outs to some group who mostly has the ancestry of people who used to be slaves. Many African Americans disproportionately receive welfare, grants, free lunches than their Caucasian counterparts. What is needed is not the finger pointing that divides struggling Americans of all stripes, but rather something that encourages investment in Americas cities, exacting true high standards for education. I support helping those who lack financial resources in a logical way such as through education grants, free job training, cleaning up neighborhoods, providing educators with new government mandates with teaching assistants etc.... These African Americans launching this suit should look inside rather than outside.

TheFonz · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Location: North Georgia

I would say some African Americans have already recieved repairations via affirmative action, the OJ Simpson ruling, welfare, and Liberia.

What if the US had sent all the former slaves to Liberia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

Octavius Hite · Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:12 pm Post subject:

I think everyone should look to Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" where he makes the arguement that if AFrica, New Guniae (SP), Australia, etc had been left alone they would, in all probablity, reached similar levels of development of the western world. It was the initial contact and genocide that the West perpatrated that destroyed the continent. not that the continent was destined for the sorry state it currently finds itself in.

Octavius Hite · Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:14 pm Post subject:

And for chrissakes no more crappy wikipedia links, you might as well get a monkey on the board to write an opinion. Just cause its non Wikipedia does not make it fact!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Moldy Rutabaga · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Location: Ansan, Korea

happeningthang · Joined: 26 Apr 2003

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

I don't think genocide is the right word; while European colonialization may have been brutal and destructive at times, I know of no conscious, organized effort at extinguishing an entire ethnicity of people in these places. Or am I using the word too specifically?

Ken:>[/quote]

You can definitely argue genocide was committed in the Belgian Congo. As many Congolese died, perhaps, at the total holocaust figure when combined with Jews and non-Jews (gentiles) and exceeding the Jewish figure. What would one call that, if not genocide? Also, the term holocaust was used in reference to the massive deaths of the Irish by a British official at the time to refer to the British complicity in the deaths of those Irish. If Europeans did such nasty things to one another, why would one be surprised by genocide committed against Africans?

dulouz · Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Location: Uranus

One of the causes cited for WWII was the excessive reparation demands put against Germany. Reparartion demands can turn into a new affront and cause animosty. Slavery education can turn into a form of revenge.
You have to be very sensitive with that, else it can turn into a bash session. After that, you'll find a spike in international travel during Black History Month.

TheFonz · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Location: North Georgia

wannago · Joined: 16 Apr 2004

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

I empathize with African Americans regarding the abomination that slavery was for their ancestors, and that prejudice has long harmed African Americans. Some Caucasians should show empathy, but it does not mean showing empathy should entail supporting reparations. Reparations for slavery does not make sense since the slaves are dead. I do not accept arguments that Africans sold Africans into slavery. The Africans who captured them didn't despise them because of their skin color and their children didn't simply remain slaves, so washing our hands of the past in the style of Mac Beth is shameful, I think. I don't believe in reparations, but I think people need to own up to their past.

As far as welfare, it is true more Caucasians are on welfare. That is because Caucasians around 68% of the population. Disproportionately, there are more Africans Americans on welfare. That means they are being helped by Americans who are not from their race. Also, disproportionately they have subsidized lunches that are disproportionately paid for by Caucasians. What if Caucasians said take the reparations, and we don't subsidize you any longer, and we want to pay for our race since you want to turn things into a race issue. I know what I say is politically incorrect, but people should have these discussions in a diplomatic way. Affirmative action favours impoverished African Americans over Caucasian Americans.

What is need in the U.S. is not reparations. What is needed is African Americans and Caucasians and all Americans supporting affirmative action for Americans who are impoverished. African Americans, by being the descendants of the slaves, are Americans, and they have the bad of what happened to their ancestors and the benefits of American citizenship.
It makes no sense for a share-holder of J.P. Morgan whose father may have immigrated from Russia in 1900 to pay an African American who has some Caucasian ancestry for slavery a dead ancestor suffered. A national atonement is another thing.

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

[quote="wannagofor injustices of the past.

WAIT...I had two ancestors who died in the American Civil War fighting for the Union cause. I think African Americans need to pay my family for the grave losses we incurred back in 1863 to help free their families from slavery.[/quote]

I understand the general point you were making. But, I disagree with this last statement. The Civil War was fought by Union soldiers under the orders of Abraham Lincoln. The war was not fought as a favour for African Americans. The South wanted to make other states accept slavery. The North did not. The African Americans who were asking for reparations were not demanding that Caucasians pay reparations. They were demanding reparations from corporations that profited, at the time, from slavery. You might argue that African Americans "profited" in another sense from the service of Union soldiers.

African Americans did not promote the death of Union soldiers. The corporations who benefited from slavery upheld slavery. If there were people alive who actually went through slavery, then I would agree to reparations for those individuals. If there was someone who was 170 years old and was a slave, I would agree to reparations for that fellow.