I'm not native to the US so why should I have to pay reparations or even apologize?

Every single one who owned a slave. By my count that would be exactly zero living Americans.

zero living Americans

Unless they're 180 years old.

'white' hobgoblins and 'black' hobgoblins should get together and completely wipe each other out.

a real German

The American government owes reparations because its Constitution legalized slavery and Washington maintained it until the Civil War. Individual whites are not being asked to pay anything.

Cool - so by the government paying (out of taxes), that means EVERYONE will pay. Got it.

Uh, government expenditures come from revenue generated by taxpayers. But no one group will be targeted. It's a general expenditure. Even black tax players will contribute. That's how it works.

But the issue of slavery and its continuing financial impact on the descendants of slaves must be addressed by the GOVERNMENT.

The American government owes reparations because its Constitution legalized slavery and Washington maintained it until the Civil War.

Well, not exactly.

The Constitution did not legalize slavery, per se. It just did not illegalize it. Key distinction.

Not to mention if, hypothetically, the Constitution had attempted to illegalize slavery upon inception then there was realistically zero chance whatsoever it would have ever been ratified. The union would have never been formed. So blaming the United States gov't for slavery is spurious logic because slavery would have existed regardless. And rather the United States as we know it would not have existed.

So no, the people to blame - and the people who owed reparations - were the owners of slaves and the states that did indeed legalize it. Not the United States as a whole. Because, really, think about it: Demanding states (and residents within) that never allowed slavery, states that eventually suffered a huge sacrifice leading to the freedom of the slaves, demanding reparations from them is quite unfair. To say the least.

The Constitution recognizes a slave as three fifths of a person for Congressional apportionment. The slave holders demanded this. Northerners wanted slaves to be counted as property like horses or mules (!). The Constitution also says a fugitive slave who escapes from one state cannot be excused from slavery in another state. These are tacit if not direct acknowledgments of the legality of slavery.

And yes, for the sake of the union, the U.S. government needed to endorse slavery. So union and a federal government relied on the existence of slavery. Without it, there would have been no union, no federal government. Yes, this same federal government owes reparations.

So it is not only slave owners and slave states which are responsible for slavery.

The wealth in the form of free labor benefited the nation as a whole. The privilege denied blacks and awarded to all whites, whether or not they immigrated after slavery or not, benefited all white people and the society and nation as a whole.

Yes, reparations are a national issue to be addressed by the federal government.

Black people paid Reparations to Japanese people, when they didn't have equal rights at the time that Japanese people were interned.

Which blacks would receive a check?

>>11
Only the dead ones.

No crack whore gets a check.

Reparations are in the form of programs to bring blacks up to par with the national average in all areas. Slavery put them behind in the race and reparations are needed to correct that disadvantage imposed on them with slavery by the GOVERNMENT.

No crack whore gets a check.

Reparations are in the form of programs to bring blacks up to par with the national average in all areas. Slavery put them behind in the race and reparations are needed to correct that disadvantage imposed on them with slavery by the GOVERNMENT.

Black people paid Reparations to Japanese people, when they didn't have equal rights at the time that Japanese people were interned.

To the actual people who were interned, not to all Japanese Americans......

To the actual people who were interned

....and their heirs.

I cannot believe that you of all people would remotely support this brand of divissive idiocy.

I haven't claimed support for this. I just noted that Reparations were paid to the Japanese people that were interned, and their heirs. Nobody alive today owes me anything.

It isn't going to happen. Reparations have already been paid in blood between 1861 and 1865.

Just make the check out to Onelib.

They'll have to continue to settle for affirmative action, welfare, food stamps, discrimination lawsuits, etc.

Doesn't a bloody civil war count as reparations?

The only reparations should be scorn for those who suggest it.

Thousands of whites died and never got to pass on their genes in a war to end slavery. An American President was murdered for it. There's no higher price that can be paid than losing your life. That bill is marked 'paid' many times over.

None of them.

The Brits started that shit, get something from them first, then we'll talk.

If their own people had not sold their brothers out to slave ships, blacks would be living in Africa instead of the US and various countries! I am not condoning slavery-just pointing out how blacks left Africa.

Buy you're white!!! Therefore: You have white privilege!

Therefore: YOU HAVE TO PAY!

And if you don't...you are racist.

If any former slave owners unlawfully kept slaves, then they should pay reparations to their former slaves. Seems to me slavery was legal in most or all places where it was practiced, so this would apply in virtually no cases.

Otherwise, what they did was lawful at the time and cannot be declared unlawful in retrospect, per the US constitution's ban on ex post facto laws. A law can only apply to future acts committed after the law was passed.

Haven't all the affirmative action initiatives and quotas over the last few decades been enough reparations?