THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502280419
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 442 lines
On Feb. 5, Michael Fletcher, a Washington correspondent for The Baltimore Evening Sun, wrote that ``there is a strong case to be made'' for the U.S. government paying African Americans reparations for the evils of slavery and later forms of government-sanctioned discrimination.
We asked for your thoughts. Here - in excerpted form - is what you had to say.
YES
The U.S. government should pay monetary reparations to all descendants of African-American slaves, and the government should officially grant a full apology to all African Americans for the pain, misery and death caused by slavery, discrimination and racism.
Germany has apologized to Israel and the Jewish community of the world for the atrocities perpetrated under Hitler's regime, and the United States has admitted its mistakes and paid reparations to the Japanese-Americans. If these two examples can be addressed for evils committed for a period no longer than a decade, then why cannot the U.S. address a condition that has continued over three centuries?
There is not enough money in the entire world that could actually pay for the evils that this government has allowed to occur to its own citizens. What price can one put on the inhuman and inhumane treatment of a group of people by another group? Contrary to popular beliefs, African Americans have worked hard to help build this nation without financial compensation. Ironically, African Americans work for a nation that unjustly hates them, simply for the color of their skin. Unlike the multitude of immigrants that chose the United States as home, the African Americans were physically and mentally forced to give up their country, language, culture and heritage in order to just survive in a hostile environment.
There are many that would say that discrimination and racism no longer exist, and others would say that slavery, segregation and the ills of racism were caused by their ancestors in the past.
It is up to the nation to address the issue now so that the next generation will not have to deal with today's sins.
Doretha Sutton Harrell
Windsor, N.C.
I say yes, but not for the usual reasons.
The government has already been trying for years to make reparations to descendants of slaves in the form of mandated integration, racial quotas and set-asides, affirmative action, and billions in welfare of every sort. In many cases, that has redressed some of the wrongs and overcome the inequities.
My solution: Repatriation. Since the original slaves were forcibly brought to this country from their native Africa, it is only right that we should arrange for their descendants to return to their homeland if they so desire.
Provide one-way tickets to designated sites on the African continent (Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa?) to all those of African descent who are willing to surrender their U.S. citizenship in return for a fresh start in the land of their ancestors. Targeted countries would be compensated so that resettlement sites can be built to house the new immigrants. Living quarters and jobs would be guaranteed for every settler (the moral equivalent of 40 acres and a mule) and communal services such as food distribution, child care, and general safety would be provided until the settlers can establish themselves.
All other demands should be dropped, including race-based quotas, race-norming, and especially reparations.
I am sure the African republics would be happy to receive an infusion of U.S. aid as well as American-born blacks who would bring with them a knowledge of what a democracy can be.
Furthermore, we would be ridding the nation of a dangerous element which is threatening the very fiber of our nation. There is already an underground movement of angry blacks already mobilizing and arming themselves to terrorize the country if reparations are not forthcoming! We should certainly act now to defuse this dangerous situation.
K. Whitener
Virginia Beach
The U.S. should pay retribution to African Americans. The fact that other ethnic groups have been ``made whole'' is cause enough.
An appropriate reparation might be the re-education of those lost brothers and sisters who don't realize that they are perpetuating the self-hate indoctrinated in our forebears. Another might be 130 years' interest on the value of 40 acres and a mule. Or any other realistic request that one might have that would help African Americans at least get a fresh start. All of the above? You name it.
Thomas Morr
Norfolk
At first, I too, dismissed the idea of reparations for the enslavement of African Americans as unjustified and impractical. On further thought, I have concluded that some form of reparations to African Americans is just.
The major goal would be to level the playing field. But how? Continue some of the current equal-opportunity programs? Expand same? Establish educational institutions, housing and social programs that were designed to right the wrongs? These should be skewed to serve the African Americans who remain in relative or actual poverty? Politically, some adjustments have already been made, such as the new congressional district in Virginia.
The question is now not the justification of reparations but the means.
Edward J. Boone Jr.
Norfolk
I was also one that ignored the outcries of individuals who wanted reparations for the past atrocities against African Americans. My first thought was how futile it would be to even suggest such a thing and payment would surely bankrupt the country.
After reading and hearing about others receiving payment for past wrongs against them (American Indians, Jews, Japanese imprisoned during WWII), I began to compare those same standards used to justify the amends made to those groups. The outcome was clear: African Americans are due some sort of restitution for previous wrongs.
The proper restitution would be overwhelming given the over 30 million blacks in this country today. Official government acknowledgment and a sincere effort by elected officials to at least address payment would go a long way to restore a people's dignity and pride.
K.B. Gordon
Virginia Beach
It is good to know that my friends and I aren't the only people who feel that reparations are needed for the continued and long suffering of my people. But reparations are but a few of the forms of restitution that should be made.
Speaking from a 26-year-old African perspective, I feel that the plague of discrimination and injustice still haunts my people. Making reparations would be a start. Continued education of all Americans is of great importance as well. Providing education at no cost might not appear fair to some. Partial assistance would be something to consider. Accurate and fair journalism would be a viable asset.
The media continues to perpetrate my people as welfare-receiving, criminal-minded, uneducated loafers who are just ``out to get'' White America. If the facts were reported fairly and accurately, one would see that there are just as many races that fall into these categories as there are African Americans - if not more!
My people need to continue building their self-images no matter how much the media and others attempt to destroy us. Let us never forget that we are the descendants of kings and queens. Someday soon we shall reign again. Even if it is within ourselves.
Damion O. James
Portsmouth
I totally support, 200 percent, the reparation to African Americans who can provide unrefuted, legitimate proof that they are direct descendants of slaves.
Since I am a high school graduate who has never been to prison or on welfare, I don't have the qualifications to suggest an appropriate form of restitution.
I would suggest that a committee made up of African Americans who are the brunt of the wide ranges of oppression get together and declare the correct restitution.
The government should do everything in its power to ratify and pass the restitution with not one single change to the wording, amount of restitution, or the time frame suggested.
After its passage and implementation, I will do or pay whatever it takes to ensure success.
No matter what the social or economic indicators show after those one-time restitution has run its course, I'll know I tried my best to help make right what my ancestors did 150 years ago.
Dennis Goss
Chesapeake
As an African American, I sometimes become so angry knowing what my ancestors went through. I could never feel their pain extensively, but I have experienced racism growing up in Newport News.
I recently visited a close friend in Covington. As we explored the small town, he reminded me that, growing up, he was not allowed to enjoy the recreation of swimming, use indoor basketball facilities, and even use the newest books that the whites enjoyed over the years.
This really hit a nerve. The same rules applied in my hometown.
I believe that what our ancestors went through 150 years ago caused us as a people not to be able to catch up. I personally suffered mentally because i have anger within me toward whites to a certain degree. This anger destroyed my marriage of 20 years.
The U.S. owes the victims of slavery. I don't know how, but we should be compensated.
C. Marlene Burris
Virginia Beach
NO
I am a 15-year-old African-American female and I am proud of who I am. I'm definitely not a sell-out, but I feel that the government should not give African Americans money to make up for the evils of slavery and the later forms of government-sanctioned discrimination.
First of all, you can't pay me any amount of money to get me to forget how my ancestors were treated. Second, the people in this generation haven't been through slavery, so why pay us off? Most of us experience discrimination almost everyday. Money won't stop it, and it won't make it any better.
If the government really wants to help African Americans, it should help us not because it sympathizes with the past but because it wants to help us help ourselves succeed in the future.
Andrea Elise Richardson
What exactly has been going on for the last 35-plus years - with forced busing, blacks-only college scholarships, affirmative action employment quotas, set-aside government contracts for ``minorities'' and political gerrymandering to create black congressional districts - but reparation?
Now, the black leadership has decided that along with these other multibillion dollar ``reparations'' they want a straight cash payment of God knows how much. Isn't it about time we tell the victimization-for-power-and-profit brokers that the hustle is over, that the car is out of gas and it is time to get out and help the rest of us push?
Charles Edward Foiles
Chesapeake
First, what victims of slavery? Slavery ended 150 years ago. All the victims are long dead. It is like saying I am a victim of the Russian czars because my great-grandfather was a serf who led such a miserable existence in the muddy cold villages of old Russia at that time under the heel of the Imperial Russian Army. Conditions were so bad that his son, my grandfather, broke away and came to the United States. He didn't find a pot of gold, but instead made an honest living picking up garbage for the city in the rat-infested alleys of Chicago in the teens and early '20s of this century.
He saved enough money and then bought a farm in Michigan where he did existence farming, never owning a car, just horse for transportation, plowing and cultivating. He remained poor in money but satisfied with his life that was honest and rewarding for him. My grandpa didn't figure anybody owed him anything. He was just happy to be an American citizen and what happened in the past was history.
Now we have a group of people, who for the most part, are living at a level that my grandpa didn't even dream about and yet they figure someone (us taxpayers) owe then something because of a sad past before they were born. I strongly say no to any idea of reparations.
Instead of talking reparations, the black leaders should be talking about lifting oneself up by his bootstraps and not looking for a pie in the sky.
Steven A. Kasmauski
Norfolk
My generation (age 52) does not owe any reparation for the past wrongs. We need to focus our collective efforts on the future without blaming each other. Then there is the question of exactly who would pay the reparation. Would blacks, as American taxpayers, be required to pay for their own reparation, or would they be specifically exempt?
As far as I am concerned, this is a moot issue which should quickly be abandoned before it creates an even wider schism between blacks and whites.
John O. Parmele
Virginia Beach
Reparations would not be fair to most American taxpayers who would be required to pay them.
Let us examine the issue of unfair taxation from a North and South point of view of our ancestors. The Union armies of the Civil War period fought to eliminate the hideous institution of slavery. My maternal grandfather fought in that war. Many of his fellow veterans were wounded or killed in action. As far as I know, no Union soldier was ever guilty of perpetuating slavery. Should the ancestors of those soldiers be made to pay reparations? No.
Southern aristocrats who owned slaves, from their need for cheap labor, perpetuated slavery. Even the poor Southern ``dirt'' farmer, who never owned a slave in his lifetime, was forced to fight for the Confederate cause, and they far outnumbered slave-holders in the army. Are the non-slave holders also guilty? And should their children be made to pay the reparations? No.
When you think about it, at least 80 or 90 percent of our present population had nothing to do with slavery. Neither did their ancestors.
Then there are the Asian, Hispanic, Native Americans and other American immigrants who certainly had nothing to do with slavery or segregation. Will they, too, be made to pay reparations?
Reparations paid from tax dollars is totally unfair and unthinkable.
Gerald Wayne Thompson
Chesapeake
I am white. I know full well how universal feelings are against blacks. North and South. But we should be thinking more of solutions than reparations. Somehow we must re-educate every American - black and white - to the idea of loving his fellowman.
I have no idea how to accomplish this. But we could start by having every American - black and white - write down his true feelings.
Richard Slepin
Portsmouth
Today's African Americans have not endured the oppression that was inflicted upon their ancestors, and the American people should not be made to compensate them for what was done 100 to 400 years ago.
As Mr. Fletcher stated in his article, several Native American groups have been paid for land which was stolen from their ancestors. What I do not understand is why only a few groups have received this compensation. As I am sure Mr. Fletcher is aware, the first people to inhabit North America were the Native Americans. When the English came to (invaded) this continent, they raped, maimed and killed men, women and children. The English also enslaved these people while stealing their land. The Native American people were driven from their ancestral homelands and herded like animals onto barren pieces of land (reservations) that the U.S. government deemed useless. Yet the Native American people survived the U.S. government's policy of genocide.
I do not believe that you will find any one group or race that has been more oppressed and discriminated against than the Native American people. As a member of the Native American community in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I feel that I live in the best country on the face of this Earth. I neither need nor desire to be compensated for what has been done to my ancestors.
H.R. Bond
Portsmouth
I do not support monetary reparations to African Americans. While slavery and bigotry are clearly wrong, many of the slaves were sold to the whites by the blacks. If reparations were to be paid, it should have been to the victims, not the people living today or tomorrow. Who should decide which generation of descendants should receive this reparation? Should it be ongoing for as long as descendants remain in the U.S.?
While many blacks bemoan the past, they are somewhat blessed because the United States is clearly superior in the standard of living, education, economics, medicine, etc., than is almost any place in Africa. Had their ancestors not been slaves, they most likely would have been born in Africa and would be still living there in conditions much lower than they currently have.
The solution should be this: offer to any African American who so strongly feels they have been oppressed, the opportunity to move back to their ancestors' place of origin. This will be at the expense of the U.S. government, and those choosing to leave must give up their U.S. citizenships.
A cash payout is not going to correct the problem. The opportunities to succeed exist. Education, dedication, and a strong work ethic are the keys to success.
Steve Hunnicutt
Virginia Beach
Since the original slaves were torn from their families and homes in Africa, what if the reparation payment to the descendants was transportation and moving expenses, and a year's salary to get one's new life started and a deed for an acre with a house back in their homeland? Think there'd be any takers?
I'm a European-American who grew up poor, never got a handout, and used manual labor to get what I have.
E.T. Pitts
For several reasons, no reparations are owed or payable.
First, reparations appear to be unconstitutional.
Also, such ``restitution'' flies in the faces of today's legal principle that we should not be held liable for our ancestors' crimes and debts. No one now living was a slave or an owner. Perhaps a better target for this type of action would be those black African tribesmen whose ancestors sold their fellow blacks to white Europeans hundreds of years ago to begin with. Unlike the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II, the U.S. government was not directly responsible for the black slave trade (though it did abet slavery through mechanisms like the Fugitive Slave Act).
Calls for reparations are a continuing insult - much like the persistent memorials to dead Confederate traitors - to the 360,000 Union soldiers who died in the Civil War.
No matter what color you are, don't blame long past events for failure in school, unemployment, drug use, illegitimacy, and crime - as Mr. Fletcher seeks to do for some blacks. A book came out last year that adequately explains the true reason for such bad lifestyle choices, which are clearly not limited to any race or ethnicity. That book is ``The Bell Curve''; that reason, to put it bluntly, is low intelligence.
Regardless of color, those of low cognitive ability do what is convenient or feels good to them now and blame the rest of us for the consequences. They are abetted by the government in the form of today's welfare system and lenient punishment, and the rest of us are already paying in taxes and loss of property and life. Why, then, are reparations needed?
Edwin Krampitz Jr.
Drewryville
A resounding NO should usher forth from the American public to the criminally insane proposal that reparations be given to blacks in America because of slavery.
Let us ask ourselves the following questions:
Reparations to 35 million people, a population about equal to that of Spain?
Reparations to a people who were taken out of an institutionalized African slave system, transported across the ocean to at least one far more benign through which they evolved over the centuries to their present and often special privileged status in America today?
Reparations to a people whose asserted oppression was in no way comparable to the oppressions and atrocities experienced by millions of other peoples down through time in the form of concentration camps, Siberian gulags or massive terminations? Just one or two years under Soviet Communism was worse than several centuries of black slavery in America.
When we come to the balance sheet in all of this, we must ask ourselves who owes who? Never for a moment should we forget the sacrifices whites have made, often at the expense of their own race. A half-million whites were killed in the Civil War to give these people their ultimate freedom.
Albert H. Wetzel
Norfolk
Africans were the most active slave-traders of all. For example: the Ovimbundu in southwestern Africa were at the very heart of the slave trade. It has been estimated that this tribe captured and traded more than 3 million slaves destined for the Americas. The Ovimbundu were well into the practice of slavery before Europeans arrived. One of the Ovimbundu king's first duties was to hold a great feast at which the flesh of slaves was served. (Source: ``Primitive Peoples Today,'' by Edward Weyer Jr.) In 1816, at the death of the Ashanti queen, more than 3,500 slaves were murdered in her honor. In olden times, wealthy African blacks traveled to Britain and Europe to purchase white slaves.
If the black people of present-day America still feel that they must have ``reparations,'' let them seek a just proportion from the Ovimbundu.
Bill Grigg
Elizabeth City, N.C.
How much more do they want? They are ungrateful, and do not deserve another red penny. It is past time for blacks to take an inventory and get off the ``pity pot'' and earn a living, instead of begging and looking for handouts.
Winston Daughtry
Murfreesboro, N.C.
What I have trouble understanding is who would be required to pay the reparations.
When you talk of the government being responsible, I hope you are aware that the government does not have any money or resources of its own. The only way the government gets money is to tax its people. I pay taxes, and if reparations were paid, then part of my money would be used to pay them.
I don't feel guilty for the institution of slavery or the segregation that went on in this country.
My great-grandfather came to this country after being forced out of Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840s. He worked as a laborer and we were raised in an integrated community in Pittsburgh. My wife's family came to this country as farmers and settled in unoccupied areas of Kentucky. None of them owned slaves, and many of them served with distinction in the 7th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry at Shiloh and some with Gen. Sherman on his journey to the sea.
I was in Mississippi on the side of the civil rights movement in the early '60s. I am a veteran of the army of occupation of Japan at the end of World War II, and a veteran of the Korean police action. Counting time with the Virginia Defense Force, I served this nation for 26 years.
How am I in any way responsible for the activities or results surrounding slavery or its after effects, and why should I be required to participate in any way in the reparations for slavery?
Many African Americans were never involved in slavery. In fact, some owned slaves.
How could any right-thinking person possibly sort this out? What of the people who are of mixed blood? Would they be compensated on a percentage basis? The more I think of it, the more complicated it gets. Maybe it is all just a group of people trying to get a handout.
Maybe we should just get on with whatever our task for today is and work toward getting this great country on the right track. Try to live in today and build for the future and let the past go.
Leo G. Ruffing, USAF, Ret.
Portsmouth
The fact that reparations are even being discussed is a sad commentary on the ``sue-everyone-for-everything'' mentality that exists in this country. Some white people in our past were abused unfairly. If any of them were, by chance, relatives of mine, I certainly have no desire to further bankrupt the government by dishing out money to them.
Disproportionate numbers of blacks drop out of school and go to prison. Large numbers of foreign immigrants come to this country, not speaking English, with little money, and are successful. Give me a break. The sooner people start becoming responsible for their - and their children's - actions, and lives, the better off for all of us. This socialist welfare mess has gone on enough.
John Ellis
Virginia Beach ILLUSTRATION: LOS ANGELES TIMES ILLUSTRATION
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