Slave Descendants File $1 Billion Lawsuit

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20040329/ap_on_re_us/slave_reparations_lawsuit

NEW YORK - Descendants of slaves filed a $1 billion lawsuit Monday against U.S. and British corporations, accusing them of profiting by committing genocide against their ancestors.

Lawyers for the eight plaintiffs said the complaint was the first slave reparations lawsuit to use DNA to link the plaintiffs to Africans who suffered atrocities during the slave trade.

The suit filed in federal court in Manhattan accuses Lloyd's of London, FleetBoston and R.J. Reynolds of "aiding and abetting the commission of genocide" by allegedly financing and insuring the ships that delivered slaves to tobacco plantations in the United States.

The defendants "have destroyed our national and ethnic identity," one of the plaintiffs, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, said at a news conference announcing the suit.

DNA testing has made a "direct connection" between Farmer-Paellmann and the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, whose people "were kidnapped, tortured and shipped in chains to the United States," the suit said.

:toast:

let the courts determine if the decendants have an actual claim....not david horowitz :eyes:

;)

and this is just the beginning. i believe the DNA in this case was retrieved from an african burial ground in NYC. as more of these are unearthed, people have proof they are decendants. if only america hadn't reneged on the original reparations (40 acres and a mule)...these decendants might not have a case at all.

circulating and being passed down to generations of people.

Amazing 40 acres and a friggin mule? Wow.

but as you see, not many here will agree with that. you will see many arguments about why everybody shouldn't pay (because the people involved are dead, because it's not fair..blah, blah, blah), but the fact that more people than just actual slaveowners benefitted from slavery (and continue to do so now)...well, THAT is another story entirely.
someone called salvery "the soul of american progress."

I would imagine you can trace much of today's corporate money back to slavery?

Most of the corporations in the US actually rose in the North and the West, where slavery generated little real wealth.

Even in the south, most of the wealth generated by slavery was destroyed in the civil war. Many of the cities built by slave labor were levelled by union cannons or burned by union soldiers. Sherman ordered that the slave built railroads, the backbones of the southern economy, be destroyed as his army moved forward. Southern ships were sunk in their harbors, and southern plantations were burned by northern soldiers or rebelling slaves.

The only real slave-built wealth that survived the civil war was in the pockets of just a few insurance and shipping companies that were either based offshore, or based in the northern cities. These are the companies that are being sued today, and rightly so. I won't comment on the validity of the suits, but they picked the right targets for them.

have been sold over and over again in the last 140 years?

The person who owned the stock and got whatever benefit there was to get cashed in his shares many decades ago. The person who owns the stock now may have bought it five years ago.

Were not a legislative commitment. It was an offer made by a soldier in the field who lacked the authority.

It was a staement made by General Sherman during the Civil War. General Sherman did not have legislative authority, or permission to speak for the US treasury.

the point is: do slaves deserve reparations? could they have filed a claim in any court in america during their lifetimes? could their children? their grandchildren? the answer: HELL NO.
but...the debt is still owed.

Either it's a legit reference or not. It's not.

that bush will come out swinging against it and force kerry to say yes or no on it. if he says yes, he's a big spending liberal, if he says no the blacks will be on him. bad timing

was it "head of state?" I think it was.

unless they have direct evidence of illegal acts by these corporations and their parent companies, and since slavery was completely legal in the United States at the time of these actions, I'd guess that would be difficult to accomplish.

PR nightmare. They'd want to settle to prevent having to make embarrassing arguments in open court. But the plaintiffs may want to get into court at all costs to try to change the tone of arguments about race in this "post-civil rights" era of "the revolt of the haves".

Further, ALL slaves are dead.

This is the most divisive issue of race in America. We would be better working together for the future than battling over the past.

The descendants of the profiteers of human misery still
live better than the descendants of their victims.

It is very big of you to be over it.

They surely enjoy their dividend payments.

I assume you are referring to both the 13th amendment (1868) and US Code which defines Genocide and the penalties for genocide commited or incited within the US or by US citizens. This law was passedin 1987 and signed by Reagan that year. Applying either of these to a civil lawsuit dating to the early 1800s requires a retroactive application of both the law (which has consistenly been held to be unconsitutional, you can't be held responsible for something that was not made illegal until after you commited the act) A law can only be applied retroactively if it benefits the accused, for instance less stringent sentencing.

Consitutional amendments are only retroactive if they are specifically worded that way (which is why during prohibition, the federal government could not prosecute you for having a drink in 1900, only for acrime committed after it was passed.)

now look, slavery was reprehensible and, combined with the genocide of native peoples, the thing that Americans should be the most embarrased about. But it was perfectly legal. I, personally, do not want to think that we can start retroactively applying laws that are not writen that way. Perhaps reparations are an appropriate tool, but it would require an act of congress, not the judicial system.

All slaves in the U.S. are dead. Big difference between that and "ALL slaves are dead."

might make for interesting discussion?

Cruel yes, but hardly slavery.

I first learned of it watching in interview with Alex Haley. He used the term *Irish slavery*? I am just learning about this, and find it facinating.

Some reading and research links...

Irish Slavery in America

One of the topics of interest to a number of our people is the Irish language in America. This is intimately related with the subject of indentured servitude and slavery in America. Gerry Kelly has contributed the following information, as a sample of the research he and others do on this subject.

http://www.scoilgaeilge.org/slaves.htm

More here...

http://www.yale.edu/glc/tangledroots/

http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~yliu/classes/hist/slavery.html

http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/echo01.pdf

I don't want to take this thread off topic. Perhaps if I get some time, I'll research and start one on this subject.

... "Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America"

This well-written book is an edited version of the author's doctoral thesis, which won the American Sociological Association's "Best of 1997" prize.

Conley cites 1994 statistics on a 7 to 1 wealth advantage of Caucasian-Americans over African-Americans and traces it directly to GENERATIONS of slavery and Jim Crow. More recent statistics put the disparity at ELEVEN TO ONE and growing! And this was before the Bush Jobless "Recovery".

An excerpt is at http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0520216733/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-3190799-2035919

effects of slavery on African Americans? I was not. But, as a person of Irish American heritage I was unaware of the history of my ancestors in America for the first 35 years of my life.

I grew up in poverty myself alongside people of color.

I am certain very few Irish Americans are aware of their own history as it relates to this country.

I am well aware that African Americans have faced enormous hurdles in this society as a direct result of slavery and never implied otherwise.

Were the Irish lynched for looking at white women?
Were the Irish convicted of crimes they didn't committ by juries made up of all white men?
Were the Irish forced to drink out of different fountains and use different bathrooms?

Should I continue?

Not quite for the same duration, but my dad has an ancient photo hanging on his wall of a sign that reads "Help Wanted - Irish Need Not Apply".

Irish were beaten and murdered for offending "good Protestant" women. Remember, the KKK has three major enemies: Blacks, Catholics, and Gays. If you were a gay Irishman, you simply did not live in the south.

Irish were regularly convicted and imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. The reasoning in many areas was that the Irish were just natural criminals...it was in their "nature". If a crime was committed and an Irishman was around, odds are he'd be arrested.

The Irish were shut out of housing markets outside of the Irish ghetto's in the big cities for the longest time. They were prohibited from holding many jobs, and were thrown out of businesses for the simple crime of being Irish.

So what ended the discrimination against the Irish? Sadly, the Irish stopped being Irish. After a few generations the accent vanished, Irish mannerisms were stricken, and it simply became impossible to tell an Irishman from a Welshman or a Briton. The discrimination against the Irish stopped when the Irish stopped being Irish.

I don't know what's sadder, the fact that the blacks don't have that option, or the fact that the Irish had to use it. Either way, this nation has a long and glorious tradition of discriminating against anyone who wasn't white and protestant.

:eyes: :nopity: :eyes: :nopity:

doesn't it?

I think I'll plan to sue England now because I'm a little bit Irish and I want compensation for all that land they took hundreds of years ago.

I'm sorry, but reparations talk sets Civil Rights back, not forward.

in case you haven't noticed. actually...they never supported civil rights in the first place.
if you have a valid legal claim, you have every right to pursue it in a court of law...even if it will piss off white supremacists and their friends.

They would turn most of America against African-Americans.

issues, such as the importance of the civil justice system, the way the economy works, the idea that we all do better when we all do better, that the government has a role to play in making society work well, and that when people experience a civil wrong, not remedying it is both bad for the economy, and practically the equivalent of theft for the people who beneifit from the wrong.

It's all good stuff to talk about.

Bottom line, I believe, is that this is a debate worth having, and that it would be great to get the facts out.

And takes moderates in puts them in the other camp.

...ends with, "when you put it that way, it makes sense."

What will harm democrats more is telling its real base (black voters) that this issue isn't important.

Than I do. Every debate I hear on the subject ends with, "I'll never pay a fucking dime."

Who will ultimately pay for it? Everybody!

For comparison purposes: Let's say I sue an insurance company for whatever reason and win my case. Does that insurance company pay me? Do their board members take the hit? Hell, no. They absorb the cost in higher premiums, spread out among their customer base.

It's the same with reparations. We'll all (all ethnic backgrounds) end up footing the bill for the sins of a minority* of our forefathers.

*In this case, "minority" is meant in the textbook definition of the word. Most of my ancestors arrived here well after slavery had been abolished, but I'll still end up paying more for one service/product or another because the corporation that is sued will increase prices to absorb the cost.

How about instead, we work to tear down the current racial disparities in salary, hiring practices, etc.? We can't change the past, nor can we "fix" it by giving out money that everybody has to repay, due to increased prices.

Slavery in America is a horrible black splotch in our already splotchy legacy, but it's too late to change history. What's done cannot be "undone" by throwing around some dollars. It can only be addressed by correcting the current economic and social indecencies that continue to THIS DAY to be perpetuated.

Who pays the reparations? All of us. Every damn one of us, regardless of race. Does that "fix" the current standard of racial discrimination? I'd have to say no. It's only a metaphoric patch that will fall off in short order.

tell me why the reverse isn't also true....please.

Listen. I'm more than willing to learn and listen to your viewpoint. My argument is no more valid than anyone else's. I suppose my point is that the corporations that we would like to make responsible financially will just roll the cost over to us. "Us" meaning the descendants of slaves, the oppressors of slaves, and the people who weren't invested either way.

If your ancestors were integral in the Underground Railroad, should you be exempt from footing some of the bill? My point was that we need to address the disparity of the present, instead of paying for the sins of the past. Where do you draw the line? Should a recent emigre be held responsible for the brutality of others?

I'm truly interested in your opinion, noiretblu. My only point is that it doesn't matter WHO pays... We all pay.

by a jury of their peers. the heart of the issue is: is slavery, jim crow, and more insidious forms of racism WRONG? have africans and african-americans been harmed by this system...from slaves to the great, great grandchildren of slaves? it's not of question of who pays, but rather, WHEN do those responsibile take responsibility? this is an important question for AMERICA to answer, a question she has skirted and avoided for centuries.
'civil rights' isn't enough to fix the problems created over centuries.

I.e. if everyone involved, victim and perpetrator is dead, how do you solve that injustice?
And please don't tell me you do that by giving people money that are three generations removed from the crime.
Also the corporations that have evolved from those at the time now have different leadership, ownership, employees (who are the most likely to suffer if there is a significant fine awarded) and most likely product line.

AA and other such programs are im place to combat the resulting inequity of slavery.

If I was the judge I'd declare the law suit frivilous and charge them an arm and a leg in court costs...

the corporations are still in existence. and the one thing people love to overlook...when did slaves have any legal standing to sue on their own behalf? when did their children and grandchildren...when jim crow was the law of the land? these cases COULD NOT be brought until now, particularly now that DNA evidence has been found.
i think this case, if nothing else, will be a fascinating history lesson....from the perspective of african americans.

I know that a corporation is a legal entity and all that mumbojumbo,
but to argue that any company is even remotely the same from 100 years ago is just ridiculous...

Plus they are suing insurance agencies, for insuring the boats? I mean come on

will someone answer that question for me? since they couldn't...becuase of slavery...and then there was jim crow...what happened to their LEGITIMATE claims?

that now entitles people that are remotely related to them to $125 million?

We have programs in place to make up for past discrimination, Affirmative Action is one of those.

However, they're almost certainly entitled to something if they can make their case.

or will be settled favorably for the plaintiffs before trial.

I'm leaning for settlement, because no corporation is going to want to have the facts of how much money they made from slavery aired in a court.

I'll bet that this law suit will get tossed out very quickly

I don't know enough about this one to know if it has merits, but I feel confident in saying that the big picture is pretty obvious here and someone is going to find a good claim against an apropriate defendant sometime in the near future.

because the system excluded them from participation as human beings.
it's time for the system to be held accountable to those human beings, and their families, who are are still being harmed by this system.

affirmative action can't get 50% support on this "liberal" discussion board. funny...race is one of those issues that unites republicans and democrats :eyes: and frankly...it's not enough. and, what other 'programs' are there?

They should accept it.

I'm also amazed that anyone would be more concerned over the rights of corporation than in the economic justice this suit might be able to deliver (and the incredibly precedent it would offer for assholes like Bush, the people in NI, and any other shits who think they can abuse people's rights today because nobody will be able to touch the profits from it after "the statutes of limitation have expired."

If this law suit will go through, which it wont. There are several companies that are going to suffer severe monitary consequences...and now I see you are an anti-corporatist, but who is really going to suffer the impact of this? The CEO? Nope. The 401ks? yep. Lay offs? You bet.
Now please note that we are talking about a very significant part of the US population that would suffer consequences on some level such as job loss if such a precedent was set and followed upon by more law suits...
8 people are asking for 1 billion? Thats $125,000,000.00 a person, now multiply that by the amount of decendents that could make a similar claim and we are talking about more money than any group of corporations could afford. And since such settlements are never paid in full anyways we end up with 20 million people getting 5 grand each and fifty companies closing down and their work force released.

Man that sounds great, sign me up!

those from whom they were taken, as has civil litigation. Your argument hasn't stopped it in its tracks yet, and it's not going to start now.

Civil litigation is a very important part of how marketplaces work. You can't let people accumulate wealth by stealing it, or committing wrongs to get it.

Former slaves SHOULD HAVE been compensated for the value of their labor when they were freed. An honest court system that cared about having a competitive, functioning economy would have done that. Relegating people to an underclass has been extremely costly for the economy. There's still a chance to right the civil wrong, and it will have a huge positive impact on the economy if it is done right.

Incidentally, the amount that you ask for in a law suit isn't what you get, but you can't get what you don't ask for. Trials are excellent opportunities to assess values of claims. I suspect that a fair trial would come to a lower value, but we won't really know until we hear all the evidence, right?

the populous at large that pays the judgments levied against these ubiquitous corporations.

If it was possible to follow the money trail, it would astonish some people to know how much of every dollar they spend goes to pay a judgment, settlement, or lawyer.

And it's profits to which they weren't entitled in the first place.

A corporation represents different groups of people,
to simplify it lets just assume that a company is based on these four groups management, non management employees, investors and customers.
Each one of them has a stake in the company and its health.
Now if a record settlement comes through and opens the door to reparations, it will most likely hurt three of those groups the non management employees since part of them will have to be laid off, the investors as they are loosing their money (and in many cases retirement) and the customers as the cost of the settlement will undoubtedly at least practically be passed on to the consumer.

Now how do you justify righting a wrong from 100 years ago by endangering the livelihood of the company’s employees and investors that are generations removed?

Is guilt hereditary? Should it be possible to prosecute you for a crime that was committed before you were born by someone that you don't know?

What about the people that are standing to loose from this that have absolutely no connection? I.e. I'm a first generation immigrant from Europe, if I was now to have a stake either by employment or by investment into one of those companies (neither of which I do) is it just that I should potentially loose my job?

delivering a great deal of wealth to a few well-placed insiders. How'd they get that way? Hmm. By transferring a lot of ill-gotten gains from people whose wealth it was to people who don't deserve it.

Slavery and its antecedents (eg, creating huge communities of people so desperate for the slightest wealth that they'd accept low wages, and drive down the wages for everyone, black and white) is just one of many ways the wealth transfer, and wealth concentration happened.

Punish the corporations that get wealthy this way (by making them give it back) and you create room for the GOOD corporate citizens to thrive. And that's a good thing.

And why do you think I'm anti-corporation? How many anti-corporatists and anti-capitalists do you know at DU who sport not one but TWO corporate logos in their sig lines?

I'm sure we can find a number of companies that use shady business practices that are much more worth making an example of since the people that committed the crime are usually still around and have not been buried.
Enron, HealthSouth, numerous stock traders etc.
When we get rid of those, that may make the market place better.

And your wage argument would almost work, if it wasn't for globalization which will result in an even further decrease in US wages or massive job loss. Neither of which I find desireable but I almost believe in them as facts of the world that we excist in.

...wrongs. We're talking about ensuring that the economy functions properly by making sure wealth is allocated to the people to whom it belongs, and not to the people who commit torts on people and get away with it.

Go after people who commit crimes, yes.

But also go after people who committed civil wrongs in order to accumulate wealth.

I also reiterate: if you committ a civil wrong, you create social costs, while creating private gain. You get your profit, but you force society to take up the slack in taking care of the people you injured and damaged.

A big part of the reason we have a civil justice system is not just to get remedies on an individual basis, but also to make sure society isn't left holding the bag.

And society really was left holding the bag as far as slavery goes. Think of all the unatapped potential that never saw the light of day, thanks to the poverty slavery left behind. There should have been thousands of George Washington Carvers.

Also think of how depressed wage rates are in communities with structural poverty thanks to the fact that private companies and individuals never had to account for the wealth they stole from slaves.

These are huge social costs that continue today. They deserve a remedy.

Also think of the value of the legal precendent. You know what would probably clear up things in NI and Palestine and Kashmir pretty quickly? The knowledge that nobody's ever going to profit from human rights violations.

i think it's wonderful that DNA is being used to establish ancestry!
i hope that it is gratifying and satisfying to those who now know exactly who their ancestors were, and where they came from. if the popularity of genealogy is any indication, knowing your family history is important and meaningful - and also something that has been elusive to descendants of slaves. i hope to see lots more of this DNA tracing!

sorry - bit of a tangent, i know.

as far as the lawsuit, i hope they win.

...going to pick a few other things to give really long statute of limitations to, my vote is for GENOCIDE and SLAVERY.

Do I see any other hands raised for that?

you have to have a crime to statututily limit.

are written.

Reparations suits are making claims based on tort law which already exists. I have seen this suit, but others have alleged the tort of conversion, I believe.

I can't believe that you think that if someone enslaved you that you wouldn't have SOME claim availiable in existing tort law.

In any event, I think it makes sense to write a staute to extend the stateut of limitations for torts that arise from slavery.

it would be illegal. He would have broken the law.

then.

There is no logic to the idea of enslaving people -- shifting all the wealth they created to private corporations -- then cutting those ties, and not give those people ANYTHING.

Slavery came to end because it was wrong. Not because it suddenly became wrong. It was always a violation of basic human principles.

You know, in a civil court, following or breaking the law is only ever a consideration and never determinative of outcomes.

If you were speeding that doesn't automatically make you negligent, and obeying the speed limit doesn't mean you weren't negligent.

So, even if slavery were codified, or whatever, you could still make common law arguments, and a jury could still find that, notwithstanding the law, the defendant is liable for conversion and would have to transfer the wealth they took from slaves back to the people whom they took it from.

First, I shouldn't have had access to the courts in 1865 because I wasn't alive.

You say there was no logic to slavery, I say there is much logic to slavery. That's why so many societies have utilized it.

"All the wealth they created to private corporations." You have a thing about corporations? Most slaves worked for private family farms, many very large some small. Most of the wealth they created benefitted those families, not any corporations.

When I get a ticket for speeding, the ticket is not for negligence. It's for breaking the speed law. The state is not claiming I drove negligently, just illegally above the speed limit.

On edit -- and slavery didn't come to an end because it was wrong. It came to an end because the 13th Amendment was passed by 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate and 3/4 of the State Legislatures. This was accomplished because the Civil War took the southern states out of the voting mix allowing the 3/4 of the state legislatures.

1) Hypothetically. My first question was a hypothetical. I'm just trying to make that clear.

2) Slavery was clearly illegal when it was happening, and it was clearly a civil wrong, and former slaves clearly had great legal arguments to recover a lot of the wealth they created with adequate compensation. Had they had access to the courts 120 years ago, they clearly would have won. That's my opinion.

3) I should ask you if YOU have a thing about private corporations. Most slaves worked for what were, at the time, probably the biggest agricultural businesses at the time. In any event, their labor helped create a lot of wealth that shifted straight to the top of their communities. That's the core issue with so many civil wrongs -- and so many POLITICAL problems we have today. Shifting wealth to the top unfairly, whether it's through the tax system, or protecting negligence with friendly legislation, or throught NAFTA, or downward pressure on wages, is VERY bad for progress, the economy, and liberal goals. It should always be remedied or stopped.

4) This isn't a criminal case. It's a civil case arguing the defendants committed a tort. The defendants will argue that they didn't break the law. People here at DU act like that's all they need to say. Psst. If you were sued for committing ANY tort, your argument that you abided by the law would NEVER get the case thrown out. It's just one piece of evidence the jury considers, and, often, it doesn't matter.

5) Slavery came to end because it was so incredibly contradictory. No matter how many laws they passed to justify it (even the ones that were in the constitution from the beginning) it made no sense. It violated very basic aspects of tort law. The civil war amendments simply put into constitutional law what was clearly the point of the entire body of American and international law.

by Jim Crow segregation instead.

That way, those that were/are injured can sue their oppressors (and such a suit would be more likely to succeed because the plaintiffs had to experience it).

Ask yourself, WHO has the power to make decisions about where and if you will have a job, where you will live and how good the public schools there will be, who decides whether a "youthful indiscretion sends you home with a warning or into the slammer, etc. HOW did those people get that power?

http://racerelations.about.com/library/weekly/aa060200a.htm links to Journalism Professor Robert Jensen's famous essay, WHITE PRIVILEGE SHAPES THE U.S. With this powerful piece of writing, Jensen has rocked many students' worlds. In it he talks about...

"the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege. ... Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me. Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university, apply for a job, or hunt for an apartment, I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me--they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.

My flaws also are more easily forgiven because I am white. ... white privilege has meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology. ... white folks have long cut other white folks a break. I know, because I am one of them. ... I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white. I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great. There I also was taught a variety of skills, including how to take standardized tests written by
and for white people.

All my life I have been hired for jobs by white people. I was accepted for graduate school by white people. And I was hired for a teaching position at the predominantly white University of Texas, which had a white president, in a college headed by a white dean and in a department with a white chairman that at the time had one non-white tenured professor. ... white people all have drawn on white privilege somewhere in their lives. Like anyone, I have overcome certain hardships in my life. I have worked hard to get where I am, and I work hard to stay there. But to feel good about myself and my work, I do not have to believe that "merit," as defined by white people in a white country, alone got me here. I can acknowledge that in addition to all that hard work, I got a significant boost from white privilege, which continues to protect me every day of my life from certain hardships....

White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black man and the security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I am benefiting from white privilege. There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is erased from this society. Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day ..."

The "we have a problem with something, lets throw some money at it" never works long term.

Shit I am all for better funding of public education and reform (see not just throwing money at it), equal access to quality health care and all those good things...but handing out $125,000,000 to people each is neither feasible, nor is it fair to the rest of society. The Japanese were prosecuted, the Chinese had laws made in California to make their life hell (the first anti-drug law was anti-chinese legislation), Native Americans have been oppressed and murdered, African American's obviously, the Irish didn't enjoy a lot of the early 20th century, the Germans were prosecuted, Russians were prosecuted.
What I am saying is that everyones ancestry at some point had something really bad happen to them at the hands of a bunch of assholes, that doesn't mean that now 5 generations later they are entitled to a cash settlement.

... Robert Jenkins's classic essay and still be spouting these "neo-conservative" ideas?

Are you surfing from a prison cell? The proportion of African-American men incarcerated at any given moment is EIGHT TIMES the proportion for Caucasian-Americans. Do you have a job? Overall unemployment rates for African-Americans have run TWICE the rate for Caucasian-Americans for decades. Similar racial disparities exist for life expectancy, infant mortality, educational attainment, home ownership, etc.

According to Dalton Conley (see the link in post #23), even if everybody in the US had the progressive racial attitudes of a Robert Jenkins or the average DUer, accumulated racial wealth disparities still would maintain these other disparities FOREVER. The root of the racial wealth disparity is the legacy of slavery.

Over hundreds of years, generations of African-Americans had little or nothing in the way of discretionary income, savings, land, property, etc. to hand down to the next generation. The wealth disparity between Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans is ELEVEN TO ONE and GROWING. Those who are suing for reparations are at least attacking the root of the current problem.

But, more importantly, they are raising awareness in America of the real nature of the problem. For reparations attorneys like Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, it's not about the money. It's about changing the tone of the policy dialog about race in this era of "the revolt of the haves".

Maybe you're the kind of person who learns more from the video than from the transcript. Take a look at the taped lectures on reparations at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/vforum/03/struggle_black_reparations/

every wrong committed.

Sometimes an injunction or specific performance can remedy the odd wrong, but money can fix just about anything.

it certainly worked for those who get wealthy by exploiting other people...why not the reverse?

using the RICO laws, against the Bush admin for sending our kids off to a war that is a fraud.
I think we have a right to do so.

Glad they are not suing the govt. Only about 4% of Americans in the time of slavery ever owned slaves....the RICH ones. Not fair for average taxpayers to pay for it.

wrong, and trying to get it back to the people and communities who should have gotten it.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Should Be Exempt From Paying My Share of Reparations
(Meant to be humorous/serious)

5)If I had to pay my share, the burden on others to help finance my education might be increased. This could mean YOU.
4)Isn't it enough that I pass out literature for Democratic candidates? I mean really.
3)My great great grandfather, who was an abolitionist, died fighting for the North in the Civil War. Surely that should count for 10% off since he would have been far more productive alive then dead. On the other hand, the corresponding greatgreatgrandmother probably took up some slack by doing work she otherwise wouldn't have had to do. Maybe this one is good for only 5%.
2)I should be receiving them myself due to the numerous Irish ancestors I had on the ground here during the time when the "N" word also applied to the Irish. Did they get an equal opportunity to provide for their children and decendants (including me)? Not.
1)I should be receiving them myself due to the long history of oppression and disenfranchisement of women.

More than 600,000 Americans -- black and white, north and south -- died ending slavery.

The debt is paid.

subtract out of the final settlement all the money spent by the government & private businesses on affirmative action. Then, abolish any further race-based ANYTHING. Just say we're even & be done with it - no more NAACP, no more United Negro College fund, no more pushing "diversity in the workplace", and etc.

Of course, if they did that, the plaintiffs would end up OWING money.

A lot was taken from African-Americans since the establishment of the American colonies - to right this we're supposed to give a lot of money to people who didn't ride on the back of the bus, who have given up nothing for a struggle they didn't fight?

No.

A personal aside: I taught in an "urban" school (in MS) some years ago - one afternoon after getting new televisions in the classroom I was treated to a rousing rendition of "We Shall Overcome" when I wouldn't let them watch it. I've got a hundred more stories like this from the same job...I'm not sure how a check for a couple of thousand of dollars is going to do anything for the kids that were in my class that day, but I'll be damned if any of it comes out of my pocket.

So abolishing race-based anything would be counterproductive to say the least.

I do not go anywhere near that far. The issue is reparations for slavery. Those were paid in blood.

As for the current racial climate in America, it still needs lots of work. It is a problem that African-Americans face daily -- on buses, in jobs, in restaurants and when facing police. Hopefully, we will all work together to overcome that and the ongoing bigotry that infects many.

All Americans.

...and transfer it back to the communities, and the people, if possible, from whom it was taken.

Today, the tax code is shifting a lot of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest Americans. In fact, the savings rates of middle class Americans are narrowing at the same rate the tax burden increasing on those people. The knock-on economic effects to those families is clear. They're going into debt, dropping out of college, their kids' options and opportunities are narrowing. It's terrible. It won't be reparied until all the wealth that they created and lost gets back into their pockets.

NAFTA has devalued labor. It forces America's labor rates to fall in order to compete with the labor rates of foreing countries which care nothing about the environment and labor. Of course companies charge the same for the goods that are produced in those foreign countries. So what this really is a transfer of wealth from people who work for a living (who no longer get paid for the full value of their labor) to the pockets of corporate insiders. The terrible economic impact and the loss of opportunities and wealth won't be remedied for the victims of NAFTA until we figure a way to get all that stolen wealth back into the hands of people from whom it was taken.

Now those two scenarios are POLITICAL issues, which need political solutions.

Should we start talking about combined POLITICAL + TORT issues, where there are clearl civil wrongs committed which the courts have a role in addressing?

You can only move into the future.

Nobody had to get paid, people paid the debt to each other and to God by fighting and dying in the Civil War to end slavery.

how big of you to declare the debt paid. perhaps you can understand that every black person, or historian, agrees with you.

The importation of slaves into the United States was only legal for 25 years (from the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783 to 1808). If the importation happened before that, U.S. corporations will simply argue that they can't be responsible because since their nation didn't yet exist, they legally didn't exist (ergo, previous corporations engaged in actions sanctioned by the British Crown, making the British government responsible). If the importation happened after 1808, the importation was illegal and uninsured, meaning that the insurance companies weren't involved anyway.

The defense for the corporations may simply boil down to: "Prove that your ancestors came here during that 25 year period."

the Democratic Party of America. No group did more to keep slavery alive for as long as possible. Then came Jim Crow. Who's in favor? Raise your hands.

I can understand about suing over things like genocide in the past few years, but in the last 150-200 years?!? Are these people insane?
Why should these companies have to pay out $1 billion because of the actions of our ancestors? These people today didn't do anything wrong (with genocide, that is.) This lawsuit is totally ludicrous.

Where do you draw the line for lawsuits? Do I get to sue the U.S. govt. today because their ancestors killed and took away land from my ancestors(Native Americans)? Do I get to sue the govt. because their ancestors persecuted, were prejudice against, and all that other horrible stuff to my ancestors?

There has to be a line to draw. And these people stepped way over that line.

trials and studies etc which looked into the issue.

I think we'd all learn something about justice and economics.

it's simple logic.

and getting their land back piece by piece. I hope they get some more too. Actions should have consequences.

but I mean me actually suing the govt. Can I sue them now for what happened 200 years ago?

I won't because logic tells me that the govt. today didn't do anything wrong to the people of 200 years ago. Why should they have to pay for what was done way back then?

But I'm glad that Native Americans are getting their land back.

based on events that happened 200 years ago. Which means that you may be a part of it and not know it. Noone is getting $125 million. It's a class action suit.

Why should I pay you (i.e. any African American) for something I didn't do that didn't happen to you?

I don't think people realize how this will incite racism to heights never before imagined.

That many people in America already paid for the slaves freedom with their blood. The Civil War was a just and moral cause. Besides, reparations is an Ostensible argument.

sue the municipalities that have passed anti-civil rights legislation from 1870-1960. they're more responsible for the discrimination of blacks that exists today than slave owners.

If you can get beyond the issue of standing and if you can get beyond the issue of statutes of limitations and if you can get beyond the issue of ex post facto law and if you can then get beyond the failure to state a claim, you still are dealing with a situation where you are judging people who are no longer alive under today's standards.

First, as much as we all hate it, slavery was a legal institution at the time. It was immoral, unethical, degrading, and something that we as a country shouldn't have participated in, but sadly we did, and it was a legal practice at the time.

Second, you will also be punishing innocent companies that later merged after slavery with the defendants. For instance, Nabisco is now merged with RJ Reynolds, yet it didn't even exist during the time frame of the lawsuit.

Third, you will be punishing stockholders, both white and black. The monies to settle or defend against this suit will come directly out of sharholder profits, not the corporation itself. So the possibility of descendants of slaves punishing descendants of slaves, while ironic, is quite probable.

Fourth, this will open a precedent setting can of worms. If descendants of slaves can sue on behalf of their ancestors, why can't I?

Sorry, but I see this as a very devisive action within our society, and one that could cause anarchy in our courts. Rather than work for monetary gain, why don't we, as a society, work towards equality for all instead.

and i'm sure killing jews in hitler's germany was also technically legal.

And reparations were paid to the victims within their lifetime, or that of their immediate descendants. Not 150 years after the fact.

would you please? tell me how well-received a reparations case would have been in, say, mississippi in 1925 when lynching was still a common pratice? please, enlighten me.

Immediately after the Civil War. All of the Southern states were packed with reconstruction era politicians, both carpet baggers from the North, and former slaves from the South. Indeed, Lincoln was even talking about some form of reparations. Unfortunately he was shot, and the ham handed policies of his successor destroyed any chance of meaningful reaprations talks.

I have no clue as to what your 3/5 comment signifies(yes, I do know that is how blacks were to be counted under the original version of the Constitution, but how is this comment germaine to the topic of reparations?)

So tell me, how should reparations be paid out to those of mixed ancestry?

and what happened AFTER that? are you telling me that the racial climate in this country was ever better than it is right now?
most african americans ARE of mixed ancestry.

The country was tired of war, was weary in heart and soul. Virtually all of the pro-slavery leaders in the South were barred from holding high office in the Reconstruction period(sometimes at the point of a bayonet). Blacks, northerners and abolitionists were installed into office throughout the South, and kept there through the force of the occupying Union Army. This is the major reason that the term carpet-bagger is a curse in the South. The period lasted until 1877, when the troops were pulled out of the South in exchange for the certification of Hayes as US president. In a period where blacks and those sympathetic to their plight held sway in the South, a golden opportunity for the issue of reparations. But such an opportunity was squandered for numerous reasons, corruption and graft being among them.

The persons of mixed ancestry I'm talking about are those 10-15% of the white population, a great many who don't even know that they have African blood. Should they get reparations?

blacks people didn't sue? you can believe that, if you like.

and if don't know they are african-american...why would they get reparations?

the people in this case are using dna to estalish their ancestry to specific african slaves.
they are not suing on behalf of all african-americans, and certainly not those who don't know they are african-american....since that has nothing to do with this case.

Too much water under the bridge, too many circumstances have changed. As I've said earlier, there was a time for this discussion in this country, but that time has passed. Obviously you believe that a corporation should pay for reparations. Should the black shareholders of such a company be forced to pay said reparations out of the profits on the shares they own? Should the whites who also own shares in said company be forced to pay for reparations out of their stocks, even though neither they, nor their ancestors had any vested interest in the company prior to 1865(latter day immigrants)? Should a company that was created and merged with RJ Reynolds after the Civil War be forced to bear the burden reparations?

And since this would open the floodgates for more reparations lawsuits, my question on those of mixed ancestry is germaine. I myself, though to all appearances am white, have black ancestors. Many other apparently white people in this country are in the same boat I am, and some know of their ancestry, while others don't. Should we also be compensated?

And all of this over an issue that, however morally reprehensible, was a common and legal practice at the time. I think that if such a lawsuit is successful the backlash and outrage in this country would be extremely devisive. Rightly or wrongly there would be large numbers of Americans who would feel betrayed. The reasoning would be along the lines that this country has fought a war over this issue, has committed money and manpower to this issue, has sweated, bled and died for this issue, and yet the black community is still not satisfied. Like I said, rightly or wrongly, that would be the line of reasoning for a lot of people in this country. It would promote a ferocious backlash, and quite possibly set back the cause of race relations a hundred years. Do you care to risk that, all for some money?(funny, there is that root of all evil again).

I think that we could better spend our time and resources on promoting even further opportunity and equality for African Americans. I realize that while we have come a long way, we still have a long road to go. But there is hope and a light at the end of the tunnel. I just don't want to see that tunnel collapsed under greed and a violent backlash.

and there never a "moment" for reparations. the evidence of that is that black people didn't get full citzenship until less than 50 years ago.

"I just don't want to see that tunnel collapsed under greed and a violent backlash."

violence has always been used to defend and assert white supremacy as the norm. just as the legal system has been used to make it seem legitimate.


the tulsa and rosewood cases are perfect examples of both. coincidentally, the tulsa survivors are STILL waiting for reimbursement for the propery and other capital stolen from them.
at some point...america will have to face its past...it is the ONLY way to face its current reality.

An African-American principal did a DNA test and found out he was 0 % African-American.

there is no mention of that.

is that the plantiffs used DNA testing to prove they were descendants of africans. i am not surprised by the story you posted. that principal should give it to the next cop who stops him for 'driving while black' :D

was at the Hampton Roads conference and it was to the slaveowners if they freed their slaves and the Confederacy laid down its arms.

I've forgotten who the author is, but I read about it in a Lincoln biography years ago. I think this quote from his second inaguaral address indicates what his thinking on the matter was:

"If God wills that continue, until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three
thousand years ago, so still it must be said: "the judgments of the Lord, are true and
righteous altogether."

committed that needed to be addressed by transferring back the property and the wealth that former slaves created, and that if they weren't compensated, what alwasy happens would happen to then: people who were unjustly enriched would compound their unjust riches, and the people who were unjustly damaged would never be able to get back to equal footing on a level playing field, and that all of society suffers when the ensuing social costs are born by society, yet the profits are privatized.

He would have recognized it as bad economics due to injustice, and that it demanded a remedy.

Lincoln did call for the slaveowners to be compensated though in return for them freeing their slaves. His offer of Februar 1865 was turned down by Alexander Stevens. He should have taken the deal because it expired on April 1, 1865, and Lee evacuated Richmond on April 2.

Even under Nazi law the Holocaust was technically not legal.

Many slaves were in North America before the Unites States even existed as a country. I believe the Dutch were the first colonists to import slaves to North America.

VERY interesting responses, eh Blu? ;)

I go on the record as believing descendents of Africans kidnapped and enslaved here should go about seeking reparations by whatever means available to them in the legal system.

And if that means I -- a woman whose two families were here before Columbus made his way AND new immigrants of this century (in other words, no connections to slavery on either side) -- pay for those reparations with my tax dollar, so be it. I feel it is the right thing to do.

I was too young to have personally sent any of our country's Japanese citizens to internment camps, but I glady helped pay for their reparation with my tax dollars.

If a court determines descendents of slaves deserve a financial remedy for the damage done to them by our government, I will happily pay my share.

And as for those who point to others treated poorly -- I feel there is a vast difference between being kidnapped from your home and held prisoner and other claims of hardship.

a little sense to remedy the inequities socially.

But let's not forget that most of the benefits of slavery were enjoyed through a transfer of wealth to private actors. Most of those private actors have disappeared. But where they are still alive today (alive in the corporations law sense) it makes sense to capture some of that profit and wealth and send it back to the people and communities who deserve it.

Also, consider that huge corporations have seen their tax burdens evaporate over the past 30 years. If it hadn't, we might have actually had the social wealth to remedy lots of the economic/racial injustice that continues today. If these suits force a private remedy where the government has failed to act (because it was protecting these same corporations from having to pay taxes), well, that's pretty much poetic justice right there.