Slavery Reparations

[David Lockmiller]

(06-19-2019 08:03 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(06-19-2019 07:34 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  In 1851, California’s first governor, Peter Burnett, proposed extinction of the Indian race in California. Today, June 19, 2019, California Governor Newsom, in an emotional presentation, recited a published chronicle from the 19th century that listed a tally of Indian deaths, including an account of a white settler who chose to kill children with a revolver instead of a high-caliber shotgun because “it tore them up so bad.”

But where do you start and where do you stop with reparations being made for injustices committed over a century ago? And, in what form should the reparations be made and to whom? For instance, what is the compensation now due to Union soldiers who died in the American Civil War serving a just cause (i.e., the Union)?

More recently, for many years, I have advocated for Thomas Thompson, a man who was executed on July 14, 1998 at San Quentin State Prison, for a crime which he did not commit, and in violation of two of his U.S. Constitutional rights to a fair trial on a five-to-four vote of the U.S. Supreme Court. What would now be justice in his case?

Excellent questions, David, that have been asked by many clear-thinking individuals for several decades now. Georgetown University grappled with that question of slave reparation and devised an apology that included free education for descendants. The question of many has been what proof is acceptable to prove descent from a slave.

I may have mentioned that a new initiative was begun in 2018 to study the lynching of blacks (mainly from post-CW to the 1930s). Again, what must we do to undo a wrong -- other than recognize that it happened, move on, and try to ensure that such things don't happen again. Frankly, I don't think any of us deserve to be judged by the sins of our fathers, but sometimes I think that is what is happening in our world today.

Thank you, Laurie. I was thinking this morning about the commercial chain of enslavement. If the chain had been broken, there would have been no slave trade in the 1800's. The problem was that each of the components profited enormously for their part in this devastating injustice.

There were the warring black tribes with modern European weapons that attacked, killed, and captured members of peaceful tribes in the interior of Africa. Their victims were then sold to Europeans and Americans (I presume) that transported the newly purchased slaves to their ultimate customers in North and South America. And, then there were the ultimate purchasers who placed these human beings into interminable slavery for their own profit and well-being. And, finally, there were all those that profited from the cheap cotton and tobacco in one way or another and knowing that the base of their own good lives was the life-long suffering of other human beings.

And, look at the two world wars. One might legitimately state that the second world war was the result of the unfair settlement of the first world war. Europe was devastated by World War II. And, it was the United States Marshall Plan (a form of reparations one might argue) that ultimately brought Europe back to life and prosperity.