Slavery Reparations

[Christine]

A couple of thoughts I had this morning while out walking:

Did the federal government ever buy, sell, or hold slaves? Did any state government ever buy, sell, or hold slaves?

If the answer is no, then this begs a question. Can a government be held responsible for actions made by individual citizens? I am not asking this to be smart alecky or cause contention, I sincerely want a serious answer.

The government ordered Japanese citizens to be placed in internment camps during WW 11. I understand the reasons, but it still was a terrible policy. I believe reparations were made to those people and families.

The government ordered Native Americans placed on reservations, and we are still paying reparations for that, but the result has not been to help these wonderful people but has only 'enslaved' them in other ways.

Were the Jim Crow laws and government policies that caused so much racial disenfranchisement federal laws or were those state laws? Is the federal government responsible for terrible state laws enacted by individual states and their elected leaders?

Who decides who would receive these reparations? Having done a great deal of Civil War era genealogical research I know how difficult it is to find slave ancestors. What about the person who doesn't know his or her ancestry? Many people don't even know who their parents are, let alone their great great great grandparents. How would it be proven? After all, many African Americans here today came after the Civil War and did not have slave ancestors.

Who pays? My ancestors were not even in the United States during the slave period, so would I still be responsible to pay a tax to pay reparations for something my relatives had no part of?

And who decides how much reparation would be 'enough?' If a person received a pell grant for college, have they received enough reparation already? How about federal housing money? Or food stamps? Or welfare payments? Or Medicaid? Or subsidized child care? Has that money already received, much in consequence of the past injustices and terrible government policies that have kept poor people enslaved in another sense, already paid the debt?

I make no pretense to knowing the answers to any of these questions, however, one look at the immigration chaos shows that even for all of the problems in the United States of America, millions of people all over the world still think this is the best place to live to accomplish their hopes and dreams. Too bad many of the people who have lived here for generations have been told differently.