Reparation concepts and historical applications

¶ … Rogerian style arguing for the stand that reparation should be paid, or is owed by the United States Government for the African-Americans, the descendants of the African slaves. It has 5 sources.

Government should not pay or owe financial reparations to the descendants of African slaves for the impact of slavery. The stand taken by the writer is for the reparations that should be paid or are owed by the United States Government.

Taking only a brief glimpse on the painful history of the African slaves, a period spanning nearly two and half centuries from 1619 to 1865, more than 4 million people of the African descent were enslaved, bought and sold on the American continent similar to farm animals. Slavery thus was turned into an institution, and the beneficiaries were the white people of the same era, eventually making them millionaires and billionaires. Such was the practice of slavery that Africans and their children were forced to carry out such tasks as picking cotton, digging canals, building railroads, yet never getting paid for any work, not to mention the pain and labor put in by these slaves. Other industries that made common white people into virtual millionaires through enslavement of Africans included the steel mills, tobacco farms, and sugar and agricultural plantations that not enriched the white on the American continent, but those on other side of the Atlantic Ocean as produce from the hard labor and toil of the slaves were exported to the European continent and the element of profit in such transatlantic business need not be mentioned ['Reconciliation Through Reparations' 2003].

Reasoning

The painful aspect is not limited to the fact that these slaves were not paid for either their labor or pain, rather the fact that huge fortunes earned by the whites through slavery are enjoyed to this date by the descendants of the same white families, and what is more painful to learn is that even after the abolition of slavery in 1865, the people of African origin and the generations that followed continued to suffer at the hands of the white for the next more than 100 years. These exploitative measures included such acts as being bonded for life through sharecropping policies, lynching when and if protests were made or made advantage of the law if there was any, and the denial of vote. ['Reconciliation Through Reparations' 2003].

It is the list of such inequities against the African slaves that have prompted and generated a demand for reparations to be paid to the descendants of the African slaves who suffered at the hands of the white as stated above. The demands for reparations have a number of valid reasoning points behind them, but only two aspects will be mentioned here that more than convincingly supports the demand [Highet, 2002].

Evidences

First is the historical precedence that has been adequately mentioned in support of the reparations demands for the descendants of the African slaves. For example an amount of more than 9 billion dollars set aside by both the governments and corporate sources of the present day regimes of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland for the victims of the Nazis. This also includes repatriating Jews as well as the slave laborers who worked in the German factories. Second example as cited by the proponents of the reparation for the descendants of the African slaves is the payment of U.S.$20,000 by the United States government to the family of each Japanese-American held in the internment camp during the era of World War II, including a formal letter of apology. Third example cited is the payments and reparations made to the Native Americans for the losses suffered and for the lands taken away from them accompanied with formal letters of apology. Hence, if those having suffered at the hands of the Nazis, the Jews, the Japanese-Americans and the Native Americans can be repatriated and apologized to, then why no such reparation for the African-Americans [Highet, 2002].

The second aspect and one of the strongest reasons for demands for reparation arises from some of the present day statistics that have indeed evolved due to the inequitable attitude of the whites that continues to date even in the 21st century. To cite only some of these heartbreaking statistics, it may be observed that today more African-Americans are imprisoned in jails and prisons across the United States than any other community, a figure that crosses the one million mark, that has virtually turned the United prisons in to a more than 50 billion dollar industry. Another statistic on the children of the African-American shows that more than 44% of these children live in poverty. In dollar terms, every single dollar accumulated by a white family, families of African-Americans own only 0.9 cents. As to the net worth of the nation, Africans owned 0.5% of the total net worth in 1865 just when slavery was abolished, and the statistics of 1990s reveal that this has only increased to only 1% of the total net worth. The home equity worth together with financial assets for the average African-American family is U.S.$200, compared to the U.S.$18,000 for white families. And the landownership for the Africans in 1910 was 15 million acres that has in the year 2002 dropped to a lowly 1.1 million acres [Highet, 2002].