Using Tax Dollars for Reparations
Thoughts on an Affronted Cause
Seems to me that our people have been scatterbrains since the beginning. We just don't want to own up to it. Of course, we are talented and creative and gifted with intelligence beyond our circumstances but a lot of times we don't use any of those resources to overcome the consequences we face from our own actions. Life is about learning and growing as you learn and we as African Americans constantly try to deny our growth economically and mentally. We place ourselves in an even smaller box than what white society has placed us in. At least they've given us room to spread our wings just a little bit. It could be from their carelessness or lack of concern for our well-being but we do have room to spread.
The concern for reparations of what is owed to us mind boggling. Do we truly know what is owed to us? How will we be able to really tell if this company or that company owes us money? Let me explain to you how it would go down if the government did make these corporations pay us because we will never see a dime of it. When you trace back through your ancestral roots you will see that yes, certain slave masters did use us to create and advance their companies but you should know that investing didn't start in the 1990's. It most likely started in the 16 or 1790's. So even if they did use slaves to create or advance their companies there is truly no way to pinpoint the exact amount owed to us because of other investors including those slaves who were able to buy back their families who were still slaves. That's right, slaves owned other slaves to bring some of their families back together. If you don't believe me then let me prove it to you by giving up a little of my own maternal family history.
A cousin of mine who is a historian traced our family roots back to the beginning of where it all started. Now let me just say this if you all, and I mean my fellow African Americans, would do the same thing I bet you would have the same results! She traced our history back to France where the Stowe family was first born into a high society family. They owned shipping yards where two of the boys, Neil and Thomas set out to make their own fortunes in Colonial America and start a new legacy of Stowe in the new land. Just like any other person from England or Ireland or Scotland, they brought slaves slept with them and started families with them in the 1800's. I can tell you that their children's children were the ones who started the families with slaves and native Americans making their blood line darker and darker. I can also tell you that the bloodline my mother comes from is the only dark bloodline in the family. The rest of the family, her cousins her aunts and uncles, are Caucasian and native American. So in all truth if it weren't for one of the great great granddaughters in the late 1800's marrying an ex-slave from up north I wouldn't be African-American at all! The same goes for my father's side of the family. His grandmother married an ex-slave owner who was African-American and she was pure white of Irish descent.
As far as I'm concerned there is truly no telling from where I sit if these corporations owes us or not. The best I can say for my people to do is get their education and learn more than what society educators tells you to learn. We are all in control of our destinies and how far we wish to go to achieve them. As for what went down in the past, it's stays in the past. We should only be concerned about what we learn in the future and how well we leave our legacies for the sake of our children.
Published by KyhaTheWriter
I am no longer an aspiring screenwriter, I am a screenwriter! I will be a published author of an erotic thriller entitled "A Witness to Charm" on November 30, 2008. I've also decided to go back to school and... View profile
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15 Comments
Post a Commenti think you guys are really out of touch with reality. For Paul, you asked what the difference is between WWII Japanese victims and slavery, it's simple. we can easily trace the victims of WWII because that was not so long ago. Slaves on the other hand have been freed so long ago that it's untraceable and even if it were, could you imagine how many descendants their would be. it would be impossible to give that many people reparations. and to Kjevonay, are you serious! why would anyone pay you for hardships you didn't endure. you speak of the beatings, raping, hanging and whatever else as though you have any clue what that kind of treatment would feel like. you've never experienced it. you've just heard stories of other people who were victim to it and share the same skin tone as you. the way I see it, we are all americans and this is a history we all are ashamed of, because to anyone outside of our country looking in just sees that we are american and associates us to having a histo
Paul, I'm not sure who that was directed to but I will say this. For a country that makes it's own money we sure are in serious debt and it's over nothing! The solution is simple....give the reparations or better yet since African Americans were slaved to make this country progress let us live tax free or don't do a credit report on us! I think if they had a choice they'd rather pay us and so they should! They should pay us for all of the beatings, the rape, the tearing our families apart, the hanging from nooses, the lies, the helping mercenaries in Africa help sell out their own tribes, and anything else they did that was inhumane.
Okay, I've been silent for too long! Let me just say to Alyce, not a lot of people know that there is money to dish out for reparations if they wanted to. The government doesn't want to because they are just as racist now as they were back in the day. That's right I said it and I'll say it again. They are racist! I even have a cousin in Congress and it still doesn't matter! They're racist! Let me tell you how I know they have enough money to give to us. If they can give huge corporations like Phillip Morris (cigarette company) millions of dollars to stay in business and start up companies contracts to do work for them then they can pay us! Just like you as an individual they have a budget to where they must spend an 'x' amount of money each year to balance it out. So yes, they have the money they're just too selfish to give any!
Schools are paid for by local taxes. Wealthy neighborhoods naturally hire better teachers, better books, better heating systems in schools. Since many minorities are forced to live in poor areas, the kids are starting life at a disadvantage. Sad to say that some of that reparation money would go straight to the local crack dealer. So that worrying about getting paid for their ancesters free labor, might not it be better to use the money to fix today's problems?
Paul, I am not at all blaming the victim. The victims of slavery were the ancesters. There is no "government money" to be given out. There is only taxes collected and already mispent. At least 1/4 of people's salaries are going just for income related taxes. Then there are sales, property, excise taxes, taxes tacked unto just about everything we purchase. I did not state that I am not in favor of reparations, just unsure. Like perhaps, those tax dollars should go to building better schools.
Most of my family didn't come over to this country until well after slavery was abolished. The one ancestor that was here was Native American. Why should we have to pay anything? I have never collected anything due to my ancestor's suffering and suppression. Reparations do nothing but create dissension and resentment. We do not need that.
I have to agree with Chadd 100%. I don't see why someone should get money over something that they did not go through themselves. Great piece.
Wow! That last comment about this piece is really going to set someone off! How very bold of you to say so..De las casas!
No one should get a dime over slavery. Until I get 800 barrels of free cotton on someone's back, no one gets a dime. Not a dime. You do not get rewarded for agony you did not have to endure.
continued from below:
"And as long as there are pro-slavery protagonists among us, hiding behind such absurdities as "we are all in this together" or "it hurts me as much as it hurts you" or "slavery benefited you as much as it benefited me," we will suffer from the inability to confront the tragic legacies of slavery and deal with them in a forthright and constructive manner.
"Most important, we must never fall victim to some scheme designed to create a controversy among potential allies in order to divide them and, at the same time, exploit them for its own special purpose."