The guiding impulse behind reparations is a worthy one: the belief that we should right past wrongs.
The ethics, however, are muddled. Should the descendants of Rep. Johnson and Jesse Batey be held accountable for their slaveholder ancestors? Should Stalin’s grandchildren pay reparations to the people of Russia, the former USSR, and its satellite states? Does George Wallace Jr. bear any responsibility for the crimes of George Wallace Sr? Should the Selma P.D. or the Mississippi State Guard make payments to the descendants of civil rights workers?
In a similar vein, should the children of black Angelenos now in their 40s receive a bill for property damage in South Central circa 1992?
What about Harvard, Brown, Columbia, UVA, and other universities involved? Harvard has apologized, installed a plaque at Wadsworth House, and avoided demands for reparations thus far. Are these universities, with their ties to the slave trade, any less responsible than Georgetown?
When actions can be found that directly harmed a plaintiff, or a plaintiff’s direct descendants (the negligent death of a parent might qualify), then financial liability can be proven with relative ease. Once we reach back through the decades, it’s harder to make that argument. Do we owe those descendants of slaves who are still poor and marginalized a fair shake, including better schools, health care, etc? Definitely. But trying to apportion blame for events nearly two centuries ago, and secure reparations from the guilty parties’ descendants or their institutions, smacks of a Hatfield-McCoy feud writ large.
The statutes of limitations on various types of lawsuits are there for good reasons.
And politics and political realities play a role. Should the Native American tribes sue to have much of the land in the West returned to them, voiding all current deeds? Should descendants of those wrongfully imprisoned in the Japanese internment camps get reparations? I found evidence that Indians attacked and tomahawked some of my ancestors. Maybe I should get some of that casino money. It could go on and on.
Trying to right the wrongs of history is an endless and futile task. At some point everyone’s ancestors were killed, enslaved, or otherwise treated unjustly by some group, country, company. From the innocent daughters of the last tsar of Russia, down to the lowliest peasants and farmers, injustice is endemic in humanity. Sadly.
Not a equivalent example as reparations…albeit a token amount of $20k per internee* were actually paid to Japanese-Americans who were interred during the '80s while most were still alive.
This case was also one which established a precedent for other groups to demand compensation for past injustices committed by the US government against Americans from marginalized groups.
Most likely lost much more than that in the equivalent 1941 dollars when they were forced out of their neighborhoods by the Federal government of the time.
@Trisherella Please just stop. Your post is getting more offensive with each one. It’s one thing to not agree with reparations but what you are saying is off the wall crazy.
Affirmative Action is a form of reparations. So is easier access to government jobs, among other regulations geared to help African Americans advance. It’s a recognition that we have a segment of population that has been historically mistreated and denied access to good education, jobs, housing and other opportunities. We don’t call these laws reparations, but the spirit behind them is similar. To help right past wrongs.
Now, how private institutions right these wrongs is a whole other matter. And since this is CC, with a focus on education, it should be noted that Georgetown is far from the only elite school with a nasty history tied to slavery and open racism.
If universities are to help right past wrongs, then all the Ivies and all those universities that didn’t admit women for most of their histories should give women affirmative action to make up for all those women they didn’t admit for hundreds of years.
Largely because the actual internees…MOST OF WHOM WERE STILL LIVING AT THE TIME were compensated by the US government in the '80s.
In contrast, there was no such compensation given to freed slaves after 1865 despite some vague promises…nor had compensation been given to African-Americans who suffered under Jim Crow which continued in some areas well into the late '60s…and continue to suffer discriminatory treatment in many areas of their lives…such as disparate treatment at hands of law enforcement to the very present.
Nor has compensation been given to women who were denied the right to vote until the 1920’s or who suffered under the married women’s property laws etc. etc. There are plenty of people and groups, who can claim historical mistreatment. To give compensation to the descendants of those groups is silly and opens up cans of worms to all other groups who will say 'Why not us?"
Georgetown U has historical documentation of the sale, how it was a controversy at the time, and conditions that the Vatican insisted that they meet in order to have the sale. They sold the slaves and met NONE of the conditions (splitting up families, using the money for debt, etc.). The ringleader was recalled to Rome due to the scandal.
That is a real bright spot for me, that even back then some people recognized it for the shitty, selfish and inhumane deal that it was.
“Julian Eaves: You talk more shit than a little bit! BACK TO MOTHER AF-RI-CA! That’s bullshit! Without question we are ALL Black Americans! You don’t know a god damn thing about AF-RI-CA! I am from Detroit. Motown. So you can watusi your ass back to AF-RI-CA if you want to!”
There’s also the historical fact that early first wave feminist movements had a very mixed legacy when it comes to progressivism…such as throwing Black and other racial minorities and working-class/lower income groups…including women under the bus in order to advance their own cause. Ironic when many African-American activists such as Frederick Douglass were early staunch supporters of women’s rights/equality in the mid-late 19th century.
One stark illustration of this was how prominent suffragette movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries advanced their cause by catering to white supremacist fears as shown in the following quote:
Also, the very first female US senator also happens to be one of the last senators to have owned slaves, a white supremacist, and was a staunch advocate for the lynching of African-Americans and denial of equal rights for them and other non-White minorities.
The early women’s rights leaders did not understand why uneducated black men were getting the vote when they, highly educated white women, were not. It is understandable given the times.
Those assumptions were in themselves quite racist. Especially considering most women including those from upper/upper-middle class families weren’t necessarily well-educated either*. Especially if you mean by university standards.
Also, keep in mind that by the late 19th century, there were many Black college graduates of both genders. Many of them were graduates from Oberlin which accepted them as students on par with their White counterparts ~2 decades before the Civil War.
Also, despite his lack of formal education, few would argue that Frederick Douglass was “uneducated”…especially in light of his published works and demonstrated oratory not only for abolitionism and racial equality, but also ironically** Women’s rights.
The state of education in some regions of the US in the 19th century was such that West Point actually instituted a 5-year curriculum around a decade before the Civil War in order to have an extra year to provide remedial instruction for cadets whose prior educational preparation wasn't adequate to West Point academic standards. This included cadets from upper/upper-middle class backgrounds....such as sons of plantation owners. This was also a period when dealing with this issue by increasing academic standards in selecting applicants was "politically incorrect" because it was considered "too elitist" by many Americans back then....especially regional elites from southern and western states.
** In the sense that within a few decades of his early demonstrated support of women’s rights, most prominent feminist movements threw him and fellow African-Americans under the bus.
My wife & I were talking about this article over the weekend. If Georgetown wants to do something (whether you think they need to or not), why not donate money to the UNCF (“a mind is a terrible thing to waste”) or to some specific HBCUs?