40 Acres and a Mule Would Be at Least $6.4 Trillion Today—What the U.S. Really Owes Black America

[KamaAina]

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/make-it-right/infographic-40-acres-and-a-mule-would-be-at-least-64-trillion-today



I propose that, instead of just cutting checks to individual African Americans, we put the $6.4 trillion (!) into an endowment set up sort of like the Native Alaskan corporations. It could support HBCUs, lend to AA-owned businesses, AA homeowners, and so on.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Tip, although I'm for straight up reparations.

Saying 'put it in a trust' is too reminiscent of 'white man's burden' sort of thinking. That people aren't smart enough to handle their own money, and we need to 'manage' how they access it.

[KamaAina]

7. Actually, I was thinking that one large sum would have more influence

than many smaller ones. (Think Koch Whores. ) And it goes without saying that the trust would be run by AAs, as the Alaskan corporations are by Natives.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. True but...

A lot of Native Americans have all sorts of issues with their tribal councils' monetary decisions, management and mismanagement and misappropriations. It's why I see them starting up their own charities to tackle issues their tribal councils are ignoring.

(And I'm not saying this is unique to NA or AA or anyone else - the same pattern happens in every group out there. Representatives never accurately represent their entire constituency. Heck, as we see with the US, they almost never accurately represent us, with pretty much every single one being more conservative than the folks they're supposed to represent.)

[BlindTiresias]

2. Will never happen

[Vincardog]

3. IF it did can you imagine how many previously "White" people would find that one drop of

BLACK BLOOD necessary to claim their share?

[KamaAina]

40. I imagine there'd be a blood quantum

as there is for Native American tribes and native Hawaiians.

[merrily]

78. The whole continent used to belong to First Nations.

[seveneyes]

4. A Hand Made Tale

[Oktober]

5. Stuff like this keeps people down far more than the history of what some folk's great great great...

... great grandparents did to one another.

It fosters a culture of victimhood and a belief that the answers lie with someone else. All will be well as soon as someone else does something...

Unhealthy...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

10. 'Stuff like this'? great great great great grandparents?

You mean the systematic racist oppression of millions of people that is still ongoing today, with almost daily murders by organizations that originated as 'slave patrols' or paid bullies used to crush workers' strikes, and a political system in which more than half of the elected representatives win their seats by appealing to white voters' desires to keep black people impoverished and incarcerated? When the highest court in the land overturns legislation that actively enables the stripping of voting rights from them? When they are systematically given the highest interest rate loans so they're more likely to default and return to poverty even if they manage to try and climb out? When they're stopped far more often by our modern slave patrollers, beaten far more often by them, jailed far more often by them, murdered far more often by them.

This isn't just about 240 years ago. This is about NOW. This is about acknowledging the fact that your 'great great great great grandparents, your great great great grandparents, your great great grandparents, your great grandparents, your grandparents, and your parents, and people you know today ALL have made and are STILL making choices and supporting institutions meant to keep black or brown or yellow people from gaining real equality with whites.

What's 'unhealthy' is pretending that since slavery was officially outlawed that nothing for the last couple of centuries has been specifically designed to 'keep them in their places'. We don't owe them reparations just for slavery, but for the centuries of beatings, murders, rapes, jailings, keeping them in crappy schools, preventing them from moving into better neighbourhoods, treating them like animals.

If there is a 'culture of victimhood' it is because there is likewise a 'culture of predation' that continues to this day to take their work and exploit it to extract wealth for rich white oligarchs.

[Oktober]

15. You summed up my point nicely...

It's all someone else's fault and so soon as they make the appropriate changes everything will be fine...



I'm sure that will happen any moment now...

It must be tiring to see everything through a racial lens and double tiring to blame all the happening of your life on it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

17. I'm white. If I were black, I'd already be dead by now.

The only reason I'm still afloat is intergenerational wealth built up thanks to all of the advantages my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, great great great grandparents and great great great great grandparents have had thanks to having been born with pale skin. Although with politicians working to funnel all of the wealth to their cronies, I'm still not in great shape. But at least I'm not pretending everything is anywhere near equal between folks with pasty skin like mine and folks with darker skins, or that it's all 'their own fault'. Your 'point' is quintessential Republican propaganda. You really need to stop listening to the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys and Bill O'Reillys of the world.

[Oktober]

21. I don't really care what you are...

If you have a logical reason as to why I'm incorrect, I'd love to hear it.

[Travis_0004]

56. So you benefied due to the class you were born it

You had advantages a poor white person would not have.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

61. The class I was born in?

My parents were maybe lower middle class. A teacher and a librarian. Their parents were a post office worker and a housewife and an air force officer and a librarian respectively. I spent most of my childhood eating spam, pb&j, grilled cheeses and the like. My parents still use the shoddy plastic table and vinyl and steel chairs from the 40s that my grandmother used to use for their dining room furniture.

So yeah, I had advantages the truly poor did not. But I sure as heck am not any sort of 'trust fund baby'.

But my grandparents and parents' white skins got them cheaper loans, the ability to live in better neighbourhoods, to get jobs more easily, better education. And that enabled them to set aside some small amounts from time to time, so that they can help me out now.

[deaniac21]

90. Shush dear, don't have a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it,

I'm having spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans,
spam, spam, spam, and spam!

[phil89]

63. Have the courage of your convictions

and give away your wealth to AA charity or individuals. Do it now. If it's this important to you lets see you make the commitment.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

68. My wealth?

I've been below the poverty line for about 5 or 6 years now. I'm living on the charity of my parents. I have about $40 in the bank at any given moment. No stocks, no IRAs, no other sorts of 'wealth' left. I made something like $25 in income last year. I wear decades old clothes with multiple holes in them, and my shoes until they fall apart.

If I had 'wealth', I wouldn't be saying I'd be dead by now without them.

(Edited to correct: I forgot, I've got like 2.2 shares of Disney stock still, in one of those dividend reinvestment plans, so I suppose I could give that 'wealth' away too.)

[NaturalHigh]

14. Unhealthy...

Yes. Unfortunately, it will never end.

[uponit7771]

30. Telling the truth is very healthy

[uponit7771]

29. Telling the truth does not keep anyone down, this retort is wrong on its face

[Oktober]

38. The idea of passing out trillions of dollars...

... To some segment of the population with a certain amount of melanin is ludicrous.

My point stands that silly ideas like this keep folks rooted in a culture of victim hood and perpetually waiting for someone else to come fix their problems.

[uponit7771]

39. The US has given reparations before to racial groups, whey is it ludicrous with blacks? tia

[KamaAina]

41. Not as ludicrous as the idea of enslaving some segment of the population

with a certain amount of melanin was.

[Oktober]

42. Good thing we aren't stupid enough to do either one any more...

Last edited Fri May 29, 2015, 01:00 PM - Edit history (1)

Edit: So you acknowledge that it is stupid and ludicrous but we should go ahead because something even stupider happened 150 years ago....

Have I got that right?

[azmom]

46. Satire. Am I right?

[LeftOfWest]

70. No. They are serious.

No surprise.

[LanternWaste]

51. A creative series of allegations lacking any supporting evidence.

A creative series of allegations lacking any supporting evidence. Trim a few worlds, and you'd have a bumper-sticker.

Unhealthy indeed, part deux...

[Rex]

65. Stuff? Your post is sad and unhealthy. Ah the 'culture of victimhood'...a MRA talking point.

You seem very defensive over a perfectly reasonable approach to handling reparations. Why is that? Don't like the idea of economic justice?

[Oktober]

72. I'm not sure what makes a post 'very defensive'...

... as opposed to just making a rational point.

Beyond that, I've been told that this is a right wing thing or an O'Reilly thing and now it's an MRA thing (which is just odd).

You guys should have a meeting and get your stories straight...

Additionally, it is both adorable and amazing that the reasons you think I'm wrong just happens to fall within the wheelhouse of whatever group you personally dislike but you can't seem to express why...

Anyone simple enough to think that handing out 6.5 trillion dollars worth of checks to some African Americans (in a system TBD ) will bring them into economic and social parity is sorely mistaken and frankly not adult enough to sit at the table when discussing the very serious subject of race relations.

So, if you have some reasoning or even a complete thought, then feel free to mash it out and I'll check your work when I get back...

[bravenak]

73. No. Simply right wing privileged thinking.

[Oktober]

74. Same goes for you...

If you have a why to add to that, I will be glad to check on you later.

[bravenak]

75. Impossible.

I'm black and poor.

[Oktober]

77. I'll still check your work...

I don't discriminate...

[bravenak]

79. Ok, good.

I'll count on it.

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[Bonobo]

9. An illustration which shows the ridiculousness of separating social and economic justice....

Or to paraphrase Obama... it's not social justice and economic justice. It's ONE justice.

[DrDan]

11. the Federal budget is around $3T - do you have a suggestion for where we come up with

the $6.4T you suggest we put into an endowment?

minor point - I know . . . just curious

[Calista241]

12. 6.4T is almost 1/2 our gross GDP. n/t

[el_bryanto]

13. Presumably it would be paid out over a period of time. 20 years or something. nt

[DrDan]

18. paid out? Where do we come up with and extra $320B a year so there is something to pay out for 20yrs

[el_bryanto]

23. Well we raise taxes I'm guessing. nt

[yeoman6987]

26. My goodness

Talk about completely forgetting single pay medical, free college and a host of other things. I can't even see raising taxes would be enough to pay this for 20 years.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

36. Or we could just quit having foreign adventures.

Pay to rebuild the strength of our own people, rather than pay to kill other people.

[B2G]

28. Do we only raise taxes on white people? nt

[uponit7771]

32. No, just stop the MIC welfare program

[dumbcat]

69. They're the ones that pay taxes

aren't they?

[LordGlenconner]

45. I'm sure those arguing for this will be happy to open their checkbooks

[DrDan]

48. to the tune of around $1,000 per person per year for 20 years

like that's ever going to happen

[Abouttime]

54. 401k accounts

I read there is around 18 trillion sitting in untaxed 401k accounts, I assume these are owned by wealthy white people. Why not use some of this money for reparations?

[DrDan]

57. these are also owned by non-wealthy white people

not sure I follow the logic that says take away retirement savings of individuals to pay reparations.

and they are not "untaxed" - they are tax-deferred. Taxes will be collected at some point.

[Travis_0004]

58. Yes, lets destroy the retirement of millions of middle class americans.

Also, 401k accounts will be taxed, they just won't be taxed today. So you can raise money, but you harm tax revenue in the future, so you really are not solving anything.

[phil89]

64. Ok but only if they

have personally owned slaves.

[muntrv]

60. Get it from offshore accounts American corporations use to avoid paying taxes.

[99Forever]

16. Good luck with that.

[Starry Messenger]

19. As for "where does the money come from?"

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery/

Several "respectable" and still existing corporations got their profitable start from slavery. At a cursory glance at the list at that link, I think more than a few probably have $ stashed offshore.

[uponit7771]

33. +1

[Recursion]

20. I still think Coates's piece has yet to be significantly challenged

The case for reparations is real, and America needs to stop running from it.

[gollygee]

22. People talk about justice a lot

but I don't see how we can ever have justice in the US without reparations. There has been this huge amount of injustice over the history of our country, and people made a huge amount of profit off that injustice, and no one has tried to correct it.

[Action_Patrol]

24. What do you propose as reparations?

Who exactly gets paid and by whom?

[gollygee]

25. Right now the proposal

is to have the House study the issue and determine that. I'm not an expert and it would require work to determine that, but just because it isn't immediately obvious how it would happen doesn't mean it isn't necessary and just.

[DrDan]

49. what about the obscene war profits that were made on the backs of draftees working for

basically slave wages.

Ready for some reparation there as well?

[gollygee]

50. "basically slave wages"

People born into slavery and living in slavery, actual slavery where they make nothing and can get bought and sold away from their families forever, and they know their children will be property form birth and can be bought and sold away from them, is different and I think you know that.

[DrDan]

52. of course - but does not the same argument apply to those who were drafted (against their will)

and did the heavy lifting for our wars? Billions were made on their backs.

[gollygee]

55. It could

and you could try working up an argument for that, but the argument for reparations for actual slavery, which is what our country's wealth was built on, is not dependant up on it.

[yeoman6987]

27. I am for helping African Americans more then we are

But who proposed the 1 mule and 40 acres and was it passed by Congress? I think it was a campaign pledge from someone running for office who did not win.

[Recursion]

31. AFAIK it was a lie Sherman spread to get greater defections

I don't think "40 acres and a mule" (or whatever) was ever actually promised to anyone other than by a general who wanted to win a battle.


*shrug*

[uponit7771]

35. It was an order by Sherman during the war which was enforceable, the conservative president after

... Lincoln was shot overturned the reperations th

[Action_Patrol]

37. There is no way on earth for this to ever happen

Something overturned in the 1800s is never going to be rectified when our country can't operate through partisan divide to pass basic budgets.

[PowerToThePeople]

34. Land that was forcefully taken from Native Americans.

Wonder how much we owe them?

[KamaAina]

43. They at least have sovereignty over what little land they have left

which many tribal nations use to run casinos, sell tax-free cigarettes, and in one regrettable instance, store nuclear waste!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

53. Sorta. They're not always treated as if they have sovereignty.

Several tribes in Maine have yanked their reps to the legislature lately for the way they're being treated, and we just had an OP about the Apaches getting screwed out of more sacred land in a 'land swap' thanks to McCain and the Republicans. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, the most recent stories to make it to the media of tribes getting screwed over by state and federal government.

[PETRUS]

84. On that, you are mistaken.

Stop and think. Spend at least an hour, unless your error in logic occurs to you sooner.

[PowerToThePeople]

92. dang, I did not see the response prior to tombstone

may have been "interesting."

[PETRUS]

93. It was kind of goofy.

The poster wrote something along the lines of "you can't take something forcefully if it isn't owned," which I imagine is some sort of reference to the fact the Native Americans had different ideas about property. Of course, if land is truly unowned, anyone can access and use it, but if someone asserts ownership they can (and do) forcefully exclude others - who may have previously lived, hunted, or farmed there. So the poster was full of it. Not to mention the historical record, which involved the US waging war on Native Americans...

[KentuckyWoman]

44. Reparations is not productive in problem solving.

Economic and social justice is doable but not reparations.

If you start handing out cash payments to the offspring of former slaves then I get some money. Oh I could use the money alright. I'm in the bottom 3rd of wage earners and insolvent on paper but I've benefit enough already by being white in America. Those few % of former slave DNA in my body does not make me a victim. Handing me a few bucks in payback for slavery won't make a substantial difference to me or my kin and quite frankly isn't the right thing to do.

On the other side you have blacks in America who are in no way related to former slaves but suffer under the institutionalized racism in this country. Reparations would do nothing to change things for them.

What's needed is far more complicated than throwing some cash at offspring of former slaves. First let's get the cops to quit murdering black people. Let's stop locking up black people for breathing while black or worse daring to be in public. Let's start figuring out how to get kids a decent education so they can dream the big dreams and then give them the opportunity to make it a reality.

It will indeed require a big investment but reparations won't get it done IMHO.

[Psephos]

67. yours is the best post I've read in this thread n/t

[butterfly77]

47. Kicked&Recommended...

[muntrv]

59. Excellent. I'll remember this the next time I hear someone say the following:

"Well the Irish, Jews, and Italians faced discrimination and they made it! Why can't blacks make it?"

[ileus]

62. What about me! I want mine also.

[phil89]

66. What about AA who owned slaves?

will their descendants be penalized?

[KamaAina]

71. Did Black People Own Slaves?

http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.html

One of the most vexing questions in African-American history is whether free African Americans themselves owned slaves. The short answer to this question, as you might suspect, is yes, of course; some free black people in this country bought and sold other black people, and did so at least since 1654, continuing to do so right through the Civil War. For me, the really fascinating questions about black slave-owning are how many black "masters" were involved, how many slaves did they own and why did they own slaves?

The answers to these questions are complex, and historians have been arguing for some time over whether free blacks purchased family members as slaves in order to protect them -- motivated, on the one hand, by benevolence and philanthropy, as historian Carter G. Woodson put it, or whether, on the other hand, they purchased other black people "as an act of exploitation," primarily to exploit their free labor for profit, just as white slave owners did. The evidence shows that, unfortunately, both things are true. The great African-American historian, John Hope Franklin, states this clearly: "The majority of Negro owners of slaves had some personal interest in their property." But, he admits, "There were instances, however, in which free Negroes had a real economic interest in the institution of slavery and held slaves in order to improve their economic status."...

So what do the actual numbers of black slave owners and their slaves tell us? In 1830, the year most carefully studied by Carter G. Woodson, about 13.7 percent (319,599) of the black population was free. Of these, 3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves, out of a total of 2,009,043 slaves owned in the entire United States, so the numbers of slaves owned by black people over all was quite small by comparison with the number owned by white people. In his essay, " 'The Known World' of Free Black Slaveholders," Thomas J. Pressly, using Woodson's statistics, calculated that 54 (or about 1 percent) of these black slave owners in 1830 owned between 20 and 84 slaves; 172 (about 4 percent) owned between 10 to 19 slaves; and 3,550 (about 94 percent) each owned between 1 and 9 slaves. Crucially, 42 percent owned just one slave....

It is reasonable to assume that the 42 percent of the free black slave owners who owned just one slave probably owned a family member to protect that person, as did many of the other black slave owners who owned only slightly larger numbers of slaves. As Woodson put it in 1924's Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."

[Maedhros]

76. Ta-Nehisi Coates made an excellent case for reparations in The Atlantic in June 2014

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

It's long, but very well written and solidly argued.

[NaturalHigh]

86. How do you propose we decide who gets reparations?

Are there accurate enough records to tell who is descended from slaves? You know, there are likely plenty of people who now identify as "white" who had slaves in their family trees.

[KamaAina]

87. Another argument in favor of my endowment proposal.

[StrongBad]

88. Send the bill to Africa

They are the ones who sold the slaves to America.

[KamaAina]

89. To which countries?

Did any of them exist then?

Perhaps we should send the bill to the British Empire.

[StrongBad]

91. Any of them

Doing so would be just as logical as your OP.