“No reparations for slavery
February is Black History Month, and the demand for reparations to compensate for the worst chapter in black American history—slavery—is being heard more insistently than ever...
Reparations for slavery is [sic] a dreadful idea—-illogical, unjust, and certain to do far more harm than good. But in a legal system that can free O. J. Simpson and pay millions to a woman who spilled coffee on herself, those are not necessarily fatal flaws...
But the uncomfortable truth is that every American is an indirect beneficiary of slavery. ‘If you add up all the income black Americans earn and consider us [!] as a separate nation, we’d be the 13th or 14th richest nation’ on earth, says Walter Williams, a George Mason University economist. ‘Blacks have benefited from slavery, because we have far greater freedom and far higher incomes than we could ever find in Africa.’...
Keith Ritchburg makes a related point in ‘Out of America,’ the memoir he wrote after three years of covering Africa for the Washington Post. Africa is nightmarish, he concluded—a land of cruelty, disease, dictatorship, and death. As a black American, he condemns the slave trade that kidnapped his ancestor and shipped him west in chains. But he also knows that slavery made his good American life possible. He is pained whenever he sees yet another scene of modern Africa in misery. ‘But most of all,’ he writes, ‘I think: Thank God my ancestors got out, because, now, I am not one of them.’...”
The Globe doesn't give free access to its archives, so I can't give a web address to the original article.
----- Original Message ----- From: Lisa & Ian Murray <seamus at accessone.com> To: Lbo-Talk at Lists. Panix. Com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 12:53 AM Subject: Reparations Conference
>
>
>Saturday, Feb. 24, 2001
>
>Black Activists Discuss Reparations
>
>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) _ Black Americans seeking reparations for the
>enslavement
>of their ancestors are looking for more than money, one man contributing to
>a
>government study said Friday..
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com