Jewish Music Milken Archive American
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The annals of history are stained by an undeniable era of darkness; even though the genocide remains unspoken, trivialized and sanitized – Africans and people of color were the victims of an unimaginable holocaust that spanned 400 years costing among 50 and 100 million lives. Cities and villages were burned and razed, cultural treasures and technical contributions were ravaged and destroyed; a continent was raped – her youth and potential stolen, her resources exploited, a history was erased and a persons refused their intention and worth. Born royalty, princes and princesses were stripped of their birthright, and they with their persons robbed of God’s worthful gifts of freedom, dreams and aspirations. With their dignity stripped, their beauty and worth denied, and families cruelly torn apart, a proud people were made castaways in hostile, alien lands and scaled down to material property to labor and toil by an unenlightened society. Bound in chains, an innocent humans were stuffed in squalid ship holes to die of hunger and sickness, to drown in ferocious storms or to survive to live an existence of degradation and hell…[1] When Union forces captured the South in 1865 and put a formal end to slavery and it is cruel and degrading practices, President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and the federal government concentered on restitution and reconstruction. The earliest reparations plan offered each freed slave 40 acres of land and a mule to work this land. Under the auspices of this plan, General William Sherman (1820-1891) “set apart tracts of land in the sea islands around Charleston, SC”[2] totally for freed slaves. Within a short time, with regards to “40,000 freed slaves [had been] settled on 400,000 acres in Georgia and South Carolina.”[3] However, when President Lincoln was assassinated, his successor, Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), a southerner from North Carolina, rescinded the federal government’s promise and reversed the reparations program. Former slaves were then forced to leave from their new lands that reverted back to white ownership. Despite Johnson’s opposition, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) made a feeble try in 1867 proposing an not successful bill that again called for spreading land to freed slaves. Ten years later, when reconstruction ended followed by the passage of repressive, restrictive laws (e.g. Jim Crow) and the formation of white terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the south, plans to address “the atrocities of slavery” and compensate it is victims were forgotten. Afterwards, African-Americans saw little justice, were refused their constitutional rights, and subjected to terrorism (e.g. the entire town of Rosewood, FL was destroyed in January 1923 by white mobs while local officials sworn to uphold the law watched and even participated, leaving up to 80 black men, women, and children dead) and illegal lynching for closely 100 years until the Civil Rights motion of the 1950s and 1960s at long last liberated them. By the time Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” was imposed through force, four million Africans and their descendants had been enslaved in the U.S. and it is colonies from 1619 to 1865, which played an integral role in leading to and accelerating America’s rise in getting the “most prosperous country.” With this fact, the initial promise imposed by General Sherman, calculations of the “sum total of the worth of all the Black labor stolen through means of slavery, segregation, and contemporary discrimination” ranging from $5 to $24 trillion, and estimates of the original plots given to and then stolen from freed slaves being valued at with regards to $1.5 million each,[4] the time for slave reparations is past overdue when the conception of “unjust enrichment” is pursued as advocated by Randall Robinson, the author of “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks.” Accordingly, in spite of numerous obstacles, including legal and low help amid whites, the slavery reparations motion has been revived and is “gaining momentum.”[5] In 1989, Congressman John Conyers (b. 1929) introduced H.R. 40 “to thoroughly question the effects [that slavery and it is remnants –] Jim Crow have had on African-Americans since emancipation,”[6] which to date lacks the necessary aid required for passage. Next in 2000, based on careful exploration by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann (b. 1965), an Adjunct Professor of Law at Southern New England School of Law, who ran into proof that Aetna wrote “policies on the lives of enslaved Africans with slave owners as the beneficiaries,” the company issued an “unprecedented apology” giving birth to the “corporate restitution movement.”[7] By 2002, nine lawsuits had been filed, the most noteworthy in the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, NY versus FleetBoston Financial, CSX (a major railways firm) and Aetna for direct involvement in the slave trade. Currently cases are pending “against 20 companies from the banking, insurance, textile, railroad, and tobacco industries.” At the same time, California and twelve other states have enacted disclosure laws necessitating insurance companies doing business within their boundaries to disclose “their role in slavery,” while boycotts are being staged versus firms named in the Farmer-Paellmann litigation that are challenging restitution demands.[8] Despite critics, the case for slavery reparations is convincing and strong: The disparity among African Americans and Whites ($6000 vs. $88,000 net worth) would have been significantly littler had President Johnson not rescinded Lincoln’s firstborn promise or if the 1867 Reparations bill would have passed giving freed slaves “an economic foothold before waves of European immigrants poured into the U.S. for the duration of the latter decades of the 1800s.[9] The United States has already given land away in it is 230-year history. Approximately 246 million acres of “productive” land was given to when it comes to 1.5 million persons through the Homestead Act. Ironically out of the 1.5 million beneficiaries that included a good deal of white immigrants, there were only 4000 native African Americans. Internationally, land has also been awarded to pay victims of injustices. The most noteworthy example is the creation of Israel, which has benefited innumerable Holocaust (1938-1945) victims and their families. Precedents likewise subsist for monetary payments to victims of injustices. Since 1952, the German government and corporations (along with those of Austria and Switzerland, to name others) have salaried more than $120 billion to fund early Israeli projects and recompense Holocaust survivors. Presently with regards to 120,000 Holocaust survivors (once when it comes to 275,000) are still receiving lifetime reparation payments. At the same time, “Japanese-Americans interned for the duration of World War II are receiving reparation for their loss of property and liberty for the duration of that period” after filing a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which “waives the government’s ‘sovereign immunity’ in a good deal of situations,”[10] and American Indian tribes have and proceed to receive compensation for “lands ceded to the U.S. by them in respective treaties.”[11] Many ask, “Would reparations for slavery be just?”[12] arguing that the exercise was in the first place legal, “[n]ot a single person directly affected by slavery remains alive,”[13] the cost of tracing lineages to slaves would be unbearable, the routine next to impossible, “no one alive today owned slaves,” and that “payments based on race alone would be perceived… as a monstrous injustice… setting back race relations”[14] without healing “the ills of the black community.”[15] Considering that, while each slave and his/her direct family are deceased, African Americans continued to suffer disproportionately from segregation, discrimination, and barbaric attacks into the late 20th century, and at times carry on to be the victims of bias (e.g. racial profiling when it comes to jobs, shopping, law enforcement and voting in spite of equivalent prospect and equivalent shelter laws and the 1964 Civil Rights Act), stay disproportionately disenfranchised when it comes to net worth and home ownership and still suffer from a sense of a lack of self-worth versus today’s black immigrants, slavery reparations are not only just but necessary. Holocaust reparations proceed to be paid even though the genocide that murdered more than 7 million, predominantly Jews along with opponents of Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) regime and other “non-Aryans” (persons with fair-skin, light hair, and blue eyes), was legal under the democratically elected Third Reich (1933-1945) government. Thus arguments that corporations will have to not be punished for “legal” acts are baseless. In reality, slavery was as morally repugnant as the Holocaust and “corporations that benefited from staling people, from stealing labor, from forced breeding, from torture, from committing a good deal of dreadful acts,” in the words of Farmer-Paellmann “should [not] be capable to hold onto pluses they acquired through such exceptionally bad or displeasing acts.”[16] Back in 1999, more than 50 years after the end of the Holocaust, Jewish groups seeking at least $20 billion in new reparations called a $3.3 billion offer made by a German delegation representing the country’s government and corporations “disgusting.” They later consorted on a $5.2 billion “Nazi slave [compensation] fund” that was approved by the German Parliament in 2000. However, while these negotiations were being held, “the World Council of Orthodox Jewish Communities filed a[nother] lawsuit in the U.S. versus Deutsche Bank, Germany’s second-largest bank, alleging that it furnished and profited from Nazi atrocities.”[17] Based on these two cases alone, the passage of time and existent “legalities” of the prevailing era, are beside the point when it comes to redressing inhuman acts like the Holocaust and slavery if justice is to be served. “Slavery harmed slaves and thus, indirectly, their descendants.”[18] Furthermore, as there is no statute of limitations when it comes to the Holocaust, it may also be argued that none ought to subsist when it comes to slavery specially since “African Americans were not permitted access to the courts in any significant way – even long after the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was passed [in December 1865].” Also, consistent with California’s legislation that revised existent statutes of limitations to make sure that “certain Holocaust suits would not be time-barred,”[19] legislation may likewise provide extensions to African Americans so as not to perpetuate past injustices that were each bit as evil as those devoted by the Third Reich. Therefore, arguments that slavery reparations are illogical and “that tax dollars [and corporate holdings] must not be used for [this] compensation”[20] are evenly as “disgusting.” Per Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968), the only practical route is for “all citizens [to] engage as full players in a dialog examining what is the cost of repairing our society to make it evenly accessible to everyone”[21] rather than dismissing and denying the need for past due reparations to the African American community. In addition, the commentary offered for the duration of the 1999 Holocaust compensation fight with regards to monetary payments is as suitable to slavery reparations as it was for the duration of these negotiations when it was stated, “how to quantify this in financial terms is a difficult question… Money itself can not fetch back the dead, nor may it erase the memory of years of forced labor, but those seeking compensation say it may be the best system there is.”[22] While no amount of cash nor steps may redress the sins of slavery, such reparations with a formal national condemnation of and apology for the exercise may fetch justice and healing, boost the self-esteem of African Americans, reduce current racial net worth and private property ownership gaps, improve standards of life for black Americans, and provide them with new prospects that might other than as supposed or expected stay unattainable for generations to come. Although it may be inconceivable to give direct compensation to most slave descendants, each effort ought to be made to locate and recompense those with confirmed direct lineages and to African Americans who had suffered underneath segregation. In addition, slavery reparations funds will have to bestow to black foundations, black scholarships, and black community projects aimed at bettering infrastructure and standards of life, in particular since precedents already subsist for the latter. When Germany begun Holocaust reparations payments, Bonn “funded regarding a third of the total investment in Israel’s electrical system… and almost half the total investment in [Israel’s] railways, [consisting of] diesel engines, cars, tracks, and signaling instrumentation [along with] instrumentation for [agriculture, construction, expanding the country’s] water supply, for oil drilling, and for operating the [country’s] copper mines.”[23] Based on the examples of national corporate and government contributions to Holocaust reparations funds, it is not impractical, nor unfeasible for the governments and corporations of the United States, United Kingdom and other European states that benefited from slavery to make payments to slavery reparations funds. When the United States is considered, galore of the named firms that have directly and/or indirectly benefited from slavery have sufficient sum totals and annual profits while the national government has millions of acres of federal land and holdings to employ for slavery reparations. Furthermore, the federal government could add a line beneath the “Presidential Election Campaign” section that reads “Slavery and Civil Rights Reparations – Check here if you, or your spouse if filing jointly, want $3 to go to this fund” on each federal tax return while states, particularly those in the south that benefited the most from the slave trade and labor, most of which already have contribution lines for causes ranging from breast cancer exploration to wildlife, could likewise add such a line. In conclusion, the African American community and advocates for justice must stand merged and demand slavery reparations as stridently as the Jewish community and advocates for justice have for Holocaust compensation. Both abominations require reparations and redress since they share outstanding correspondings – morally repugnant brutal treatment and forced labor considered legal in their respective times underneath ruling governments that perpetrated and encouraged them, and each has cost millions of lives. As the BBC states in “The long fight for Holocaust compensation” reparations are “particularly pertinent for a generation that has little direct memory of the Holocaust [since these financial payments are] akin to acknowledging the horrors of the past and the obligation of the present generation for ensuring that it does not take place again” such payments are evenly applicable for the past exercise of slavery. In the exact and eloquent words of Kimberley Jane Wilson, “American slavery was a sin… The principles of liberty, justice and equality didn’t implement to the millions of Africans brought to America versus their will. Our history is full of racial ironies. When Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) wrote, ‘All men are developed equal,’ he owned 187 slaves. Patrick Henry (1736-1799) owned over 90 slaves when he shouted the widely known and esteemed words, ‘Give me liberty or give me death!’ Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) fought the Confederacy, but didn’t free his own slaves until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Even after slavery ended, America – the beacon of freedom to humans all over the world – still treated black Americans with indignity and, on occasion, savage cruelty.”[24] Accordingly the long wait and a lot of denials must end so that accruing damages may be mitigated and healing may begin. Slavery reparations ought to be made as soon as possible to establish more outstanding unity with bettered standards of life for all, including African Americans. Only then may racism, even if predominantly de facto in nature, be extinguished for once and for all. __________ [1] William Sutherland. The Unspoken Holocaust. The International Who’s Who In Poetry. (The International Library of Poetry. Owings Mills, MD 2004) 3. [2] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery [3] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery [4] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. [http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617] [5] Making Amends: Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery. NPR. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010827.reparations.html [6] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. [http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617] [7] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery [8] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery [9] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. [http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617] [10] Anthony J. Sebok. Should Claims Based On African-American Slavery Be Litigated In The Courts? And If So, How? FindLaw. 4 December 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001204.html [11] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery [12] Would Reparations for Slavery be Just? The Claremont Institute. 5 May 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.claremont.org/writings/020505erler.html [13] Even if Millions Rally on the Mall, Reparations Won’t Heal Black America. Project 21 Press Release. 15 August 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html [14] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html [15] Even if Millions Rally on the Mall, Reparations Won’t Heal Black America. Project 21 Press Release. 15 August 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html [16] Peter Viles. Suit seeks billions in slave reparations. CNN.com. 27 March 2002. 16 September 2006. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/26/slavery.reparations [17] World: Europe Nazi slave offer ‘disgusting.’ BBC News. 7 October 1999. 12 September 2006. [http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/468248.stm] [18] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html [19] Anthony J. Sebok. Should Claims Based On African-American Slavery Be Litigated In The Courts? And If So, How? FindLaw. 4 December 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001204.html [20] Making Amends: Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery. NPR. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010827.reparations.html [21] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html [22] The long fight for Holocaust compensation. BBC News. 26 January 2000. 12 September 2006. [http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/619896.stm] [23] Norman G. Finkelstein. Lessons of Holocaust Compensation. 2001. 12 September 2006. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=14 [24] Kimberley Jane Wilson. Reparations, Anyone? Project 21 New Visions Commentary. August 2001. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVWilsonReparations801.html _______________ Additional Sources: $5bn Nazi slave fund agreed.’ BBC News. 14 December 1999. 12 September 2006. [http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/565116.stm] Anthony J. Sebok. A New Dream Team Intends To Seek Reparations For Slavery Part I FindLaw. 20 November 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001120.html German Parliament Passes Nazi Holocaust Compensation Bill. People’s Daily. 7 July 2000. 12 September 2006. http://english.people.com.cn/english/200007/07/eng20000707_44925.html Holocaust reparations. Wikipedia. 25 May 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_reparations Sara R. Parsowith. Austria begins Holocaust compensation process. Jurist. 16 December 2005. 16 September 2006. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/12/austria-begins-holocaust-compensation.php |
