Should African Americans Recieve Reparations For Slavery

Reparations aren't a financial aid, but the paying of an owed debt. The con seems to look at the debate from an individual standpoint. The former slave masters are deceased; however the governments that sanctioned, profited, and grew off slavery continue to thrive today. The safety nets you mentioned are nothing more then a tool to keep those on the fringes of society from perishing. They're meant to sustain the unfortunate; not elevate them. Besides they pale in comparison to the wealth acquired from the free labor provided from slavery. Reparations would give African Americans a way to build a foundation for a successful community. It will help them gain independence, and provide a way to get off these handouts.. 1. Prior Reparations The examples of other reparations are extremely relevant; they set a precedence for what .should be done when a civilization ogresses another civilization or group of people. The United States supported West Germany's reparations to Israel. The U.S also paid reparations to both Native Americans and the Japanese held in internment camps. The con brought up the point that Israel is located around enemy states. This is of no consequence in this argument, because the reparations were paid, not to help secure Israel's borders, but as retribution for the atrocities committed during WW2. Since the examples of reparations were for the use of setting a precedent; the question of whether or not they were good or not makes no difference. However in all the for mentioned cases the receivers of the reparations benefited from them. The country of Israel was on the brink of collapse with both austerity and high unemployment. The reparations served as a kick starter for their nation. Native Americans were robbed of land, life, and liberty. The reparations helped them keep some since of identity, and independence from their oppressors. The con has to show either how the precedence set by the examples of U.S supporting or directly dishing out reparations are irrelevant; or what makes the African American case different from the Jews, Native Americans, or Japanese. 2. Slave Economy In this country corporations are looked at as people. If a company made its first profits from the many businesses associated with slavery, then used this money to invest in other ventures; the slave trade is still the original source of their wealth. It doesn't matter if the people currently in the corporations owned slaves or not; the very foundation of the business was built on slave labor. http://occupywallstreet.net... If a business admits to profiting off slavery at one time and still exists today its obvious that their current fortune, in some way is connected to slave labor. Cotton provided for over half of US export earnings. The US supplied 70% of the worlds cotton. Today total international trade of cotton is estimated at $12 billion. The North also profited from slave labor. They developed a number of business to complement the South, like textile factories, insurance companies, shippers, and cotton brokers. In fact New York was one of the only northern states against the freeing of slaves. The 350 years slavery existed were New York's most profitable in it's history. The industrial revolution and international trade were built on the backs of slave labor. "Britain, the most powerful nation in the world, relied on slave-produced American cotton for over 80 per cent of its essential industrial raw material. English textile mills accounted for 40 percent of Britain"s exports. One-fifth of Britain"s twenty-two million people were directly or indirectly involved with cotton textiles." http://faculty.weber.edu... http://www.pbs.org... The crime of slavery accounted for the economic rise in the U.S and Great Britain. Without slave labor the so-called new world wouldn't have been able to be colonized. The triangle trade, from Europe to Africa to the Americas, was the first international trade route and served as the basis for modern day capitalism. Again individual circumstances are of no consequence in this debate. You nor your Polish father would directly be paying reparations. However the country that your father immigrated to because of its wealth and prosperity, provided in part by the trade of cotton and free labor of slaves, will be the one's paying. 3. Current conditions It's incorrect to compare human beings to computers. The problems of humans are much more complicated then an incompatible key board and desktop. I'll give an example with animals to show how I see the problems of modern conditions for African Americans. Say we capture a pride of lions. Keep them in captivity for 5 generations. Manipulate their family structure. Feed them. Work them. By all means domesticate them. Then you take the lions and put them in the wild. Then block their access to all the best resources for another three generations. Would you expect these lions to flourish? And then blame them when they don't? What we are witnessing in African American society is something that has never been recorded in human history: post traumatic slave syndrome. PTSS is an explanatory theory which posits that centuries of slavery in the United States, followed by systemic and structural racism and oppression, have resulted in multigenerational maladaptive behaviors, which originated as survival strategies. The syndrome continues because children whose parents suffer from PTSS will often be indoctrinated into the same behaviors, long after the behaviors have lost their contextual effectiveness. http://en.wikipedia.org... Lets take some specific problems with the African American communities as examples. Single mothers have been touted as the single biggest impediment to African American progress. 70% of African American children are born to single mothers. Its a very curious fact; especially when you see that no where in Africa (except South Africa) are more than 30% of the kids born to single mothers. http://worldfamilymap.org... This suggests, contrary to popular belief, that men abandoning their families is a learned trait. The theory is the family structure was ruined by centuries of slavery. African Americans are 30% more likely to die from heart disease than their white counterparts. http://millionhearts.hhs.gov... This has been attributed to their diets which still consists of the traditional food from slavery. http://www.reuters.com... African Americans lost their real names and language; which erased their identity and culture as a people. African Americans were stolen from their homes in Africa and brought here to America. This in itself is a negative effect still seen today from slavery. African Americans are forced to live and compete in a society in which their former slave masters own and control the means of production, the land, the education system, and the political system. African Americans still suffer psychologically, sociologically, and economically from slavery. Reparations wont cure all the ills facing the African American population, but it is deserved, and will help them gain independence from their former slave masters.