Lawmakers have been advocating for a federal effort to study slavery reparations for more than 30 years now - to no avail.īut since the widespread protests last year against racial injustice and the inequalities laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic, the debate has taken on a new urgency. And finally, that if t.Slavery reparations are back in the national spotlight.Ī House Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing this week to discuss establishing a federal commission that would explore how the US government might compensate the descendants of enslaved Americans.Īnd though the White House press secretary declined to say whether President Joe Biden would sign legislation to develop reparations for slavery, she did say he supported a study on the matter. That if the government were going to give money to every descendent of every slave that remains alive, that the government would go completely bankrupt - quickly. There are members of other ethnic groups who have come to this country and have made (or lost) their way under their own power, and by their own actions. Yet all the more rational are doing is to point out truths: there are no American slaves left alive today. They are told that they have forgotten who they are and that they only want to help the 'White Devils' keep the black man down.

Some have gone as far as to set up scams where they promise to go together to create a massive class action lawsuit to force the government to 'enforce their own promise,' if only you were to pay in $49.95 or some other fee, 'to help defray legal costs.' When more rational minds step into the debate to point out a number of fallacies, they are derided as sellouts, 'Uncle Toms,' 'Oreos,' and far worse names. On talk shows from coast to coast, people attempt to sell the sizzle of a payment in the form of land or money or both to the 'oppressed black man' in America.

Yet the misconception of a 'promise' by the government to give forty acres of land to every emancipated slave persists today. The notion was vetoed more than once by then President Andrew Johnson.

This was a notion championed by General William Sherman after the Civil War. Both Robinson and Conyers try to hang their hat on the concept of '40 Acres and a Mule,' which is the idea of giving each freed slave forty acres of land and a mule with which to plow it after the abolition of slavery in the late 19th Century. Conyers has repeatedly attempted to get legislation put into play that would set the stage for reparative payments to the descendants of slaves in the US. Randall Robinson is the author of 'The Debt: What America Owes To Blacks,' where he lays out his case for government payments to black Americans.

The debt what america owes to blacks