Slave Descendants Try to Revive Lawsuit

One way that reparations could go to the community: Monies could be used for every African American family to get genetically tested to find out what nationality, area, or tribe they originally descend from.

Lineage is an aspect of self knowledge that most people take for granted, and the fact of the matter is, most African Americans had that knowledge stolen from them a long time ago.

Edit to add:

Everyone here wants to mention their Irish, Spanish, or "viking" heritage or whatever....now try to imagine, for just one second... having no idea where you came from, other than the continent.

[edit on 28-9-2006 by phoenixhasrisin]

OK, think of it like this..

Your ancestors where slaves. Darn, that sucks. Tough luck for them, wish it coulda been better but hey, history right?

Now, lets assume us whites never dragged you folks over here, lets assume we left your tribes alone...

As of right now in 2006 you would be sitting in Uganda or wherever you came from in a war torn state riddled with violence, rape, civil strife, poverty, disease, and hunger.

Instead, you live in America, slightly better then that I would assume and no one is forcing you to pick cotton any more. So, your great great great great grand daddy picked cotton and now you are a free man and have it better then any native African. Personally, I see that as an improvement then the alternative solution.

EDIT: My bad for being blunt.

[edit on 9/28/2006 by Rockpuck]

Originally posted by donwhite
Observations on Reparations.

A nice attempt at explaining your historical observations.
And since it is well known what your political affiliations are, donwhite, allow me to make an observation: If reparations are to become a valid tool for past inflictions, whether self-induced, or not, then let the payment of reparations start with and come from the pockets of the Democratic Party and those affiliated with them, which opposed freeing the slaves and opposed civil rights legislation.

Btw, the institution of slavery was around how long before the United States became known as the "New World" or the United States became a nation? Your observation on reparations for those poor unfortunate souls are....?

[edit on 28-9-2006 by Seekerof]

posted by Rockpuck

Your ancestors where slaves. Darn, that sucks. Tough luck for them, Now lets assume us whites never dragged you folks over here, lets assume we left your tribes alone . . As of now in 2006 you would be sitting in Uganda or wherever you came from in a war torn state riddled with violence, rape, civil strife, poverty, disease, and hunger. Instead, you live in America, Personally, I see that as an improvement over the alternative solution. [Edited by Don W]

To most people’s surprise, the living conditions existing in Africa before the 15th century were nearly equal to those existing in rural Europe. Probably ahead of those on the steppes of Asia. The horrid conditions now prevalent in too much of Africa are directly traceable to the 400 years of colonialism by white Europeans.

Yes, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Sudan are sites of human tragedy, but never on a scale before the arrival of white Christian missionaries and white capitalists exploiters. That is the tragedy of Africa. That is the legacy of 4 centuries of wilful and intentional destruction of native culture. Usually led by the missionaries. A trait found mostly in White Europeans and their successors-in-interest. Some historians estimate 300 million Africans have died at the hands of white Europeans and the regimen they imposed. As in Mexico when Cortez was there, happily encouraged by his religion to kill the natives in order to 'save' their souls!

So how does this Christian “alleged non-violent” thing compare to the Islamic thing? Isn’t the real issue which is the more violent? I think the Christians are ahead by several hundred million if you're counting dead bodies. Sorry Rocksalt, but you’re riding the wrong horse with me.



[edit on 9/28/2006 by donwhite]

Originally posted by Rockpuck
OK, think of it like this..

Your ancestors where slaves. Darn, that sucks. Tough luck for them, wish it coulda been better but hey, history right?

Now, lets assume us whites never dragged you folks over here, lets assume we left your tribes alone...

As of right now in 2006 you would be sitting in Uganda or wherever you came from in a war torn state riddled with violence, rape, civil strife, poverty, disease, and hunger.

Instead, you live in America, slightly better then that I would assume and no one is forcing you to pick cotton any more. So, your great great great great grand daddy picked cotton and now you are a free man and have it better then any native African. Personally, I see that as an improvement then the alternative solution.

EDIT: My bad for being blunt.

[edit on 9/28/2006 by Rockpuck]

I have actually had this conversation with a middle aged white man whilst drunk in a pub...that was fun. He mentioned Africa's AIDS rate, the famines, etc, etc. Anyways, Slavery is just one of the effects of European imperialism, the current state of Africa that you, and my drunken pubmate allude to, is also mainly due to European influence.

Why are reparations alright for the Jews, but not for the African Americans? Why does D.C have a national holocaust museum, even though the holocaust did not take place here, and not a national slavery museum? Lest we forget, this country was built on the backs of Blacks!

Originally posted by Rockpuck

As of right now in 2006 you would be sitting in Uganda or wherever you came from in a war torn state riddled with violence, rape, civil strife, poverty, disease, and hunger.

Instead, you live in America, slightly better then that I would assume and no one is forcing you to pick cotton any more. So, your great great great great grand daddy picked cotton and now you are a free man and have it better then any native African. Personally, I see that as an improvement then the alternative solution.

OMG Rock I can't believe that you said that. How can you predict such things? Maybe their lives as well as the countries they came from might have been better? It could have went eiother way but surely thats a crappy thing to say for something like this.

What you could say is that maybe if they were not here we would not have had people like George Washington Carver, Richard Spikes, Dr. Daniel Hale, Andrew Beard or Granville Woods. (There are many other Black inventors and scientists as well) Some of those people were former slaves or decendants of slaves.


Pie

Originally posted by phoenixhasrisin
Why are reparations alright for the Jews, but not for the African Americans? Why does D.C have a national holocaust museum, even though the holocaust did not take place here, and not a national slavery museum?

Dude....there is Martin Luther King Day--a holiday, there is a week taken throughout this nation to commemorate the efforts of African Americans, and then there is Black History Month. Now your hollering and demanding reparations and a national slavery museum? Been around? Try this:
www.usnationalslaverymuseum.org...

Lest we forget, this country was built on the backs of Blacks!

An absolutists viewpoint and assertion, to be certain.
You can take this how you wish, but let me express this to the contrary: This country was built on the "backs" of a myriad of flava's, colors, and ethnic backgrounds: Black slaves, white and black indentured servants, Chinese, Irish, Germans, Native/Indigenous Indians, european whites, etc. Your stuck in a singular time period and definately not looking at the whole or the entirety.

[edit on 28-9-2006 by Seekerof]

Well at least I can try to get a piece of the pie

AT least in my Island the integrity of the heritage of the descendants of the Black slaves is still intact.

because the records kept, the majority of slaves brought by Portuguese and Spain to my Island were from one particular region.

This made possible for them to keep the record of their ancestry and their roots.

Now interesting to point out that the white slave suffer as equal as black slave during their enslavement time.

The same horrors that black slave endured during their sea travels to American, so White slave specially Irish suffered the same horrors.

In my opinion it will be very unfair that only one group should be recognized and given payment for their ancestors suffering while forgetting the others that suffered as equally.

But occurs that is my opinion.

Hmmm I think my ancestors might have been enslaved by the Romans, (I'm part French), why don't I sue Italy? =P =P

Originally posted by Seekerof
Dude....there is Martin Luther King Day--a holiday, and there is a week taken throughout this nation to commemorate the efforts of African Americans, then there is Black History Month. Now your hollering and demanding reparations and a national slavery museum?

Hello Seekerof, long time no speak.

First off, I will not get into Martin Luther King Jr because I do not believe he deserves a national holiday, and I think that subject has been covered here before. I do not know what week you speak of either. As for black history month, that seems like an advertising opportunity for McDonalds, but maybe that is just me.

As for the national slavery museum, I think we need one of those before we need a national holocaust museum, but once again, maybe that is just me.

Tell me something , do you think it would be wrong for African Americans to receive funds to get DNA testing?

An absolutists viewpoint and assertion, to be certain.
You can take this how you wish, but let me express this to the contrary: This country was built on the backs of a myriad of "backs": Black slaves, white and black indentured servants, Chinese, Irish, Germans, Native/Indigenous Indians, european whites, etc. Your stuck in a singular time period and definately not looking at the whole or the entirety.

[edit on 28-9-2006 by Seekerof]

Absolutist perhaps, better than an apologist though.

Seekerof, once again d indentured servants are mentioned, show me where that was not a voluntary agreement? Show me where hundreds of millions of Europeans were taken from their homeland, forced to forget their language, seperated from their kinsman, and forced to work for nothing?

It never happened, and you and I both know that! You can mention past stereotyping of irish, german, or italian immigrants all you want. Irish, German,& Italian immigrants were not completely seperated from society, and did not have to drink from a different faucet. Irish, german, and italian immigrants were not considered 3/5 of a person. Take this how you wish, please spare me your apologetic , faulty analogies.

[edit on 28-9-2006 by phoenixhasrisin]

Originally posted by phoenixhasrisin
Seekerof, once again d indentured servants are mentioned, show me where that was not a voluntary agreement?

Looks like you never read my link. This quote doesn't sound like volunteer workers coming to America and we are talking about children here.

The center of the trade in child-slaves was in the port cities of Britain and Scotland:

"Press gangs in the hire of local merchants roamed the streets, seizing 'by force such boys as seemed proper subjects for the slave trade.' Children were driven in flocks through the town and confined for shipment in barns...So flagrant was the practice that people in the countryside about Aberdeen avoided bringing children into the city for fear they might be stolen; and so widespread was the collusion of merchants, shippers, suppliers and even magistrates that the man who exposed it was forced to recant and run out of town." (Van der Zee, Bound Over, p. 210).

By the way if is any guilty nations that should be sue it should be Portugal and Spain because they were the first one to start the African slave trade to the new world, no America.

The tiny Caribbean island of St. Kitts was home to many Irish slaves during the reign of Oliver Cromwell in the 1600s, as St. Kitts was the property of England and that country's largest sugar producer.

Cromwell shipped some 25,000 Irish people to St. Kitts to work on the sugar plantations, where many died of disease or overwork. Any of the Irish caught trying to escape had the letters FT to denote "Fugitive Traitor" branded into their foreheads. Other common punishments meted out by the English ...findarticles.com...

The above timeline presents the four categories used to explicate the parallels between Americans of African heritage (AAH) and Americans of Irish heritage (AIH). Each group experienced involuntary displacement from their land of origin, oppression by institutionalized systems, discrimination by others in America, and some degree of acceptance.

The dates for these experiences were often different for each group. One significant question to consider is how this difference in time has affected the question of race in America today.www.yale.edu...

and more

Other 19th century commentators also compared conditions of the Irish and enslaved African-Americans. A French traveler to both America and Ireland reported that "I have seen the Indian in his forests and the Negro in his chains, and thought, as I contemplated their pitiable condition, that I saw the very extreme of human wretchedness; but I did not then know the condition of unfortunate Ireland." Indeed, slaves in the United States had longer life expectancy (36 years) than Irish peasants (19 years), and better diets and superior living conditions. There is no need, however, to set up a competition in relative rates of such horrendous suffering, and the aspects in which Blacks were better treated presumably derive from their involuntary status as valuable property rather than from any supposed humanitarianism of their owners. The point is rather the extraordinary oppression of both groups. Irish immigrants to America were referred to as "White [racial slur removed]."www.umich.edu...

Just so everyone knows, these sources are valid educational references.

Semper

[edit on 9/28/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

You can mention the Irish "White [racial slur removed]" all you want...the fact remains, their descendants know their heritage. The descendant of those white [racial slur removed] know exaclty what small island they came from, can African Americans claim the same thing? No they can not!



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[edit on 9/28/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

Lets stay truthful here..

"I"
Never mentioned anything. If you will read correctly, I did not author those studies.

They are studies and information from major universities in direct conflict with the opinion you posted.

Sorry, if you disagree, contact Yale and UMich.

semper

I had nothing to do with slavery, therefore, nothing out of my pocket. I dont care if my great, great, great, great ,great grandfather was a slave trader. Its not on my hands. This is a frivilous lawsuit, plain and simple. I'm not paying a dime, even though I know this lawsuit will be thrown out. You cant hold me responsible for something that happened well before I and many others were born. Therefore, I am not accountable.

Originally posted by ThePieMaN

Originally posted by Rockpuck

As of right now in 2006 you would be sitting in Uganda or wherever you came from in a war torn state riddled with violence, rape, civil strife, poverty, disease, and hunger.

Instead, you live in America, slightly better then that I would assume and no one is forcing you to pick cotton any more. So, your great great great great grand daddy picked cotton and now you are a free man and have it better then any native African. Personally, I see that as an improvement then the alternative solution.

OMG Rock I can't believe that you said that. How can you predict such things? Maybe their lives as well as the countries they came from might have been better? It could have went eiother way but surely thats a crappy thing to say for something like this.

What you could say is that maybe if they were not here we would not have had people like George Washington Carver, Richard Spikes, Dr. Daniel Hale, Andrew Beard or Granville Woods. (There are many other Black inventors and scientists as well) Some of those people were former slaves or decendants of slaves.


Pie

Right on pie. A black dude invented Peanutbutter.

Would life be different in Africa had Europeans not visited and pillaged the continent? ... some people liek to think that before Europeans got there war was non-existant.

Who gave us the slaves? Other Africans.

Indians are the same way, the killed eachother but as soon as whitey got here and kicked everyones ass then it is somehow bad. Like hey, its ok if a indian kills and indian but a white man cant. Doesnt sound fair to me, if black tribes killed and enslaved eachother why not the white man?

You can always say oh but we wouldnt have PB&J with out the black man, but who knows.. maybe a Jew enslaved by the Egyptians would have invented peanut butter 3,000 years ago had he not been a slave. And had access to peanutes of course.

Africa was so far behind the rest of the world as far as technology that no, I think it would still be the wasteland it is today, not at fault of them, because they emerged having no solid foundation, no old kingdoms in which to have national pride to, just tribes and small countries...

But that is politically uncorrect. We do now have peanut butter, but why does that mean I should pay reporations to the black man when my family came over here after the revolutionary war and resided in PA, fought and died at gettysburgh against the south? Which blacks get the money? How do you prove you decend from slaves? How does this end the constant lets feel sorry for the black man because he was a slave mentallity? Every race has been a slave at one point, whites enslaved whites in ancient times, Middle Eastern people had slaves, Jews where slaves.. only difference is they didn't demand money after a few hundred years, that is unique to America.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Whats it matter if it was legal at the time? In germany in the 40's, it was legal to turn jews into piles of corpses, that doesn't mean that one can't sue for reparations.
It was also 'legal' for the japanese to turn american POWs into slave labour, but even FOX News has supportive broadcasts about their getting reparations from the japanese.

Alright...i am a descendant of hispanic people, my roots are from Spain, so I guess I can sue every American for living in the United States which Spaniards discovered...then native American people can sue me to get back the land, then I can sue them back because my roots hail from northern Spain and my great great grandfather was Vasque, a descendant of either Greeks or Celts, nobody knows for certain from where. It is said that some of the Celt tribes, including vikings conquered parts of the U.S.

Oh wait...that's only on my mother's side, on my father's side my family roots are from the Canary Islands, which once long ago was part of Africa... Oh and my great grand mother on my mother's side was Chinese....so i guess I can sue half of the world then huh?.....

Pretty much anyone can find something to sue a government, or another, or the citizens of any country because the history of the world is not a peaceful one.....

This is "STUPID"......

[edit on 28-9-2006 by Muaddib]

phoenixhasrisin, I cannot even empathize with your views, since yo uare so negative to the rest of history and feel that is only African Americans who are owed something. Their own countrymen sold them. Why not sue the ones who sold them in the first place, not the ones who actually did something that was legal at the time.

The fact is that people, other than blacks, were slaves and/or indentured servants, where slavery in North America started.

I am giving the example of Irish because that is my heritage, and my family was poor when they got here, but now we have college graduates. Want to know something funny,

There is no United Irish College Fund, but there is one United Negroes.
I wonder what would happen if I applied to Bethune-Cookman college?
Can I call the NAACP if I feel that someone is racist, no, but black person can call the ACLU..

Do you see the pattern here. I remember applying for a job at the psot office, and it was me, a black male, a hispanic male, and 3 black women. The black guy looked at me and said "I guess we aren't getting hired, and laughed" , because he knows abour preferential hiring.


Most black people I know have come from single or torn homes, but then again so have most of the white people I know. The ones who bettered themselves did, and they hate the ones that states, 'you owe me something'. The only thing that is owed to you at birth is your citizenship, and that is it. It is up to you, and you alone, to make the correct choices.

Great post Esdad. I wish I could count how many times racial slurs where thrown at me directly or people I was with in highschool.. there are alot of double standards and like you said with the NAACP I personally do not see why it is needed, no other race gets that treatment. I would like to start thea group that only allows white people, gives money to white people to go to white schools, and of course free representation for whites. Oh.. thats right.. that would be racist. I have not seen a good argument as to WHY we owe anyone money? What about modern day slaves? Your Nikes, Bling-Bling, FUBU shirts, fake gold teeth.. all made in CHINA.. where CHILDREN work for pennies a day. Its a cycle we go through in humanity all through history.. there will always be an underdog.

This is very sad to me.

Fine. Don't pay reparations. Let's just make sure that if any decendants of the criminals, de-commissioned redcoats and outcasts who had to go through indentured servitude do not earn one red cent from the rest of us. These decendants from the people of ill repute also don't deserve the money because of the crimes they committed in Britain and continued to commit in America.


[edit on 28-9-2006 by ceci2006]