The issue of reparations has been a prevalent subject for some time in our society. Dorothy Tillman introduced a resolution in the Chicago City Council asking that African Americans be compensated by the federal government for the four hundred years their ancestors spent as slaves. There are as many cons as there are pros regarding this subject. My judgment on this matter is no.
I believe that the descendants of former slaves should not receive reparations from the federal government. As described in the Chicago newsletter, there are no living slaves to receive reparations. Slavery did occur in the United States, this cannot be refuted, but it occurred long enough ago that no living person today was part of it personally. Many people alive today who have had slavery in their ancestry are third generation and beyond. One might argue that this is a method of forgetting or refusing to come to grips with the past, but I would say that not paying reparations is the way of progression. .
Additionally brought up in the Chicago newsletter is that if the federal government began compensating descendants of former slaves for the injustice done to their ancestors, what's to stop nearly all nationalities of people who have had injustices done to their ancestors from proposing reparations of their own. Can we give Arkansas and Missouri and more than half of the land in the U.S. back to the Chepoussa, Apache, Hopi, and other Native America tribes? Or give the states of Texas, New Mexico, and California back to Mexico? By this logic, if the federal government compensates African Americans, shouldn't these African Americans, cooperatively with Middle Eastern Nations, compensate the Jews for enslaving them 2,000 years ago in the time of Pharaoh's and Pyramids?.
Also discussed in the newsletter is the 777 trillion dollar compensation from all white nations that participated in and benefited from slavery, proposed by the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission.
The final tally ended up being an extra $25,000,000,000 plus some other costs for a grand total of $32,500,000,000 to be paid by 1963.(5) This amount of reperations was unheard of, it was ridiculous, there was no way Germany could ever pay it off. ... The reperation payments coupled with the stock market crash and depression in the twenties totally changed Germany. ...
Woodrow Wilson President Woodrow Wilson regarded himself as the personal representative of the people. "No one but the President," he said, "seems to be expected ... to look out for the general interests of the country"(Internet 1). He developed a program of progressive reform and asserted i...