I have a couple Georgetown alumni in the circle. Here is what Arrias has to say about that.
– Vic
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Reparations
I’ve read that students at my alma mater are pushing the school to provide reparations to descendants of slaves the school owned – and sold – 180 years ago.
Slavery was, and is, a horrible institution. Lincoln was right when he noted: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.”
Several current Democratic Party candidates for president have advocated for reparations, and one – Cory Booker – has introduced legislation in the Senate (another bill has already been introduced in the House) – to study the question in detail.
But, as a reading of the two bills makes clear, the question of reparations remains exceptionally vague: what would be given? Who would receive it? How would we pay? And for how long? (Note that Senator Booker’s bill considers not simply the issue of slavery, but also the treatment of black Americans since.)
Obviously, reparations would be money, there being no other means to solve the problem – the Government can’t give away several acres of farmland to every family, for example. Further, without an impossibly long and tortuous – and almost certainly un-Constitutional – legal process, individuals couldn’t be individually taxed. Someone whose great-great-great-grandfather owned a slave, couldn’t be specifically fined without corrupting the entire framework of law itself. If your assets can be seized for what someone did – legally – 200 years ago, then nothing is safe and secure, there are no property rights, and no rights, remaining under the law. So, payment will come out of the general funds of the US government.
What about those whose ancestors died in the Civil War? Some 700,000 were killed in the war, and more than 1 million were wounded. If your ancestor fought to end slavery should you receive some consideration for their sacrifice? And what of the Democratic Party? It spent generations defending slavery, well after the end of the Civil War, in fact. Should the Democratic Party be held more culpable?
And exactly who would receive reparations. Would only proven descendants of slaves be eligible? Would we insist on blood tests? What would be necessary? 1/32nd? 1/64th? 1/128th?
Or should all African-Americans be eligible? What if you’re descended from a family that sold others into slavery in West Africa? What if your family came to the US after the Civil War? And what about blacks born after the reparations law was passed? Would they continue to receive reparations? How long would this continue?
And how much should anyone receive? In Louisiana in 1850 a slave sold for as much as $100, a bit less than half of per capita income. Would that be appropriate: half of current per capita income per reparation? Current per capita income is nearly $60,000. So, $30,000 for 13.4% of the population (2010 census data) or 43,550,000, works out to a total bill of $1.3 trillion, assuming a one-time payment.
Even if there were a general consensus on the notion of reparations – which there most definitely isn’t, it’s clear that none of these specific issues would be easily solved, or perhaps ever solved.
But there is a far more serious issue, one that Senator Booker seems to have missed: reparations, as has been pointed out by others, would not bring justice to anyone for what happened 170 years ago.
In the end, reparations – “compensation for loss” – would leave the vast majority bitter. If there’s a problem with racism in this country now, the payment of reparations would exacerbate that problem into a national crisis. In the movie Kingdom of Heaven there’s an interesting comment by the knight as he awaits the assault on Jerusalem: “We fight over an offense we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended.”
I would submit that that is how reparations would be viewed by many. (Note that the last US slave died in 1937.) Despite the tortured definitions used by many in the media, most Americans are not, and more importantly, do not consider themselves to be racist.
But making them pay reparations will be exactly equal to telling them that they’ll be considered as such from hereon in. Such a move might feel good to some on the far left. But the consequences would be disastrous. Let’s hope they rethink this idea before it goes too far.
Copyright 2019 Arrias
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