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> I’m an immigrant, and I’ll never stand for any kind of reparations for descendants of former slaves. Invariably this will come out of tax dollars to which I’m

> I’m an immigrant, and I’ll never stand for any kind of reparations for descendants of former slaves. Invariably this will come out of tax dollars to which I’m contributing by way of income tax. Why should I be charged for wrongs - however horrible - in which neither myself nor my ancestors were involved? Why should you be a contributor to the wrongs of this country's past? Simple, because you are a member/resident of this country, and this country benefits from them. I could be wrong, but I don't see any complaints about paying of any war debt accrued by the US from entering WW II or the Vietnam war, but you also pay towards that. It's accepted that current us citizens who benefit from the previous actions of the country, also have responsiblity for the previous decisions of the country. An enormous part of the reason why this country is so financially successful is because of slavery and stealing wages for so long. That's why the US was an agricultural powerhouse, that's why the north industrialized so quickly, that's why we became a major economic power in the 20th century. And even you yourself admit you see all of those benefits, and reap them. You came to this country presumably for those exact reasons. You're as you say an immigrant, and the reason you chose to come here, and not stay where you were was because of exactly the benefits this country accrued by leaning heavily on slavery during it's critical period. The fact you had negative experiences while here (and I'm sorry you did), doesn't invalidate or outweigh the fact that you came here to benefit from America's benefits, and that you have benefited from them. American education does an incredibly poor job of covering the financial windfall of slaver in the US. And (extremely reasonably) people from other countries who move here never learned about it back home. To give some perspective, the value of "human capital" held as chattel slaves, was more valuable than all industrial and transportation capital in the entire country.[1] That's how much value was present. I'd highly recommend anyone who hasn't really read about slavery to really read about it. Unfortunately there was an intentional concerted effort in the middle of last century to downplay the scope and impact of slavery in the US and a lot of those vestiges are present because it was very successful. There is way more here than the simplistic arguments that are made online in chat forums. I'd recommend looking into it. While not ideal, this essay is a decent place to start if you're curious. [2] [1] - https://slate.com/business/2013/07/america-s-slave-wealth.html https://slate.com/business/2013/07/america-s-slave-wealth.ht... [2] - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas...

zozbot234 6y ago
Slavery was not in the least a contribution to "financial success". It was very much a dysfunctional and failing system, for reasons that were made clear even by Adam Smith, who wrote in 1776 - and that are agreed upon by modern economists. What it did was create a huge unfair advantage for the few who could afford to "own" someone who had been enslaved - but that never translated to region-wide progress. Indeed, the part of the U.S. where slavery was widespread is still the most unequal today and the one with the most uninclusive, regressive, extractive culture and institutions (despite a very real change in outlook during the 1980s), and that's no coincidence. 'Slavery made economic sense' is a narrative that, until recently, you would only have heard from the likes of "Black-Israelite" conspiracy peddlers. Let's not give credence to such unscientific and misleading claims.
- sudosteph 6y ago
  I don't think that interpretation of history is quite so strong, for a few reasons. While buying enough slaves to run a plantation was extremely expensive - buying a single slave to have for household purposes was not unobtainable or rare at all. Since slave status was inherited and the "one-drop" rule ensured it tended to get inherited, it was extremely common for less-financially well-off slave owners to simply rape an enslaved woman (multiple times over her lifetime) and then to either sell his mixed children, or commonly - to gift them as slaves to his white children when they come of age. This is a hugely valuable financial advantage for those who inherit a slave, and having a slave made them more valuable as a spouse as well, meaning they could increase their wealth more by marrying better than they could have without a slave. Nearly every white person from the south, has a family member who owned a slave - even if you would never guess by their economic status today. I'm from the south myself, and even though my great-grandparents were dirt poor in the mountains, I don't doubt someone somewhere back in time owned a slave. It really was just so common that the probability is a near certainty. Also, when slavery was at it's height, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia were far more prosperous regions than they eventually became post-civil war. The south in general was more financially well-off during the time of slavery than it has been since - and you can read primary sources from the time and region saying as much. I can point you towards primary sources from elected officials of the time period saying as much - that they knew slavery was evil, but they also knew it was the source of economic and social stability that they enjoyed. The institution of slavery itself did not directly lead to economic fall of the southern states - rather it was the tensions from having a nation with both slaveholding states and non-slaveholding states, and the south's extremely strong incentive to protect their advantageous status even at the cost of war. When the war did happen, the civil-war-related destruction that happened in the south (ie, the burning of Atlanta), had an equally dramatic impact and the outcome that we see today. Decades of slavery were certainly impactful, but so were the effects of the civil war, reconstruction, the great migration, and later cycles of industrialization, which tended to reach the south last due to network effects (there was no impetus to branch out from the skilled workers available up north... until unions took hold at least). All of those effects are more recent, and more relevant to the economic conditions today. Additionally, the cultural regressiveness you speak of is closely tied to the Great Awakening and the particularly conservative religious denominations that became regionally dominant - and notably, these denominations had, and still have strong pull on southern white and black communities alike. The south actually had a reputation for being quite a fun and "sinful" place before that. My own state, NC, founded the first public university in the world (UNC Chapel Hill) - a paradoxically very progressive institution - despite being founded by slavers during a period of widespread slavery. So understanding inequality and culture that exists in South, both now and then, and today is a complex thing. I would strongly caution trying to reduce it down that completely.

zozbot234 6y ago

Slavery was not in the least a contribution to "financial success". It was very much a dysfunctional and failing system, for reasons that were made clear even by Adam Smith, who wrote in 1776 - and that are agreed upon by modern economists. What it did was create a huge unfair advantage for the few who could afford to "own" someone who had been enslaved - but that never translated to region-wide progress. Indeed, the part of the U.S. where slavery was widespread is still the most unequal today and the one with the most uninclusive, regressive, extractive culture and institutions (despite a very real change in outlook during the 1980s), and that's no coincidence. 'Slavery made economic sense' is a narrative that, until recently, you would only have heard from the likes of "Black-Israelite" conspiracy peddlers. Let's not give credence to such unscientific and misleading claims.

sudosteph 6y ago
I don't think that interpretation of history is quite so strong, for a few reasons. While buying enough slaves to run a plantation was extremely expensive - buying a single slave to have for household purposes was not unobtainable or rare at all. Since slave status was inherited and the "one-drop" rule ensured it tended to get inherited, it was extremely common for less-financially well-off slave owners to simply rape an enslaved woman (multiple times over her lifetime) and then to either sell his mixed children, or commonly - to gift them as slaves to his white children when they come of age. This is a hugely valuable financial advantage for those who inherit a slave, and having a slave made them more valuable as a spouse as well, meaning they could increase their wealth more by marrying better than they could have without a slave. Nearly every white person from the south, has a family member who owned a slave - even if you would never guess by their economic status today. I'm from the south myself, and even though my great-grandparents were dirt poor in the mountains, I don't doubt someone somewhere back in time owned a slave. It really was just so common that the probability is a near certainty. Also, when slavery was at it's height, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia were far more prosperous regions than they eventually became post-civil war. The south in general was more financially well-off during the time of slavery than it has been since - and you can read primary sources from the time and region saying as much. I can point you towards primary sources from elected officials of the time period saying as much - that they knew slavery was evil, but they also knew it was the source of economic and social stability that they enjoyed. The institution of slavery itself did not directly lead to economic fall of the southern states - rather it was the tensions from having a nation with both slaveholding states and non-slaveholding states, and the south's extremely strong incentive to protect their advantageous status even at the cost of war. When the war did happen, the civil-war-related destruction that happened in the south (ie, the burning of Atlanta), had an equally dramatic impact and the outcome that we see today. Decades of slavery were certainly impactful, but so were the effects of the civil war, reconstruction, the great migration, and later cycles of industrialization, which tended to reach the south last due to network effects (there was no impetus to branch out from the skilled workers available up north... until unions took hold at least). All of those effects are more recent, and more relevant to the economic conditions today. Additionally, the cultural regressiveness you speak of is closely tied to the Great Awakening and the particularly conservative religious denominations that became regionally dominant - and notably, these denominations had, and still have strong pull on southern white and black communities alike. The south actually had a reputation for being quite a fun and "sinful" place before that. My own state, NC, founded the first public university in the world (UNC Chapel Hill) - a paradoxically very progressive institution - despite being founded by slavers during a period of widespread slavery. So understanding inequality and culture that exists in South, both now and then, and today is a complex thing. I would strongly caution trying to reduce it down that completely.