Everything After - A 9.11 Youth Circle - reparations for the descendants of slaves

this may be a little of the topics we are supposed to be discussing, but i have been watching the news lately and i have been hearing the absurd movement brought forth by the descendants of slaves in america demanding that the united states pay for the time their ancestors spent in slavery. they have estimated that the current value of slaves would be 1.3 trillion. now, is it ridiculous to anyone else that these people who have never known slavery and never will should be demanding all of this money? do they even have the right?

Its a difficult question to answer honestly. Was it wrong that we kept slaves, obviously. But the African slaves were certainly not the only group of mistreated people. There were many poor white indentured servants paid little more than slaves and treated with equal disrespect. Also what of the native peoples living here whose land was stolen? Should that land then be given back? There's countless others, and in my opinion we can not make up for what our ancestors have done. What in my mind would be a more suitable reaction would be to eliminate the slavery that we still support. Eliminating sweatshops set up in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Far East. Instead of worrying about correcting mistakes of the past why not fix the mistakes of the present.

The past is gone...while we should always remember it, the current government and people are NOT the ones who held the African-Americans in slavery and so they should not be forced to repay them. Plus, the African-Americans that are currently alive were definitely not the slaves therefore why should THEY get money? I agree with Chris, we should correct our current injustices rather than trying to rectify those that are in the past and can never be erased.

-Amanda

The past is NOT gone! the past exists,just as the present does and as the future does. the past exists,(for one reason being, the fact that we can speak of it, therefore it exists...)but also because we see it and it's effects today. when you hear on a telephone the words that were already spoken, thats the past. I got a big scar on my back in a car accident in late 1998. I can see that scar today. it isn't dissappeared just because i got the scar three years ago instead of getting it just today! If the past no longer existed everything we see before us would disintegrate because we wouldn't have everything that got us here. if we really pressed a history erase button we wouldn't have anything to stand on.

"we should correct our current injustices rather than trying to rectify those that are in the past and can never be erased."

If they can never be erased, then what are these people doing in rectifying them (assuming they succeed, that is)?

You are correct that they are getting money unjustly, but it's not because of the past vs. the present; the past still exists and a million years will not make what happened any less wrong than it was in 1865 when it was fresh in people's minds. the biggest reason I have anything against giving it to them is because all of the people who happen to be living today having experienced it themselves and they're only DESCENDANTS. just like the person who has millions of dollars off of a will because some rich old person died. They didn't earn any of it! they didn't to a thing to deserve that money, the only reason they're getting it is LUCK! they just happen to have been born the son or daughter or nephue or whatever of a rich person who died. it's all luck in the family tree. Same with people who get royalties although they have absolutely no songwriting talent and would make that "Chinese food makes me sick" band sound absolutely talented in writing lyrics. These African-Americans today did nothing but be lucky enough to be born to descendant of a legal slave! they haven't earned it!

(Well, lucky and unlucky enough....lucky in a perverted kind of way....at least if these people get their way it would be lucky when it came down to $$$)