link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/obama-says-white-resistance-and-resentment-stopped-him-from-pushing-for-reparations/ar-BB1e1cpu

swipe:

Obama says 'white resistance and resentment' stopped him from pushing for reparations

Bailey Aldridge, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) 1 hr ago


Feb. 25—Former President Barack Obama said reparations for Black Americans were a "non-starter" during his presidency.

Obama, the country's 44th and first Black president, said on Bruce Springsteen's "Renegades: Born in the USA" podcast released Monday that he thinks reparations are "justified" — but believed them to be "unattainable" when he was president.

"So if you ask me theoretically: 'Are reparations justified?' The answer is yes," he said. "There's not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country was built in significant part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it — but a large portion of it was built on the backs of slaves."

But, he said, pushing for that type of economic support for Black Americans, including descendants of slaves, during his presidency likely would have been unsuccessful.

"What I saw during my presidency was the the politics of white resistance and resentment, the talk of welfare queens and the talk of the undeserving poor and the backlash against affirmative action," Obama said on the podcast. "All that made the prospect of actually proposing any kind of coherent, meaningful reparations program struck me as, politically, not only a non-starter but potentially counter-productive."

During his first campaign for president in 2008, Obama said he agreed with the "underlying sentiment of recognizing the continued legacy of slavery" but didn't necessarily support reparations and instead favored more "practical policy goals," The Washington Post reported in 2019.

"I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say 'we've paid our debt,'" he said, according to the Post.

Black and white wealth gap

There remains a persistent and wide gap between the wealth of white and Black Americans.

In 2016, the average net worth for a white family in the U.S. was $171,000 — ten times higher than the average net worth for a Black family, according to The Brookings Institution, which pointed to centuries of discriminatory policies against the Black community as a reason for the disparity.

And the wealth gap between Black and white Americans has remained stagnant for decades, The Washington Post reports, with "the black-white economic divide as wide (in 2020) as it was in 1968."

"The historical data reveal that no progress has been made in reducing income and wealth inequalities between Black and white households over the past 70 years (since World War II)," economists Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick and Ulrike I. Steins wrote in the Journal of Political Economy.

Reparations are a controversial and unpopular issue, polls show. A June 2020 Reuters/Ipsos poll found just one out of every five Americans supports the idea of "taxpayer money to pay damages to descendants of enslaved people in the United States" — with around 10% of white people in support compared to about half of Black respondents.

Democratic push for reparations

Obama's comments come as some Democratic lawmakers have renewed a push for reparations.

Last week, a panel in the U.S. House of Representatives heard testimony on the creation of a commission that would be tasked with examining the history of slavery and discriminatory government practices in the U.S. It would also make recommendations, including financial compensation for the descendants of slaves, on remedies, The Associated Press reports.

Passing a reparations bill, however, could be difficult even with Democrats in control of both chambers, according to The AP, and some Republican lawmakers have pushed back on the commission

"Though it is impractical and a nonstarter for the United States government to pay reparations, it is also unfair and heartless to give Black Americans the hope that this is a reality," Rep. Burgess Owens, Republican from Utah, said, noting that his great-great-grandfather arrived in America on a slave ship, according to The AP.

But Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, said the "government sanctioned slavery."

"And that is what we need, a reckoning, a healing reparative justice," said said, according to The AP.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week that President Joe Biden supports a study on whether descendants of formerly enslaved people should receive reparations, The Hill reports.

"I believe that's what's being discussed and studying the continuing impacts of slavery, which is being discussed in this hearing on H.R. 40, and he continues to demonstrate his commitment to take comprehensive action to address this systemic racism that persists today," Psaki said, according to The Hill.

Obama said during the podcast that, though he was "convinced that reparations was a non-starter" during his presidency, he understands it should be discussed.

"I understand the argument of people I respect, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, that we should talk about it anyway if for no other reason than to educate the country about a past that too often isn't taught, and let's face it, we'd rather forget," he said.

"There's not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country was built in significant part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it — but a large portion of it was built on the backs of slaves."

yeah,no. i don't like that hedge AT ALL

its exclusively.

no, Barry. fuck outta here w/that

hundreds of years free labor made this country rich and powerful. they they doubled down on mass incarceration, i.e. the current form of slavery. PERIOD

i really need him radicalized, stat. this is embarrassing LOL

d

"But rest assured, in my luxurious house built on the backs of people darker than me, I am sipping fine scotch and scoffing at how stupid you are." - bshelly

>"There's not much question that the wealth of this country,
>the power of this country was built in significant part —
>not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it — but a
>large portion of it was built on the backs of slaves."
>
>yeah,no. i don't like that hedge AT ALL
>
>its exclusively.
>
>no, Barry. fuck outta here w/that
>
>hundreds of years free labor made this country rich and
>powerful. they they doubled down on mass incarceration, i.e.
>the current form of slavery. PERIOD

It's definitely exclusively the result of slavery, and post-slavery oppression.

And there's direct, data-driven evidence of that fact.

a big part of his appeal with older white people swayed from the Republican vote was that he wasn't gonna give black people reparations on day one, which is what a lot of these people were sure was going to happen. His administration also said they weren't going to do anything specific for black people (goes back to him not supporting reparations, passing that sort of legislation would basically be admission of guilt and would lead to a formal apology, step one to getting reparations)

Especially given that he was a two term president. Despite the fact this wouldn't have gotten through the Republicans in Congress at the time, it would have been powerful to have a national discussion on the matter. If he truly felt that way, I don't understand what he had to lose from proposing the matter, even if he felt Congress was going to shut him down.

he'd gone in and pushed for this at any point during his presidency????
c'mon....smh.



"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

What could they do ?

And putting it in the frame of THAT time period.....
a floundering democratic party trying to push through a terrible presidential candidate against The Idiot....





"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

Barack and the Dem's being scared like the people in this thread, who are going hard against anyone calling them out, will never get anything done.

now that you have to do more than just sit on the sidelines and call people scared...what realistically feasible actions/solutions would you have been able to successfully implement?

also did the real world lurkmode ever take even minimal action to push the ball forward on reparations like signing the real world petition that was brought to okp in the link i posted below?

Shirley Sherrod wouldn't be fired because of Breitbart.

Wouldn't fall for the banana in the tailpipe when if I had a supermajority like Obama admin

"In the months-long struggle through 2009 to pass the Affordable Care Act, some Senate Democrats were so determined to give President Obama’s chief domestic initiative a bipartisan cast that they spent much time courting a few Republicans"

"At the White House a few weeks later, Obama finally sought closure. He asked Grassley: What if Democrats agreed to all his proposed changes — then would he support the bill? “I guess not, Mr. President,” Grassley replied, according to Obama’s memoir, “A Promised Land.”

of your term...even tho you didnt run on it and people didnt vote you into office for it?

and you would have used precious political capital to prioritize it at the expense of debate time and public support building for 2 of the flagship issues you ran on...economic recovery and healthcare?

so when you cant even get 50 senate votes (much less a 60 vote filibuster proof majority) on your reparations package based on public support in the teens where neither the majority of democrats in congress or the country approve of it...what do you do next?

all of those congressional democrats that you just cost their next elections by wrapping such an unpopular proposal around their neck for republican attack ads...how do you get them to support anything you do up to election day?

or did you expect to just wave a magic wand and wipe away the real world conditions that exist?

are asking one of those when did you stop beating your wife questions.

>of your term...even tho you didnt run on it and people didn't
>vote you into office for it?
>

Did people vote Obama in to office to do everything he did or did he do stuff they didn't agree with at the same time he was doing what you say he ran on.

>and you would have used precious political capital to
>prioritize it at the expense of debate time and public support
>building for 2 of the flagship issues you ran on...economic
>recovery and healthcare?
>

I wouldn't waste time and "precious political capital" bending over backwards for Republicans playing the fake bipartisan card. Pushing a bill to research reparations would not make economic recovery and healthcare disappear. Walking and chewing gum at the same time is possible.

>so when you cant even get 50 senate votes (much less a 60 vote
>filibuster proof majority) on your reparations package based
>on public support in the teens where neither the majority of
>democrats in congress or the country approve of it...what do
>you do next?
>

Keep fighting instead of laying down or not even trying. Use executive orders and the bully pulpit, instead of running scared. If people could sacrifice and risk more during the Civil Rights movement, then a President and his defenders shouldn't be paralyzed with fear.

>all of those congressional democrats that you just cost their
>next elections by wrapping such an unpopular proposal around
>their neck for republican attack ads...how do you get them to
>support anything you do up to election day?
>

You mean like the Dem's that lost because they supported Obamacare, even though it was watered down ?

>or did you expect to just wave a magic wand and wipe away the
>real world conditions that exist?
>
>

I expect to do more then jump because rightwing nuts say if I don't jump they will use it in an ad. Can't accomplish anything if you are scared all the time.

and I think it's a pretty weak issue for someone to hang their hat on in the grand scheme of pressing issues that have far greater impact on us (Black people in America)....


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

from the root.

but I think it's a little flippant to insinuate that the 8 years meant nothing because he didn't pursue something that had a 99.9% chance of failure....

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

with power comes great responsibility.

>but I think it's a little flippant to insinuate that the 8
>years meant nothing because he didn't pursue something that
>had a 99.9% chance of failure....


To be clear, I'm not saying his two terms as president means nothing. I do think it's a bit odd of him to present this claim on a podcast with Bruce Springsteen while he was in office for eight years though. It's completely alright if you disagree with me thinking on that's odd.

and appropriate timing.
He now has the luxury and distance to explore and advocate for things that would have essentially prevented him from being in this current position now had he advocated or vocally supported them during his tenure. His position and influence is also arguably stronger now that he's NOT an elected official.
It's politics after all.



"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

He hasn't shown the will as a politician to walk something through specifically for Black folks...let alone something as difficult as that legislation will be.

dems suffered a historic midterms defeat on the back of passing an unpopular (at the time) obamacare bill.

by the time obamas 2nd term was up...repubs had rode racism and 'repeal and replace' to their most dominant nationwide political standing since before the great depression.

so hey...lets have the black president push for one of the least popular policies on the left...one that is 20pts *less* popular than obamacare was and only supported by *1/4* of the american people.

lets give republicans full control of the federal government plus supermajorities in every state house in the nation except the super liberal enclaves.

cmon fam.

at some point people gotta wake up and realize the rest of the country isnt like their twitter feed.

why not it bring up for legislation or to at least start the conversation nationally while he was in office? Putting any perceived politics he would have faced above the premise is pretty selfish.

you know whats worse than writing political ads for your opponents?

writing political ads for you opponents based on something that has no chance in hell of passing anyway.

literally lose-lose.

seriously how can yall look at the 8 obama years and come to the conclusion that he should have pushed for something even *more* polarizing than the shit he was already catching flack for like obamacare, blm, etc.

if you wanna chase the white working class, white college educated suburbanites, *and* asians and hispanics out of the democratic caucus...then go for it.

you say putting politics above the premise is selfish. but potentially destroying your entire party for at least a generation and giving fascists nearly unchecked state and federal political power to inflict whatever damage they want to on the people you want to help/protect...what is that then?

obama was putting the safety and future of the country over his personal impulses. thats the opposite of selfish fam.

theres a difference between being an activist and a politician. activists can single-mindedly push for whatever their heart tells them to and they never have to take responsibility for the real world fallout on people like *and* unlike them.

The downside is too great when you know there is no upside.



>why not it bring up for legislation or to at least start the
>conversation nationally while he was in office? Putting any
>perceived politics he would have faced above the premise is
>pretty selfish.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

id like to see someone sincerely answer that.

and research on a national level is more productive than just doing nothing on the matter.

what quantifiable goals would you aim to achieve as a measure of success? what are your timeframes for those goals?

do you just wanna amplify the conversation? change public opinion? garner congressional support?

does any of this take executive action? how and why?

if youre gonna criticize someone for not doing it...i assume you have a few ideas that we can pour through and pick apart to debate whether they would work too.

>what quantifiable goals would you aim to achieve as a measure
>of success? what are your timeframes for those goals?

Getting something passed to provide some economic support on a national level to redistribute the massive wealth gained as result of the slave trade and jim crow laws passed across multiple states would be a start. Funds set aside for education, or housing, or banking to make up for the continued disparities in the US would make the most sense IMO.

>do you just wanna amplify the conversation? change public
>opinion? garner congressional support?

I don't remember the California Representative that I saw on C-Span years ago that proposed reparations that led to no where, but having the White House propose this would hopefully garner more support for the cause than the California Representative that proposed it.

>does any of this take executive action? how and why?

Congress controls national funding, so I don't know how much an executive action would accomplish for anything as massive as reparations.

>if youre gonna criticize someone for not doing it...i assume
>you have a few ideas that we can pour through and pick apart
>to debate whether they would work too.

You are free to disagree with me all you want and think I am too naive to question Obama backing this on a podcast with Bruce Springsteen while he could have done more while he was in the White House. You are entitled to your opinion. I am of the opinion that trying to redistribute the wealth gotten through discriminatory ways that continue to hurt black folks in this country is a worthwhile discussion to honestly have.

than people on the ground actually doing stuff.

Folks should occasionally humble themselves and not automatically assume they are a better person or would handle better any situation that they someone else actually in the middle of.

This is what the new internet dark ages looks like.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

in this country.

when people say something is true nowadays...they tend to mean its something they agree with.

people would rather believe in a reality based on their preconceived biases then give a little deference to people they disagree with that actually lived it and know what theyre talking about.

the right has obviously gone completely off the rails with it. but its taking hold in the left to an alarming degree too.
.

he said the right things. Don't get mad if you wanted more hot sauce.

Barack had his faults, but this dude could barely get congress to get folks to pay for health care, let alone any meaningful legislation for racial disparities.


Barak was not superman, but he was the first dude in a supreme position of power who spoke about these things, just the notion of that creates change, slow, change yes, but change nonetheless.

You really think Barack would have beat Romney talking that stuff? he barley got out of that election.

Change is when you push a sustained message that outlasts a candidate. The best example we have is climate change, the Republicans have completely shut up about it, especially given the evidence over time. Sure, you MIGHT try to do something like reparations in a fast-track mode while you have power, but you tank the larger message for a small gain. that probably wont last longer than: a candidate.

in the senate for his 1st 2 years. they could override a repub filibuster on *some* things (obviously not on stuff like public option).

then after only 2 years in office...that senate supermajority was gone and dems lost complete control of the house after a massive defeat in 2010. effectively killing the obama legislative agenda for the rest of his time in office.

where exactly do folks think any congressional action on reparations was gonna come from? who was gonna bring it to the floor? the freedom caucus? lol.

we are the smarter side when it comes to intelligence/education/etc in general.

but when it comes to this politics shit? whoo boy.

just look at the fact that liberals pushing for the most radical change think the best way to do that is by shunning the 2 party system and going with a multiparty parliamentary style govt that traditionally leads to a more divided left and necessitates uncomfortable governing partnerships/agreements that call for *more* moderation just to function.

its emotion driven means that often works against the ends we hope to achieve.

'democrats fall in love. republicans fall in line'.

came across this post in dec 2014 (the middle of obamas 2nd term) asking okps to sign a petition to get the white house to support the exact bill that folks are pushing now (hr 40) to get the ball rolling on exploring reparations.
https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=12682599&mesg_id=12682599&listing_type=search

literally *1* person replied.

where were all of yall who are so passionate about obama not championing reparations during that time?

yall really wanted him to go to bat for something nobody on *here* was clamoring for?

..
most end up platinum too. not sure how that one went awry.


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

while posts where people can bloviate ((c) stephen a) and hypothetically soapbox the issue all day get active participation?

doesnt that make obamas clarity even wiser?

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

it wasn't feasible during his presidency

I never want to hear another word from them ever again.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I have a long list.

>

ass ole political ass

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reparations-poll_n_5432116

this was in obamas 2nd term following a ta-nehisi coates piece in the atlantic making the case for reparations.

this is a poll by huffpost/yougov...historically a left leaning sample.

i said only 1/4 of the country supported reparations. but 1/4 of the country supported reparations only in the form of shit like generic education and jobs programs.

support for financial restitution for slavery? its even worse at 15%. overwhelmingly unpopular across the entire population.

i mean...cmon yall.

the revisionist outrage is cute and all. but cmon yall.

in the past 4-5 years.


The internet has given academics and activists access to people in a way thats fast and unfiltered. Mainstream media can barely keep up right now.


Reparations is a hard thing to really discuss when most people have no idea how integral slavery was to building today's economy and McGraw-Hill is no help. Even
a lot of self described problack folk today would scoff at the idea of reparations.

he wasn't gonna do $hit for Black folk.

I knew that when he threw his pastor under the bus.

Their rewriting of the Obama history

With their hindsight and purity.

sometimes on race and specifically Black American issues the more sensitive they get. I hate it.

I feel like it annoys me so much almost *because* I'm a fellow Black immigrant/African immigrant descendant too tho lol. Like... I can empathize with a lot of the identity stuff, early immersion in non-Black environments, feelings of displacement and longing, and other things BO (or those interviewed who knew him in earlier years) has shared about his life. But in being able to relate to all that, when he or Kamala or whoever *insert non-ADOS Black politician* have their little "not gonna do something that's ONLY gonna benefit Black people, nooo!" (c) moments, it's glaring to me how little effort there must have been to truly connect with Black American history and experiences beyond a superficial level. I mean if we take away the HBCU, the Black sorority, the Black spouse, the Kwanzaa statements, etc.. these mealy-mouthed positions they take sound like they're coming from who exactly??? The disconnect is even more egregious considering Black people like us (i.e. immigrated to America or are immediate descendants thereof) account for only 10-20% of the Black people in the US they've repeatedly relied on to get elected (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/24/key-facts-about-black-immigrants-in-the-u-s/). Like, fucking give back.

Re: this podcast specifically I would say Obama finally warming up to the justification for reparations (tho still not even believing in it enough to advocate, with all his hedges and excuses) does sound more like a political calculation, in anticipation of a study bill actually passing congress in coming years and being signed into law by Biden or Kamala or whoever. It sounds like he doesn't want his legacy to be that he was the first Black pres and opposed reparations for Black Americans, while his non-Black successors end up advancing the cause more than he did. But that is his reality (eg. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obama-opposes-reparations-slavery-article-1.314179).

Tbh I'm skeptical of whether he could even credibly voice full-throated support for reparations at this point without looking cravenly opportunistic, given his track record of dissent. In fact if BO was my friend, I might ask if he's considered stfu about reparations and supporting quietly in the background, out of respect for his wife's and children's ancestors. Honestly. Because his trail of anti-reparations quotations and interviews is so long and has trended the complete opposite direction of the polling on this issue.

If as an elected Black official and afterwards he's (still) uncomfortable standing with (talk more of fighting for) Black constituents on an issue this transformative, on an issue polling has shown majority Black support for decades, then *at the very least* he should stay completely out the way of those who lack that discomfort. And again, I still like him, and sympathize a lot with the resistance he was up against as the first Black pres. I'm under no illusion that he could have advanced reparations efforts during his tenure. But he never ever had to go as far as being a leading voice of opposition, and this mealy-mouthed speaking-for-the-racist-side bs he's doing even til now has got to go. Do no harm.

(from investopedia of all places lol)


https://www.investopedia.com/should-america-pay-slavery-reparations-5080415


Should America Pay Slavery Reparations?
A review of history indicates a strong case—but mixed public support

By SHOMARI WILLS
Updated Jan 24, 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS
What Are Slavery Reparations?
The History of Reparations
Slavery Reparations Today
The Case for Reparations
What Reparations Could Look Like
Reparations Campaign Now
Going Forward

What Are Slavery Reparations?
Slavery reparations are restitution payments for slavery remitted to the descendants of enslaved people. In theory, American slavery reparations would be paid by entities that participated in slavery, such as the federal government, local governments, corporations, and universities.

The history is complicated, but the overall principle is simple: Slavery helped the United States become a formidable economic power. It had the opposite effect on enslaved people and their descendants, stripping them of wages, property, civil rights, and freedom. Since the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified in 1865, ending legal slavery in the U.S., no sustained attempt has been made to right this disparity, adding additional weight to the strong case that reparations would still be beneficial today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
*Reparations would compensate Black Americans for the lost wages and suffering of their ancestors, American slave laborers.

*The U.S. received an enormous, unacknowledged economic boost from slavery.

*Subsequent biased policies—including segregation, labor discrimination, redlining, and mass Incarceration—have disadvantaged Black Americans, preserving a racial wealth gap.

*The one Federal reparations attempt was discontinued after President Lincoln was assassinated.

*More than 150 members of Congress have supported a bill to create a commission to study the issue; a slight majority of Americans favor this approach, as well.

*Native Americans and Japanese internment victims received Federal reparations.

*Current proposals for Federal reparations include payments to African Americans and economic development investments in the Black community.

*In 2020, California became the first state to commission a task force to study and develop reparations proposals.


The History of Reparations
On January 16, 1865, from a mansion in Savannah, Ga., Union General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Field Order No. 15, announcing the award of large tracts of confiscated land to newly freed Black populations.1 The roughly 400,000 acres to be awarded: "The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns River, Florida."

The land, which included Georgia's Sea Islands, was to be given out in parcels of "not more than (40) acres of tillable ground." The new owners' rights were to be protected by the military authorities until they could protect themselves or Congress could "regulate their title." And they were to govern those lands themselves: "...sole and exclusive management of affairs will be left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military authority and the acts of Congress.," the order declared.1

This idea did not just happen. Four days before, as historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explains, Sherman and Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton met with an invited group of 20 leaders of the Black community of Savannah, many of them Baptist and Methodist ministers. These leaders explained that what the newly freed people wanted was to have their own land and to live in communities on it, managing their own affairs.2

The land grant program became colloquially known as “40 acres and a mule”—the mule part coming later, as historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., explains when Sherman subsequently ordered that the Army could lend mules to the settlers.2

Word of Sherman’s order spread quickly, and the islands seemed to transform into Black autonomous farming communities overnight. The inhabitants of the islands renamed them Shermanland in gratitude.2

The federal reparations experiment was short-lived, however. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, his successor, Andrew Johnson, canceled the program and returned the land to the planters who had originally owned it. Since then, for more than 150 years, groups have been advocating for reparations.2



Slavery Reparations Today
The effect on the wealth and economic standing of Black Americans of generations of enslavement—and the structural racism following emancipation—has never been fully mitigated and exists to this day. With the increased attention on race relations and equality brought on by the Black Lives Matter protests, the issue of reparations has come back into focus.

In the 2020 Democratic primary, Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson campaigned on paying $500 billion in reparations, and candidates were asked about their stance on the issue during the debates.3 4

In recent years some institutions that owned slaves, or participated in slavery, have begun reparations programs. In 2005, JP Morgan Chase acknowledged that two predecessor banks—Citizen's Bank of Louisiana and New Orleans Canal & Banking Company—accepted more than 13,000 enslaved persons as collateral and once held around 1,250 enslaved persons when borrowers defaulted. Chase started a scholarship program for Black students in Louisiana as a form of reparations.5 6
Georgetown University, which once owned and sold 272 slaves, has decided to pay reparations by offering scholarships to descendants of the people the school once enslaved and sold.7

Other entities—such as the city of Asheville, N.C., and the University of Virginia—have apologized and taken responsibility for their role in enslavement.8 9

On the other hand, the United States government has not attempted reparations since the Lincoln administration. A bill to study Reparations called H.R. 40 has been introduced but never voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1989.10 11


The Case for Reparations
Examining the role of slavery in building the economic predominance of the United States—north and south—the role of the federal government in establishing the laws that allowed it and other large institutions to profit from the labor of enslaved people, and the lingering effects of both slavery and post-slavery structural racism on the descendants of slaves establishes a strong argument for reparations.

Slavery built the U.S. at the expense of enslaved Black people
The Federal government and other large domestic institutions were participants and stakeholders in the practice of enslavement. The savings produced by using enslaved workers spurred economic growth for the country as a whole—and slave owners, particularly—while impoverishing generations of Blacks by depriving them of fundamental rights, freedom, and compensation.

It was near the turn of the century in 1793 when Massachusetts-born Eli Whitney invented the cotton engine, the machine that automated the painstaking task of removing the seeds from raw cotton by hand. Nicknamed the cotton gin, the invention revolutionized American cotton production. In short order, the U.S. became the leading cotton producer in the world.

The cotton boom created a demand for labor to work on cotton farms, which cotton growers met by purchasing slaves. According to census records, the number of slaves in America went from 894,452 in 1800 to 3,953,587 in 1860.12 13 During that same period, the per capita GDP of the United States more than doubled, going from $58 ($1540 in 2019 dollars) in 1800 to $125 ($3243) in 1860.14

During the slavery era in the United States, enslaved Black workers made up nearly half the workforce in the Southern states.13 Unlike the White labor pool, these workers received no wages or profit-sharing and lived and worked in bondage. The U.S. cotton industry, which depended on enslaved plantation labor in the deep South, accounted for at least 5% of U.S. GDP.15 16 All slave-related productivity accounted for as much as 50% of the GDP, according to author and historian, E.E. Baptist.17

Enslaved people worked in many different jobs ranging from manual labor to highly-skilled trades. The most common job for enslaved people was as farmhands or domestic workers. Enslaved Blacks also worked blue-collar jobs like construction and coal mining. There were also thousands who worked in skilled trades such as cooks, carpenters, shipbuilders, blacksmiths, and masons.

Slavery was a wealth transfer from enslaved Black laborers to America’s antebellum ownership and managerial class. For example, Natchez, Miss., the cotton-growing capital of the 19th century, had more millionaires than any other city in the world. Today Natchez's Black population, who are mostly descended from those enslaved workers, still disproportionately live in poverty.18

Enslaved Black laborers also built much of the infrastructure of the United States, including much of New York City, the White House, and the Capitol; they also quarried the sandstone used to build the Smithsonian.19 20

These unpaid wages erased the labor costs of businesses that used slave labor and increased profit margins. Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery in part because he believed it was wage theft.21

The Federal government benefited directly from slavery
The government played a direct role in maintaining slavery and also reaped immediate benefits. Under the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, U.S. Marshals were mandated to recover slaves who escaped and return them to enslavement.22 23

When the U.S. Constitution was signed into law in 1787, it included language that permitted the government to collect taxes on people trafficked to America via the transatlantic slave trade, permitting a tax of “not exceeding ten dollars for each person” on “importation of such persons” in Article I, Section 9.24 From 1798 to 1802 and 1813 to 1816, the United States Treasury collected taxes on slaves as one of its chief sources of revenue, along with taxes on land and houses. Many slave states collected as much as 2% of the valuation of each enslaved person per year as a tax.25

History has understated how much the United States government used slavery to generate revenue during the antebellum period. As a starting point for reparations, it seems logical to believe that the revenue generated from taxes on slaves could be returned to descendants of enslaved people.


Corporations and academic institutions profited from slavery
A number of multinational corporations owned slaves in their early history.26 In addition to J.P. Morgan Chase, the companies that became Bank of America, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Aetna Inc, New York Life Insurance Co., and Lloyds TSB Group participated in slavery. Cotton commodities and plantation shares and bonds—sometimes underwritten with deeds to enslaved people—were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in the antebellum era.27

Some of America’s oldest colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, the University of Virginia, Columbia, and Princeton, were built by slaves and partially funded by the slave trade.28

As noted above, Georgetown University recently began offering scholarships to the descendants of people it enslaved, and the University of Virginia is building a memorial to the enslaved people who lived and worked on its campus. Other institutions have yet to try to make amends for their role in slavery.


Slavery led directly to modern inequality
Despite their two centuries of contributions, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were left destitute after they were emancipated.29 After 1865, many free Blacks faced starvation and homelessness and were forced to go back and work as sharecroppers on plantations for subsistence wages.

The gap in wealth between the free whites and the newly emancipated Blacks became generational through laws that mandated segregation, disenfranchisement, and economic oppression for the next 100 years. This crystalized a stubborn racial wealth gap that still exists today.

Instead of attempting to close the gap between Blacks and Whites created by enslavement, racist laws began to be passed almost immediately after slavery to limit Blacks’ access to benefits such as education and trades that would have helped close the gap. This effort culminated in 1892 with the Supreme Court case Plessy vs. Ferguson, which legalized segregation, establishing the notorious doctrine of "separate but equal."30

For the next 70 years, Black Americans would be denied access to jobs, schools, and labor unions. When President Roosevelt passed the New Deal programs in the 1930s, the original legislation excluded domestic workers and farmworkers—occupations that employed roughly 65% of African American workers.31 The GI Bill, signed in 1944, also was structured in a way that shut out many Black veterans.32 The Federal Housing Administration, a government agency created to promote homeownership, often refused to underwrite mortgages for Blacks in a practice known as redlining.33

Even after the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964, attempts to disadvantage Blacks continued. In 1971, President Nixon launched the war on drugs, which began an era of mass incarceration that disproportionately jailed Blacks. In a 1994 interview reported in 2016, Nixon’s domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman stated the program was designed to criminalize Blacks.34 35

In concert, more than 100 years of discriminatory policies after Emancipation worked effectively to prevent Blacks from fully closing the racial income and wealth that originated with slavery. The numbers say it all: At the end of slavery in 1863, Black people owned roughly one half of one percent of national wealth. Today, that ownership is less than two percent of national wealth.36
Boston Review. "A Bad Check for Black America." Accessed Oct 7, 2020.


What Reparations Could Look Like
Slavery reparations are often proposed as a cash payout to the descendants of enslaved people. A few universities and corporations that owned slaves have begun giving scholarships to the descendants of the people they enslaved. Other than cash payments to Black Americans, proposals have included an extensive federal government economic development program that benefits the Black community. And some proponents have called for a reparation program of payments to Black Americans directly from White Americans, but these proposals are outliers.

The exact amount of slavery reparations would need to be calculated as part of a government study on reparation by a Federal commission, such as the one proposed by the reparations bill HR 40.38 Estimated costs for the program fall somewhere around $16 trillion, the entire current-day book value of the four generations of slaves who lived in the United States after the country’s independence in 1776 until the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865.39 Another way of determining the amount would be to determine the amount in lost wages, which would yield a similar figure.


Previous reparations programs
A reparation program for Black Americans would not be unprecedented; the United States has paid Reparations in other instances.

*In 1946, an Indian Claims Commission was established, which awarded $848 million to 176 different Native American tribes and groups over its 31 years of existence for lands that had been taken. In 1994, a Court of Claims settled the remaining 10 cases for $400 to $500 million, for a total of $1.3 billion.40 41

*The money was given to individual groups and tribes to distribute. It equated to about $1000 ($10,000 in 2020 dollars) per person.40

*In 1988, the United States paid reparations to Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II.42 Reparations came in the form of a $20,000 check to people who were imprisoned in the camps.

In addition to the U.S., the state of Florida paid restitution to those who survived the Rosewood massacre in 1923, when white mobs burned the Black community of Rosewood and murdered at least six people.43 It took until 1994 for a law to be passed approving these payments, which gave the nine survivors $150,000 each and provided $500,000 to descendants, as well as establishing a scholarship fund for descendants.44

In addition to the U.S., the state of Florida paid restitution to those who survived the Rosewood massacre in 1923, when white mobs burned the Black community of Rosewood and murdered at least six people.43 It took until 1994 for a law to be passed approving these payments, which gave the nine survivors $150,000 each and provided $500,000 to descendants, as well as establishing a scholarship fund for descendants.44


Funding slavery reparations
How would a slavery reparations program be funded? Deficit spending is the most feasible approach. The taxes needed to support such an expensive program would be onerous. And there is precedent for it: In 1833, the United Kingdom passed the Slavery Abolition Act across much of the British Empire.45 It paid to liberate its enslaved population by compensating slave owners to the tune of £20 million through deficit spending (£2,4 billion/$3.11 billion today).46

To put the cost of slavery reparations in context: The program would be less pricey than the proposed outlays for proposals for Medicare for All at $20.5 trillion and the Green New Deal at an estimated $50 trillion to $90 trillion.47

Where the Campaign for Reparations Stands Now
The most recent version of H.R. 40, the bill that would set up a federal commission to study slavery reparations, has been endorsed by President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. When it was introduced, the bill had 157 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. All the same, it has not made it out of committee in the 31 years since it was first introduced.4 38

The high cost isn't the only obstacle to slavery reparations. Low support for slavery reparations among White Americans and questions about logistics are also obstacles to moving forward.


Low support for reparations
While a growing number of Americans are aware of racial disparity in the U.S., according to a 2020 Reuters poll, only 1 in 10 white respondents support paying reparations, and half of the black respondents support it.49

Opposition to slavery reparations may stem from decades of racial stereotypes used to justify a lack of racial, economic equality. A 2018 poll by The Economist/YouGov indicated that as many as 40% of White Americans believe that Black Americans' lack of economic equality is because they aren’t trying hard enough.50

Some Americans have expressed opposition to paying out reparations since the people who were enslaved are dead. Alternately, a belief also exists that the casualties of the Civil War did constitute reparations.

These beliefs ignore the debilitating effect of more than two centuries of enslavement on Black Americans. They also do not weigh that—instead of making the efforts to remedy the damage caused by slavery—the government moved to make those injuries permanent by creating a racial caste system through legal segregation and discrimination.

Attitudes about slavery reparations also vary by age. A 2016 Exclusive Point Taken-Marist Poll, done in conjunction with the PBS debate series “Point Taken,” showed that 80% of Americans over 69 opposed reparations, while a narrow majority of millennials (51%) either supported the idea (40%) or was unsure (11%).51

There is also a partisan divide on the issue. According to a poll from Huffington Post/YouGov in April 2019, 55% percent of Democrats supported a Federal study of slavery reparations, while only 14% of Republicans and 22% of independents support a commission on the issue. On the question of support for cash payments, the numbers are 34%, 13%, and 12%, for Democrats, Republicans, and independents, respectively.52

Deciding who would be eligible
Another obstacle would be establishing who would be eligible. While it could be labor-intensive to determine which Americans are the descendants of enslaved people, it is possible. Around 85% of Black Americans fall in this category. The remaining Black Americans are the descendants of immigrants, mostly from Africa and the Caribbean, and could be determined as such via immigration and vital records.

Going Forward
While many Americans continue to view reparations as unnecessary, attitudes are shifting, as a greater focus is being put on a legacy of slavery and racial discrimination in America. Institutions coming clean about how they owned enslaved people or otherwise profited from the trade of enslaved labor is bringing into ever greater focus the unacknowledged role that enslaved people played in building the United States.

Political support for reparations has also been on the rise. The fact that H.R. 40, the bill to create a commission to study slavery reparations, had 157 co-sponsors and has been endorsed by President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi might move it forward.4 38

Former President Donald Trump said in June 2020, "I don't see happening." However, he later released the "Platinum Plan for Black America" that mirrored some of the language from entertainer Ice Cube's reparations plan, "A Contract with Black America."53 54 While scant on details, Trump's plan called for up to $40 billion in funding for Black-owned federal contractors.55

In 2020, California became the first state to commission a study of paying slavery reparations.56 California Assembly Bill 3121, passed in February, requires:

"Regents of the University of California to assemble a colloquium of scholars to draft a research proposal to analyze the economic benefits of slavery that accrued to owners and the businesses...and to make recommendations to the Legislature regarding those findings." It details what the task force should study, including forms of compensation and who would qualify for them. It also states: "Any state-level reparation actions that are undertaken as a result of this chapter are not a replacement for any reparations enacted at the federal level, and shall not be interpreted as such."
Reparations would go a long way towards helping African Americans recover from the wounds of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination. Recently, 50% of Americans expressed support for a congressional commission to study the institution of slavery and its legacy of persistent systemic discrimination against living African Americans, as set forth in Bill H.R. 40.57 With attitudes evolving on the issue and reckoning with America's racial coming into focus, the case for slavery reparations may be moving into the light at last.

Post is kinda dying now but whatever lol

I've been trying to follow the polling on reparations for a while and these are some I've come across, 2002-2020 (if anyone knows of more conducted during the GWB years or BO's first term pls feel free to correct me/add on):

1)https://news.gallup.com/poll/261722/redress-slavery-americans-oppose-cash-reparations.aspx
February 8-10, 2002; n=1001

2) https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/02/reparations
May 27-28, 2014; n=1000

3)http://files.kff.org/attachment/report-survey-of-americans-on-race
August 25- October 3, 2015; n=1951

4)http://maristpoll.marist.edu/510-reparations-for-slavery-in-the-united-states/
April 27-28 & May 2-4, 2016; n=1221

5)https://news.gallup.com/poll/261722/redress-slavery-americans-oppose-cash-reparations.aspx
June 19-July 12, 2019; n=2543

6)https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/topline_10_22_final.pdf
September 20-23, 2019; n=1286

7)https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/vice-brown-black-forum
January 8-10, 2020; n=2013

8)https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/abc-coronavirus-poll-wave-13
June 17-18, 2020; n=727

9)https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/npr-racial-inequality-issues
August 20-21, 2020; n=1186


I'm a nerd and care almost too much about this issue so I'll pull key percentages from each of these polls below for convenience (and pls pardon any mistakes bc I'm rushing lol). But looking at the reparations polling *over time*:

-yes, support for reparations is still low across full samples reflecting the general US population but it's DOUBLED since the early 2000s, and increased by 10% over the last half-decade alone

-there was MAJORITY BLACK SUPPORT for a reparations program as far back as the early 2000s (55%, according to Gallup) and it's approaching NEAR UNANIMOUS Black support as of 2020 (with one 2020 sample polling as high as 80% Black respondents in favor)

-Latin American support for reparations basically TRIPLED over the last half-decade, and the samples are likely to be split roughly half-and-half in the coming years (my guess is across party lines, but age could be mediating a lot too)

-yes, White American support for reparations is the lowest among all groups (like 20% as of 2020), but that support also TRIPLED from as low as 6% in the early 2000s


Full Samples/All Americans

1)2002 - 14%
2)2014 - 15%
3)2015 - 18%
4)2016 - 32%
5)2019 - 29%
6)2019 - 29%
7)2020 - 30%
8)2020 - 27%
9)2020 - N/A

Black Americans

1)2002 - 55%
2)2014 - 58%
3)2015 - 52%
4)2016 - 65%
5)2019 - 73%
6)2019 - 74%
7)2020 - 62%
8)2020 - 72%
9)2020 - 80%

Latin Americans

1)2002 - N/A
2)2014 - 14%
3)2015 - 37%
4)2016 - 53%
5)2019 - 47%
6)2019 - 44%
7)2020 - 41%
8)2020 - N/A
9)2020 - N/A

White Americans

1)2002 - 6%
2)2014 - 9%
3)2015 - 8%
4)2016 - 19%
5)2019 - 16%
6)2019 - 15%
7)2020 - 20%
8)2020 - 14%
9)2020 - 21%


^I honestly interpret all this polling as more indicative of a slow burn, rather than cause for surrender. Everyone is trending up. Additionally, in one of the polls (from 2014 https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/02/reparations) **31%** of the sample WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE SUPPORTED REPARATIONS TO THE ACTUAL PEOPLE who were enslaved (!!), talk more of descendants. So, essentially, there's a not-small segment of US adults walking around with a straight up ANTEBELLUM MENTALITY (the confederate flags kinda give some of them away tho). Now imagine if, since America's civil war era, deference to these wackos (as is being recommended by Obama and a few others in this post lol) had prevailed??? There'd have been no Civil Rights Acts, from 1866 to 1968. In fact A WHOLE OTHER GROUP, Japanese-Americans, successfully fought for reparations over a decade after being *inspired by* Black Americans' civil rights movement (https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/03/24/820181127/the-unlikely-story-behind-japanese-americans-campaign-for-reparations)! And yet there's *still* this concern about racists' disapproval?? This same racist disapproval hass been there for how many hundreds of years and will probably persist for more.

I donno. Maybe at some point the play will be to just Stacey Abrams the shit and work around the racists, naysayers be damned. I hope so. I also wish the talking points on this issue were more constructive... Like how there might be enough woke White and Latin American people onboard now to piece together a decent-sized coalition now, lol. I'd love to hear a former pres weigh in on creative ways a reparations program could even be funded too. Oh well tho.

For the quant. analysis


1st they ignore u
They they ridicule u
Then they fight u
Then u win

with pulling all those stats. Interesting to see there's some increase in approval for reparations. I wouldn't have guessed that given how polarized things have been in the country for the past 8-10 years for better or for worse.

In regards to what you said about finding creative ways to fund reparations; I'm not sure if there's a way to work outside of Congressional funding since I would imagine the dollars involved would be huge.

Perhaps you're thinking along the lines of piecemeal payments into certain segments of society like a little bit there for education, a little bit there for housing or banking.

Did Barry get a heads up?

https://abcnews.go.com/US/1st-us-city-fund-reparations-black-residents-making/story?id=76118463

She hopes that her work will help families in her neighborhood that are "burdened … get some relief" via reparations, which will first be distributed this year in increments of up to $25,000 per eligible resident to use for housing.

Today, Evanston is the first city in the U.S. to fund reparations, committing $10 million over the next decade in an attempt to repay Black residents for the wrongs and accumulated losses incurred by generations of racism.
~~~

Now, according to Rue Simmons, the $25,000 reparations benefit for housing is meant to combat "a lack of affordability, lack of access to living wage careers here in the city, and a lack of sense of place."

Evanston proposed a novel idea to fund reparations -- a 3% tax on newly legal recreational marijuana sales.

"It's the most appropriate use for that sales tax," Simmons said. "In our city, 70% of the marijuana arrests were in the Black community. And we are 16% of the community. All studies show that Blacks and white consume cannabis at the same rate."