Reparations are defined as payment or other compensation provided by a government to a group of people (or to another country) to compensate for loss or damage that it has caused. And this is exactly what John Conyers is seeking for Black Americans, arguing that the US government must compensate the descendents of former slaves for the injustice of slavery. Conyers has called for a commission to study the impact of slavery and recommend just compensation.

Conyers (D) Michigan has likened his campaign for reparations to the victims of the Holocaust and Japanese interment camps who sought and obtained reparations for their treatment during the Second World War. Unlike the victims of World War II, there are no living victims or living sons of victims of the injustice that was slavery. There is no doubt that slavery was a cruel, socialistic, paternalistic, immoral, undemocratic and an anti-freemarket injustice imposed on millions of people in this country and in many other countries. Nonetheless, to argue that because of past injustices, the great grandchildren of former salves are entitled to a financial windfall is sheer nonsense.

Black Americans alive today are in no way suffering because of the past injustices of slavery. As U.S. District Court Judge Charles Ronald Norgle ruled in a 2004 case on the same issue, the plaintiffs had no standing to claim injury. Indeed, if one were to peruse the past of many Americans, be they Hispanic, Asian, Irish, Eastern European, etc, one will find numerous instances of harsh treatment, oppression and even genocide, yet these people are no more entitled to reparations than any Black American. Naturally the advocates for reparations would argue that living in America today they still suffer form the stain of slavery; they cite examples of poverty and racism. In reality, in today’s America, poverty is no longer a byproduct of institutional or legal forces; it’s a byproduct of one’s own failure to take advantage of opportunities presented to them.

Essentially, those who are poor in America, by and large, are living in squalor because of poor decisions they have made, not through any actions of the state or society in general. Indeed, failure in this country results in spite of, not because of, recent government efforts. Today, all Americans have access to public education and student loans for college as well as a host of other incentives to start businesses or find success in their chosen field. Those who languish in poverty have instead chosen to flounder in a pool of sloth as they demand others do the heavy lifting while they demand handouts and other entitlements. Verily, this nation is filled with lazy, sloth obsessed, unmotivated malcontents of all races and they are entitled to nothing, regardless of their mindset.

There can be no doubt that slavery was a heinous stain on our nation’s past and those who supported this vile institution represent the lowest form of human life, but it would be a mistake to contend that only the US government is to blame for slavery (regardless of the fact that its victims have long since departed this earth). Slavery was an international institution. If we are to assign blame why not blame the Persians who haD enslaved black Africans for centuries (after all the Iranians haven’t atoned for their violent past) perhaps we should call on the Spanish and Portuguese who first began to enslave Africans in the 15th century or perhaps the Dutch traders who brought slavery to the Virginia colony in 1619, or perhaps the British crown for maintaining the slave trade or perhaps the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean who also transported slaves to this country. Perhaps the nations of the Africa and the Middle East, considering the fact that Black and Arab traders were willing accomplices in the slave trade, accounting for the vast majority of slaves who eventually arrived in the Americas. And what of those Blacks and Native Americans in this country who also owned black slaves, are they to pay themselves?

Perhaps the supporters of reparations would be entitled to compensation if they could demonstrate or prove beyond question that they themselves have suffered as a result, something they simply cannot do, simply being black is not just cause. And to suggest that being black is somehow disadvantageous to one’s future success in life is racist in and of itself.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/9/232714.shtml
http://www.ncobra.com/