Last week, I testified before the House Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties regarding H.R. 40: Examining the Path to Reparative Justice in America. In other words, reparations. This is the first part of the statement I submitted:
“Reparations is the extraction of money from people who were never slave owners to be given to people who were never slaves.”
It is also interesting that we are having this hearing at a time when racism as a barrier to success has never been so insignificant. In 1991, Black Democrat and Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson said: “The sociological truths are that America, while still flawed in its race relations and its stubborn refusal to institute a rational, universal welfare system, is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, white or Black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of Black persons than any other society, including all those of Africa.”
In 1997, Time/CNN did a broad survey of Black and white teens. Asked whether racism is a major problem in America, both said yes. But, when Black teens were asked whether racism was a big problem, small problem or no problem in their own daily lives, 89% said small or no problem. In fact, nearly twice as many Black teens, compared to white teens, agreed that “failure to take advantage of available opportunities” was a bigger problem than racism.
During the 2008 race for the presidency, the major contenders were Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; and Republicans Mitt Romney, a Mormon, and Sen. John McCain, who would have been 72 by the time he entered office, if elected. A 2007 Gallup poll found fewer Americans would refuse to vote for a Black person (5%); than would refuse to vote for a woman (11%); than would refuse to vote for a Mormon (24%); than would refuse to vote for someone who would be 72 upon entering office (42%).
In 2007, the year before he was elected president, Obama spoke at a Black church on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. He said: “The previous generation, the Moses generation (the generation of Martin Luther King Jr.), pointed the way. They took us 90% of the way there, but we still got that 10% in order to cross over to the other side.”
I thought that 10% remaining “to cross over to the other side” was a fair assessment. After all, a 2002 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found that 8% of Americans believed that Elvis Presley was still alive — or that at least there was “a chance.” So, as to Obama’s 10% remaining, I’m not sure how much more wiggle room we have left before running into the Elvis factor.
The reparations argument is based, in part, on the belief that but for slavery, America would not have become the prosperous nation it is today.
To the contrary, conservative scholar Michael Medved notes:
“It’s not true that the U.S. became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor: The most prosperous states in the country were those that first freed their slaves. …
“At the time of the Constitution, Virginia constituted the most populous and wealthiest state in the Union, but by the time of the War Between the States the Old Dominion had fallen far behind a half-dozen northern states that had outlawed slavery two generations earlier.”
About the difference in wealth between the North and the South, Frederick Douglass, after escaping from a plantation in Maryland to freedom in Massachusetts, wrote: “But the most astonishing as well as the most interesting thing to me was the condition of the colored people, a great many of whom, like myself, had escaped thither as a refuge from the hunters of men. I found many, who had not been seven years out of their chains, living in finer houses, and evidently enjoying more of the comforts of life, than the average of slaveholders in Maryland.”
To be continued next week.
Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host. His latest book, “The New Trump Standard,” is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, iBooks and GooglePlay. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on Twitter @LarryElder. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Another Socialist Democrat party plan at the dividing and destroying our nation: 🙁 🙁 🙁
“Reparations is the extraction of money from people who were never slave owners to be given to people who were never slaves.”
Not a penny from me. I was never a slave owner, my family emigrated from Europe in the 1930’s, so they were never slave owners. Enough of robbing people for the sake of taking their money to give to those who are just too lazy to earn it themselves.
mbills53:
It will not be up to us if we pay this scam. The dishonorable, dishonest, damnable, traitorous Democrats in congress will just take your taxes and
give more of them to the blacks and illegal immigrants.
Both sides of my family came here from Prussia/Norway in the 1870’s. They settled in Wisconsin. They never owned any slaves, or never knew anyone who owned any slaves. So all the democommies pushing this **** can KMA.
Good point scruffy. IF THE demented dems get their way, you will have NO CHOICE but to bay (IF you are white), they’ll just STEAL IT via more taxes.
The Goal of the “Progressives’s is Socialism.
The goal of the Socialists at the top of the political party is “CONTROL” of the people.
One way of achieving this goal is to buy votes, another is open borders.
They used to disguise their intent by ‘saying’ their efforts were to improve the quality of life for the common man.
They no longer try to hide this lie, instead they go straight for your wallet, either directly or through higher taxes, pursuing fictitious
Red Herrings like Climate Change.
Research the Cloward-Piven_strategy. These two knuckleheads were both professors at the Columbia University School of Social Work. They believed that ‘universal basic income’ would end poverty, much like the reparations proposals being floated.
They failed to recognize that something for FREE is a False premise, nothing is free, someone always pays.
They also failed to recognize that we are and have a society built on merit, NOT WELFARE.
COMMENT YES YES
these reparations is another way for them to racially divide this country… NOT ONE person is alive today who owned a slave or was a slave.. NO ONE should be paying anyone anything… This is the government stealing the money from one race and giving it to another race.. this insanity needs to stop!!!! people need to stand up and fight against this garbage…
The only “SLAVES” today are all being held by the SEX Traffic being done by Cartels and Mobsters.
And probably with DEMS ok, as they get kickbacks!
America Is Failing its citizens because like the Roman Empire the wealthy, well Connected politically are doing well while the Average Middle class are suffering. We are on the path of no return when America Will be no more.
” Fall of the Western Roman Empire…
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. ”
“Fall of Rome” redirects here. For other uses, see Fall of Rome (disambiguation).
“The fall of the Roman Empire” redirects here. For the film, see The Fall of the Roman Empire (film).
Animated map of the Roman Republic and Empire
Republic
Empire
Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire
Western Empire
” Fall of the Western Roman Empire.”
“The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vast territory was divided into several successor polities. The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army…”Immigrants also, are diluting And dividing this country.
They already got their reparations from BHO when he gave out all those free phones , as many as you could carry.
The first step in the African slave trade was blacks selling defeated tribes to Muslim slave traders for centuries, then briefly to whites. Out of millions of black slaves, the 380,000 reaching the Colonies had the least bad treatment and grew 100-fold. Their descendants are the luckiest blacks on the planet unlike African blacks who are still slaughtering each other in the millions.
They should be grateful for their good fortune thanks to the suffering of their forbears. But I’m sure taxpayers would gladly pay their one-way fare back to Africa to live the lives they were meant to have as “reparations”.
AND if they really want reparations. GO AFTER BOTH their OWN Tribesmen who sold them, and the muslim slave traders who BOUGHT AND TRADED them.
MOHAMET ALIE AFTER A FIGHT IN AFRICA SAID, to paraphrase him, said, ‘ THANK GOD MY GRANDPA GOT ON THAT BOAT.”
Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks – and Racist Too
by David Horowitz ,
Everybody Should Read This.
In 1991, Black democrat and Harvard Socialist Orlando Patterson said, ” The Sociological truths are that America, while still flawed in its race relations and iits stubborn refusal to institute a rational, universal welfare system, is now the least White-Majority society in the world, has a better record of legal protection of minorities than aby other society, White or Black…” Author Unknown
Cloward, Piven would be proud of the Welfare System in America.
Reparations for slavery is just another moronic Democratic led attempt to get more votes.
No one in my family tree owned slaves, and I never owned any slaves, either.
I don’t owe nobody nuthin’ !
Every time you rob peter to pay paul, PAUL WILL BE HAPPY.. So of course this will get MORE folks wanting to vote dem..
President Joe Biden Once Said to a Black Group, ” They are Going to Put you all Back in Chains,” To Paraphrase Joe Biden.
The slave mentality, issued by the Democrat Communists of America. Their Motto: Let’s keep playing the race card, let’s keep giving blacks taxpayer money and we will keep them enslaved. Reminds me of Jill Biden’s PHD dissertation, playing the race card, affirmative action garbage. Oh, I forgot, to address Jill, as Dr. Jill Biden, as her PHD dissertation was written at the Seventh Grade level.
She is a disgrace… she cared more about being first lady than she did her husband’s health.. did you see her when they were in Texas.. Beijing Biden at one point got lost and couldn’t remember what he was talking about.. she had to step in and talk for him PATHETIC… He IS taking our country down a very dark and dangerous road to destruction…
What do you expect from Jill. Senile Joe stole her from another man just like he stole the election. And since Jill agreed to this crapping on her first husband, then she should be referred to as The First Tramp.
I’ll say it again: How will descendants of slave traders; e.g., VP Harris and XP Obama; pay or receive reparations (if approved)?
As of 2014, over $22T has been spent on the War on Poverty with little to show for it.
http://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years
Poverty level in was ~15% in 2013. In 2019 it was approximately 10.5%poverty .
https://ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states
In other words, reparations have been paid.
Add to that, WHEN WILL THEY EVER go after all the MUSLIMS WHo were (and in some cases still are) involved in the slave trade???
The taxpayers need to get a rebate on the money already spent on the war on poverty. The grifters never stop panhandling their way thru life.
Every time you reward grift, you will just KEEP getting it!
“Reprobate-tions”
All of us commenting about this does no good. We need to get Congress to do their job instead of stirring people up with misinformation and hate. No one deserves anything. People of all nationalities need to work for a living and if they cannot work because of real disabilities we need to help them because that is what God informed us a long time ago. If help is really needed we need to help, but remember the saying give a man a fish he will eat to day, teach him to fish and he can eat the rest of his days. Not exact words, but I think you get the meaning.
Good luck getting congress to do anything.. the democRATS have the majority.. the GOP MUST fight and fight hard to change some of the democRATS over to their side or we all WILL lose…
TOO many are spineless though. SO EVEN WITH all of us calling, writing etc, they will inevitably CAVE IN, like they always do..
You could give every Black American a million dollars and most of them would still whine like toddlers…
Because they’d waste it all, THEN BEG for more.
Thankfully slavery ended in our country a long time ago. Or did it? I don’t want what the democrats are doing to us. Banning us from social media, cancelling our jobs, taking away our rights etc. Oh yes, and taking our money. Telling us how to live what to drive that we are all racists and so on. It’s a kind of slavery because we have no say or choice. Slavery is part of our history. You can go on plantation tours down south. It is a good education to get. We shouldn’t rewrite history. We can all learn from it. The good and the bad.
Exactly. IF ANYTHING the dems are REINSTITUTING slavery, via their power mongering, and rancid control over everyone. DO AS WE SAY only. DO AS we tell you only. BUY what we demand you get etc..
Give reparations on the condition that the debt is considered to be settled going forward.
REPARATIONS are DUE after PROOF ………. REPARATIONS are DUE after PROOF
REPARATIONS are DUE after PROOF……… and should be PAID TO THESES GROUPS…….
1. direct descendants of SLAVES ….
2. direct descendants of CIVIL WAR UNION ARMY and NAVY Veterans ……
TO BE PAID BY …….. the DEMOCRAT PARTY ……AND “Direct Descendants” of Registered Democrats during the Civil War
Proof?? THE left has never needed no stinkin proof.
What about the blacks that came to the US after slavery? Do they get reparations? All four of my grandparents immigrated from Italy in the 1930s. My family had nothing to do with slavery. Will me and my family have to pay reparations? As a Roman Catholic I could argue that my ancestors were slaves and even fed to the lions in the Colosseum. Do I get reparations for that?
AND What about the blacks who owned slaves.. what about the whites who were slaves… what the democRATS are doing is racially dividing this country.. They want to steal the money from one race to give to another… THIS IS WRONG!!! NOT ONE PERSON IS ALIVE WHO OWNED A SLAVE OR WAS A SLAVE.. THE DEMOCRATS ARE MAKING ALL AMERICANS A SLAVE TO THEM… PEOPLE NEED TO WAKE UP AND GET OFF THE GOVERNMENT PLANTATION…
TO these race haters, IF you are black, regardless you are OWED. IF you are white, you owe.. period.
Slavery and Colonialism was ok with science. Today our education establishments normalize our doctors, and nurses killing millions of people deemed non-human or useless every year, by government legislation.
This is Democrat Party Policy with Rino help. My neighbor is very old and was in the Hitler youth ,and knows this kind of indoctrination and forced government compliance. Who or what a person worships provides the rationale for his or her behavior.
Our Chief Counsel Robert H. Jackson’s argument which convicted Nazi Leaders at The Nuremberg War Criminals Trials after the second world war also convicts Democrat Party Policy today. His argument which atheist Educators etc. discard as obsolete today by Government legislation and Supreme Court decree , ” Of coarse, if there is no God given right to life or natural rights at all, but only rights granted by Governments, then one is put in the precarious position of having no objective moral basis by which to condemn The Holocaust.”
When legislated secularism has spawned it’s offspring and becomes the environment, it produces a loss of shame in it’s students. There is no inner voice to say,” No this is wrong , do not do this to yourself.” How then is it possible to reconcile law with liberty when both the sense of right and the sensation of wrong have been eradicated by Government Legislation?
OR all of the irish, who often were treated as BAD as black slaves..
Exactly how could this scheme be carried out? I had at least 2 great-grandfathers who were Union soldiers in the Civil War and all but one of my so-far known ancestors came from northern states. Do I “owe” money to someone who just came to the US in the last twenty years? How about our ignorant VP whose family owned slaves but claims (against her father’s wishes) to be half-black? Does she pay or receive?
A Mr. Ellison was on Hannity and correctly stated that DEMOCRATS ran slavery and then ran Jim Crow. Of course, they also founded the KKK and Planned Parenthood (whose founder called blacks “human weeds”). How about the DIMMs pay all the reparations!!
This entire Reparations thing is totally WRONG.. it’s INSANE!!! there is NO ONE alive today who was a slave or was a slave owner.. they tend to also forget the blacks in Africa were the ones who sold out their kind into slavery.. they tend to forget to tell that Blacks were ALSO Slave owners and Whites were slaves.. They are racially dividing this country … wanting to steal the money from the whites to give to the blacks which will drive that wedge between the races…
Beijing Biden and Socialist Harris are taking this country down a dark and dangerous road to destruction… GOD HELP US ALL
You just know, if this ever came to be NO DEM WOULD EVER PAY UP.. THey’d just be receivers..
Will Obama get a half share even though his father was a recent student from Africa and was never enslaved by the USA. Will Obama owe a half share due to his mother’s ancestors slave owning? How much will I receive since I, like senator Warren recently recall sitting on my grandma’s knee listening to how she used to sing negro spirituals while picking cotton in the Deep South. I still have those soul food recipes that she handed down.
SINCE he keeps denying he’s even half white, of course he’ll ONLY GET paid. HE WON’T pay one single dime in reparations, for what HIS ancestors did.
all this will do is DEEPEN THE DIVIDE in the country.
remember when Oprah gave all these black ladies $50,000 to jump out of poverty? Was it within a year most were broke?
If you get it for free its not earned or appreciated. It taken for granted that its deserved.
Not surprising, when most spent it on their own fat *****.
The argument that slavery made america rich does not square with my family’s slave owning history. Before the civil war my great great grandfather was a plantation owner who did ok but was not outstandingly prosperous. Slaves were acquired at great expense and had to be cared for. They were thought of as permanent children who needed food, housing, clothing, and medical care even if they produced little. After emancipation he hired freed slaves for wages and became very successful buying up many nearby plantations. In spite of losing most of his assets when his slaves were freed, good management and being freed from having to supply them a welfare state substantially improved his profit margin. Interestingly many former slaves took his last name when freed and returned to a family reunion decades later. Slavery was much more complex than abolishinist propaganda would have us believe.
How often are reparations going handed out? Maybe we should should get the reparations.
I did ancestry DNA ,I’m Irish so where my reparations ????
Reparations and civil war, one and inseparable.
How about this…. offer each Black $100k and a one-way cruise-liner ticket to Liberia, and give up US citizenship forever.
The ones that take the offer, fine…. don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out.
As for the ones who stay… they need to cut the ****, grow up, and be good Americans.
WITH How much they’ve all received via welfare, To me, THEY HAVE ALL ALREADY been paid enough reparations.. PERIOD.
Especially the rich ones. Anyone that thinks America or the world owes them a living or that they have it so bad in America needs to leave NOW.
Barack Obama has slave holders on his white mother’s side, and Arab slave holders and traders on his Arab grandfather’s side. Does he owe reparations?
He’s black and democrat, they’ll NEVER be required to pay up.
First of all, it’s the democrat party who insisted on maintaining the institution of slavery back when the country was founded. And it was democrat FDR who robbed Japanese Americans of their money and sent them to internment camps during the early 1940s despite the fact that 99.9% of those Japanese Americans remained loyal to the United States. And both parties are guilty of cheating the American Indians out of their land, but Manifest Destiny was a democrat platform that guaranteed the American Indians would get screwed, plus that platform was the basis for starting the Mexican War. The point of this post is that since the democrat party is responsible for the relatives of minorities getting crapped on, then the reparations should be paid by democrats ONLY!
These ******** are really trying to get a civil war going, aren’t they?
Reparations? Absolutely! The party of slavery aka DEMOCRAT should start doling out money from THEIR coffers to all the African-Americans they bought from African-Africans . Not only should this be mandated toward blacks but to all the registered Republicans whose party shed blood to end slavery, gave blacks the right to vote, and hold blacks to the same standards and privileges as every other citizen. In addition to the culture of slavery, the Democrats should be held accountable to their creation of the KKK, jim crow laws, the destruction of the black family via their “compassionate”, if not to them serendipitous dependence on the left, thanks to LBJ’s “War on Poverty” and “Great Society” programs. And if we are to apply the concept of ancestral debt, I suspect that the children of all those in prison will be billed for all the harm their parents inflicted on others.
Slavery should be touted by the left. Slave traders produced a descendant who would one day , despite being rejected by 98% of her party during the democrat presidential primaries, has been propped up as the second most powerful entity in the country. And when we get to the “me too” topic, we can thank the “oldest profession” as being THE most influential process that elevated her to public “service” as she filled the inspirational and admirable position of the married mayor of San Francisco’s mistress.