Universities Are Slow To Reveal Links To Slavery
When Brown University released its landmark report on the institution’s connections to slavery in the fall of 2006, academics and reparations advocates across the country praised the institution, but few universities have followed Brown’s lead in examining their own history with slavery more than one year later.
November 28th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Perhaps universities don’t want to pay reparations. The taxpayers who own public universities certainly don’t. Slavery died in the 1800’s leave it there.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Lloyd, do you really think that slavery and its consequences died out in the 1800s?
Do you believe that the freed slaves and their descendants, left with almost nothing and facing another century of Jim Crow laws and discrimination, were given a fair deal? How would you explain, for example, the much lower socioeconomic status of blacks than whites today?
James
November 30th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
“Do you believe that the freed slaves and their descendants, left with almost nothing and facing another century of Jim Crow laws and discrimination, were given a fair deal?”
No one in the US has had a “fair deal.” Italians, Irish, Polish, Russians, Jews, Mormons, Unitarians, the handicapped, glbt’s, etc. have all been looked down upon at some point in US history. In fact, the puritans that settled the US were looked down upon by the British. The British were looked down upon by the Romans. The Romans were despised by Egyptians. Egyptians were at one time slaves to the Nubians. See a pattern here? No one has ever had a “fair deal.” What matters is, the US offers the most fair deal for everyone in the history of the world, regardless of anything other than merit. To say that anyone in this country is owed anything other than their paycheck or tax refund is absurd.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Lloyd, I think there’s a big difference between a group being “looked down upon at some point,” and a race of people being brought to this country in chains and then being left to fend for themselves with nothing but another century of legalized discrimination.
I’ll grant you there’s been discrimination of all sorts in the thousands of years of recorded human history. But it’s hardly “absurd” to suggest that slavery was the most monstrous evil committed by American society, and that those who suffered and their descendants were never “put right.” And no amount of “equal treatment” has done so, either, judging from almost any economic or social indicator.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
James, slavery was wrong and as a nation we wish it had never happened on our soil. That debate has long been settled. The reasons why reparations don’t make sense in the context of the United States today are:
No living person has legally held slaves.
No living person was a slave.
It is impossible to determine who should pay reparations and what amount they should pay.
Determining who should receive reparations because they have suffered due to slavery that ended over a century ago is impossible.
These arguments don’t address the economic and social statistics that describe why some groups are behind others. Single parent households, family size and locus of control are more to blame than institutions that ended 150 years ago. We need to address current problems instead of trying to receive handouts for acts committed by the long-deceased.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Lloyd, that’s a very subtle argument you’ve made.
You’ve raised excellent reasons why lawsuits demanding reparations, in the form of cash payments to individuals, would be deeply problematic.
But you refuse to acknowledge the lingering consequences of slavery, or what might be done about them. In fact, you’ve deliberately skirted those consequences, and the obvious moral imperative to tackle them. You did this by raising the argument that the current racial disparities in this country derive largely from other causes — from the actions of the victims, in fact! And you suggest, without ever saying so, that so much of those disparities derive from other causes that it’s not even worth bothering to address the legacy of slavery and discrimination.
I think it’s disingenuous to dismiss the easily-traceable consequences of slavery on our society today, simply by noting that there are other causes for racial disparities. At the very least, it would be necessary to estimate roughly how much of those differences result from the two sets of causes. And economists have no trouble tracing much of today’s differences to the era of slavery and discrimination.
James