I heard about this on the news about the same way I did about Nottoway Plantation. And while I have never visited either one, my feelings about both are pretty much the same.
Their loss is a tragedy.
And while no one in my family was a slave, at least not within the last millenia or so, my father lived through the Second World War. He had a front row seat in it. And could probably be called a participant even though he was 16-17 when it ended. It was a war where the civilian populations were displaced, or interned, by the war. Civilians were bombed and their cities and towns were battlefields.
Despite that, the Kehlsteinhaus, commonly known in English as the Eagle's Nest, is more of a mountain chalet than a war relic for me. True, it's more interesting than some of the ones I've been in, but it's more civilianised than politicised these days. Yes, one can remember that it was built by the Nazis.
But, are you going to stop driving a Volkswagen because the Volkswagen Type 1 (AKA the "beetle") was designed by the Nazis?
I would add that this building has a lot more history to it. It wasn't used by Hitler very much since he was an acrophobe, but the Allies did occupy it. Here's the clip from Band of Brothers where Easy Company captures it.
US troops did a job of de-Nazifying the building, and the general area, by grabbing bits of it as war trophies!
And the area was used by US occupation forces for "R&R" up until 1995.
Given one of my great-grandfathers came from Meerane, Both of us don't (didn't) have a lot of love for the Nazis,or Bavarians. He was a draft-dodger avoiding service in the Kaiser's Army. He volunteered for service during the 14-18 War for the united States, but was too old.
But, the bottom line is some of my relatives lived through Nazisim and Communism. So...
Anyway, despite its history, the Kehlsteinhaus is probably more of a tourist site for its mountain view than the other bits. But, I do understand US vets come through on tours.
Rebuild it for its economic benefits.
I would add that destroying history leads to its being forgotten, which is why both the Kehlsteinhaus and Nottoway Plantation should be rebuilt.
Unless, you want to forget these events only to repeat them again?
Once again it's time for the "woke" holiday that was adopted after the BLM riots.
And it seems that a majority of people are ignoring it, which makes sense since it really isn't that much of an event.
It's way more hype tied with a desire to appease the people who went wild in 2020.
On the other hand, Philadelphia's Odunde actually gathers a crowd. Toss in that it has a lot of community support.
"Jane"
So, maybe we should have gone with Odunde which is a thing as opposed to Juneteenth which was pretty much a non-event along the line of the Plymouth Plantation crowd and thanksgiving.
Who hears about Jamestown's starving time?
Jane needs to be recognised for her struggle in the creation of America!
She needs to be an "American Girl" doll!
We need to know the story of Jane! Who was she? Did she have a say in her ultimate fate?
So, I propose that we need a holiday to remember Jane while we're doing away with Juneteenth and Thanksgiving.
Damn, I wish this were up when all the statues were being torn down. I think my reaction was to sell the Civil War ones to the French since they look like the ones for the Franco-Prussian War.
This may be more legend, than reality as my previous post pointed out.
The big one: Granger may not have read the proclamation.
Longstanding urban legend places a historic reading of General Order No. 3 at Ashton Villa; but no historical evidence supports this claim.[41] There is no evidence that Granger or any of his troops proclaimed
the Ordinance by reading it aloud. All indications are that copies of
the Ordinance were posted in public places, including the Negro Church
on Broadway, since renamed Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church.
Secondly, despite the Union victory, Slaves were not freed, as this points out. And to recap this from yesterday:
Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved population in two Union border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.[44][c][e]
The federal amendment also put a definitive end to chattel
slavery and indentured servitude in New Jersey, freeing approximately 16
elderly individuals.[f][47][48] Furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the Reconstruction Treaties
of late 1866, when the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and
Seminole tribes were forced to sign new treaties that required them to
free their slaves.[49][50]
The freedom of formerly enslaved people in Texas was given state law status in a series of Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874.
OK, the video isn't totally accurate since it doesn't get into the fact that the Emancipation Proclaimation only freed slaves in most of the Confederate Territory, not all of it. That's an important point, which is being left out of this. The video also continues the nonsense about Grainger's General Order. It only gets good when it gets to the truth of the matter: the General Order didn't do a lot for the slaves of Texas.
I would start watching at 4 minutes in.
If the point of this is to commemorate the end of slavery, then there is probably a much better date for that. But has slavery ended if prison labour can be used in a similar way?
from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States
and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this
day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St.
Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James
Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and
Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except
the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the
counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York,
Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and
Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left
precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do
order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said
designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be
free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including
the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain
the freedom of said persons.
Ever wonder where this came from? I mean unless you were listening, this event came out of the blue. OK, I'm going to be lazy and quote Wikipedia, and not even bother to remove the footnotes, just because this whole thing isn't really worth my time.
Texas was the first state to recognize the date by enacted law, in 1980. By 2002, eight states officially recognized Juneteenth[97] and four years later 15 states recognized the holiday.[54] By 2008, just over half of the states recognized Juneteenth in some way.[98] By 2019, 47 states and the District of Columbia recognized Juneteenth,[99] although as of 2020 only Texas had adopted the holiday as a paid holiday for state employees.[100]
In June 2019, Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Wolf recognized Juneteenth as a holiday in the state.[101] In the yearlong aftermath of the murder of George Floyd that occurred on May 25, 2020, nine states designated Juneteenth a paid holiday,[102] including New York, Washington, and Virginia.[103] In 2020, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker
issued a proclamation that the day would be marked as "Juneteenth
Independence Day". This followed the filing of bills by both the House
and Senate to make Juneteenth a state holiday. Baker did not comment on
these bills specifically but promised to grant the observance of
Juneteenth greater importance.[104] On June 16, 2021, Illinois adopted a law changing its ceremonial holiday to a paid state holiday.
So, if you're like me, you didn't notice this "holiday" this year, but I have various reasons which make that an easy thing to do. I can say "Juneteenth Quoi ?" or more like "Juneteenth, quoi c'est bordel?" And most people should be doing that since the 1980s and 1990s, the holiday has been more widely celebrated
among African-American communities and has seen increasing mainstream
attention in the US. In other words, it popped into the consciousness around 120 years after the fact. And it may be more fiction than fact since.
Planters and other slaveholders from eastern states had migrated into
Texas to escape the fighting, and many brought enslaved people with
them, increasing by the thousands the enslaved population in the state
at the end of the Civil War.[9] Although most lived in rural areas, more than 1,000 resided in Galveston or Houston by 1860, with several hundred in other large towns.[37] By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas.[9][8]
Despite the surrender of Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, the western Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not formally surrender until June 2.[9] On the morning of June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston[38]
to take command of the more than 2,000 federal troops recently landed
in the department of Texas to enforce the emancipation of its enslaved
population and oversee Reconstruction, nullifying all laws passed within Texas during the war by Confederate lawmakers.[38][39]
The order informed all Texans that, in accordance with a Proclamation
from the Executive of the United States, all enslaved people were free:
The people of Texas are informed
that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United
States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of
personal rights and rights of property between former masters and
slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that
between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain
quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed
that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they
will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.[40]
Longstanding urban legend places a historic reading of General Order No. 3 at Ashton Villa; but no historical evidence supports this claim.[41] There is no evidence that Granger or any of his troops proclaimed
the Ordinance by reading it aloud. All indications are that copies of
the Ordinance were posted in public places, including the Negro Church
on Broadway, since renamed Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church.[42]
On June 21, 2014, the Galveston Historical Foundation and Texas Historical Commission
erected a Juneteenth plaque where the Osterman Building once stood
signifying the location of Major General Granger's Union Headquarters
believed to be where he issued his general orders.[43]
Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved population in two Union border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.[44][c][e]
The federal amendment also put a definitive end to chattel
slavery and indentured servitude in New Jersey, freeing approximately 16
elderly individuals.[f][47][48] Furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the Reconstruction Treaties
of late 1866, when the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and
Seminole tribes were forced to sign new treaties that required them to
free their slaves.[49][50]
The freedom of formerly enslaved people in Texas was given state law status in a series of Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874.
So, this make be the biggest commemoration of a non-event that ever happened because it wasn't the actual end of slavery in Texas and the General may never have made a speech telling the slaves of a plantation in Galveston that they were free!
And for that matter, there was still slavery despite the Emancipation proclamation!
You weren't crazy if you were wondering why you had never heard of it before 2020,
And you were among a very small group of people if you DID know about this prior to this year.
While
the media tried to make this sound like something which had been around
for a long time, the reality is that the Juneteenth this was
steamrollered over us. Wired points it out in their Why Juneteenth Went Viral.Wired's piece tends toward this being something contemplative, but I do question the interest in Juneteenth, as opposed to Odunde, as being virtue signalling.
It's no coincidence that the movement to celebrate Juneteenth came during the Black Lives Matter
riots (sorry, but more than one city was trashed and these were
counterproductive as fuck. So, fuck you, I'll call them as I see them).
It's more of the meaningless virtue signalling to try and calm the
rioters.
But it was a small group of people who made this a thing as Protocol's How a Group of Creatives made Juneteenth 'spread like wildfire'. Yeah, "creatives" as in advertising types. Not just any advertising types, but ones connected to the social media industry.
I
am trying to break from the surveillance economy,. Not only do they
keep tabs on you, but they try and influence your opinion.
I cried "bullshit" about Russiagate.
I'm crying "bullshit" about the virtue signalling relating to Black Lives Matter.
Nothing significant will come from the past few months. If anything,
those events will make matters worse. I know they increased gun sales.
I am already certain that Trump will be reelected. Even if he isn't, the Democratic candidate isn't onside.
So, what was the point of it all?
I prefer substance to Bullshit, but the bullshit is piling up like the trash on the streets of Philadelphia and NYC.
{OK, Given that Juneteenth isn't really that meaningfull, this was pulled from Wikipedia and a couple of my previous post on the issue. This is a "holiday" that needs to GO AWAY because it's BS].
I mentioned in my last post that getting married in a plantation would be the perfect form of revenge given marriage and family life was not allowed. Actually, this is a subject for debate, but I don't want to get into it.
I object to any comparison of plantations to concentration camps since I see a lot of ignorance even from historians in the US about this topic.
Number one and most importantly, the only people who wanted to see these destroyed were the people who committed the crimes. Everyone else is aware that the destruction of concentration camps will erase their memory. I used the example of Belzec. It was one of the operation Reinhard camps where between 430,000 and 500,000 Jews (I would say more but cannot prove it) are believed to have been murdered by the SS at Bełżec . It was the third-deadliest extermination camp, exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz. Only seven members of the Sonderkommando Survived.
Not many people have heard about it because it was destroyed. But that is an aside.
The second reason is that like under slavery, Jews were discouraged from getting married in the camps. Marriage was an act of resistance:
“They got married in the ghetto and gave birth there. The “Death
Machine” didn’t break the main thing – the human spirit and the will to
live. After all, they wouldn’t let them die, otherwise, it was the
ultimate surrender”, – says Alexander Boroda, the President of the
Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.
After the war, people found themselves in Displaced Persons camps, some of which were on the site of former concentration camps. They got married in those camps.
But to answer the question:
Historic military compound the Seventh Fort in Vilnius,
Lithuania has become a popular site for weeding parties and children
summer camps, but, according to Israeli press, a Nazi German
concentration camp had once stood there.
Belgian new portal New Europe reports citing The Jerusalem Post that
the 18-acre red-brick bunker complex built in 1880s was also the site of
a concentration camp in 1941. The Israeli newspaper wrote that
thousands of Jews were imprisoned, treated inhumanely, killed and buried
at the Seventh Fort.
The weddings are not held on the area where the Holocaust victims are buried, which is only 2% of the camp area.
So, if you are going to use the concentration camp example, then the descendants of formerly enslaved people should be "jumping" at the chance to get married on a plantation since it was something denied to their ancestors.
And descendants of people killed in concentration camps show their defiance and love for life by doing exactly that.
James Catnach - The Marriage Act Displayed in Cuts and Verse (British Library)
I'm not going to go into the history of this tradition other than to repeat something said in one article about it:
Parry writes that despite the racial animus which characterized the US
South during the nineteenth century, poor white Southerners (many of
whom were descendants of people who had irregular forms of matrimony in
Britain) and enslaved African Americans had more cultural exchange than
is commonly acknowledged.
But the reason I bring it up is that one of the institutions which was prohibited to slaves was marriage and a stable family life. A lot of the criticism about Nottoway is that it was used for weddings, which was something prohibited to slaves. On the other hand, no one has mentioned if blacks were prohibited from celebrating their marriages there in recent times. I'm not going to get into a discussion of "jumping the broom" or the institution of marriage during slavery since it would take a lot more than a blog post.
On the other hand, what would be a better form of revenge than for black people to get married on a place where it was prohibited to their ancestors?
I see way too much boohooing and handwringing that "slavery was bad" without too much introspection on what has been lost to future generations. The concentration camps have been kept as memorials. The only people who wanted them destroyed were the people who committed the crimes to hide the evidence.
Have you ever heard of Belzec? No, it was destroyed to hide the evidence. If you are going to mention concentration camps--then you should mention that.
This place was up for sale not too long ago: why didn't people buy it to turn it into another Whitney Plantation where slavery is addressed honestly?
To be honest if reparations are going to happen, they probably won't monetary, or just focused on one race: they will only come from an honest and open discussion of race in America.
And destroying the places which are painful really isn't the answer.
I'm rather surprised by black people rejoicing at the destruction of this plantation since it seems to me that they would want to preserve this. They seem to ignore that the destruction of this historic structure erases it from the collective memory. It's like destroying native American heritage wipes it from the mental landscape.
While blacks know about it, I thought I would try to find an unbiased account of this place. The US media is sharply divided on the issue with blacks being disgusted by the house being used for weddings. This is despite areas where the slaves were kept being present. Also, this plantation was a sugar plantation, which made far more money than cotton did.
I am one who believes in trying to stay historically accurate. I agree with this comment by Redacted on the Independent.co.uk website. Perhaps more deference should have been given to the slaves, but I didn't hear anyone who has commented about how happy they are to see the destruction of this plantation say that the current owners discriminated in anyway.
And it would be ironic if black people had weddings and visited the plantation, which they can't do for the time being.
Anyway, I tried to find some coverage about Nottoway in the French media and only found articles about it as a tourist destination.
So, maybe the joy is merited.
On the other hand, one of the youtube posts rejoicing in the destruction was followed by a very complimentary post about Nathan Bedford Forrest.
The French have a saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
I'm with Michael Twitty, the person who wrote the screencapped article at the top of this page:
Coming to terms with what these plantations have meant is a process that
takes time and generational commitment. Plantations and sites related
to slavery have to have foot traffic and human and financial investment
to preserve the evidence of African and African American labor, craft
and resistance. Still, they shouldn’t exist as mere resorts.
Did you know that Angela Davis was a Mayflower Descendant?
Yes, THAT Angela Davis. The American Marxist and feminist political activist. The one who was a longtime member of the Communist
Party USA and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for
Democracy and Socialism.
Yes, not only is Angela Davis a Mayflower Descendant--she's a descendant of William Brewster! That makes her one of the elite since Brewster was the senior elder and the leader of Plymouth Colony.
So, tell me: how are reparations supposed to work when some slaves were the children of slaveowners? Not to mention some blacks have done well for themselves while whites are poor?
I have a love-hate relationship with Greg Gutfeld. He says some things which are bang on sometimes. He also says some things that are a little off. I used to think I would get into a fight if we got together. Then, I realised he likes to shock the way I do.
If I am guilty for slavery as a white person, then aren't blacks guilty of ethnically cleansing the native American population?
A significant number of blacks left the south after the Civil War to make lives in other parts of the US. And quite a few of them joined the US Military.
And Idi Amin was one of the most notorious racists EVER. Even though Idi Amin may have been Ugandan, but ask an Asian who was deported from Uganda during the 1970s how well they were treated by his government. And wasn't that the beginning of the "taking a knee" thing?
Yes, blacks can be racist too.
And let's close with some Russell Brand on the Democrats:
I am not a fan of reparations. And I have had enough "black history" to know that the "four hundred years of slavery" is sheer bullshit. Let's start with 1619 as being the beginning date and end with "Juneteenth" in 1865, even though those slaves had been legally free since the Emancipation Declaration in 1863. That's 246 years.
And 155 years ago. And no one is that old.
The years after emancipation saw blacks move from the South in the Great Migration. Blacks had businesses and did well. And some blacks moved west. Some of them even joined the US military.
Several African-American regiments were raised during the Civil War as part of the Union Army (including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the many United States Colored Troops Regiments), the "Buffalo Soldiers" were established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The Buffalo Soldiers were a fairly significant part of the post-Civil War US Army. Buffalo Soldiers comprised 12% of the U.S. Army infantry force and 20% of the cavalry force during the time of the Indian Wars f(1866 to 1891).
And one that engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the first nations during the "Indian Wars".
Now, if you are going to call me racist because of one cop in a place I have never been, then I have to tell you that you are guilty of the ethnic cleansing of the US Native American from their land. You also engaged in the Imperialist Spanish American War and Pancho Villa's rebellion.
A 2016 Marist poll found 58% of black Americans were in favour of reparations, while 81% of white Americans opposed the idea. A 2018 Data for Progress survey also found reparations to be unpopular among the general public, and especially so among white Americans.
Being opposed to a cash payout reparations tends to push the number up even higher.
Bayard Rustin, who organised the March on Washington and was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr, called reparations a "ridiculous idea".Mr Rustin told the New York Times in 1969, "If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he's dead and gone and nobody owes me anything".He later expanded on the views, writing that a payout would demean "the integrity of blacks" and exploit white guilt.
The issue here being time at least five generations of US blacks have been free (i.e. were slaves). Sure we can talk about the discrimination in the South, but what do you do with a Kay Coles James or a Madam C.J. Walker? The name Pat McGrath came up during this search.
You don't need a white person to debate this issue since I know that blacks have opinions on the topics, but Ta-Nehisi Coates found a great topic to grab some attention. Unfortunately most of the talk is divided by race. It would be nice if some conservative blacks weighed in on the topic.
Coates mentioned debt, which is one thing which started me thinking about this topic. The Western Countries wrote off Africa's debt back in 2005, but the countries are now worse than they were BEFORE the write offs. While the reasons are different, the bottom line is the same:
Unless something is changed the debt will return worse than before.
In other words, people can throw as much money as they want at a problem, but fuck all will happen unless the underlying causes are addressed.
On problem with the US is the myth of abundance, in particular and abundance of land so that rich people can move out of the cities. That means the cities are left to decay (I blame most of Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw's problems on the industry the built those cities: the automobile).
Mr. Coates needs to integrate himself since there are poor whites living in those places. Of familiarise himself with Fred Hampton who understood the issue 50 years ago.
I wouldn't say that whites are better off economically by looking at a graph. I am no where near a Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or other 1% than Ta-Nehisi Coates is to Pat McGrath. And Pat McGrath still doesn't raise the income of poor blacks. On the other hand, those people skew the numbers when you look at averages. The average white person in Appalachia is in no way affluent.
There's a lesson in here somewhere, but I think that reparations will fail when it comes down to it. it's something that sounds intriguing, but is doomed to failure if anyone tries to implement it.
It makes people uncomfortable to think that someone's ancestors didn't come to the US willingly. Slavery, indentured servitude, and transportation run against the narrative of people coming here for the "American Dream". Unless you mean the American Dream of someone else who receives cheap labour.
The US is far too in love with its national myth of opportunity and unlimited resources. The narrative runs that people come to the United States because they can work hard and enjoy the benefits. The reality has been that people work hard and someone else gets the benefits.
Tell someone who wants to know your ancestors immigration story that they came over in chains as a slave and they get all uncomfortable.
And Transportation is something no one is willing to talk about, but I would scream out my convict heritage like an Aussie boasts about being an ancestor of the first fleet if I found out one was in my family tree. But people also get really uncomfortable when they find out that a lot of pre-Independence immigrants were felons.
Bottom line is that unwilling immigrants aren't what people want to hear about.
Another big issue with this topic is that there is also no consensus on the Black (?) or African American (?) side. Case in point, Kay Coles James is President of The Heritage Foundation. She is also a black woman, and a Republican, which can cause some people's head to explode if they wish to believe that gender or race influences their opinion.
Where this comes in is in terms of conservative black people, which sounds like a contradiction in terms (sort of like Very religious Jews siding with conservative Christians in the US).
It is also the exception which proves the rule ("prove" meaning "tests") in that she is a black woman with a highly impressive CV going by the write up here: https://www.heritage.org/staff/kay-coles-james.
I'll mention Candace Owen, but that's it.
OK, Black Conservatives are definitely NOT on the same page as Ta-Nehisi Coates, or even me. But they do raise the question is it racism or is the issue something else which reparations aren't really going to address.
Part of the reason I mention Kay Coles James is that she is a black woman from a southern, former slave state who has done well in society. Perhaps that is due to when she grew up.
On the other hand, this white guy, who was born in Detroit has had his own share of eating 50 cent burritos and being leveraged to the hilt with debt during periods of unemployment.
Is that my white privilege at work?
Anyway, the black conservative opinion on this topic runs like this:
My point isn't that I don't think that slavery was bad or that there is no discrimination, but there is more than one opinion. Likewise, the past 160 odd years have changed the playing field to make this a very complex issue to address.
The bottom line is that any reparations may not be monetary: they may be more symbolic. Something to make people feel good about historic events which we must acknowledge, but cannot change.
There is a reason why the topics of slavery, indentured servitude, and transportation are neglected: because one of the United States' many myths is the myth of the immigrant coming because of the American promise. People arriving against their will goes against that myth. Someone boasts how their ancestors came for the opportunities found in the US has to deal with the fact that segments of the population arrived against their will.
Slave ships and auctions are the antithesis of Ellis Island, which is probably another myth as well.
But slavery, or people as commercial objects, is an integral part of US immigration law. The US has jus soli because of slavery and Dred Scott. The Fourteenth Amendment was a result of slavery. It haunts immigration policy because anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen: no matter whether their parents were lawfully present in the country.
There is the indignation by some people about children being placed in "cages", yet those are the holding cells used by the police in the US. Now, how would those people feel about people who arrived in this country chained together?
I am not going to get into a debate about people who are lawfully present or not, but treating migrant workers as property for the benefit of others leads to terrible consequences. Sure, there should be a process to allow workers into the country if there happens to be a lack of workers: but is there no unemployment in the US?
Bottom line, the US has a love of exploiting workers, which is a big part of the discussion. And that fact is highly uncomfortable.
Mary Sarah Bilder, Struggle over Immigration: Indentured Servants, Slaves, and Articles of Commerce, The, 61 Mo. L. Rev. (1996) Available at: http://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol61/iss4/1
The major problem with talking about reparations, besides the time factor, is what form would they take? Glasgow Univerity found that donations to the 1866-1880 campaign to build the university's current
campus at Gilmorehill incluided 23 people who gave money which had some financial
links to the New World slave trade. "Some financial
links" is an interesting term: especially since the period in question includes the 18th and 19th Centuries.
The Abolition of Slave Trade Act, which made it illegal to trade slaves
throughout the British Empire and banned British ships from involvement
in the trade, was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807. Britain officially ended trading slaves on 1 March 1808 (the slave trade still went on illegally for some time). Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, with exceptions provided for the East India Company, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. Those exceptions were eliminated in 1843. Slavery was still practised in the United States until the end of the US Civil War in 1865.
While illegal, slavery is still practised in the world, which is something any serious discussion of this topic needs to include. Likewise, slavery took many different forms. Both issues are something that any realistic discussion of this topic needs to address.
Glasgow University isn't the only academic institution in United Kingdom to look into how it profited from the slave economy. Yet Glasgow University also points out that it supported abolition. So, there were two aspects of this. The University "profited" from the slave trade while condemning that trade.
On the other hand, "restorative justice" seems to be looking into the system of forced labour, which I hope includes people who went as "indentured servants" or were transported for "criminal offences".
Anyway, it sounds as if the real outcome of this will indeed be to promote discussion of the topic, which has pretty much been buried in both the US and UK. we could get into a debate about which culture has minimised the role of slavery in its development. Slavery did indeed contribute greatly to the prosperity of those countries, along with western society.
I think the bottom line is that any "reparations" or "restorative justice" is likely to come in the form of an acknowledgement of the role of slavery in Western Society, not monetary. Maybe there might be some social reforms, but I wouldn't be too hopeful about that.
But addressing this topic in a candid and honest way might indeed be the best course of action for any 'restorative justice".
As I said before it was the Transatlantic Slave trade, which means it goes beyond just the United States: especially if you are discussing the people who traded slaves.
You can listen to this episode here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csynsp. The person in question is Spanish and his family was trading slaves after the trade became illegal.
What exactly is the status of The Voting Rights Act of 1965?
Serious question since this is something which happened recently enough to be in our lifetime. It also has a real impact on current events where as reparations are pretty nebulous.
Wouldn't it make more sense to be discussing this since it has a very real effect on minorities and US politics?
Which leads to the next question: WHY isn't it being discussed?
