ANSWERS: 17
  • Some few folks have an overdeveloped sense of guilt. And no fewer folks are perfectly willing to take advantage of it.
  • Owe? No. That is the past -- the way past. Sadly there are minority leaders working very hard to "keep the hate alive."
  • As long as You don't treat Them as They still were, don't. I don't feel responsible for my own parents, so it's funny to feel responsible for something so far away. It's politics.
  • I don't owe anybody for jack sh*t. I treat everybody exactly the same, unless they give me a reason to ignore them. I am responsible for my actions, and those of my children until they are adults. All this baloney about still being enslaved is just that - baloney. If someone is being treated unfairly, then BY ALL MEANS, let's take it on a case-by-case basis and stop it immediately! I hate it when people are taken advantage of! Otherwise, sit down, shut up, and take your place in society. Intimidation tactics do not work with me. Frankly, people are getting sick of the ATTITUDE. +5
  • Well... I do think that it is rediculous to keep apologising for what has been done. In 2006 Blair officially apologised and expressed sorrow for Britain's part in the slave trade. I thought that was absolutely rediculous. What does he, or we, have to be sorry for? We were no part of it, so us as individuals don't have anything to be sorry for, or owe people for... However, I don't think it is racist. If an ethnic group or a race has been wronged in the past by a state, and that group still is in a disadvanged position compared to the rest of the population as a result of that wrong (in this case slavery) then I believe the group as a whole is entitled so some kind of reparations. *If* those (and that is a big if) African Americans descended from slaves are disadvantaged as a direct or indirect consequence of slavery and the discrimination connected to it, then perhaps they do deserve some kind of reperations or 'special treatment'. This should be done to correct the affects of the wrong that led to them being disadvantaged with the aim of bringing them up to the economic/social position they possibly would have been in had that inital wrong not taken place. You see this happening sometimes with regards to Native Americans, Inuits and African Americans in states that directly hurt and wronged those groups. Attempting to measure that across a huge geographical area though is a minefield and it is completely impossible to measure due to the speculation involved.
  • I think that anyway that believes that anyone owes anyone anything has not be paying attention as to how this world works regardless if the some you refer to are black, white or any other color. I think that when the some you point to and then reference races may be getting very close to being racist if not blatent than by inferance. Some of every race are misguided on their judgement and values - I for one could not give you the percentages. You asked +5
  • it does annoy me but i suppose its one of those things that will never change. it doesnt really matter though because at the end of the day, people are gonna hate people whether they are black, white or purple! theyre just excuses for hate i think.
  • Its probably due to the magnitude of the crime that was committed. Never in the history of the world has one group been displaced & subjected to horrors on the scale of black Africans during slavery. I don’t mind the head of a people apologising collectively for the actions of it's forefathers. I think most people would agree that the German people owe an apology to the Jews, the Serbians an apology to... pretty much everyone in the Balkans etc. So why not to the ancestors of slaves. Bottom line is, no I don’t think its racist for black people to want a collective apology that recognises the injustice committed against their ancestors. The key is collective tho.
  • No. I don't think it's that clear-cut. If my grandfather stole something from your grandfather, and my grandfather got rich off of it, and then you watch me going off to Harvard while you're going to community college, you might feel resentment over that regardless of either of our races. When American Indian tribes sue to recover land that was stolen through violations of treaties, is that racist? Since the original theft was based on race, you can't dismiss the grievances simply because they have a racial component. The difficulty is figuring out what to do about it. Because you're absolutely right in pointing out that the slave owners and the slaves are all dead. What do I, as a white Southerner, owe to black people? There must be something. Three quarters of my ancestors came here from England and Scotland in the early 1600's, settled in the South, owned slaves for the next 260 years, and made a lot of money. (And I did get to go to college at Harvard.) Most of the other quarter came from Germany after the Civil War. Do I get discount off from whatever I owe? And the rest of the family is Cherokee -- how does that figure into the accounting? At this point, there's no way to unscramble the omelet (although theoretically I guess I could sue myself). Which leaves us with what all of us owe to each of us, anyway -- equal opportunity and fairness. Not out of any sense of guilt, but because that's the kind of country I think we want to be. I do believe that white people have an obligation, though, not to forget history and to get our facts straight. So, it's not 200 to 300 years ago, as you state in your question. Slavery started in what is now the U.S. 444 years ago (with the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida). It ended 144 years ago, and was replaced with a system of governmentally-enforced segregation and discrimination that we didn't even start to get serious about undoing until 45 years ago. The history is not as distant as you think. You can attempt to dismiss the grievances by pretending they ended 200-300 years ago, but there are lots of people alive today who grew up with Whites Only signs attached to all the good stuff.
  • This is the new millenium and that question has gone the way of the dial telephone by now. No one cares about that dead horse being beaten anymore around here in Amerika. We love black people now and have been successful into turning them into whitey for quite sometime. Now we can all ban together here and focus on hating other people together as a family. Now it's time to hate the Middle Eastern people and the Muslims, where have you been?
  • Thats the same thing we have here in Canada but with our native population. I am always bringing up that point. I just dont think its fair that I have to personaly pay back for things that I have not done to ppl who have not been wronged just because of something that happened way in the past.
  • OK, so my great grandfather owned your great great grandfather. So what? It ended 149 years ago. Why does that give you a right to special consideration that I don't get? But the fact is that you get preferment and I don't. Affirmative action is quite enough insult and punishment for things I DIDN'T do, thank you very much. My great great great grandfather came to Georgia as a slave from a debtors' prison. Who is going to pay ME for THAT? . White Americans did not invent slavery. It was a world-wide institution from at least 1,800 BC. They didn't import it to this continent either. Red Indians had been capturing Indians from other tribes and enslaving them for thousands of years before the Spanish came. Granted that white European immigrants brought slaves with them. But those were white European slaves. Until the mid-18th century, white slaves outnumbered black ones. And red slaves owned by red masters outnumbered both combined. After that time, many Indians owned red, white, and black slaves. Do the Indians owe the blacks of today? No one has suggested that. Not many, but a sizeable number of free blacks owned both black and white slaves (probably red ones too, but I don't know that). . Ergo, the whole idea of reparations or even apologies is nothing more than anti-white racism.
  • Lisa McClelland got a raw deal. She was attacked as a racist, by racists. I feel for her. A decade or so ago I was teaching in a high school in Texas. One student club was called BASH -- Black American Studies in History. Another was a Latino club whose name I don't remember. Several of my debate students attempted to form a white club, to be called CASH -- Caucasian American Studies in History. They asked me to sponsor the club. I went to the principal to ask permission. It was denied, of course. They attempted to track down the "instigators," but no one seemed to remember any names. I was fired.
  • As a citizen in a country going through the same thing I have to, in all honesty, say that the idea of apologising for something I had no part in, is utterly ridiculous. I personally feel that it is just used as an excuse for power grabbing and self enriching. Incompetance is rewarded under the disguise of empowering the previously disabled. Oh please, give me a break.
  • Take your place? excuse me, first you must define your status.
  • Has anyone included anywhere in the equation that in many instances black people themselves aided in entrapping other blacks to be slaves?
  • I don't think they think white people "owe" them anything, other than perhaps equal opportunities and a lack of racism. Nevertheless, they don't get much of either, apparently.

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