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| IN MY OPINION |
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| NO SINGLE PERSON OR GROUP SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR MISDEEDS OF THEIR ANCESTORS ! ! ! ! ! PART I: Let's pretend that 200 years ago, Governor Pataki�s Great,Great, Great, Great grandfather didn�t like my Great, Great, Great, Great grandfather. One day he pushed my ancestor down the steps and my ancestor broke his leg. The leg didn�t set right and my ancestor couldn�t work his farm anymore. His wife tried, but was unable to keep up with the work. They had to leave their farm. They moved to town and found a small room to rent. The wife took in sewing and cleaned house for the family on the hill. The man stayed home and cared for the 2 little boys as best he could. When the boys got to be 10 and 12 years old, the woman got hit by the stage coach and was killed. The boys were forced to go west with a wagon train to find work to survive. The man was forced to live behind the livery stable in a tent of old blankets, caught pneumonia and died. Because of all this, for the next several generations the decendants could never get ahead no matter how hard they tried. Now lets pretend some more and bring us up to the present. Let's say my father was killed in the war. My mother got hurt in the knitting mill and since she only had a high school education, was forced to go on welfare to raise me. She was not allowed to own anything. We weren�t even allowed to have a car or a phone. We had to live in the inner city. I did not have any money for an education so all I can get is menial labor. I hurt my back working in a junk yard. An insurance doctor said I could go back to work. I am in constant pain but I tried anyway. The company folded up and I am out of work. I can�t get another job, no matter how many years I have done the job, because I don�t have a college degree. My kids are in public school, and have no hope for college or much of a future. My wife has 2 part time jobs trying to keep us going. What if all that were true?! SHOULD GOVERNOR PATAKI HAVE THE CITIZENS OF NEW YORK PAY ME BECAUSE HIS ANCESTOR WRONGED MY ANCESTOR ? THIS LED TO MY FAMILY AND ME SUFFERING IN POVERTY . SHOULD HE MAKE THE CITIZENS OF NEW YORK RAISE A PUBLIC MONUMENT PRAISING MY FAMILY AND TELLING EVERYONE THAT HIS ANCESTOR DID MY FAMILY WRONG ? In MY Opinion, I DON�T THINK SO..... What do you think ? ( THIS IS A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, THIS NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED ) PART II: We as a nation should not be responsible in any way, for the following: ........................................................................ Reparations for slavery bog down adoption of condemnation of racism at U.N. conference By Chris Hawley, Associated Press, 6/27/2001 18:04 UNITED NATIONS (AP) Negotiations over a universal condemnation of racism is hitting age-old obstacles debate over castes, colonialism and whether former slave nations such as the United States should pay reparations, a top U.N. official said Wednesday. Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she is worried that Western countries are shying away from an anti-racism declaration because they're wary of shining a spotlight on their past sins. ''There are dark corners and problems for countries that they are somewhat reluctant to have addressed globally,'' she told reporters in New York Wednesday where she has been attending a global U.N. conference on AIDS. Diplomats are trying to get a draft done in time for the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, set for Aug. 31-Sept. 7. But a two-week meeting in Geneva intended to draw up an agenda and draft for the declaration ended in deadlock June 1 over whether countries that benefited from slavery should formally apologize and pay compensation. Participation has been lukewarm from many countries, including the United States. Robinson said she was starting a last-ditch effort to drum up support visiting diplomats and asking famous human rights activists such as Nelson Mandela to stump for the measure. Last week, she visited Secretary of State Colin Powell to urge him to attend, but failed to get a promise. One of the main sticking points has been whether the United States and other countries are guilty of crimes against humanity because of past slavery. Some American blacks have demanded compensation for past abuses like the $4.3 billion that Germany recently agreed to pay victims of Nazi slave labor. ''The dehumanizing impact of stripping people of their names, of their identities, of their families, and fattening them for export ... these are crimes against humanity now,'' Robinson said. Robinson said reparations might include monuments, museums and historical education programs, not just money. Last week, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States' participation in the Durban meeting depends on how slavery as well as alleged discrimination against Palestinians in Israel figure on the agenda. ''Financial reparations and a formal apology (for slavery) would do nothing to address racism and discrimination today,'' Boucher said. ''The conference should address current problems.'' The discussions will also likely skirt the issue of discrimination between castes, which countries like India and Nepal are trying to fight, but would rather keep out of the international spotlight, Robinson said. The U.S. wariness has angered black U.S. lawmakers, who met with Robinson last week and urged the Bush administration to participate. ''It's the brave and the courageous countries of the world, particularly the western ones who participated in colonialism, who participated in the slave trade, whose voices need to be heard to say, `Let us correct this wrong,''' Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., said in a telephone interview Wednesday. PART III: NEW YORK is quietly playing politics with our money and future. How many other states are too? Is the Federal Government doing it also? I would like to know. Here is one story that slipped out. There has been no other report that I can find. ............................................................................ Putting a dollar figure on the harm done by slavery By Joel Stashenko, Associated Press, 6/29/2001 13:56 ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) Slavery was abolished in New York state in 1827, or 201 years after the first known slave-bearing ship entered what became New York harbor. A bill filed this week in the New York state Assembly aims to put a price on what would seem to be the nearly impossible to quantify: the cost of the human misery endured by slaves, and of the indignities and disadvantages suffered by their descendants. The legislation would establish a Commission to Quantify Debt Owed to African Americans, to spell out how people can prove they are descendants of slaves and to identify and document businesses which profited by slave labor or the slave trade. Ultimately, the commission would recommend ways to ''compensate African American communities throughout New York state for the violation of their collective human and civil rights during two and a one-half centuries of enslavement, in what became the United States of America, a subsequent century of treatment as second class citizens and the continuing economic and social impact of these consequences on living African Americans in New York state,'' the bill says. The chief sponsor of the measure, Assemblyman Roger Green, said members of the state Black, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Legislative Caucus he chairs is behind the measure. The commission members would be selected by the governor, Senate and Assembly. It would get $500,000 to do its work. ''The international slave trade and the domestic slave trade as practiced in New York represented a crime against humanity,'' Green said. ''This legislation seeks to achieve a measure of truth and reconciliation for our state and our nation. While rejecting the concept of collective guilt, we must embrace the principle of collective responsibility.'' The idea of reparations is not new, either for the descendants of slaves or for other people who suffered gross human or civil rights violations. Each Japanese-American who was forced into internment camps during World War II was paid $20,000 and given a formal apology by the American government, for instance. The Austrian government has set aside $380 million to compensate those forced into slave labor by the Nazis in World War II. As early as 1890, proposals were before the U.S. Congress to compensate former slaves for their labor. In 1989, Michigan Rep. John Conyers revived talk of repaying American blacks for the unpaid labor of their ancestors. He still has a proposal pending in Congress to set up a national commission to study the issue a proposal which government bodies in the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Dallas, Washington and Baltimore, among others, have endorsed. Legislatures other than New York's have also been asked to set up state reparations study commissions. A proposal in Tennessee was recently tabled to provide more time to see where other state proposals and the national legislation goes, its sponsor said. Finally, a team of prominent lawyers is working on a national lawsuit seeking damages for the descendants of slaves. Slavery is one of the subjects the Legislature has mandated that public school students in New York be taught about. New York was not a major slave-holding state by the standards of Southern states whose tobacco and cotton plantations relied on slave labor. In 1790, there were about 22,000 slaves in New York out of a total population of 340,000. Even after New York abolished slavery, the backers of a reparations study commission say blacks remained an underclass who had to struggle to survive, let alone prosper. One particularly virulent case of anti-black sentiment occurred in 1863, when scores of blacks were killed by poor white immigrants in anti-draft riots in New York City during the Civil War. More subtle discrimination against blacks persists today, the bills' proponents said. The Republican-controlled state Senate was noncommittal about the proposed commission. Chris McKenna, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, declined to comment until Green and his colleagues on the minority caucus can get their proposal through the Democrat-dominated Assembly. Joel Stashenko is Capitol Editor for The Associated Press in Albany. He can be reached at P.O. Box 7165, Capitol Station, Albany, N.Y., 12211. ......................................... Since the census, Most politicians are trying to suck up to an ethnic group to get re-elected. They don�t care what they have to do to make themselves look good. They don�t care what effect their actions have on the general populations. TELL THEM TO THINK ABOUT US FOR A CHANGE. PART IV: Politicians conveniently forget the historical facts. MYTH: The United States went to Africa and captured people to transport them here to sell them as slaves. FACTS: For thousands of years, the way of life in Africa included: Large tribes raiding another, killing any who opposed them, capturing the rest as SLAVES. When these SLAVES died off from torture and starvation, The large tribe would make another raid. The DUTCH, NOT the Americans, traded on the African coast. The African Tribal leaders wanted the goods the Dutch were offering. The Africans didn�t always have something of value to trade. The African tribal leaders offered THEIR SLAVES in trade. The Dutch took them to other countries including the United States and sold them to a small group of Americans. The Africans were the ones who would go far into the jungle and capture other Africans. They would bring them to the coast. They would sell them to the traders, who only cared about themselves and their own prosperity.(POLITICIANS) America did not go to Africa and capture and enslave these people. PART V: This Mary Robinson of the U.N. seems to be out to lunch. Yes, Germany is paying $4.3 billion to the SURVIVING VICTIMS, NOT their future progeny. Crimes against Humanity... Does she intend to charge the first people who bought the slaves ? They have been dead for over 250 years. Or does she want to charge the last people who owned slaves ? They have been dead for over 100 years. If she intends to raise the dead, she also must raise the first slaves, that were bought here to be the accusers. While she is at it she might as well raise Caesar. He conquered and made slaves all across the known world. Lady, GET REAL! PLEASE WRITE AND/OR E-MAIL EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL YOU CAN THINK OF. DO NOT LET POLITICIANS RAPE US FOR THEIR POLITICAL GAIN ! ! ! SEE MY LINKS BELOW TO HELP. TELL YOUR MEDIA TOO. LET EVERYONE KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON AND YOUR OPINION ON THE SUBJECT. JBS |
