rainerann
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- Joined
- Mar 18, 2017
- Messages
- 4,550
The thing is that at one point in time forty acres and a mule were promised as reparations.
In other ways, I think people are not informed of the actual history regarding this offer that was made and are beginning to conflate it with the present way we perceive implementing social programs. I have seen many of the political arguments for this that overcomplicate what the legitimate history of this subject teaches. Cooper had the only argument that I could somewhat support. He suggests having a reparations committee, but I think that this committee is also a way of overcomplicating this issue. We don't need to redefine what reparations need to be made. We just need to find a way to create an equivalent to the promise that was already made that should have been implemented, to begin with.
Overcomplicating this issue would create conflict because of the present political climate, so you would need someone who was able to be firm about the focus of this issue not deviating from resolving this as strictly a loose end in our history. Not doing this would contribute to the hostilities that are present. However, not resolving this is like a lingering red flag that racism does still exist outside of other factors you could use to make a case that this is true. I do see completing this as something of a symbolic peace offering, but this is only if you don't deviate from this focus and spend 10 years trying to debate how you place a monetary value on the years of discrimination that this community has experienced since the end of the civil war.
It is a very fascinating history and I am enjoying becoming more familiar with it because of the presence of this discussion right now. Here is an article I liked on the history of this subject in case anyone is interested.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/
and a description of the Freedmen Bureau.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedmen's_Bureau_bills
In some respects, this is similar to telling the people who fought in the civil war that they would be paid in the beginning, and then changing your mind and not paying them. Reparations were agreed upon already, and then they were denied. In some ways, I think the arguments opposing reparations now are very similar to the reasons that they weren't paid to begin with.Forty acres and a mule is part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a post-Civil War promise proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, to allot family units, including freed people, a plot of land no larger than 40 acres (16 ha). Sherman later ordered the army to lend mules for the agrarian reform effort. The field orders followed a series of conversations between Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and Radical Republican abolitionists Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens[1] following disruptions to the institution of slavery provoked by the American Civil War. Many freed people believed, after being told by various political figures, that they had a right to own the land they had long worked as slaves, and were eager to control their own property. Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land (a quarter-quarter section) and a mule after the end of the war. Some freedmen took advantage of the order and took initiatives to acquire land plots along a strip of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts.[2] However, Lincoln's successor, president Andrew Johnsonexplicitly reversed and annulled proclamations such as Special Field Orders No. 15 and the Freedmen's Bureau Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule
In other ways, I think people are not informed of the actual history regarding this offer that was made and are beginning to conflate it with the present way we perceive implementing social programs. I have seen many of the political arguments for this that overcomplicate what the legitimate history of this subject teaches. Cooper had the only argument that I could somewhat support. He suggests having a reparations committee, but I think that this committee is also a way of overcomplicating this issue. We don't need to redefine what reparations need to be made. We just need to find a way to create an equivalent to the promise that was already made that should have been implemented, to begin with.
Overcomplicating this issue would create conflict because of the present political climate, so you would need someone who was able to be firm about the focus of this issue not deviating from resolving this as strictly a loose end in our history. Not doing this would contribute to the hostilities that are present. However, not resolving this is like a lingering red flag that racism does still exist outside of other factors you could use to make a case that this is true. I do see completing this as something of a symbolic peace offering, but this is only if you don't deviate from this focus and spend 10 years trying to debate how you place a monetary value on the years of discrimination that this community has experienced since the end of the civil war.
It is a very fascinating history and I am enjoying becoming more familiar with it because of the presence of this discussion right now. Here is an article I liked on the history of this subject in case anyone is interested.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/
and a description of the Freedmen Bureau.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedmen's_Bureau_bills