slavery reparations
by nick c., written for a scholarship and admission to the university of georgia

In the essay, I wanted to focus on why reparations were necessary and why I feel the fight is as much a moral battle as it is a financial one. The essay does not offer clear solutions but it helped me get out some of the emotions I was dealing with and hopefully will open the eyes of others. Today's white supremacist, capitalistic American society is very likely to frown upon issues such as these, but their opinions really can do nothing to hide the horrendous crimes commited [sic] by their european ancestors upon the african people.

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The issue that is the most profoundly meaningful to me and that I truly feel is worth fighting for is the issue of slavery reparations. I feel strongly that every person who is descended from the millions of Africans, who were forcibly brought to North America, Latin America and the Caribbean Islands by the present day Western European nations of Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, England and Holland (the Netherlands), should be granted some form of reparation. These reparations should be granted to people of African descent for the suffering of their ancestors at the hands of European oppressors. Reparations should also be granted to ease the present hardships that people of African descent suffer that are directly attributed to the horrendous crime of slavery and the racial discrimination that made slavery in the Western Hemisphere very unique.

One must not make the mistake of assuming only African Americans need reparations, for former French colonies like Haiti; the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and the former Portuguese colony of Brazil, which has an even higher black population than America, desperately need reparations. Haiti and Brazil, along with many other countries in the Western Hemisphere share the common thread of slavery, and the blacks who now inhabit these countries are still living with the after-effects of slavery. Reparations must be granted to all people of African descent living it the Western Hemisphere because the blacks in that region are the direct products of human exploitation and degradation as a means to acquire material wealth for Western European nations.

No Afro-American, Afro- Latino/South American or Afro-Caribbean person can deny the absolute truth that his or her ancestors were taken against their will and forced to perform laborious and servile tasks in the Americas. It is by the tragic situation that befell their slave forbearers that these “Afro-Americans” who inhabit the Western Hemisphere; a residence in which they had no say in choosing, should receive reparations for the tremendous crimes committed against their people. Reparations is not simply a lawsuit nor a matter of “getting even”, but it is a moral fight to hold all countries involved in the transporting and forced labor of Africans accountable for actions that they try to ignore as the years progress. Had not racially discriminatory practices, such as the Jim Crow Laws in the U.S., been enacted following emancipation, this fight would surely have been started much earlier and with more effort and passion to include the entire African Diaspora.

It has been 500 years since the first African slaves were forcibly brought to the Americas and still, not one European or Western nation has made any kind of formal apology for the heinous crime. In the latter part of the 20th century, the United States paid an estimated $20,000 to individual Japanese Americans who had suffered during the World War II internment. In addition, the U.S. aided the Jewish American population greatly in the procuring of financial recompense for losses attributed to the Holocaust. Surprisingly enough, the Dutch Crown has given money each year to the Bush Negroes of Suriname, who are the descendants of runaway slaves brought to the former Dutch Colony, for many years now. On the other hand, Haiti was forced to pay millions of dollars back to France for property lost during Haiti’s independence struggle, which left the Caribbean nation impoverished and the European nation richer at the cost of human lives.

So, why is it that European and Western countries find it so difficult to even consider the demands of their black populations? Deeply rooted anti-black sentiments are a start.

Blacks across the Diaspora have every right to demand reparations, and I myself would like to actively participate in this fight. I feel that not only should the European nations and their former colonial constituents, who were involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade, be made to recognize their past acts of inhumanity but, they should also be made to pay for their actions through formal apologies of the deepest sincerity and through the initiation of an international effort to correct the negative, present-day effects that stem from slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade. Simply allotting monetary units to individuals as a means of quickly eliminating the problem is not an effective means of solving the issue at hand. One cannot simply use the dollar, real, peso or gourde to measure the amount human suffering endured by the African people and their descendants for 400 years and then expect an overnight change to take place. The pure human desire to help those in need must be put in place first, and then resources must be directed into the implementation of pro-reparations programs.

Though individual payment seems like the answer, it is not the complete one. There are many gaps that exist in black education, health, housing, and job opportunities in comparison to white/ Euro-Americans across the Western Hemisphere. Reparations need to be directed to these main problems that are affecting blacks today. Many blacks are living in deplorable conditions across the Americas and reside in areas that are in stark contrast to the post card images of places such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, or Kingston, Jamaica. So many issues are affecting us today and it is time to draw attention to them.

I stand firmly in favor of reparations for those who are descended from the African slaves brought to nations across the Americas. However, in my stance, I cannot negate the fact that the indigenous peoples of the Americas, have suffered equally devastating injustices at the hands of European nations. At the same time, I cannot forget that I too, share in the painful history of the Atlantic Slave Trade with hundreds of millions of others across the Americas and the Caribbean. I see the far-reaching effects slavery has on the people of today, and with such effects present even 100 to 200 years after emancipation, and I will continue to support slave reparations for the people of the Americas descended from African slaves.g.u.m.