Truth squad I watched and heard some of the most ignorant things I have ever heard a person say outside of the current occupant of the White House. Mitch McConnell was asked a question about reparations for descendants of slaves in America. And it was a valid question since there was a hearing taking place in the House about this very topic. Now for the ones that have listened to me before know that I have an episode called ’40 Acres and A Mule: My Plan for Reparations” that I recorded a while back. This has been in the new with presidential candidates and to me it is about time this discussion is taking place. And the Speaker of the Senate is acting like a real Mitch when it comes to this topic. He spews the same arguments that every white person against reparations for slavery. And now it is starting to piss me off. I’m big mad right now. There are many reasons why we deserve reparations. And right now, we are going to go through just a few of them.
The arguments against are the same. “I had nothing to do with slavery.” “Why are black people constantly looking for a hand out.” “We elected a black president.” There is no substance to back these statements. And what I mean about substance is the fact that I have yet to here a person articulates these talking points that would be substantive to the debate against reparations. When I hear these arguments, I hear “Why should we pay these black people anything. They should be grateful enough that we allowed you to live in this country.” I am going to breakdown what Mitch McConnell said and then give my reasons why reparations should be paid out.
First thing that I am going to refute and breakdown from Mitch McConnell is his thoughts on the idea of reparations. He said, “Paying for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible is not a good Idea.” Well, let’s look at this statement. He said paying for something that no one today was a part of is a bad idea. Let’s look at a reparations package that was voted on and passed that he was not around for.
In 1942 America created concentration camps for Japanese-Americans because they feared that they were spies for the Japanese during the war. Mitch McConnell was born in 1942. Technically, he had nothing to do with those concentration camps being created since he was just born. Fast forward 42 years to 1984 and McConnell is elected to the United States Senate. Four years later the U.S. Congress voted to extend an apology to those Japanese-Americans that were placed in those concentration camps that Mitch McConnell had nothing to do with. Along with that apology, Congress agreed to pay out $1.6 billion to 82,219 Japanese-Americans. He wasn’t a part of these camps nor the idea, but you didn’t come out an oppose those reparations.
What about the reparations that the Sioux tribe received for land that was taken from them in the 1880s. You weren’t even thought of during that time, but you were alive when the United States passed reparation agreements to payout $1.3 billion to the Sioux in 1978 and $962 million to Natives, Eskimos, and Aleuts in Alaska for their land taken. You were in politics at that time, but you did not come out against either of those. Therefore, your claim that it is not responsible argument is not valid and has been proven that reparations has been paid out to others even though “none of us” was around at that time.
But did you know that reparations were paid out for slavery? It wasn’t paid to the slaves though. In 1862 Lincoln signed a bill emancipating slaves in Washington D.C. and to ease the pain for slaveowners who were loyal to the Union were paid $300 for every enslaved person set free. On average a plantation would have 20-30 slaves on their plantation. That’s $6000-$9000 they were paid in 1862, which equals to $152,000-$228,000 for the average of 20-30 slaves. So, reparations have been paid out before.
The next thing that he said was, “We tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a Civil War, by passing landmark civil rights legislation, elected an African American president.” There is a lot to unpack in this statement. First thing first, the Civil War was fought for slavery, but not against the institution of slavery. It was fought for the economics of slavery. Let me break this down for you. The value of the slave population in 1860 was $3 billion. The cost for a slave was $800-$1500 at that time. Manufacturing in the North, that produced the cotton products that England consumed, valued $1.65 billion. In the South, the value of real estate was valued at $2.4 billion. John Townsend, South Carolina, stated that the election of Abraham Lincoln would result in the loss of $9 billion for Southern whites: $4 billion in slaves and $5 billion in related property. If the Confederate States of America would have been able to become a country in 1860, it would have ranked as the fourth richest nation in the world.
And even though the North was against slavery, they profited just as much from slavery as the South. New England had 52% of the manufacturing establishments in America and 75% of the 5.14 million spindles in operations. Massachusetts had 30% of all spindles and Rhode Island had 18%. New England consumed 283.7 million pounds of cotton, 67% of the 422.6 million pounds of cotton used in U.S. mills. The value of the raw material of cotton used in the U.S., 422.6 million pounds, was $57.3 million. Cotton cost 13.5 cents/pound which is the equivalent to $4.32/pound today. And trade between the North and the South was $200 million a year. And even Lincoln said the war wasn’t about slavery more than it was about preserving the Union. He even said that if he could preserve the institution of slavery but keep it out of the new territories and keep the Union together, he would do that. The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free any slaves. I was a threat to bring the Confederacy back to the Union. If the Confederacy would have came back into the Union before January 1, 1863 they would have been able to keep their slaves. And the Proclamation freed all slaves in Confederate states, but Lincoln could not enforce it because they were not a part of the Union and did not have to follow the federal government’s laws. The Proclamation did not free the slaves in slave states in the Union like Kentucky and West Virginia. The Civil War was fought to preserve the Union prior to 1863, economics of slavery in the South, and the abolishment of slavery after 1863.
On to the idea of the passing of landmark civil rights legislation making up for slavery and taking the place of reparations. Were there landmark legislation passed. True. The 13th (1865), 14th (1868), and 15th (1870) amendments were passed after the Civil War. But, white people could not just let us be free. They found a way to under mind all three amendments that gave us freedom.
Starting with the 13th amendment. It banned slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States with an exception made for the punishment of a crime. That last part is very important because this is how the prison system started and racial discrimination became the foundation of that institution. In 1866 all southern states created ‘Black Codes” throughout the south. These were amended slave codes that were used prior to the freeing of the slaves. They created Vagrancy laws against the newly freed slaves. With these laws former slaves had to have labor contracts that showed that they were not just lazing around and not working. If they did not have this or couldn’t show that they were working a job suitable to white people, they would be arrested. They also used this to help farmers and plantations in the South because they would lease out these former slaves in a convict leasing program. This program incentivized the arrest of former slaves because it supplied workers to the local government and farmers. The 14th amendment granted U.S. citizenship to former slaves because they were born in the United States. Again, white people found ways to undermine this amendment. Back to the Black Codes. Blacks were restricted the right to own land, conduct business, buy and lease land, and move freely in public places. Which means the freedoms that white people received with being a U.S. citizen, black people did not get those same freedoms. Another issue is an argument that Republicans make today. They claim that Democrats are trying to abolish the 2nd amendment and take all of their guns away. Well, under the Black Codes, Blacks did not have the right to bear arms. Even though as an American they had all rights under the Constitution.
The 15th amendment prohibited governments from denying U.S. citizens the right to vote based on race, color, or past servitude. And here is another example of white people undermining another law that was put in place to help former slaves and future black Americans. If we were given the right to vote in 1870, why did we have to fight for that right to vote in 1965? Why was there a Voting Rights Act of 1965? That is easy to explain. Yes, we had the freedom to vote and we had the freedom to run for office for six years (1870-1876). What changed was the agreement between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrats in the South to secure his presidency. This is called the Compromise of 1877 which ended Reconstruction and pulled the military out of the South. This led to Jim Crow Laws and rules that prevented black people from voting. Things like grandfather clauses, poll taxes, Let’s look at Mississippi and what they did after Reconstruction. In 1890 the white people came together to write a new constitution that would exclude blacks. So, first they required an annual poll tax that had to be paid for two years prior to an election. Blacks were the poorest in the state, so it affected them more. That hurt but the next provision was the most devastating thing to hit the Black voter in Mississippi and that was the Literacy test. This test eliminated all Blacks from voting because 60% of former slaves could not read and if they could read then the person giving the test would ask stupid questions to confuse black people and they would fail the test. Here is an example question that would disqualify black voters: Draw a line through the letter below that comes earliest in the alphabet? (ZVSBDMKITPHC). Now this is a trick question. A normal person would put a line through the letter “B” because it comes after “A” and there isn’t one. But you would be wrong. It is actually “Z” because it is the earliest letter. But if you marked “Z” you are wrong because “Z” isn’t the earliest that is “B”, But it is also the letter “A” that is in the sentence. And Black voters were placed in a lose-lose situation and they couldn’t vote. So much for those landmark civil rights legislations passed. And the idea that the election of President Barak Obama answered for the sin of slavery is like a rapist giving the woman he raped a job and says that answers for him raping her. That is completely ridiculous.
So, Mitch, you and your friends’ arguments are flawed and uninformed. Let’s have a real discussion about reparations and what it would really look like. The government has done it before, so why is this different and difficult?
