Current Events > The U.S. feels the need to repay Native Americans but not African-Americans

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why is this? I'm not arguing that one group suffered a worse fate than the other. But is it just because there are more African-Americans, and therefore it would be cheaper to appease just the Native Americans?
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Well, on the one hand, a lot of land that we took from Native-Americans came as the result of disproportionately created treaties and agreements, some of which we didn't uphold our end of the bargain of.

So I guess from a legal perspective that might have more weight?

Sounds insensitive when I put it that way, I'm trying to remain neutral but ... yeah.
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Repaying Native Americans? What are you referring to?
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As a Black person, if reparations for slavery was to happen, it should have been in the years after slavery ended. But of course, the South wasn't going to do that; in fact, they spent years finding new ways to screw Black people over, culminating with Jim Crow.

It's too late now, and would just create more bitterness with all parties involved.
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Well the U.S. actively genocided the Native Americans and screwed them out of every "legal" deal they made with them.
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idk about the US but not much good comes out of Canada repaying the natives. Despite benefits like free schooling, very few actually use it and the large sums of money given to them are not put to good use, lets just say that much.
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Hexenherz posted...

Well, on the one hand, a lot of land that we took from Native-Americans came as the result of disproportionately created treaties and agreements, some of which we didn't uphold our end of the bargain of.

So I guess from a legal perspective that might have more weight?

Sounds insensitive when I put it that way, I'm trying to remain neutral but ... yeah.

So I mean just because the Europeans didnt...sign treaties with the African peoples as they enslaved them...makes them unable to be culpable for it?

I get what youre sayin, Im just sayin
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Chicken posted...

idk about the US but not much good comes out of Canada repaying the natives. Despite benefits like free schooling, very few actually use it and the large sums of money given to them are not put to good use, lets just say that much.

what do you mean by not good use?
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If they do reparations, they should only tax those who were descendants of slave owners that retained the wealth and the money should go to those who are descendants of slaves.

Very few people actually owned slaves and those who did owned a lot, I'm not even sure if the descendants of slaves could afford to compensate that many people, but eh

Shablagoo posted...

Hexenherz posted...

Well, on the one hand, a lot of land that we took from Native-Americans came as the result of disproportionately created treaties and agreements, some of which we didn't uphold our end of the bargain of.

So I guess from a legal perspective that might have more weight?

Sounds insensitive when I put it that way, I'm trying to remain neutral but ... yeah.

So I mean just because the Europeans didnt...sign treaties with the African peoples as they enslaved them...makes them unable to be culpable for it?

I get what youre sayin, Im just sayin

Yeah it sounds shitty either way.
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I know we live in a victimization chic culture, but nobody has anything on what the US Govt did to Native Americans.
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Milkman5 posted...

If they do reparations, they should only tax those who were descendants of slave owners that retained the wealth and the money should go to those who are descendants of slaves.

Very few people actually owned slaves and those who did owned a lot, I'm not even sure if the descendants of slaves could afford to compensate that many people, but eh

When someone wins a settlement against a police station, they don't just pay it out of the salary of the police officers who work there.
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Some are the descendants of slaves and slave owners.
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DarkRoast posted...

I know we live in a victimization chic culture, but nobody has anything on what the US Govt did to Native Americans.

https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-from-freedom-to-slavery-1.5245587
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Anteaterking posted...

Milkman5 posted...

If they do reparations, they should only tax those who were descendants of slave owners that retained the wealth and the money should go to those who are descendants of slaves.

Very few people actually owned slaves and those who did owned a lot, I'm not even sure if the descendants of slaves could afford to compensate that many people, but eh

When someone wins a settlement against a police station, they don't just pay it out of the salary of the police officers who work there.

2 different situations imo. The police werent necessarily making money off the labor of the person who filed the suit.

Of course thered have to be considerations. Like, a wealth threshold that, if youre under that, you wont be paying for this. So that way random people making $30k a year shouldnt be forced to pay just because their ancestors were slavers. Itd be wealthy people who clearly benefitted from their ancestors slaving.
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We did horrible things to the natives. Basically stole their land. Shit like the trail of tears.
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Like others have said, it is just probably too late to attempt reparations.

Wouldn't be coming from me. My family were really poor Irish and Germans mostly. And especially Irish people back then were treated pretty poorly. They were not considered "white". Faced a lot of discrimination. They weren't welcomed to the country like someone from some of the other European countries.
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Reparations not just for slavery but for everything bad the privileged man has committed against African-Americans for 250+ years, and economically taking advantage of African countries.

No one should call themselves proud Americans with such shameful stains on their country. Not until proper amends have been made for such injustices. The enslavement of them & their children, the raping of them & their children, the mutilation of them & their children, the massacres of them & their children, etc. #NeverAgain #TimesUpPayUp
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iPhone_7 posted...

Reparations not just for slavery but for everything bad the privileged man has committed against African-Americans for 250+ years, and economically taking advantage of African countries.

No one should call themselves proud Americans with such shameful stains on their country. Not until proper amends have been made for such injustices. The enslavement of them & their children, the raping of them & their children, the mutilation of them & their children, the massacres of them & their children, etc. #NeverAgain #TimesUpPayUp

Poe's law?

If not, I'm by no means defending actions of the past. But basically no one should be proud of their country by this logic. Every country's history is super fucked up. Horrible things done to further the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and weak.
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CrimsonRage posted...

mattnd2007 posted...

Poe's law?

he's a gimmick

That's what I was leaning towards, but wasn't sure
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Shablagoo posted...

DarkRoast posted...

I know we live in a victimization chic culture, but nobody has anything on what the US Govt did to Native Americans.

https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-from-freedom-to-slavery-1.5245587

Try being literally exterminated.

As a member of the Cherokee Nation, I'm pretty familiar with the stories the US Govt doesn't teach in schools (in much detail, at least)
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xMythic posted...

Repaying Native Americans? What are you referring to?

i wouldnt expect an answer to that question
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mattnd2007 posted...

But basically no one should be proud of their country by this logic.

When you're right, you're right.
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DarkRoast posted...

I know we live in a victimization chic culture, but nobody has anything on what the US Govt did to Native Americans.

Ummm...that's debatable
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One group were people who were sold into slavery by their own people and those people still have rights, though unofficially they're second class citizens.

The other group were the victim of a systematic genocide attempt and are at best, treated as greatly inferior.
Black people in Africa are still alive and reasonably fine - Native Americans are almost wiped out is the point I'm making. A home is still there in Africa for the black people that live there.
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RdVEHfJqAvUPIbk posted...

One group were people who were sold into slavery by their own people

Man fuck off with this bullshit
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I'm pretty sure genocide outweighs slavery on the fucked up shit to do to people scale.

And what is this about the U.S. feeling the need to repay Native Americans? I haven't heard anything about that really. All the reparations talk that was brought up a few months ago was for black people and people pretty much didnt give a shit about natives. Then after a while it was like "oh yeah, them to" as an afterthought. Then everyone just stopped talking about reparations all together and I haven't heard it mentioned since.
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xMythic posted...

Repaying Native Americans? What are you referring to?

Still awaiting an answer to this one.

Finally not breaking treaties and allowing surviving reservations to maintain semi-autonomy isn't paying them back. The only reparations that we've paid was to survivors of Japanese-American internment camps, and it was a laughably low amount paid to people that actually went through that ordeal.
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RdVEHfJqAvUPIbk posted...

One group were people who were sold into slavery by their own people and those people still have rights, though unofficially they're second class citizens.

The other group were the victim of a systematic genocide attempt and are at best, treated as greatly inferior.

when people say stuff like this, it's really misleading.

for one, they weren't sold into slavery by "their own people". they were often prisoners of war or abducted from other tribes/kingdoms. before the Europeans, Africans weren't thinking of people from other kingdoms as one of their own just because they shared the same skin color

and slaves, when they were brought over to the Americas weren't treated as second-class citizens, they were barely treated as if they were human

and they weren't just enslaved, they were also stripped of their culture/beliefs, and their sense of worth as people. also, millions of people died on their way to the Americas and/or when they got there
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Today, they're generally seen as second class unofficially. Natives aren't, they're seen in the same way aboriginal people are seen.

I'm comparing the current state of both people. Black Africans exist in extremely high numbers compared to the handful, a few million of Native Americans
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Pretty sure the treaties and agreements the nation had with native americans gives them more legal ground regarding reparations and the like; especially when we very clearly and violently broke those agreements. Whereas the only thing the US kinda sort of promised to african americans was freedom.

and 40 acres and a mule.
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But yeah, the legality of reparations means nothing. If it ever becomes a political priority, it can happen. Just a matter of making a convincing argument that changes public opinion for why it should happen.
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It really does not have to be a competition over which racial group has been treated worse in the US, imo.
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A real native American doesn't have to prove that they're native American.

But a black person would have to prove that they're descendants from slaves and not someone who just showed up in the 1920s.
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PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

But a black person would have to prove that they're descendants from slaves and not someone who just showed up in the 1920s.

The US continued to discriminate against African Americans well beyond the 1920s
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Does TC not know that black people per capita are the largest consumers of government assistance?

Why doesn't that count?
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darkjedilink posted...

Does TC not know that black people per capita are the largest consumers of government assistance?

Why doesn't that count?

Because a welfare state available to members of every race does not constitute repayment for crimes committed by the state upon specific groups.
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Apparently reimbursing people for killing their ancestors is fine, but not for enslaving and sometimes killing them.
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Antifar posted...

PrettyBoyFloyd posted...

But a black person would have to prove that they're descendants from slaves and not someone who just showed up in the 1920s.

The US continued to discriminate against African Americans well beyond the 1920s

I heard the Emancipation Proclamation ended racism forever
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darkjedilink posted...

Does TC not know that black people per capita are the largest consumers of government assistance?

Why doesn't that count?

Not even comparable. People of all races are in government assistance.
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Are some posts itt implying Native Americans are a "good" minority because they "don't complain?" I sure hope not. Native Americans do complain and probably deserve reparations too. But because they're too small in number, they're easily ignored.

If there were as many Native Americans as Black Americans and their voices were louder, you'd be hearing their demands a lot more often,
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Solar_Crimson posted...

As a Black person, if reparations for slavery was to happen, it should have been in the years after slavery ended. But of course, the South wasn't going to do that; in fact, they spent years finding new ways to screw Black people over, culminating with Jim Crow.

It's too late now, and would just create more bitterness with all parties involved.

I mean...it still goes on and Jim Crow 'ended' like 60 years ago. Not really too late.
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USA and Canada should repay African American/Canadians, and give the land back to Native people. Canadian politicians/government do (sometimes) acknowledge that the land was stolen from Indigenous people, but always try to frame it like "... and now they are graciously sharing the land with us". lol
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