California State University, San Bernardino
         <kgreen@csusb.edu>

Many of the American or US-based members of this list, I am sure,
have been following the issue of reparations payments to African
Americans for slavery and succeeding racial oppression which that
group has experienced in the United States.   Though this issue has
been around for some time, Randall Robinson's _The Debt: What America
Owes to Blacks_ (2000 and newly issued in Jan. 2001 in paperback)
brought it out clearly for the reading public.

In May 2000, David Horowitz wrote a column for frontpage magazine
entitled, "10 Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks Are a Bad Idea for
Blacks, and Racist Too."

        http://www.frontpagemag.com/dh/2000/dh05-31-00.htm

Not satisfied, he followed up with the purchase of ads against
reparations for posting in several university student newspapers.
This brought out a major response against Horowitz and his claims.
One of the better ones, in my opinion, (and with a good bibliography)
is "Ten Reasons: A Response to David Horowitz" by Ernest Allen, Jr.
and Robert Chrisman, can be read at

        http://www.umass.edu/afroam/hor.html

I have at various times in my teaching, given a project or paper
assignment to students regarding the slave trade and European
colonialism in Africa (or other permutations, such as the East
African slave trade and Omani colonialism) and asked them to argue for
or against the idea of reparations to the African continent and the
logistics of such a project were it decided to be undertaken.

I would be interested in hearing lthe opinions of H-Africa members on
the issue of reparations to Africa.  Chris Lowe and I have had some
exchanges on the idea, and he has given his permission to post a
response he gave to me in a query I sent him.  It will appear
shortly.

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