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Howard University
Having read the various comments on reparations, and after several informal
conversations on the issue, I offer a few words for consideration.
As far as Reparations go, we should be careful not to confuse the question
of reparations concerning descendants of enslaved Africans in the Americas,
with the indignities and exploitation Africans on the continent suffered as
a result of European colonial exploitation. While in the first case the
issue seeks to address the impact of the slave trade, slavery and
post-slavery racism that European and Euro-American governments condoned,
the second is complicated by the involvement of some African rulers in the
slave trade and the collaboration of others in European colonialism. The
case of enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Americas is
different. None of the enslaved Africans requested transportation to the
Americas, and their descendants all wanted to enjoy the freedom that their
European and American masters enjoyed. Where some of us can distance
ourselves from and rationally consider that during the period of the
Atlantic slave Trade Africans came into the hands of European traders by a
variety of ways--through purchase, as a result of the legal standards which
were present in pre-colonial African states, through wars of conquest (at
times involving Europeans, as in the Portuguese in Angola) and many other
practices common to pre-industrial societies (recall the existence of
serfdom in Russia up to the 1860s), it is harder for us to understand why
European slave traders, slave holders, and all but a minority of
knowledgeable Europeans before the 1830s (in England) and before 1865
(United States), legally denied our ancestors their humanity. After
slavery, when ex-slaves and their descendants looked forward to full
integration into their respective societies, laws passed that supported
discrimination and colonial objectives marginalized them, while at the same
time facilitating the immigration and integration of Europeans from all
over the continent. Thus, for those who ask why the issue of reparations
now, the answer is this. Those who have publicized the issue wish to have
start some honest conversations regarding the enduring legacy of slavery and
racial discrimination that peoples of African descent continue to experience
in the Americas.
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