Slave Descendants Try to Revive Lawsuit

Originally posted by Freedom_for_sum
my great grandparents (X 3-4) should be recompensed for being forced to free their slaves .......

And I'll be suing all the black people in this country for 'reparation' for my ancestors who died fighting against slavery. No one in my family owned them and yet my family gave their lifes blood to free them.

My husbands family wasn't even here then.

I owe nothing! If anyone picks my pocket over this .. then I'll be suing THEM.

Originally posted by ceci2006

Simularly, there was a lawsuit in 2003 made by a group of descendants which filed a case against 1,000 corporations that have made money off of the institution. In that law suit, they did not ask for individual monetary settlements; instead, they asked for the money awarded to be put in a fund that would provide programs for the entire community.

Actually, in the original article the funds would be going to "help fix problems in the black community" under court supervision.

Original Article

If the reparations advocates succeed, the companies will have to account for the income they earned from slavery, produce historical records and give up the profits earned from slavery. The damage awards would be used to create a court-supervised fund to help fix problems in the black community.

I'm all for slavery reparation under one condition - everyone who accepts money should be deported back to Africa.

Longbow, I stoped posting here because you can't get anywhere with these freeloaders..

And in the process of our bickering I made some very politically uncorrect statements but I think you trump mine.

I reall hate the attitude of some posters here. Slavery wasn't and isn't a White mans creation.

During the same period that Africans/Arabs where selling others to the Europeans for the New World, North African slavers were attacking the Meditteranian shores of Europe, including Southern france, Italy and Spain.


The Arabs were at it as well during the same period and long before.

Same with the Chinese, the Romans, the Greeks, the Mongols...name any race and they all "did" the slavery thing.

Of course, you are aware that Slave taking was common practice long before the europeans ever showed up? One African tribe beat another in war and took the survivors as slaves. Except, once the Europeans turned up, the Slavers of West Africa realised they had a growing market and took more slaves. We merely bought a product that the Africans were supplying.

If you have beef, then may I suggest you take it up with the tribes that conquered your tribes back in Africa. they're the ones who actually enslaved and sold your ancestors. They even still do it NOW!! And you have the gaul to blame White people.

Isn't that racist?

But, of course, you won't do that will you? It's all the White mans fault. everything from poverty, to black on black gun crime, to poor education standards to the poor taste of Pepsi compared to Coke, it's all the White mans fault.

All I can say is, "Deal with it". every other culture in world has had it's share of crap from someone else and bounced back somehow, why are Blacks so special that everything else gets ignored in favour of them? After all, we're all the same, aren't we? thats what we keep getting told, anyway. You wouldn't believe from the amount of reverse racism that permeates society, as if that is going to right the wrongs of centuries past without causing more friction.

Get over it.

Besides, suing for something that happened 150-300 years ago is just plain stupid and greedy. Not surprising though, to be honest.

I shall come back to this thread when I have the time and in detail, I will show you that slavery is by no means the sole domain of the black man and illustrate that this lawsuit is nothing more than bone idled greed.


[edit on 29/9/06 by stumason]

Originally posted by ceci2006

Simularly, there was a lawsuit in 2003 made by a group of descendants which filed a case against 1,000 corporations that have made money off of the institution. In that law suit, they did not ask for individual monetary settlements; instead, they asked for the money awarded to be put in a fund that would provide programs for the entire community.

It is not the same case, but the arguments can be gleaned from the editorial made about it. This is the 2003 case, not the one in the OP:

I was wondering if you ever heard how that case turned out, (I'm sorry if I might have missed it in your post) were they awarded the money that time, was it thrown out, or is it still pending?

Has anybody ever heard of a case like this were money was awarded to the plaintiffs?

Sad part is they want to sue these corporations, but jsut like big tobacco, and the only people who will make money are the lawyers. Kind of seems to me like modern day slavery, doing all the work for someone else's profit. See, the cycle is not broken due to greed and misguided anger. If they took the energy they put into this and mentored some inner city youth I think it would be much more effective.

Originally posted by ceci2006

I just see your stand as a failure to truly understand the depravity of slavery and why people should even try to get America to recognize the error of its ways.

Um, that was actually already done back in 1863.

If there were honest efforts to recognize the institution of slavery by the government as it is, then perhaps we wouldn't be in this quagmire. Sadly, if people don't understand what slavery did to this country now, when will they ever learn?

Again, we've been there and done that. Time to start living in the present, and let go of the past. Truth is this is just another attempt to create an entitlement program, and slavery reparations is just the lame excuse being used to try and justify it.

And talk about politically correct. Tell that to those who endorse the "revisionist history". [edit on 29-9-2006 by ceci2006]

Glad you brought that up. "revisionist history" is actually something created by the "politically correct" to make history "feel good" to them. Example, Mount Rushmore being removed from history textbooks because the presidents sculpted there were all white.

I still haven't heard much of an explanation as to how reparations will solve the lingering effects of slavery. How much money will salve the pain away? Or make the history different? Slavery was, and still is, a horrible crime against all humanity. A blot if you will, on the soul of humanity.

No one denies this, well not many any way. How does this benefit anyone? A forced apology. Wow...that's sure to remedy the hard feelings...not. A coerced apology is meaningless. All a coerced apology and monetary reparations will do is cause more problems. Certainly more than it'll solve.

Learning the lessons from history that are there for all of to learn is the best way to pay back those victims for their suffering and pain. Helping to abolish chattel slavery that still exists in the world today is another way of putting the ghosts of the past to rest. Monetary settlements and forced apologies aren't.

Originally posted by Jamuhn

Originally posted by FlyersFan
I hate that term - 'reparations'. It's a fallicy

How so? I believe what they are asking for is amends for the years that their ancestors were slaves, wouldn't the term for that be "reparation"?

I don't agree with their case either, but I certainly don't see a reason not to call what they are asking for "reparations".

By the way, I have a question, has there ever been a congressional resolution in the US that apologized for the government's role in sustaining slavery for over a century?

You might try calling it by the proper word ...

GREED

GLUTTONY

PARASITIC

This is some of the dumbest crap I've ever heard! Slavery is gone and done. Like the old "saw", Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll feed himself for a life time.

Too many people want to blame all their woes on society and suck the life out of that society to make up for it. Poor people, black, white, yellow, red, whatever, are that way due to mindset and circumstance. Train the mindset and work with the circumstance, but give everything to them? I don't think that is useful in the least.

Found an article on the American Bar Association website about Slave Reparations.

The Legal Basis of the Claim for Slavery Reparations

There are seven propositions on this web page that outline seven ways for reparations for slavery.

Proposition Five

Claims Would Be Brought Against the Governments of Those Countries That Promoted and Were Enriched by the Slave Trade and the Institution of Slavery.

Who would be the "Defendants"? Here it is appropriate to concentrate on the governments of the countries that fostered and supported the slave trade, legitimized the institution of slavery, and profited as a result.

An alternative approach would be to identify the companies and families who have made vast profits from slavery. There are plantation owners in Jamaica and titled families in England whose living heirs owe their wealth to slavery. This approach, however, would create more problems than it solved. Reparation is more about collective responsibility than hereditary guilt. But there are cases where individual works of art, now in a private collection, were originally obtained in the course of invasion or looting in Africa. Here the international law concept of restitution could be applied, restoring treasures to the country that most closely represents the people from whom they were originally stolen. Historians will advise as to which countries profited most from slavery and the slave trade. The major European maritime trading nations and colonizers can be easily identified, as can the United States, a country that grew rich on slave labor and the exploitation of African Americans. It may be significant that the U.S. government has been groping toward an apology for the wrongs done to African Americans over history. Once you make an apology, you have at least a moral responsibility to do something to atone for the wrong.

I guess this isn't some lawsuit that a bunch of people just thought that they would pursue, according to this web page, lawsuits like this, or reparations for slavery, are being pursued in other countries also.

Here is some info on reparations from Wikipedia:

Wikipedia - Slavery Reparations

Reparations
Main article: Reparations for slavery

As noted above, there have been movements to achieve reparations for those held in involuntary servitude, or sometimes their descendants. There is a growing modern movement to donate funds achieved in reparations efforts not to the descendants of those held as slaves in prior generations, but instead to donate them to those freed from slavery in this generation, in other countries and circumstances.
In general, reparation for being held in slavery is handled as a civil law matter in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since slaves are exactly those people who have no access to the legal process. Systems of fines and reparations paid from fines collected by authorities, rather than in civil courts, have been proposed to alleviate this in some nations.

In the United States, the reparations movement often cites the 40 acres and a mule decree. Recent effort have also targeted businesses that profited from the slave trade and issuing insurance on slaves.

In Africa, the 2nd World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission was convened in Ghana in 2000. Its deliberations concluded with a Petition being served in the International Court at the Hague for US$777 trillion against the United States, Canada, and European Union members for "unlawful removal and destruction of Petitioners' mineral and human resources from the African continent" between 1503 up to the end of the colonialism era in the late 1950s and 1960s.[11]

I've yet to hear of a successful case were the plaintiffs received any payment in the US though.

Originally posted by Keyhole

In the United States, the reparations movement often cites the 40 acres and a mule decree.

The 40 Acres and a Mule has been cited as reparations that the US has paid to actual slaves when they were freed. But, according to this, everything was taken back and given back to the original owners.

40 Acres and a Mule -Wikipedia

40 acres and a mule is the colloquial term for compensation that was to be awarded to freed American slaves after the Civil War—40 acres (16 ha) of land to farm, and a mule with which to drag a plow so the land could be cultivated.

The award—a land grant of a quarter of a quarter section deeded to heads of households presumably formerly owned by land-holding whites—was the product of Special Field Orders, No. 15, issued January 16, 1865 by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, which applied to black families who lived near the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Sherman's orders specifically allocated "the islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida." There was no mention of mules in Sherman's order, although the Army may have distributed them anyway.

After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, his successor, Andrew Johnson, revoked Sherman's Orders. It is sometimes mistakenly claimed that Johnson also vetoed the enactment of the policy as a federal statute (introduced as U.S. Senate Bill 60). In fact, the Freedmen's Bureau Bill which he vetoed made no mention of grants of land or mules. (Another version of the Freedmen's bill, also without the land grants, was later passed after Johnson's second veto was overridden.)

By June of 1865, around 40,000 freed slaves were settled on 400,000 acres (1,600 km²) in Georgia and South Carolina. Soon after, President Johnson reversed the order and returned the land to its original owners. Because of this, the phrase has come to represent the failure of Reconstruction and the general public to assist African Americans in the path from slavery to freedom.

Lawyers are professional persons engaged in business. Lawyers are business persons practicing a profession. Your choice but lawyers have to make money like the plumber or gardener.

There are 3 or 4 ways lawyers work for clients. For the well heeled, there is a retainer and an hourly rate. A good lawyer may agree to make himself available for work for one year and charge $5,000. That prevents the lawyer from taking a case against the client for the 1 year. Sometimes a client with enough bucks may feel it is worth it to have that particular lawyer out of play. Should the lawyer be assigned a case, the parties will have agreed on a fee. Something like $200 an hour in court, $100 an hour out of court. There is an obvious advantage to the person counting the hours.

Straightforward, single instance employment by any client with a case that is traditionally an hourly pay case. Then the parties have to agree on the rate and billing. A doctor or hospital may be sued, and the client wants that lawyer, so they reach an agreement on rates of pay, similar to the one set out above. If senior lawyers in a firm work a case, they may charge $500 an hour, whereas junior lawyers may be paid much less. $150 an hour.

There are public spirited agencies that furnish lawyers to the poor. Legal Aid Society. Potential clients are screened to see if the case meets their criteria and then, the work load of available lawyers is examined to see when the client can be helped. Often these cases involve rental problems usually non-payment of rent. Most states have landlord-tenant laws. Even if the tenant has failed to pay the rent or has otherwise beached the rental agreement, there may be some reasons that are covered under the law. Landlords have been known to shut off the utilities of a non-paying tenant, an act usually forbidden in the laws. Collecting child support is another popular case for Legal Aid. Mostly lawyers handle cases no other lawyer would accept and the client cannot afford to pay. Legal Aid lawyers usually work for $20-$35 an hour, sometimes for less, and are on a salary, usually 50 hours a week but no overtime.

Contingency fee. Here is the kind of service contract that brings the most acrimonious feelings towards the Bar. This is the kind of case where the client has been injured or damaged in the class of case where past experience points towards a handsome jury award or settlement offer. Contingency fees are supposed to be based on the novelty, difficulty and time required in each case.

The traditional contingent fee is 1/3rd. 33.33% of the amount recovered. This fee does not provide for expenses however, which are the legal responsibility of the client. Most clients cannot afford even the smallest costs, so the lawyer is allowed to advance the costs for the client and then preferably to take the costs “off the top” of the settlement before calculating his fee. In an unusually difficult case, the fee may be 40% or even 50%. It is contrary to bar rules to charge more than 50% regardless of the difficulty of the case.

In many cases - the tobacco cases - the clients could not afford to get into court at all because of the high cost of expert witnesses who get paid regardless of the outcome. If it was not for the contingent fee there would have been no tobacco cases. In the wining tobacco case, plaintiff's lawyers had advanced more than $5 million. Lawyers naturally expect to reap a very handsome reward if they win a large judgement or force a very favorable settlement. Especially true in medical malpractice case and in manufacturing defect and product liability cases.

Sometimes lawyer’s fees are limited to less than the agreed amount. All fees in Federal Court must be approved by the judge, without regard to the deal made by the lawyer and his client. Fees in the tobacco cases were limited to 15% and not the one-third the lawyers had hoped for. Social Security cases are limited to 25% of past due benefits, and no fee is allowed on future benefits. A similar rule applies in workers’ compensation cases and in some states the employer must pay ½ of the legal fee. Finally, the VA still pays lawyers only $10 for representing a client. The DAV will furnish a lawyer for members under certain circumstances.

Pro Bono. Latin, “For the Good.” Services donated by lawyers in cases usually recommended by the courts. Most Bar Associations ask lawyers to give 5% of their time pro bono.


[edit on 9/29/2006 by donwhite]

As a person of mixed descent would I have to pay myself? What about the Moorish invasion and occupation of southwest Europe from AD 700- 1480's? This is one the most outlandish and frivolous lawsuits ever thought up. What about the modern black African Muslim slave traders who are still practicing the slave trade as they have for 1300 years? There wasn't enough Euro's in the world ever to take over the African continent. The slave trade and colonialism happened with cooperation of black Africans . If you're going to sue one person in this lawsuit, you'd better sue all parties involved.

I have a question.

As this lawsuit is based entirely around one race and racial in it's entirety, would the institutions found culpable be allowed to stop all transactions with the race that initiated the lawsuit?

If the Bank of America refused to deal in business with Black Americans, that would be racist and they could be sued. Yet Black Americans can sue the Bank of America for something they never did, just a company long dead that has ties to them.

Which is the more racist?

It was my understanding that Black Americans wanted Equal Rights. Is this true?

Would it not be equal for everyone to get reparations? How equal is it that only one race benefits? Are we not just segregating more by singling out Blacks and giving them something no one else gets?

So if they want reparations, only for themselves, then they do not want to be equal, they want to be singled out. How can it not be this way?

Semper

[edit on 9/29/2006 by semperfortis]

Originally posted by semperfortis
I have a question.

As this lawsuit is based entirely around one race and racial in it's entirety, would the institutions found culpable be allowed to stop all transactions with the race that initiated the lawsuit?

No. Current law, such as Fair Lending laws, would not permit that. Nor should it.

Originally posted by semperfortis
So if they want reparations, only for themselves, then they do not want to be equal, they want to be singled out. How can it not be this way?

As I've written before, I really don't have a solid position on "reparations". But absent any evidence to the contrary, I tend to believe they will do nothing to materially improve the plight of Black Americans.

Notwithstanding most of ceci's misguided beliefs on this subject, I have no doubt she is correct that the slavery in our nation's past directly contributes to the situation we have today.

As a nation, we can and should do much better to ensure the playing field is level and fair for ALL Americans.

As wrong as it is to support the effort found in the subject lawsuit, it is equally wrong to deny the reality of the Black American experience in this country today.

It is true that much progress has been made... But it is also true much more remains.

That responsibility lies with ALL Americans.

Loam,

I agree with you.

Just had a bad day and was inserting some sarcasm and alternative views to illustrate how farcical I consider this Law suit..

Semper

semperfortis, I knew you did.

My comments weren't really directed at you at all.

AHHHH

Loam, you are a wise and valuable poster!!!

Semper

Originally posted by ceci2006
loam, I've written before on this board that I would like "restitution" made to slaves through the form of a very distinct and meaningful apology. It's the time for atonement and not for money.

So no, it is not the victim mentality for me. I would rather have people know the truth about slavery and its effects. I would also have people pay the descendents of slaves with more respect than their government and Big Business afforded them in life. They were shut out of partaking the riches the United States generated up until forty-two years ago by laws, violence and other socially endorsed acts.

I would also like this atonement to help in making race-relations better for everyone. But people aren't ready. If such an outcry was produced over a lawsuit, what do you think might happen when slavery is truly addressed by this country?

And if this lawsuit wakes people up, then put it in the court. Or else, what you get is another instance of history written off like it has in this thread and ridiculed by others.

And if this lawsuit does not provide a wake-up call for America to deal with the issue of slavery, I do not know what will.

So I ask, what in place of the lawsuit do you suggest should be done in terms of atonement of the past?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And yes, Fiverz, mistreatment is mistreatment. But there are still differences that you can't see.

Did your relatives have to pay poll taxes? How did they fare in the times of segregation? Did they have to deal with the grandfather clause? Did your relatives have to drink from the "Coloreds Only" fountain because of their humble beginnings?

If they did, I would be quite surprised. If they didn't, well, it seems they benefitted from a system my relatives did not.

[edit on 29-9-2006 by ceci2006]

Segregation and slavery are two entirely different subjects. Seregration was based solely on race whereas slavery was based on the pure elimination of basic human rights for more than one race. That's the point I am trying to make with sharing my history ... slavery is not and should not be solely a race issue. It's a human rights issue.

I'd have no problem with some sort of national apology at all. Recognizing atrocities is fine in my book. Paying money to relatives of slaves has the opposite effect for me ... I liken it to paying people off so that no one HAS TO claim responsibility.