Francis X. Donnelly, Detroit News, April 17, 2009
People laughed at him. Fellow blacks thought he was wrong. His own family wondered about his sanity.
If the concept of black reparations seems radical today, imagine what it sounded like in the 1960s.
That’s when a querulous real estate agent from Detroit became one of the first to call for African-Americans to be compensated by the U.S. for slavery.
Ray Jenkins, 88, toiled in obscurity as he pursued his quixotic quest for two decades, remembered speakers at his funeral service Thursday.
But the idea gained traction in the late 1980s and again in the late ’90s, with endorsements by civil rights groups, a best-seller on the issue, and a string of government apologies.
While “Reparations Ray” remained short of the prize, he was glad to live long enough to see the issue grow into a national debate, said speakers.
{snip}
Jenkins’ quest for reparations began in 1967, one year after he lost a malpractice lawsuit against Harper Hospital.
His 5-year-old daughter had gone to the hospital for a tonsillectomy but, during the operation, her heart stopped beating for five minutes, leaving her brain damaged. He charged the white doctors with being careless with his black child.
The hospital offered to settle the case but Jenkins turned it down. He lost at trial, coming away with nothing.
In subsequent interviews, he said the incident didn’t influence his decision to pursue reparations. Asked why he took up the cause, he said he didn’t know.
(snip}
The black reparations movement began gaining support in 1988 after the U.S. government awarded reparations to Japanese-Americans interned in camps during World War II.
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on April 17, 2009)
Comments
Actually, it was not a farfetched idea in the 1960s. The Great Society welfare programs, inasmuch as blacks would benefit from them, were said to be a form of reparations for slavery, by some of their advocates.
“The black reparations movement began gaining support in 1988 after the U.S. government awarded reparations to Japanese-Americans interned in camps during World War II.”
I know some are going to say ‘not this again’ but why no reparations for German-Americans and Italian-Americans interned during WWII? Why no debate at all about this ‘shameful legacy of the past’?
I am not opposed to reparations to blacks-as long as they are voluntary.Ill bet that a whole lot of guilty feeling white liberals will contribute to them.
I just wonder how much money and other handouts he gathered in unreported “reparations” during his 88 years.
African-Americans are the most privileged blacks in the world. The notion that they should somehow be entitled to reparations because their ancestors were brought to the Americas (after being sold to slavers by other black Africans) is so intellectually absurd and twisted that one wonders why any proponent of it is not judged either certifiably insane or severely retarded.
In a purely legal sense, the only way the complainants could be made whole would be to repatriate them to Africa, a solution from which they’d recoil in horror but which doubtless would be strongly supported in some quarters.
There’s a madness loose in the world today on an unprecedented scale, from the demands for black reparations, the global warming fraud, to rewarding failure and punishing success, to rewarding stupidity and recklessness and punishing prudence, and to punishing playing by the rules and rewarding fraud and cheating.
It’s an insanity that simply can’t go on much longer without fatal results for the world community.
Someone must have crunched these numbers.
We “Native Born White Americans” should start a movement demanding CRIME REPARATIONS. In just my immediate family of 5, we have experienced several instances of black on white crime: (1) My mother tried to help a black man at church once, and when she wasn’t looking the black man stole money out of her wallet…(2) I was robbed of close to $100 while on vacation one time, by a black man….(3) My brother and sister in law were involved in a fairly serious auto accident with a drunk driver. The drunk driver was (you guessed it) a black man….(4) and most seriously, my mother was assaulted in the driveway of her own home by a black man. She and my father were so traumatized by that incident that they went to great lengths to keep it from happening again by purchasing various security devices.
Anyway, I think the blacks owe our family quite a bit in CRIME REPARATIONS.
I would very pleased to add 45 Million Pounds Sterling to the compensation pot. Claimants must prove I personally held them as slaves in UK and forced them to pick cotton. Those who are currently slaves in various parts of the middle-east as well as africa itself will be excluded. However, those people who presently live in UK and have imported child slaves from africa under the guise of being the child’s auntie and just ‘looking after them’ should immediately file a report with the UK police and I will compensate the child slave from the proceeds of selling all the slave-owners property in UK and elsewhere.
Aey hits around an excellent point, which is that between The Great Society Programs initiated by Lyndon Johnson, AIDS treatments, the damage they inflict on American society through crime, and the countermeasures needed to minimize and prosecute that crime, blacks already have received trillions in “reparations” from an America that has suffered grievously from their incapacity and depredations. They are an enormous net burden to this nation, as they are to any nation they inhabit in significant numbers.
Posted by aey at 10:53 PM on April 17
I agree. I’ve been robbed twice in my life. Both robbers were black men. And I’m going back to the 70’s. I’ve been very cautious ever since. Whites should never let their guard down around thoroughly unknown blacks or browns. The “thoroughly” part is your discretion.
We have already bequeathed several cities, such as Detroit itself, to blacks. They then proceeded to ruin them. That wasn’t enough?
We have already bequeathed several cities, such as Detroit itself, to blacks. They then proceeded to ruin them. That wasn’t enough?
It will NEVER be enough, even the Presidency isn’t going to prove to be enough. Until the U.S. in it’s entirety, looks like Zimbabwe, it will never be enough. I also say the blacks will NEVER give up the presidency now without a huge racial civil war.
Please…again with this?
What the blankety-blank-blanking else do they want? Affirmative action, in all its various costumes, has given them almost anything, from paid-for-showing-up government jobs to LSATs-be-damned admission to law school.
Undeserved promotions. Unearned access. Arrogance. Defiance. Criminality. Enough!
I agree with the poster “John” above: How can this completely ludicrous subject still have life in a supposedly advanced society like our own?
Show me some blacks who were “slaves” and yes we can give them reparations. I’m all for giving reparations to actual slaves. Also, by sending them back to the homeland they were kidnapped from!!!!
Lyndon Johnson was the beginning of the worst presidents we could imagine. Reagan offerred moments of hope, but they were fleeting. We haven’t had a president since Ike who was worthy of America. What a shame.
You have been “sold out” and robbed, lied too, your wealth and freedoms have been forfeited, and all in the name of leveling the playing field. Leveling what field and leveling the field by being less smart, less competitive, and overall more dependent on the government?
What a shame. It is no wonder so many Americans now ask the question, “does it matter?”, and each time we state nothing matters we lose more of our spirit. What a shame.
A couple of things. First, let us say that in 1988 or whenever, that group of blacks had been given reparations, whatever that means. By now, we would be back to square one. All the Cadillacs, Lexuses, Bling, whatever, would have long been gone (think Model Cities spending). So, now, we would still be caught up in “diversity” (i.e. quotas). We would still have unmet needs, and guess who would need to be taxed to meet them. Reparations are an ongoing process and as a few posters have mentioned above, we are paying all the time and will be paying probably forever. As the bumper sticker says: “If I had known about all these problems,I would have picked my own cotton!”
Someone had mentioned repatriation to Africa. That’s one option.
But to “repair” the situation, which basically means to return it to the state that existed before the reputed damages occurred, could also mean returning their standard of living to what it was before the tragic kidnapping and deportation occurred.
Basically, that means setting an upper limit on African-American income to $500 a year, or whatever it is in places such as Sierra Leone.
Those are reparations that make sense.
Someone had mentioned repatriation to Africa. That’s one option.
As fast as the (OUR) government is bringing blacks here from Africa, I daresay, sending any back is out of the question. A more “final solution” need to be used when the time is right.
Obama stupidly, inadvertantly destroyed any argument for reparations when he responded to Daniel Ortega’s speech the other day, When it was Obama’s turn to speak, this is what he had to say about Ortega’s speech:
“To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.”
Whether he realized it or not, that is also the proper response to the argument for reparations. If Obama ever starts to talk about reparations, I hope someone will remember this quote and throw it back in his face.
“I am not opposed to reparations to blacks-as long as they are voluntary.Ill bet that a whole lot of guilty feeling white liberals will contribute to them.”
Hey, if they want to pay for it, fine. Just let them use their OWN money and not taxpayers’ money. Thank you very much.
