House Democrats, With Pelosi’s Support, Will Consider a Commission on Reparations

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...SOn?li=BBnb7Kz
WASHINGTON — With the support of a string of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, the idea of reparations for African-Americans is gaining traction among Democrats on Capitol Hill, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi backs the establishment of a commission that would develop proposals and a “national apology” to repair the lingering effects of slavery.

Nearly 60 House Democrats, including Representative Jerrold Nadler, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, support legislation to create the commission, which has been stalled in the House for 30 years. The bill will be the subject of a hearing on Wednesday — the first congressional hearing on reparations in more than a decade, and the first on the measure itself.

“Reparations is a challenging issue,” Ms. Pelosi said in February at Howard University, adding that she supports the bill and looks “forward to an open mind and full participation of the public in that discussion.”
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It is rare for Ms. Pelosi to weigh in on legislation before it works its way through the committee process, and in doing so she is entering an arena that is politically fraught for her party.
Conservatives have ridiculed the call for reparations as unnecessary, unworkable and a cynical ploy for black votes, and Republicans will almost certainly oppose them and use the hearing to paint Democrats as left-wing socialists seeking a redistribution of the nation’s wealth.
“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living are responsible, is a good idea,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, told reporters on Tuesday. “We have tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation, elected an African-American president. I think we’re always a work in progress in this country, but no one currently alive was responsible for that.”
The current debate over reparations was fueled in part by the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose 2014 article “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic documented systematic discrimination by the Federal Housing Administration, which for decades classified black neighborhoods as undesirable and refused to insure loans for black homeowners.
“This is about more than slavery; this isn’t about litigating things that happened 150 years ago,” Mr. Coates said in an interview. “There are people who are alive today who are impacted by policies that came out of slavery.”
But Mr. Coates said Americans needed to reckon with how they view the past.
“If we’re going to be a country that feels like Jefferson is important and Washington is important and the Declaration of Independence is important, and we’re going to be patriotic on July 4, then we have to be the same way about the things that shame us,” he said. “We can’t say that things that ended 150 years ago don’t matter but somehow the American Revolution does matter. Either the past matters or it doesn’t.”
The House bill, titled the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act,” would authorize $12 million for a 13-member commission — three members appointed by the president, three by the House, one by the Senate and six from organizations that have championed racial justice. The panel would study the effects of slavery and racial discrimination, hold hearings across the country and recommend “appropriate remedies” to Congress.
© Cole Wilson for The New York Times The current debate over reparations was fueled in part by the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. Wednesday’s session, before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, does not guarantee that the bill will be taken up by the full committee or get a vote on the House floor. A Democratic aide characterized it as “an educational opportunity to elevate the dialogue nationally” around reparations. And even if the bill passed the House, it has virtually no chance of Senate passage or President Trump signing it.
But its backers say they are looking to the future and the possibility of a Democratic president and perhaps a Democratic-led Senate, where Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey and a presidential candidate, has introduced a companion to the House bill.
“This is not symbolic,” said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas and the chief sponsor of the measure. “It’s not a symbolic hearing; it’s not symbolic because of the day; it’s not symbolic because of the commission. It’s legislation that we think has finally reached its moment.”
A recent government survey found that 52 percent of Americans — including growing percentages of whites, blacks, independents, Democrats and Republicans — believe the government does not spend enough money on improving the conditions of African-Americans, according to The Associated Press. But the survey found that just three in 10 Americans think the government is obligated to make up for past racial discrimination.
Advocates emphasize that reparations would address more recent policies, and do not necessarily mean the government would be writing checks to black people.
Rather, they say, the government could engage in a wide array of assistance — zero-interest loans for black prospective homeowners, free college tuition, community development plans to spur the growth of black-owned businesses in black neighborhoods — to address the social and economic fallout of slavery and racially discriminatory federal policies that have resulted in a huge wealth gap between whites and blacks in America. It would be up to the commission to explore such options and others.
Ms. Lee and other backers of the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union, view the measure as a first step toward opening a national conversation about what they call “reparatory justice.”
On the presidential campaign trail, most of the leading Democratic candidates — including Mr. Booker; Senators Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren; and Representative Julián Castro — have embraced it. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has not taken a position.
But even backers of reparations acknowledge that there is no set definition about what it actually means, and that creating a plan for reparations on a national scale would be extraordinarily complicated. Ms. Harris told NPR that the idea “means different things to different people,” and agreed with the host’s suggestion that it could mean mental health treatment for black people.
Both the hearing and the bill are freighted with symbolism. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first documented arrival of Africans to the port of Jamestown in what was then the colony of Virginia. Wednesday, June 19, is Juneteenth — the holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. And the bill carries the designation H.R. 40, a reference to the first proposal for reparations: the unfulfilled “40 acres and a mule” promise to freed slaves after the Civil War.
Correction: June 19, 2019: This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An earlier version of this article misnamed a candidate campaigning for president in 2020. He is Julián Castro, not his twin brother, Joaquin Castro.

The DPST's are at it again with wealth redistribution and increased txes for black votes.

Gimme your vote and I8ll pay you
It is flagrant vote-buying- DPST's are shameless. And Racist Plantation politics.
Danny Glover is testifying for reparations today - other than being black and an actor - who is wealthy - what is his expertise??? Just wants more money!!!
I refuse to vote for any candidate supporting this nonsense.

No One alive has been a legal slave in this country .
I refuse to bear responsibility for Slavery in this country ending 150 yeers ago.
"Minority entitlement drives this - and it is disgusting.

If they give back all of their welfare, unemployment, food stamps, affirmative action, court costs, etc. I'd consider it as well..

Warren claims to be part Cherokee.
They could start with paying from casino revenue.
The Cherokee, and many other tribes, owned black slaves and fought on the side of the Confederacy.
Stand Watie comes to mind.
The issue of the Cherokee Freedmen is relevant also as it impacts people alive today rather then events of 150 years ago.
https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibi..._freedmen.html

If they give back all of their welfare, unemployment, food stamps, affirmative action, court costs, etc. I'd consider it as well.. Originally Posted by TheDaliLama

Amen - the original justification for all those benefits included reparations or stated differently, to make up for past discrimination and the legacy of slavery.

No former slaves are alive today. I doubt there are many former slave's children even alive.

President Obama and the Democrats had a Supermajority for two years (Pelosi was even the Speaker) and couldn't pass a reparation bill. They are going to try to attach it to some other legislation and Mitch won't pick it up.

This is part of the Dims appeal to the low information voters/wheel spinning strategy.

I support reparations for people on the Union side that were killed fighting to abolish slavery. Glover didn’t mention them. Fuck him anywats.

B- an excellent idea - couple Reparations for slavery with reparations for all descendants of slavery abolitionists, Union soldiers, and those in the North who supported the Union effort to "end slavery"

The war was actually better (historically) predicated on State's Rights - but no matter to the handout hungry reparations folks.

Let's see the Hypocrisy and outrage that any white descendant of Union soldiers who fought the Confederacy should be due reparations.
The Outrage of the DPDT Race - Baiters and Plantation politicos will be all over the LSM with howls of condemnation.

Hypocrites.

Any DPST comments out there??????

I think we should revisit the democratic Japanese internment camps. Some of those people are still alive. I also think we should look at all those Jews denied entry in World War two. Then there was all hard times visited on Italian and Russian immigrants. Did I forget anyone....oh, yes, I think the native Americans should answer for all those settlers that got killed trying to get to California.

Reparations from the Indian casinos to descendants fo their Victims is a wonderful Idea, TRBC!!!!!

Can we pressure Putin for reparations to descendants of exiles from the Baltic states who had to leave suddenly to avoid the joys of Socialism ?
The US were allies of Russia at the time and share responsibility. Unlike the slaves, my aunts and uncles are still alive.
Where's my check ?

Reparations from the Indian casinos to descendants fo their Victims is a wonderful Idea, TRBC!!!!! Originally Posted by oeb11

The thing is, if they won it would set a precedent for payment from the Federal Government.
Since the tribes are smaller it would be an easier win. A boycott of tribal casinos by AAs would be significant.
I guess they could agree to extra comps at the casinos or something.
Make for good popcorn sales also.

i fully support reparations! i want 1 dollar for every time the press has claimed "White privilege" and 5 dollars for every time the press has claimed all white people are racist by "default".

i'll expect that 500 Million dollar check by the end of the week or i will sue!!


BAHHAAAAAAA

Why should everyone else pay for the racist sins of the Democratic Party?

They should pay.

heres one who disagrees with the idea of slave reparations. He calls it justice for the dead. He however suggest that reparations for the jim crow laws are appropriate as they are people still alive affected by it.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/victor...tions-n2548586

Hughes said that while he does not wish to diminish the horrors and brutality African Americans faced under slavery and Jim Crow, he believes reparations "will compromise our ability to fix the present," listing several trials black Americans are facing currently.

Moving on to his central thesis, Hughes declared that reparations would only divide the country further. The only types of reparations which should be considered are ones for black Americans who actually lived under Jim Crow laws, he contended.

So, reparations for slavery would allocate federal resources to me, but not to an American with the wrong ancestry, even if that person is living paycheck to paycheck and working multiple jobs to support a family. You might call that justice. I call it justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living. I understand that reparations are about what people are owed, regardless of how well they are doing, I understand that. But the people who are owed for slavery are no longer here, and we’re not entitled to collect on their debts.

oh btw, the slave reparations which consisted of 40 acres and a mule which was vetoed by a democrat turned National Union president Andrew Johnson (national union was all in name, he's still a democrat). Thank him for causing all sorts of problems back then.

40 acres and a mule. it is roughly $150,000 in todays dollars. a mule is about $5,000 - 10,000. so, its $160,000 per slave.

4 million freed slaves. that comes to about 640 billion (does not include interest)

30 million blacks. not all were slaves of descendants.

so, lets reduce that to 20 million. the descendants would only get $32,000.

theres something else... the slave owners were never compensated for their loss of "property" resulting from the passage of the 13th amendment. many of them went bankrupt.

this is something quite different when the British Empire outlawed slavery. They compensated the slave owners for their loss of "property" resulting from the ban.