I would like to make some quick points to address Ms. Rebecca Hill's rebuttal to the article on slave reparations. I would hope ideology like Ms. Hill's would be isolated to a small percentage, but in actuality I am sure more do share her blissful ignorance on slavery and the right to reparations for such acts.
First of all let me touch just enough on the question posed in, "What way have you suffered from your ancestors being enslaved?"
Succinctly put, the tremendous effects of slavery in no way ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. Whenever a group of people selectively include only those that are like them to the successes of life, you exclude others. This is institutionalized racism, one of the main catalysts for slavery, and this my dear still exists to this day.
I tried but honestly don't know a way in writing to make those who have not experienced what it means to be black in America empathize with the psychological after effects of being ripped from your loved ones and your homeland, stripped of all that you are, forced into decades of back-breaking labor, beaten, raped, lied to, brainwashed and then being told to be happy that you are here.
Yes, we all have suffered from slavery and are still suffering. Now, is this a crutch? Not at all, the human spirit is a survivor, and even with this hump on our back we still strive and succeed.
Now to the issue of reparations. It literally means: "something done or paid to compensate or make amends."
Did the Greeks, Romans and Russians deserve it? Absolutely.
When you have wronged someone then you make amends for it.
Simple.
