I recently learned the state of New York created a Community Commission on Reparations Remedies in December of 2023. Had enough thoughts on this that it’s worthy of a longer post on the ideas of race based reparations and collective guilt…
The idiocy of a reparations proposal would ultimately have nothing to do with race. How can I say that?
Slavery was once ubiquitous, existing across every race, religion, culture, and ethnicity. Slavery was mostly driven by conquest. Even the word “slavery” originates from “slav,” the white eastern European group often enslaved through European wars. Historically, slavery was never thought of based on race.
Even the origins of the trans-atlantic slave trade, that we are most familiar with in America, had nothing to do with race. African tribes had been fighting with other tribes for generations, taking slaves along the way. It was Africans who brought slaves to port in western Africa. They were the suppliers for that market. Unquestionably Europeans exploited this market for slaves, which was much easier and cheaper than wars of conquest. But Europeans had been enslaving other Europeans for centuries before the trans-Atlantic slave trade began. Sadly, buying and selling Africans was a matter of convenience and economy, but was not the start of the institution of slavery.
This seems like a good time to say—none of this justifies slavery. It is one of the worst institutions in history. I am not excusing the behavior. I am simply putting slavery in historical context to flush out the idea that for most of the history of that institution, it was not based on race.
In America, long before Europeans arrived, the native-American tribes from Canada to South America had slaves, the result of wars of conquest for generations. In frontier era America, those same tribes had white slaves, black slaves, and other tribe’s slaves. Up until the American Civil War, black people owned slaves as well. Both whites and blacks were enslaved in the antebellum South. Tragically, slavery was simply a way of life.
The primary racial justification for slavery in the US was started by southern landowners and politicians as the abolition movement started to gain momentum. As there was no moral justification for treating another human like property, the goal of southern land owners and politicians turned to dehumanizing as a means to justify the terrible behavior. If someone is less than human, they can’t have the same rights as humans was the basic thinking.
While the abolition movement was rising in the US, it was a full-blown war against slavery for the UK. In addition to shutting down the slave trade at any British ports, they pressured (strongest Navy in the world) other European countries to do the same and even blockaded Muslim ports and cities where the slave trade was the biggest and most brutal (much larger than the trans-Atlantic slave trade). This worldwide effort by the British ended slavery in dozens of countries.
And this was the crisis Southern politicians and the landed class were faced with. A good part of the world was rightfully ending this terrible institution.
Back to the point of race based reparations…with a history like this, how could anyone assign ownership of such a thing, trace such a thing, or apply such a thing? The answer is that it’s impossible.
No one government, race, or people anywhere can be responsible for correcting such a terrible wrong. Slavery was universal for thousands of years. Civilizations thrived on slavery, and it was the norm. It should never have been this way, but it was.
We cant re-write history to make it a purely racial story. Race was eventually a component. This can’t be denied, but that’s not the biggest or most important part of the story. Completely ignoring natural and individual rights IS the story. Humans had no concept of individual rights years ago. But we do now, so there is no excuse. It’s why there is no such thing as group blame or collective blame. If an individual did not perform the action, they are not responsible. Self-ownership and personal responsibility—these are the foundations of a free society.
For a better understanding of these ideas, check out two books by Dr. Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals as well as Social Justice Fallacies.
PS: It’s worth noting that I am half Honduran, so I am a descendant of a civilization that was colonized and enslaved by Europeans. And yes, the Olmec, Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas of Central and South America enslaved people as well. No culture is free from that horrific institution.
