The Issue was: 
Should the U. S. pay reparations to
descendants of Africans because of slavery?

Should the US pay reparations? - Yes
Name - Susan Campbell
Age - 62
E-Mail - <scamp4098@aol.com>
Comment - Wow .. the comments are great. I love discussions like this and I hope there are more as time goes on with the paper. I do think that descendants of Africans should be paid reparations. It would be a sign to my people that times have changed. There is so much disrimination that still continues today and it's hard to forget. Maybe this is what is needed to end things once and for all.

- Sunday, August 01, 1999 at 00:56:28 (EDT)

Name - Bernard Jackson
Age - 72
E-Mail - <bjac758957@aol.com>
Comment - Korean Veteran,Hon.Disc.,Voter,Father of two children who are college graduates.I believe that this is the greatest nation in the world,but the treatment of my people and the denial to us of many things that other groups receive without question is most disturbing and with little improvement during my lifetime severely shaken by faith in the United States of America. Yes.Yes

- Thursday, July 29, 1999 at 17:40:49 (EDT)

Name - An American
Age - 28
E-Mail - <Colorblindnessisthebestblindness@Icare.com>
Comment - Wow... it's sooo amazing. I just read through the posts so far, and feel the hatreded that is there toward the beginning of this survey. It hurts me that people seem to bottle this up or find distructful ways to express it. It's funny, but I feel that this question really leads us all to talk in circles and that we will never get anywhere with anyones answers. But I will post my opinion nontheless: I agree with what someone else said, "We as a nation did not enslave the African Americans", their own people did it in Africa..they made their way over here as things do via shipment. African Americans were not the only slaves, Indians were also slaves, but they did not survive like the African Americans did, mainly because of disease..they were not immune to the diseases the Anglo's brought over from Europe. I do not agree with the methods that were used in slavery, but I cannot do anything about that, nor do I agree witht he methods that our ansestors used to obtain the land that we now claim as ours, I cannot do anything about that either. I do not think that there is any amount of money available to beable to pay anyone back for any wrong doing...There is to long of a list of people that *need* to be righted. Being a female I would would truely feel slighted if one race were to be "supplemented" and *women* not. You know that we all have our struggles and we all should not be living in the past, we need to educate our youth and move on ..making it a better place for all. I feel that we have a long ways to go, but we have also come a long way. This won't happen overnight..or within a few decades...as history tells, it all takes time. If anyone is to be paid for any sufferage, we should be paying our whole lifetime to the Indians...for it is them who we stripped from this land, and for they are the ones in an eternal struggle. I say that ...only cause I had to pick a "group" that is probably the worst off. We single handedly, directly, from the beginning opressed them, key word being directly ....With African Americans ...we did not go over to Africa and trap and enslave them, so perhaps if they want reparations perhaps they should take that up with the Africans today. We should just drop this whole Issue...which conjures up hatred between races, and makes it harder for us to beable to intregrade ourselves.. and move on. I hear soo much today from fellow African American peers that they have issues with White Americans because of the slavery period. There is nothing I can do about what my forefathers did to slaves. Actually directly my lineage did nothing to slaves, we came over from France in 1901...soo why should I as a tax payer pay for something I was not involved in? I guess I could go on and on.... Life is tough, lets all do make our own lives the best they can be, and not dwell upon something we cannot change.

- Sunday, July 25, 1999 at 19:25:29 (EDT)

Name - Kelly
Age - 20
E-Mail - <rox@efter-stormen.com>
Comment - Well, I think that if the US Government had to pay reparations to African descendants, it would have to pay all those who, someway, did some kind of slavery. And that, I think, would get out of control. Because even today there are people who suffer from that, maybe indirectly and with different methods, but they do. Why don't the Government use the money on something else? Like offer better job opportunities for the unemployed or help improve the education so that people start thinking and stop hating each other for something that happened ages ago? It won't help much if those who get this reparation are still suffering from racism. Money won't help to heal this.

- Sunday, July 25, 1999 at 04:38:53 (EDT)

Name - Candy Mallee
Age - 18
E-Mail - <cmallee4897@aol.com>
Comment - It will not help at all if reparations are paid. The wrong was done and the discrimination continues. Spend the money educating today's youth not to have racial hatred.

- Saturday, July 24, 1999 at 19:33:45 (EDT)

Name - Marsha
Age - 28
E-Mail - <lights@pacbell.net>
Comment - Reparations will serve to end the bitterness that is felt by many blacks and will show that the US wants to right what it did wrong.

- Saturday, July 24, 1999 at 19:19:22 (EDT)

Name - Kendra
Age - 25
E-Mail - <kshattuck@uswest.net>
Comment - I don't think that reparatins are going to end the bitterness or the racism that continues to affect everyone in our country. I think it would be a nice gesture by the government, but it will never happen. Paying off African Americans is not going to end the suffering that is happening every single day in our country. I think that this will cause more harm than good because then every other ethnic group will feel as though they should also receive reparations. If we pay off the African Americans because of slavery, then shouldn't we also pay off the Indians for taking their land? How about the Mexicans for fighting to take Texas back? How about Anglos since they will soon be the minority in this nation? Why doesn't the government just pay off anyone who has had a tragedy that affected their lives?

- Friday, July 23, 1999 at 01:51:40 (EDT)

Name - Lucinda Johnson
Age - 22
E-Mail - <ljoh2586@aol.com>
Comment - No no no! I'm so tired of black folk going around complaining because they feel they have been wronged or something. Its time to get over it and just get on with life and living. This is the land of opportunity and theres plenty of opportunity to go all around. Paying reparation would only make things worse and make more folk go on welfare and sit home thinking they got something for nothing. Get over it.

- Friday, July 23, 1999 at 01:38:23 (EDT)

Name - Mary Brown
Age - 72
E-Mail - <mbrown@aol.com>
Comment - Hell yes they should. But will they? Well it ain't too likely. We ain't never got no mule and no land like we was promised so I doubt they gonna give us what is rightly ours just ain't likely but it sure dont stop us hoping.

- Wednesday, July 21, 1999 at 03:22:33 (EDT)

Name - TMNK
Age - Guess
E-Mail - <me@menobodyknows.com>
Comment - America needs to do something to make up for all those of us who were wronged and who grew up with nothing but hatred in our hearts because of what was done to our people. This would be a symbol that there is some regret for the inequities of the past.

- Tuesday, July 20, 1999 at 21:37:19 (EDT)

Name - Glen Latham
Age - 46
E-Mail - <glen.latham@metamor.com>
Comment - I don't think reparations should be paid. African Americans need to get over their anger and the separation. The time has come to move beyond. It was our own people in Africa who sold our ancestors into slavery. We can't go on blaming the white people of today forever. We have an opportunity here in America to do just as well as any white person. Reparations and welfare are what holds us back. I grew up in the ghetto but I rose above it because I wanted to. The same type of opportunity is there for anyone else who wants it. But it takes work and going to school. Reparations aren't going to make anyone want to do that. That has to come from within.

- Tuesday, July 20, 1999 at 21:32:31 (EDT)

Name - Al Jones
Age - 29
E-Mail - <aljones@conceptsnet.com>
Comment - African Americans are plagued still today by discrimination and it all dates back to the days of slavery. If the governmnet paid some reparations to the descendants of slaves, then part of this feeling of not being made whole would be able to finally end. It would show that the government was serious about making their past wrongs right.

- Tuesday, July 20, 1999 at 19:00:59 (EDT)

Name - John Poindexter
E-Mail - <jpoind3@aol.com>
Comment - No way. African Americans need to move beyond slavery and stop thinking about it. Paying reparations would only help to prolong the overall feelings of wrong doing. It's time to get over it.

- Tuesday, July 20, 1999 at 18:49:49 (EDT)

Name - Siobhan G. O'Brien
Age - 34
E-Mail - <info@siobhanenvisions.com>
Comment - The US government has in the past, and continues to offer special considerations to other ethnic groups for the suffering which has been imposed upon them; for example, American Indians and what about the Hispanics? Look anywhere around today and see signs translated into Spanish! Yet nothing has been done for African Americans to make up for slavery. I believe this continues some of the resentment and anger which many African Americans feel today and which has been passed down generation after generation. Reparations, perhaps, could serve as a final gesture which end this separation for once and for all. Then, maybe, we could all live as one people in this great country of ours! We are all brothers and sisters. Cut any one of us and our blood is the same. The government, I believe, can help to end the "differences" and unify us through payment of reparations.

- Tuesday, July 20, 1999 at 18:46:39 (EDT)

Name - James P. Oglesby
E-Mail - <jogle25@hotmail.com>
Comment - The U.S. and its people should make equal opportunities available to African Americans and other oppressed minorities. Stop the bigoted treatment of minority children, and recognize the talents that the adults have. Since many minorities have been in oppressive environments, they have not fared so well in school and in other pursuits. Recognize this, and also recognize potential and resilience to bigotry and foster growth of quality people through affirmative action. When someone says something unwarranted and negative about minorities, then say something or do something corrective. Etc. Correct the problems that are here today. Slavery is historical, generations ago.

- Thursday, July 15, 1999

Name - Lisa Oaddams
Age - 32
E-Mail - <SassyOdam@aol.com>
Comment - It is unfathomable how is is acceptable that all other races that have been discriminated against have received retribution and no one seems to think that African Americans deserve any. What we have to realize is if we don't make it a priority ( those of us in power ) then no one else will. Look how the refugees from Kosovo were flown here and comfortable living quarters made for them all because people in law-making positions saw to it personally that their relatives were taken care of.

- Friday, July 9, 1999

Name - Robert
Age - 37
E-Mail - <jerryj@worldent.att.net>
Comment - Why not. However, it will never solve our lack of unity in our community. We'll probably blow it on bogus investments.

- Wednesday, July 7, 1999

Name - Angela Crusoe
Age - 28
E-Mail - <NIT4RA@aol.com>
Comment - No amount of reparations could justify the enslavement of my people. I think the term "blood-money" would be most appropriate. In all honesty, slavery continues today. What's the difference between slavery yesterday and slavery today? No chains or whips!! I can testify the African-Americans will continue to pay the price for our enslavement. Our brothers are being locked on day and night. Our families continue the disfunctional cycle. Black children go on mis-educated and ill-prepared for the future. Our men and women struggle daily with their identities. SIMPLY: No amount of reparations could satisfy nor justify our pain(past/present/future)!

- Sunday, June 27, 1999(EDT)

Name - Wally
Age - 51
E-Mail - <WALLYKL@AOL.COM>
Comment - The U.S. government did not live up to the treaties it made with Native Americans - nor did it give African Americans the 40 acres and a mule promised them after the Civil War. To quote from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the U.S.: " In early 1865, General Sherman held a conference in Savannah with 20 Negro ministers and church officials, mostly former slaves, at which one of them expressed their need: "The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land and till it by our labor...." Four days later Sherman issued "Special Field Order No. 15," designating the entire southern coastline 30 miles inland for exclusive Negro settlement. Freedmen could settle there, taking no more than 40 acres per family. By June 1865, 40,000 freedmen had moved onto new farms in this area. But President Andrew Johnson, in August of 1865, restored this land to the Confederate owners, and the freedmen were forced off, some at bayonet point."

- Friday, June 25, 1999

Name - Judith Myers-Gell
Age - 50
E-Mail - <jamg297@mciworld.com>
Comment - Absolutely, this country was made whole and viable on the back and deaths of millions and millions of slaves. Our descendants. Reparations to Japanese Americans, was approved and sanctioned wholeheartedly. Today, we as a race of people are still deprived, disrespected and discounted due to slavery. It has been imbedded in this nation of Anglo-Saxons that they are better than us, and on a whole we are as a race of Black Americans have been treated in that second class citizenship posture. So, without question, hesitatation nor doubt, yes to the US paying reparation to descendants of Africans-Americans due to slavery.

- Tuesday, June 22, 1999

Name - Brandon Quinlan
Age - 38
E-Mail - <b_quinlan@hotmail.com>
Comment - Outrage has died in the United States because Americans know that their political system is, and has been out of their control for quite sometime. The United States is KILLING CIVILIANS in other countries for political purposes. Violence is an acceptable way to resolve disputes for governments, but is an aberation for citizens to do so. No wonder people don't know right from wrong. When the President is guilty of perjury and the Senate enables it, how can anyone believe the government is accountable to the people? To truly determine the sentiment for the federal branches of government, three simple and basic questions should be presented to voters. These questions should be presented to all voters, not just small polls that rarely reflect more than a few thousand responses. Question 1. Given the choice, do you want to remake and reinvent the executive branch of the federal government, which is the office of President of the United States? Question 2. Given the choice, do you want to remake and reinvent the legislative branch of the federal government, which is the Congress: both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States? Question 3. Given the choice, do you want to remake and reinvent the judicial branch of the federal government, which is the Supreme Court of the United States? A simple YES or NO answer will go a long way to empower American's as was the intention of the Constitution. Brandon Quinlan - an expatriate American
P.O. Box 6146
Station A
Toronto, Ontario M5W 1P6
CANADA
416-963-4889

- Saturday, June 5, 1999

Should the US pay reparations - Yes

Name - Ray
Age - 45
E-Mail -
Comment - It'll never happen. The economics of the U.S dictates that their forever be an underclass to fuel the growth of wealth for the majority. There was a settlement by a branch of government that discriminated against Black farmers for years. Why did this situation happen and why was it allowed to continue for so long? The simple truth is that the very foundation of this country has been built on the inequality of the races. I see the continued spread of the drug "CRACK" flooding the Black neighborhoods. This is not an uncontrollable situation. The control rests in the the government. It kills the minds and spirit of those who take it and of those who sell it. I have never seen so many people(young and old) involved in the selling of the drug in my life. It's so obvious. If you use it you eventually become a non-threat to the country because you're slowly killing yourself.The intelligence I've seen displayed by most of those addicted who be a very threatening force if used in a positive, productive manner rather than in a negative, life draining one. The ones who sell the drug are just agents of death for the U.S. They are also fuel for economic growth by populating the prison system at alarming rates. This creates more jobs, and other industries as a by-product, for the majority population. And can the Black men and women who don't want this in their neighborhood do anything about it. Yes they can, but if we were to take matters into our own hands to clean up our blocks(by any means necessary) then we also become the criminals by law(but so what the established powers always call those who have self-determination criminals - how do you think this country was formed?) Try going into a whiter neighborhood and re-creating the environment you see daily in our neighborhood. Why you wouldn't last a week. The people would be the ones who would make you "missing in action". And no one would do anything about it because they were just taking care of their neighborhood. The incidence of police violence on Blacks is growing at an alarming rate. I wonder what would happen if Black people inflicted the death penalty on a policeman who takes the life of a Black man or woman without just cause? I wonder, if just one person in each of the major cities kept his or her business quiet and execute those that execute us(Did I say that? Well, it ain't my fault). I don't mean random - that would be an excuse to establish a concentration camp(like it's not there already) in our neighborhood - but very accurate to the offender. I wonder what the statistics would show next year concerning police violence on Blacks. You see, not only will it never happen(because we have become trained victims who won't even help ourselves) but what would we do with it anyway ? Buy another Benz, some CRACK, move out of the 'hood, go get our head bad and party. Malcolm X once said that "freedom isn't something that you ask the master for - freedom is something you take(along with his head also- if need be)". But with that freedom comes responsibility - the responsibility to teach the young, clean the streets, and make a nation that you can participate in as equals. And that requires WORK. Do this and you won't need any reparations, they'll be asking you for money. Hey, don't mind me - just dreaming a dream that Malcolm, Marcus, Martin, Huey, Elijah, and I had a long time ago.

- Thursday, March 4, 1999

Should the US pay reparations - Yes

Name - Rod w.
Age - 34
E-Mail - <qcps@bellsouth.net>
Comment - YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! first of all let's get a little history on making right for wrongs. when the U.S. bombed the Japanese for attacking her shores, the U.S. realized that it done a grave injustice even in war, so WE!! paid Japan for the excessive damage the U.S. caused. When Hitler (a white man) killed millions of Jews in Europe!(white-on-white crime) the U.S. paid and is still paying Jews for their massive loss. NO WHITE MAN OR WOMAN has ever stood up and said I'm tired of Jewish people saying never again, that they should let the past stay in the past or it wasn't "us" who killed their ancestors! NO! you pay your taxes just like the millions of african(americans) do and keep your mouth shut on those issues because you place a value on those white lives lost! however you racist hateful people (those who oppose) easily part your racist mouths and say "hell I directly didn't murder, lynch, rape,brutilize,dehumanize,and destroy any of those'niggers' or their seeds and we(white america) are not paying! NOR WILL WE APOLOGIZE!!" No people has ever been completely erased from their culture,religion,values system and in turned taught from the craddle to hate and de-value themselves and to love fear and respect their oppressor BUT THE AFRICAN PRISONERS OF WAR!!! kidnapped and made to provide free and damn near free labor for well over 400yrs.So now you see the product of your years of torture and self-hate teachings finally beginning to break that' cycle of self-hate and you want to do just as your forefathers did.prevent our rise by any means necessary! (laws,guns,drugs,etc).AMERIKKKA WILL PAY! just as WE! paid Jews,Japanese and others! I wish I had more space to continue but I don't so you lucked out!

- Wednesday, March 3, 1999

Should the US pay reparations - Yes

Name - Brock Harris
Age - 45
E-Mail - <bsh5218@aol.com>
Comment - Since we were denied the Forty Acres and a Mule we never had the opportunity to own enough land or take advantage of the Free Enterprise System.No land,no businesses no advancement.We are mainly consumers,not producers.Over 92% of the wealth in the U.S. is still controlled by white males.Reparations would not do much but it beats nothing at all.

- Wednesday, March 3, 1999

Should the US pay reparations - Yes

Name - D. Howard
Age - 35
E-Mail - <DLabor3580@AOL.com>
Comment - Absolutely, Yes. Why is it so hard to give Blacks what they are entitled to? I am so tired of racism and hatred in this country. I'd hate to be some of these people who are so full of hate and have to make an accounting of this when they stand before God. How can so many people run to a church every Sunday and say they love God, yet hate people they see every day. They have never seen God. Please, give me a break. Blacks were enslaved and brought to this country to perform hard labor, at no cost. Of course their descendants should be compensated.

- Wednesday, March 3, 1999