I don't know that reparations would be helpful, mostly because I have a sneaking hunch that money won't get much further than the political elite. Something needs to be done, but it's hard to think of things that won't generate negative social impact. At the very least, though, there should be debt forgiveness.
This seems to be aimed at the nations that were mostly actively involved in establishing colonies in the Caribbean region and bringing slaves to work on the plantations there, and were therefore directly responsible for the impact of slavery on that region.
The U.S. wasn't one of those nations. We did plenty of damage importing slaves into our own country and keeping the institution of slavery going here for an ungodly expanse of time. But once the U.S. became an independent country, we were too busy spreading out across this vast continent (and killing and/or subjugating the native population in the process, but that's another whole separate clusterfuck and another whole separate conversation) to be bothered about setting up colonies on Caribbean islands.
So that would explain why the U.S. isn't included in this. As for Spain and Portugal, though--I really don't get why this hasn't been directed at them as well as the others!
Comments 3
Reply
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
This seems to be aimed at the nations that were mostly actively involved in establishing colonies in the Caribbean region and bringing slaves to work on the plantations there, and were therefore directly responsible for the impact of slavery on that region.
The U.S. wasn't one of those nations. We did plenty of damage importing slaves into our own country and keeping the institution of slavery going here for an ungodly expanse of time. But once the U.S. became an independent country, we were too busy spreading out across this vast continent (and killing and/or subjugating the native population in the process, but that's another whole separate clusterfuck and another whole separate conversation) to be bothered about setting up colonies on Caribbean islands.
So that would explain why the U.S. isn't included in this. As for Spain and Portugal, though--I really don't get why this hasn't been directed at them as well as the others!
[Edited to fix borked html.]
Reply
Leave a comment