I’m not an expert and I’m not over there in the trenches but was…. now I am on the sidelines educating myself and others with both old and new information that I find and quite frankly, my ‘insider view from the outside’ gives me a different perspective on a lot of things. Let’s be intelligent and not emotional in finding a solution within a reasonable amount of time before our ‘Dream Deferred’ gets out of hand.
Putting a number on Reparations payouts is one of the things I thought about the other day and I’d like to share it with you and hopefully you’ll share it with others.
Figuring out a dollar amount for Reparations for native bred/born American black people came to me after seeing a few colleges/universities talking about their historical legacy being underpinned with the sale of the enslaved. The most logical thing to do, is simply USE THEIR NUMBERS…
Here’s a formula:
Simply take the highest price for each category of the enslaved (because obviously it’s this bloodline that has survived today) so an enslaved man and woman in their prime sold for say $3,000 and $2500. As we all (should) know, every slave owner took out an insurance policy on their enslaved property. Add the highest payout value of said insurance policy payout upon the death of the the most valuable enslaved person. We DO NOT AVERAGE IT OUT – they said we were ‘valuable property’ so that’s what we go with.
The highest priced enslaved person (man AND WOMAN, together) and the highest recorded face value payout on an insurance premium for both. That’s the ‘value’ THEY GAVE to our ancestors.
So using these figures take those four numbers (2 people, 2 insurance policies), add them together figure out whatever interest rate is applicable since 1690 and work out that amount yearly up until now. Whatever number comes up with interest at today’s US dollar rate is what each individual ADOS should get.
It should come out to a couple of million per 25+yr old person/head of household. 2 parents – 2 payments.
Out of each settlement take 10% off the top to set up private schools, (both boarding and daily) for boys and girls separately with monthly school fees paid by the parents to keep them running. Set up schools for remedial education for adults, along with drug rehab and vocational schools for ex cons, high school drop outs and people that have to retrain into a trade or some other tech because of AI taking over their jobs.
Easy peasy.
We’re overthinking these numbers and being greedy, we really are and that’s one reason white people (and a lot of blacks) are so resistant to the idea. It doesn’t make sense to them, but the formula above does.
We KNOW personally a LOT of people that have done NOTHING but talk trash about Reparations being a nonstarter are NOW saying ‘cut the check’ and shutting down honest discourse and information sharing. That’s ridiculous and shows the level of mentality of most… Reparations isn’t about ‘cutting a check’ so you can pay off your school loans & credit cards then travel and run up more debt!
It should be about the many, not the few, the collective not the individual.
Can we have an INTELLIGENT CONVERSATION PLEASE and get behind ONE PLAN (modified as you like) that’s easy enough for everyone to understand and stop throwing dollar amounts around that start with a ‘T’!?! (TRILLIONS!)
No one understands how much money that is anyway – it’s too many zeros to comprehend and the American public and government will always say it’s too much.
A coupla million a person, worked out with the formula above isn’t though – especially if we take that money and build our own institutions and sort out the social problems we have in our communities ourselves.
I think it’s a fair solution for everyone involved in the Reparations debate.
Here is a pdf for those interested in the science and historical figures used for slave prices in the early South. Obviously slaves got more valuable AFTER there was a prohibition on importation but this research is a starting point.
http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/Archive/papers/Pre1999/wp1999_9.pdf
My name is Sineta George and my email is SenegalStyle@gmail.com if you’re in a position to influence the debate and would like to discuss my idea further. Please pass this along and share as you want but credit me for thinking of it and don’t pass it off as your own.
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