Mary Mitchell

AMEN Sister, AMEN!!!!!

Hi Mary,

In todays' column you stated:

"It doesn't matter how successful Jewish people are today, the fact is, the Holocaust was an unimaginable tragedy."

True words enough, however comparing slavery in America with the holocaust seems a false analogy.

Your reference to the holocaust vis-a-vis Black slavery is in my mind quite incorrect. Let us not forget that the Jews were slaves thousands of years ago for a long time as well. You should have brought that up, but either did not think about it or chose not to.

That being said, could one state that the slavery that the Jewish people endured strengthened their will and faith? I would suggest yes. Do I dare to make a comparison because I am of a particular race or "color". Of course I do.

I am not necessarily politically correct, but I am fair. If one doesn't become strong inwardly through the most dire circumstances(whether slavery in Egypt or the United States and all in between) one dies. Pure and simple.

I like reading your column and it is always refreshing to hear your point of view, most of the time of which I agree. From this column, none the less, I maintain that the direst of circumstances bring out the best in the terms of survival. It is NOT negative, Mary, it's just what's needed to excel and push to the higher level. I think all peoples or races were slaves somewhere down the line of history. The African-American experience is just the most recent. Welcome to Planet Earth, I guess.

Thanks again, Mary, for your columns, and have a great week.

Ken Schabelski

It's abouttime someone said it. I've gotten sick and tired of hearing about all of the unimaginable things that happened to the Jews and blacks are supposed to just forget their own plight. My hat's off to you Mary Mitchell and the editor of the Suntimes for having the balls to finally say this publicly.

I treat it with the same respect, and I'm white. Your column is clear and makes the point well.

Mary,
Can you please spell out what you would like to see happen if the courts were to side with what's being asked for as reparations. It would be nice to know what exactly is needed for us to be allowed to move forward. As someone who has researched my family history and can tell you that my family fought in the American revolution and for the North in the Civil War. My family has always lived in states which never had slaves. Please tell me what can we do for you, What can our hard earned money we put toward taxes do for you to finally allow you stop looking to the past so that you can move forward? Would an apology be enough, if so please allow me to speak for the rest of white, non slave owning descendants of northerners, we are sorry for what your ancestors went through and I wish my ancestors could have given their lives twice to help yours. Now can we move on and deal with what is or is not happening today?

Jews are not better off because of the holocaust. Jews were targets of the Nazis and German resentment because many Jews were as successful and wealthy and prominent in pre-Hitler Germany as American Jews are in the USA today. Now, those German Jews that did not escape are dead. I'll bet you that if ppl answered honestly, African-Americans would tell you they're better off now in the USA because slavery happened. But white Americans, most of whom are 1st and 2nd generation immigrants, and therefore have no connection to slavery, would tell you they'd be better off in the USA if slavery never happened. Why? Because of incessant whining pseudo-intellectuals like you who never shut up about slavery and want "cash" now for what happened more than 150 years ago. Prove you are the descendent of a slave. Prove the identities of those responsible. Quantify your damages. Don't assume that society as a whole owes you anything. The society most connected with slavery fought a civil war because of it. But Mary Mitchell -- 140 years after the end of the civil war -- wants cold hard cash. And she'll make any ridiculous argument to get it.

I would first like to agree with your comments concerning the argument that blacks in America have benefited from slavery. Such an argument is disrespectful to both Africa and African Americans, and demonstrates ignorance towards the evils of European imperialism.

However, I am shocked and appalled by the manner in which you attacked this argument. Your comments concerning the holocaust demonstrate a profound ignorance towards the tragedy, and could inspire anti-Semitism. First, how could you assume that the world is more respectful of the holocaust than slavery when Americans and foreign governments, such as Iran, try to disprove the Holocaust's existence?

Furthermore, at one point in your article you said, "Indeed, Jewish people are free to say whatever they want about the Holocaust and slavery," thus insinuating that it is largely Jewish people who downplay the negative effects of slavery on modern day blacks in America. Such generalizations easily promote anti-Semitism and ignore the bond blacks and Jews have shared in America since the civil rights movement. Moreover, to raise such an anti-Semitic argument on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the religion.

The Holocaust and American slavery will both serve as reminders for future generations of the evils mankind is capable of. The effects of such tragedies should not be compared to as such comparisons only create rifts between the victimized cultural groups.

Wow, what an angry, hateful rant! The fact that you can go on such an attack against white people and not have your column pulled just backs up my points about black privilege in this country. Also, this is still a free country for whites, isn't it? And if I or any of my people want to say that slavery was a good thing for blacks that live here today, we will say it. And you will just have to deal with it. How dare you say "where do whites get off saying that blacks today have benefitted from slavery". Are you a fascist or a dictator trying to stifle free speech? Because I could just as easily say "where do blacks get off telling me that diversity in our schools is a good thing". If I have to deal with your insulting, disrespectful comments, then you must, and you will deal with mine.

The reparation issue is quite tricky because of the way it is presented in the media. The way it is crafted almost makes any hard working (and not so hard working) Anglo-American a strong opponent. It is presented in such a fashion that should America pay baggy pant wearing young men, teenage single parent mothers, HIV infected, welfare dependent, high school dropouts, and high incarceration rate people any money for their personal failures and unwillingness to take personal responsibility, when in fact the generations that did the hard work of slavery have passed on at least a hundred years ago. That is a very compelling argument when you look at the state of many African Americans today.

I would argue that reparations are due for those very reasons. African Americans didn’t help to build, but did the majority of the building that led to America having on the world’s leading economies in the 18th and 19th centuries. The economy was based on agriculture, because at that time America was not an industrial nation. The concept of industrialization was taking on its early formation. However, wealth was created and investment from abroad made in-roads into this thriving agricultural-based economy. Therefore, more than whites who lived in America benefited from slavery. Foreign investments can and does stimulate economies. I am making this point for those who argued that their families were still living in (you can fill-in the blank of the particular country) and therefore they had nothing to do with slavery. Typically, their ancestors left those counties because there we not much of an economy, or that it was a closed-system.

As an agriculturally-based economy, wealth was accumulated by those who were the poor and underprivileged from Western Europe after one or at the most two generations. The laws at that time, like those today, allowed wealth to be passed along to each new generation. This is a good practice and is one that I wholly endorse. But, if you were a slave at that time how could you pass along the fruits of your labor. If you couldn’t own anything and you were somebody’s property, then the ability to pass along wealth didn’t exist for you and your posterity. Then, it is clear that your descendents would get your legacy which was poor (poverty), ignorance, broken/dysfunctional families, and low self esteem to name a few of the conditions that were in existence then and passed along. I am not suggesting that we African Americans do not have a role, but we can only give what we know. For example today, many black people still discipline their children in the ways of the old slave master. We beat them, rather than teach them---we harden them to survive and that is what they became---survivors. We should be giving them the gift of how to flourish, but we are short on that because for generations we only knew how to survive!

In the 1920-50s when blacks began the northern migration and integration, then and only then, did we begin to understand just how much we didn’t know because of the effects of our isolation and involuntary acceptance of racial segregation, only then did we begin to realize just how robbed we were. Therefore, the argument that damage was done only to the old generations becomes invalid---because in actuality our eyes were really opened when we began to participate in getting our rights in the 1960s. Those who are opponents of reparation now have an era that they can recognize. Now we have to figure out how we can do this in an equitable manner. Millions of people have been robbed because they did not get the fruits from the labor of their ancestors and hence only have the remnants of what was passed along and those were the not so flattering things. The media has a field-day perpetuating the dysfunctional aspects of what has been generationally passed-along. Money can’t cure some things, but in the right combination it can help to start and finance the process.

The one thing Mary left out is that Jews were exterminated. Black slaves were a valuable piece of property and not keeping their slaves in a healthy condition would be a detriment to the slaveowner's bottom line.

Also, since so many of Americans are now coming from Mexico and other Latin American countries should they be force to pay for reparations? The only ones who benefitted from slavery were the owners---I doubt if they passed on any additional profits to the public.

What about reperations for Native Americans? I am native american and I am resigned to the fact that my people will never see ANYTHING for our sacrifice. My people live in squalor and we have lived in squalor for years, looked upon as heathens. Native Americans were also slaves and masaccred. If you are trying to get reperations for slaves, the black folks should include all people that were slaves.

I feel that African Americans are better off today as a result of slavery.

Here's my position: If a person never has to go through trials and tribulation no matter how heineous or difficult they may be, they'll never understand the true essence of life.

As African Americans (as a whole) our ancesters had to "fight" for freedom. Now today we continue that fight for freedom, but because we understand what slavery was like for our forefathers, we have a better way of handling the current and future.

We understand what if feels like to be deprived of and as a result, it has an effect on us today.

Having said that, the extermination of millions of Jews by Nazi Germany was not a necessary evil!

However, all evil taken against any of us is not necessary, but since we have no control over evildoers, God allows us to climb from the actions of evildoers.

Every evil action taken against you, will have a direct affect on your future if you learn from it, move forward and don't retaliate.

Thank you Mary,

I recall when you first started this blog your goal was to spark conversation that will begin to bridge the racial divide. That bridge won't get crossed until the issue of reparations is justly settled. Some people (white and black) don't have a clue of the totality of American Slavery and thus have no idea what reparations is about or entails. I don't want anything from any white person. What I would like to see personally is that the institutions and corporations that benefited from the free labor of Africans and enabled them to be held captive, atone for that crime against humanity. Our government was wholly complacent in the Slave trade. Think about to number of slave owners that signed the Declaration of Independance. The very place where our laws are made was built on the back of slaves. The tobacco, cotton, and insurance industries gave birth to many of this countries uber-wealthy families. They owe a great debt to the ancestors of those whose shoulders were used to build this empire.

Once again the silly subject of reparations for slavery is being trotted out, and once again the arguments are being distorted.

First of all, there is never any mention of any contributions from the governments of those west African countries from whence the majority of slaves was shipped. Until that happens, the call for Reparations for Slavery is just another way for black Americans to stick their undeserving hands in a pot of someone else’s money.

Whites may have provided the transport, but the black African chiefs were willing sellers of their brothers and so following the logic of those calling for reparations, the current governments of that area, successors to the former chiefs, must surely bear some responsibility as well.

Secondly, who is to benefit from the suggested compensation? How will it be possible to distinguish between descendants of black slaves and those who arrived in the USA after abolition?

In any case, on what grounds will black Americans be seeking reparations? Surely each applicant would have to show that he or she personally had suffered as a result of his nth generation ancestor being shipped across the ocean. A tad difficult I would think.

Members of our family died in both world wars, one on the Somme in 1916, another at the hands of the Japanese on the infamous Burma railway in 1944. Both deaths must have been devastating for the family at the time, but according to the Reparations logic, even though I personally have suffered no disadvantage as a result, presumably I could ask the German and Japanese governments to drop me a cheque to “compensate� me. Since both these events are much closer in time than even the most recent delivery of slaves, I fail to see how anyone could establish a case for compensation. To be compensated, surely there must be a loss somewhere to be made good.

If there is to be no need to make a case for compensation, is this to become a free handout to ALL black Americans, irrespective?

The comparison with the Holocaust merely betrays the poverty of the arguments in favour of Reparations and is an unworthy jibe. The Jews gained no benefit from the Death Camps, either at the time or since. Transportation to America must have been a horrifying experience and not one which I would willingly have wished to share, but it is an incontestable fact that even the most impoverished black Americans today enjoy a standard of living far exceeding all but a tiny privileged minority still living in their ancestral homelands. Therefore, transportation to America DID work to the advantage of the descendants of the slaves and no amount of politically correct posturing can alter that fact.

fear and ignorance are the root causes of racism. they are used to create acceptance of atrocities against our fellow human beings before, during and after the fact. your example of the jewish holocaust is accurate, but is still using the format of race as a basis for right and wrong. there have been and still are many holocausts in the world. the ghosts of the many groups of indigenous peoples that are extinct due to colonialization and war could argue that blacks and jews are better off by the fact of their very existence. honestly, why would any non - black person care about slavery if they do not know its history and understand their own relationship to all human beings? I understand that the concept of humanity is difficult when daily survival is your main priority. I came to realize that I have the luxury of not thinking of my race until I am confronted with it. I am not black, but I think it would be near impossible for a black person to not be judged in america by the color of their skin every day of their life. I understand that my grandparents and mother immigrated to a country that was built through the use of slave labor. the illusion of the poor european arriving in America is betrayed by the fact that to get here you were better off than the people who could not afford to leave. ultimately, if Africa is the true birth place of man then at some point we are all related and share a common ancestry no matter what we look like. it is only when we can place ourselves in the other man's shoes can we understand their suffering. "under the heavens, one family"

Mary,that was a good story you did about the reasons we as a people should have a right to have reparations as a discussion at the very least. Thanks you are a voice for a lot of people.

I am disappointed in two Sun-Times columnists at the moment.

I've heard the "slavery ultimately resulted in a better life for the descendants of slaves" argument before. It usually sounds so incredibly racist from the get go that I dismiss it out of hand. I will give Steinberg credit. He did get me to pay attention to the argument. Right up until he wrote, "the average African, scraping out a living in Uganda, would leap at the chance to change places with the most humble resident of the West Side of Chicago".

What this ignores is the mindset of those two people. Today's immigrant from Africa is a free person looking to America for opportunity and brimming with the self-confidence bred by freedom. White Americans and black Africans are the little engines that could. Black Americans are the big engines who spent the last 200 years being taught they could not.

As to my disappointment in you, you wrote: "But a black person at least has an inherent right to make such a statement. Where does a white person get off telling black people how they benefitted from their ancestors being slaves?"

One of your earliest blogs asked the question, "why won't white Americans discuss racism"? The answer is, "Mary Mitchell just told whites they aren't allowed to".

"Where does a white person get off telling black people how they benefitted from their ancestors being slaves" ..asks Mary Mitchell. Well Ms. Mitchell, while I realize that the ubiquitious haze of political correctness has clouded many a view...IT'S STILL A FREE COUNTRY. Have YOU forgotten that? Years ago you wrote a column in which you stated (as a response to white criticism of Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakhan, et.al.) that whites don't get to tell blacks who they shall look to as their leaders. Well maam, you don't get to tell me what to feel, when to feel it, or how to express it. Thankfully, you're not Mr. Steinbergs boss, as well. While I find it disturbing that your often-racist and distasteful column is featured in a major American newspaper which reaches into the homes of many white Americans, I would never make an effort to silence your voice. I suggest you do the same.

I had to comment again after reading N.Steinberg's column. Since he either thinks his view is totally above scrutiny or is too scared to defend it, this forum will have to do. His column is flawed in many ways and I know there will be many that agree with him which is their right, that does not make his assumptions correct. To compare kidnapped slaves of THIS country to people of a country who we were at war with is apples and oranges. Of course we don't owe a debt to Japan, they tried to destroy America and got dealt with. But we did pay a reparation to those Japanese American citizens who were held in internment during that horrible war, didn't we? Slaves couldn't be U.S. citizens, their descendants are. His point that the government's mismanagement of Katrina somehow negates the debt owed by It and other slavery-benefiting institutions is ludicrous. Katrina actually shows why reparations are needed. It was illegal for slaves to educate themselves and their children, own property, even own the work that was done on time not of that of his master's. If the debt owed to these people had been paid, maybe they wouldn't have been living is such conditions? There are many ways to atone, monetary being just one. How about descendants of slaves receive educational stipends to public institutions? Land grant opportunities? Business loan subsidies? He seems afraid of 37 million citizens of this country made whole. Why? A strong African American community strengthens the nation. How come America can settle the score with every wronged group except the African?

Comparing slavery to the Holocaust is not only ignorant, but for a journalist, is an abomination. You should be ashamed of yourself. If only the Jewish people were as lucky to endure what blacks did in this country. Last time I checked the point of slavery was not genocide. How you even have a voice to speak your mind in a public forum is beyond me. Along with you, I agree with freedom of speech, but following one ridiculous claim with one of your own is not a good argument for it. Get a clue, or better yet, get a realistic sense of the past.

Thank you. I have often wondered how an atrocity such as the U.S. institution of slavery could be so easily discounted by the white media. I have often wondered about the barbarism that allowed those to enslave human beings in this country, as well as the barbarism that allows those in this country to discount it as a thing of the past that should be forgotten. When I think about the school system that educates the Black youth and the penal system that they are directed to as soon as they've come of age, I am not certain that the institution of slavery has not been revived. How dare anyone purport that a group of people ought to be feel blessed to have undergone such evil because matters in the place from which they were stolen does not appear to be as good as the place where they are. Only the soulless can believe and even utter something so contemptible.

Why Ms. Mitchell, I am shocked and appalled that you would consider even a faint remberence of our enslaved Ancestors. And to further the notion that a time if millions of murdered Africans should be considered a Holacaust? Why that is unspeakable in polite middle-class black society (and not even thinkable in high-society).

Well thank you for bringing that up though (reparations. Now that is humor).

You Ma'm, are a racist yourself. I would love to see you spend a year living in a refugee camp in Africa and then come back saying how much better your life was over there. To compare slavery to the Holocaust is ignorant and insensitive. Slaves were treated very well, and when the emancipation proclomation set them free, a large percentage never left the plantations right. Next time, get your facts right.

MITCHELL COMMENT:

Where are you getting your information about how well slaves were treated. That's just a lot of bunk.

Can't disagree with a single comment you made, including ow Africa could have turned out if colonial powers hadn't taken it over. In fact, Africa might have been a great spiritual center that could have greatly influenced the world, and a socialist continent which truly would have taken care of its own through its tribal history.

But what do you tell Europeans or immigrants who came here after slavery, as far as their responsibility for reparations? That's where you lose many people.

MITCHELL COMMENT:

How is it that immigrants can reap the benefits that America has to offer, but cannot share in the responsibility for her faults?

American slavery and the Holocaust are singularities -- horrible rents in the fabric of western civilization. As a Jew, I find it incomprehensible to compare them.

But it is important to understand how vicious these phenomena were. And so I'm a bit surprised that you didn't quite take the full measure of the evil of American slavery. Slavery has existed in various forms around the world -- Jews, of course, celebrate their own liberation from bondage every spring at Passover -- but no other form was so utterly dehumanizing as the American form: chattel slavery. Here, slaves literally had the same legal status as livestock.

Incidentally, the idea of African as sub-human is part of the Sen. Allen story. Most reports trace the "macaca" slur to his mother's colonial North African roots, but the word is still in use among South African white supremacists, and the word is clearly derived from a monkey specie, the macaque.

One more thing: The next time you hear someone talk about the chaos and violence in Africa, ask them what kind of a civilization would descend into the sequential nightmares of World Wars I and II.

Civil order and peace are difficult to establish, never to be assumed or treated lightly.

The dream of reparations for black people is a complete waste of time. It serves as nothing but a distraction from real issues and problems. It will never become a reality and my guess is you know that.

That does not mean this country doesn't have alot to be ashamed of. Anyone who studies history can't help but have a stomache ache over the absolute torture black people endured as slaves. It must have literally been hell on earth.
The hell did not end when slavery was abolished. There is no question that the years following were truelly as shameful.
However reparations for this sin is not obtainable and would only make matters worse for most black people.

Are people so naive as to think paying people off would settle the score for slavery? The talk of it raises the questions of "Damages". It becomes a trivial court case. This is exactly why the discussion of "Being better off here" ever arises.

Lastly I believe with all of the faults of our history the united States is the greatest country on earth. Every one of us are very lucky to be here!

Mary,

Interesting your reference to an editor - because I'm left wondering whether your post made it past one, either.

The United States of America has paid reparations for slavery. Have you visited the battlefields of Gettysburg, PA recently? Have you climbed out of the valley, up past the Appalachian Trail, to the cemetary above Harpers Ferry, WV? Or maybe the driving tour of Antietam would be more your pace?

How soon we forget. The U.S. Civil War remains to this day the most deadly, costly, and bloody war in which our country has ever been involved.

You write for the Chicago Sun-Times. Have you forgotten the Land of Lincoln? Our country sacrificed one of our greatest leaders for the cause of slavery and the Civil War, in order to keep our Union whole, and whole without slavery.

We've already paid the premium, Mary. Why do you feel it necessary to