House Committee Approves Bill To Establish Slavery Reparations Commission

A Democrat-dominated House panel on Wednesday moved reparations for slavery one step closer to reality by approving a bill that would form a commission to decide how much and in what form black Americans should be…

IJR SyndicatedApr 15, 20214 min read

Sponsored

.

“I hope we will not take the opportunity to point blame or to cast any actions of racism as one party or the other. It was America’s sin and that’s what we hope to address.”

Loading post…

But some pointed to more recent events as requiring federal payments to black Americans.

“Hasn’t the last year educated us or re-educated us about injustices, the historical injustices?” Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, the committee’s vice chair, said, according to USA Today.

“The study of reparations is the reasonable thing to do.”

Loading post…

Some House Republicans, however, disagreed.

“No one should be forced to pay compensation for what they have not done,” Republican Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio said. “Paying reparations would amount to taking money from people who never owned slaves to compensate those who were never enslaved.”

Former NFL star and Republican Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah said the proposal plays into the Democratic narrative that black Americans — a core Democratic constituency — are helpless, according to The Post.

“Slavery was and still is an evil,” he said. “Reparation is divisive. It speaks to the fact that we are a hapless, hopeless race that never did anything but wait for white people to show up and help us, and it’s a falsehood.”

But Democrats said reparations are essential and any opposition to the idea is wrong.

“Slavery was indeed ended 150 years ago but racism never took a day off and is alive and well in America,” Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia said.

“You can ask the family members of Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery or George Floyd. Black folks in this country cannot keep living and dying like this. But we’ll be forced to do so if White folks in America continue to refuse to look back at history.”

Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri said Republicans have no right to oppose studying how to pay black Americans what they are owed.

“To the Republicans who are against this legislation, how dare you. How dare your nearly all-White panel puts so much energy and abuse your power to deny justice for the descendants of one the most egregious atrocities in the history of the world,” she said. “You have no idea what that’s like. You don’t know what that’s like. But the least that you can do is support research.”

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.