What does Georgetown owe descendants of slaves?

[FaC]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027767819

malaise (139,513 posts)

272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/georgetown-university-search-for-slave-descendants.html?module=WelcomeBackModal&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region®ion=FixedCenter&action=click&src=recg&pgtype=article&_r=0
<snip>
The human cargo was loaded on ships at a bustling wharf in the nation’s capital, destined for the plantations of the Deep South. Some slaves pleaded for rosaries as they were rounded up, praying for deliverance.

But on this day, in the fall of 1838, no one was spared: not the 2-month-old baby and her mother, not the field hands, not the shoemaker and not Cornelius Hawkins, who was about 13 years old when he was forced onboard.

Their panic and desperation would be mostly forgotten for more than a century. But this was no ordinary slave sale. The enslaved African-Americans had belonged to the nation’s most prominent Jesuit priests. And they were sold, along with scores of others, to help secure the future of the premier Catholic institution of higher learning at the time, known today as Georgetown University.

Now, with racial protests roiling college campuses, an unusual collection of Georgetown professors, students, alumni and genealogists is trying to find out what happened to those 272 men, women and children. And they are confronting a particularly wrenching question: What, if anything, is owed to the descendants of slaves who were sold to help ensure the college’s survival?

Math is cruel....

Travis_0004 (4,350 posts)
27. I'm not so sure that would work

Lets say you were born in the year 2000. Easy round number and its somebody who would be considering college soon.

If we go back 7 generations, I would expect you to have 128 ancestors.

Or put another way, one person from 1838 should have 128 people today who are related to them.

Lets assume of those 272 slaves, every single one was married to another slave. It makes the math more optimistic. That means you have 136 married couples who now have 17,500 descendants who qualify for free college. In 25 years it will be 34,000. In 50 years it will be 68,000 people eligible for free college. I'm not sure how well that would work out.

Also, my math is seriously flawed, but I wanted to give optimistic numbers. Every person has 2 parents. That part is easy. But not every parent has 2 kids. Back in the 1900, they often had much more. So we may not be at 68,000 eligible people for free college in 50 years, we may be there today.

Give them free stuff...

LisaM (16,675 posts)
2. I read this piece on Sunday - obviously, it's not an easy fix.

I did like the idea of scholarships being set up for descendants. Not a fair tradeoff by any means, but it does have value (though I'd hope Georgetown would be very careful to protect the privacy of anyone who earned one of these scholarships). I wouldn't be surprised if this same scenario turns up again.

What bullshit...

KamaAina (74,364 posts)
3. In Solidarity with Black Students at Georgetown University

http://www.autistichoya.com/2015/11/in-solidarity-with-black-students-at.html

I did not write the text of the letter below the asterisks (and do not want to claim credit for the words -- it's circulating among many conscious and conscientious alumni), but I wholeheartedly endorse it as a non-Black alumn of color only recently removed from the Hilltop. I experience daily the damaging effects of white supremacy and structural racism as an East Asian person, but for precisely the same reason, I am also part of the many Asian American communities so frequently used in service of white supremacy. Asians like me continue to be offered the illusions of respectability and equality in the white supremacist system so long as we disavow and dissociate from Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. Racial justice demands solidarity -- recognizing that we must support and work alongside the Black, Brown, and Indigenous led movements fighting against the most overt and widespread state violence.

To any disability people reading this post who think this is a distraction, or irrelevant, or somehow losing a focus on disability -- stop. Stop with the single-issue politics. Disabled people of color -- and disabled Black people in particular -- don't have the luxury of pretending that we can engage with only one issue, one category of identity or experience. Our experiences with ableism are inevitably and inextricably intertwined with our experiences with racism. Racial justice IS disability justice, and disabled people of color must demand disability solidarity with Black-led movements.

To Georgetown University: Step up your game. Listen to your Black students -- my friends, my former classmates, my colleagues. These are the moments that will mark our university's history for the next generation to come as either the institution that chose to make hollow, conciliatory gestures or the institution willing to embark on the infinitely harder path of self-examination and long-term, systemic change centered around the members of the university community most impacted by white supremacy.

Disclaimer: The author is an FB friend.

OK...fine. Go find the people that actually sold the slaves and string them up by their toes.

hamsterjill (6,625 posts)
6. Tears in my eyes after reading this account...

From the article:

"She is outraged that the church’s leaders sanctioned the buying and selling of slaves, and that Georgetown profited from the sale of her ancestors. She feels great sadness as she envisions Cornelius as a young boy, torn from everything he knew."


I echo this sentiment. One can only imagine the horror that these human beings felt. Let us never forget.

Snork...

Nye Bevan (23,867 posts)
9. Bad things happened to many folks' ancestors.

My ancestors were enslaved by the Holy Roman Empire. Can I get a check from the Italian government?

BluegrassDem (1,523 posts)
11. Yes. If you can find a particular ancestor and have proof of an atrocity, you should file suit

against Italy. I have no problem with that. Go for it. Italy may even allow reparations.

Major Nikon (21,792 posts)
12. I'm pretty sure Italy would tell them to go piss up a rope

After the fall of Rome, Italy wasn't unified for over a millennium.

This guy will soon be shown the exit for having too much common sense....

Albertoo (769 posts)
23. The next generations don't have to pay for the past, or it's endless

The Romans ruled most of western Europe, and they practiced mass enslavement.
Millions of descendants of enslaved Celts could now ask Italians for damages?

Ditto for the one millenium of enslavement by "Barbary Coast" pirates.
Millions of descendants of enslaved Europeans could now ask Maghreb countries for damages?

Perhaps the descendants of the 272 slaves should thank their lucky stars that they are US Citizens today rather than citizens of some current day African hellhole... 

Also. why do these discussions NEVER include the African kings that sold them into slavery?

[franksolich]

Also. why do these discussions NEVER include the African kings that sold them into slavery?

Good question, because that's exactly what happened.

The slave traders of European derivation merely sailed along the coast--for good reason, as the interior was a graveyard for white men--and purchased Africans from native chieftains who'd captured them in the interior.  It's ridiculous to assume, as perhaps many primitives do, that the 16th, 17th, and 18th century Portuguese and British went ashore and kidnapped Africans inside the jungle.

[SVPete]

Nor are the Muslim Arab slave traders mentioned, who were intermediaries or captors in the slave trade.

[hillneck]

Nor are the Muslim Arab slave traders mentioned, who were intermediaries or captors in the slave trade.

It's that revisionist history the DUmmies are famous for.

[98ZJUSMC]

Quote from: FaC on Today at 09:23:01 AM
Also. why do these discussions NEVER include the African kings that sold them into slavery?

Nor are the Muslim Arab slave traders mentioned, who were intermediaries or captors in the slave trade.

Coherent, uncomfortable history from (D)Ummies?

 

[jukin]

An all expense one way trip to Liberia?

Otherwise those slave descendents are appropriating colonial white descendents culture.

[SVPete]

Geez! This happened 175 years ago. The people sold are no longer alive, nor are their children, grandchildren, and probably GGchildren. The priests have few, if any, direct descendants, and their families probably included many who fought and were killed or injured in the Civil War. So there's no one with a direct claim for injury, nor anyone who directly caused any injury.

Beyond acknowledging an ugly piece of its history as being ugly, I don't see how Georgetown owes anybody anything.

[thundley4]

It's that revisionist history the DUmmies are famous for.

It's well known that the white founding fathers themselves sailed to Africa, rounded up every black African they could find and brought them back to the US to sell for a profit.

[Movie buff- The Sequel]

Nor are the Muslim Arab slave traders mentioned, who were intermediaries or captors in the slave trade.

They were enslaving Africans long before the Europeans got into it.

[GOBUCKS]

Nor are the Muslim Arab slave traders mentioned, who were intermediaries or captors in the slave trade.

Nor do they mention the muzzie slave traders who are in business to this day.

[FlippyDoo]

I believe I read in the nadinological archives at fictional spirit-guide HQ that one of the members of the BFEE borrowed a VRWC time machine to go back in time for the sole purpose of rounding up some slaves.

On a more serious note, a few years back I read an Amnesty International article that said that Africa is still the world's hotbed for slavery. Of course that article was before ISIS came into being and went full slave owner.

[SVPete]

Nor do they mention the muzzie slave traders who are in business to this day.

I believe I read in the nadinological archives at fictional spirit-guide HQ that one of the members of the BFEE borrowed a VRWC time machine to go back in time for the sole purpose of rounding up some slaves.

On a more serious note, a few years back I read an Amnesty International article that said that Africa is still the world's hotbed for slavery. Of course that article was before ISIS came into being and went full slave owner.

'Tis true, and some Arab/Muslim diplomats have been known - in recent decades - to bring their slaves into the US while stationed here. Some years ago I read a commentary piece from a US anti-slavery group expressing frustration at the silence - even when asked to speak out - of the likes of Jesse Jackson (the elder, not the one currently in prison) concerning modern Arab/Muslim-on-black slavery. I don't recall JJ or other blacktivist shake-down artists speaking out against Arab-Sudanese genocide against black southern Sudanese, either.

[FlaGator]

Tickets back to the Motherland?

[CollectivismMustDie]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027767819

Also. why do these discussions NEVER include the African kings that sold them into slavery?

Because that would do nothing to advance collectivists and their goals here in America.

Row over to the island and read. Those misfits are about collectivism in nearly every conceivable way.

Collective responsibility. Collective guilt. Collective shame. Collective shaming.

And the term "useful idiot", has never been more apt or more appropriate, than today.



CMD