Howard Law Professor Justin Hansford addressed the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent last week and called for the establishment of a United Nations Reparations Tribunal that could order the payment of reparations to African Americans.
Professor Hansford objected that white lawyers and politicians have been allowed to control this debate in the United States for too long:
But so far we have left it to the scholars of the past, the lawyers of the past, the white scholars, white lawyers, to determine the bounds of our legal imagination, to determine the narrow structures that we will use to determine what justice looks like for our own people.
So I come to you today with a novel proposal, that we begin to think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
It is not clear what Professor Hansford meant when he suggested that a United Nations program for reparations should not only be crafted but “implemented” by people of color.
Professor Hansford notes in his address that the United Nations previously recognized the need for reparations for victims of racism and cultural genocide.
The speech to the United Nations is part of growing calls for action on reparations after years of study and proposals. As task forces in states like California have issued recommendations for payments, the demands are presenting a challenge for Democratic politicians who have long campaigned on such payments as a moral imperative. That bill has now come due but politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom have sought to pivot away from demands from his own Reparations Task Force for massive payments.
It may be too late for this effort as activists demand actual payments, including up to $5 million for each eligible citizen in cities like San Francisco.
Now Professor Hansford is calling on the United Nations to order such payments by the United States. It is an interesting pitch to countries that were directly involved in the slave trade or enslaved other people in their own histories. Reparations would appear to apply to many of the same countries and might be looked at with some skepticism and concern in their own capitals.
Professor Hansford is a scholar who has written extensively on critical race theory. He has been an advocate for not only reparations but “police abolition”:
“Well, yes, when I think of police abolition, I think that it’s the right word. I think about the abolitionists that we saw in the 19th century — Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass — and their work, which was our destiny as a people, to be free. And I think that’s part of the same tradition. I think that it’s the same work. I think that the systems that we’re facing today are continuations of the systems that the abolitionists in the 19th century worked against. So, yes, I support that. I think that has to be the ultimate goal.”
I have serious objections to these views, but value the debate. Indeed, part of the effort to combat the intolerance for opposing viewpoints at schools like Howard University is to allow a more robust debate on these issues.
Reparations is a debate that we should have as a nation, including in Congress. Recently, Democrats introduced a bill demanding $14 trillion in reparations. I have major misgivings over the legal and policy basis for such payments, but welcome any forum for a free and civil debate. The United Nations did not offer an opposing view on this question, which is often the case on our campuses.
Professor Hansford called on the United Nations to stop “cultural genocide” and to end the “continuation of slavery” through means like “mass incarceration” in the United States.
The Biden Administration nominated Professor Hansford to work with the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) for the 2022-2024 term. Hansford is the only American representative.
Here are Professor Hansford’s remarks:
Dear Prof Turley,
Obviously, the most urgent debate we should be having is the fundamental viability of the UN to resolve conflicts around the world short of war (see e.g. Ukraine). .. so it does not surprise me demented, deranged Joe Biden sends CRT (Critical Race Theory) advocates to muddy the waters.
Sadly, the U.S. has been ‘undermining’ the authority of the UN – to ‘resolve anything’ – since 9/11 and global war on terror. That’s like declaring war on poverty. Echos in the halls @ the UN whispering a warning; ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’.
* “For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts lad with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: That all glory is fleeting.” ~ Gen. G.S. Patton
I am a New World Hispanic, a Castizo, this means while of predominantly European ancestry, I have about 20% non-White blood. Some of that is from West Africa. Can I obtain my share of reparations, prorated down to the Black portion?
I am asking our enlightened, morally superior lefties for advice.
I am asking for serious thought and answers. And calling me a slur is not a reply.
antonio
Black people continue to push the envelope while being a burden on society and fail to realize that Western civilization functions just fine, actually better, without them. In addition, they’re not ready for the pushback that is building momentum. I already moved to one of the whitest cities in America with over 100,000 people and virtually everyone I meet has moved here for the same reason. But we’re still quiet!
Any statement claiming that “Black people” are a “burden on society” and that “Western civilization functions just fine, actually better, without them” reflects an approach to governing in which people are viewed as members of groups instead of individuals. Treating people as members of groups instead of individuals is neither conservative nor American.
The socio-techno-economic achievement of the various human subspecies provides the evidence that supports my first statement and regardless of social labeling the facts are irrefutable. Western Europe is in the same boat as it is invaded the multitudes of inept human beings. America is well on its way to a split to correct the mistakes of the past once and for all. Buckle up
Every now and then, you run into individuals who have accomplished little or nothing in life, who, for some reason. are immensely proud of the accomplishments of people with whom they share nothing but a racial identity.
Your reply clearly indicates that you lack valid arguments and we are used to these responses for they are inconsequential. The future will demonstrate how clever everyone truly is and will deliver the rewards and penalties accordingly. Cheers
How about forming a society of achievers of all races and religions from which non-achievers of all races and religions are excluded?
Not interested because the ratios would never satisfy the “minorities.” Take the unconstitutional affirmative action away and the results will speak for themselves. After all Haiti is the second oldest free country in the western hemisphere after the USA and have accomplished nothing. Ethiopia was never occupied except for 5 years by Italians during WWII and it’s a testament to misery. 4 college degrees later and plenty of time to study people yielded plenty of good information. Gaza-West Bank has a GDP per capita of $4,000 compared to Israel’s $52,000, and so on. Ciao and let the segregation games begin.
I have to say, I am really big on getting rid of all of the non-achieving white people who take credit for achievements they had nothing to do with.
Don’t stop there and do it to all races and you will end eradicating entire countries (wink?)
Why are so triggered if all humans are intellectually equal? You know that’s not true and that’s why you’re fighting to keep the welfare going
Human beings are not even close to being intellectually equal.
Which could be why some white people who have accomplished little or nothing in life speak as if they should be given credit for the accomplishments of other white people.
Of course, there are non-white people who do similar things.
Probably, the best thing for society to do is ignore race, altogether, and live life as God intended. Remove it from job applications, college admissions forms, IRS forms, census forms, drivers’ licenses, and any other place where it currently is required.
Nah, too late for that and now you’re back tracking. No truce. Pay close attention to their faces as my Jewish cousin explains to them what’s coming.
https://twitter.com/WilliamA_33/status/1634538691166085123?s=20
In August of 1945 the US detonated the first nuclear device in New Mexico after the explosion someone said, we’ve got the bomb and no one else has it. Supposedly Robert Oppenheimer replied, what one man did another man can do.
By looking around the globe and measuring socio-techno-economic achievement of the various human subspecies, Oppenheimer was wrong
Turley has been infected by a racist pseudo-intellectual whose views would not be out of place in pre-holocaust, Nazi Germany, who is advocating, not a meritocracy, but a society in which white people are favored.
My feelings are truly hurt, being Jewish and all. You’re confusing racism with realism and everyone gets the definition of racism wrong, a word first used by Pratt in 1902. White people literally built the world that you live in. The truth is extremely inconvenient, especially when you have been told erroneously that you’re just as bright as all the others. Cheers!
TABLET
AUGUST 5, 2020
THE JEWS WHO FOUGHT FOR NAZI GERMANY
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/ellen-feldman-nazi-germany
Yes, I was one of them… sorry I missed you 🙂
A good way for a society to go downhill is to abandon the concept of achievement by individual merit.
But strictly embracing meritocracy reveals the weaknesses of certain groups and then they blame the usual suspects for their shortcomings
One such group would be non-achieving white people.
Western civilization (white people) has plenty of problems. Add diversity to it and the problems multiply exponentially. Diversity is the disease killing Western Civilization. Nobody, absolutely nobody, seeks to migrate, legally or illegally, to where “diversity’ comes from.
The worst thing you can do is to diversify achievers with non-achievers, no matter their race.
Indeed.
Whiteness may be relevant to sex appeasl; it has nom relevance to honoer, decency, and integrity!
How do you deduce this?
By all means, send in the “blue helmets”, they make great targets…..
Oh, yes. Reparations will certainly lead to peace and harmony in the world. Is there anyone who really believes that?
If this happened, every seemingly oppressed group would demand the same.
Can we please be done with this administration already? Short of violent revolution or war, I don’t think the world has seen sanity and stability so utterly decimated in such a short time as with these fools and their minions. If you are still voting dem and holding out hope you are pretty much a tool at this point, and if they refuse to listen to majority consensus or actually honor our electoral process, then people voting with their feet and dollars and leaving blue places in droves will be a clear enough signal when those places as a result collapse, and I think at least several of them will.
I’d be for the $14 trillion reparations if the recipients, upon receiving the money, agreed to return to Africa where the $14 trillion could be spent to lift that continent out of third world status.
It would not be the first time that people yearning to be free returned to the country of their ancestors. One only need look at how Jews returned to Israel after WWII as an example.
Slavery was found all over the world and every subset of the human race was subject to it. It is ridiculous to limit it to Africans enslaved by white folks in the US. Giving each African American who is a descendent of someone who was enslaved $5MM will not solve the problems the African American community has. They did well after the Civil War and the emancipation, regardless discrimination and Jim Crow laws, until the government started to help them under LBJ. The reason LBJ wanted the Civil Rights Act and other legislation supporting blacks, is that he expected in this manner to buy their votes (read his biography) and his strategy has worked ever since. Indeed, you could argue that the party of the slaveholders has been able to keep them in chains via the backdoor of government dependency.
The call for reparations was another scheme to buy votes, but now it backfires in that blacks are demanding that this promise is kept. The nation does not have $14 trillion laying around, nor can we borrow it as the national debt is already at 100% of GDP (which makes us equivalent to Greece). It is a Democrat promise, and as the Democrat party is the party of the slaveholders, it seems fair that the Democrats make the payments.
There is no majority in the country to support this and I doubt that Congress will pass a law to pay reparations. The electoral risk is too high, and after the next election the law would be repealed. That’s why the appeal is made to the UN as a “higher authority” to force all to pay and make a minority rich. Perhaps Professor Turley can explain on what authority the UN could order payment of reparations? The UN is far beyond its shelve life and should be abolished or at least the US should withdraw and stop funding that mostly ineffective, bureaucratic and corrupt organization.
The U.N. and its subsidiary organizations in Lucerne should all be relocated. I nominate Khartoum, Mogadishu and Abuja as their new permanent locations. The U.N. headquarters building could be repurposed as housing for New York City’s burgeoning population of those seeking refuge under NYC’s sanctuary policies.
Turley’s has his geography quite right. Hansford and the UN.can take that idea to the shores of Tripoli and beyond where it all began and shove it up where the sun don’t shine. Only the morally depraved seek to benefit from the agony of those who suffered. Judging from last weekend’s Chicago violence there are still plenty of those abroad in the world whose mass incarceration would be proper justice for his people.
There is a book of the old testament titled Exodus.
And as the Egyptians finally let the enslaved Hebrews go out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, and to find a new home in another part of that world, the enslaved for over 400 years have never received a dime from Egypt in ‘reparations.’
You don’t have to believe in the book of Exodus to believe the Egyptians had slaves — where is the call for the UN to ‘demand’ reparations to those slaves.
Is the real deciding factor how much melanin a person has in their skin?
[With all respect Richard] That was a Book written by Hebrews – They wrote Their version of the story (History), The Egyptian’s view of the time is that they were Expelled – Kicked Out. The Egyptian’s expelled Them much the way Marxism and Lennon expelled them from the Soviet Union.
Computers can translate Language in a split-second, Yet Egyptian hieroglyphic can’t seem to make that jump. Makes one wonder why Their Story isn’t being told. (The last hieroglyphic text was written at the Temple of Philae in A.D. 450)
I’d like some Reparations for the Afghani’s and Descendants. After defending themselves from the Russians and the United State of America,
of which these wars were instigated by these Countries Intelligence Agencies. And to those whom were; discriminated against, pursued, injured and killed,
State-side in the U.S.
Torturous Bulling by; jeers, name calling, ostracizing, workplace discrimination, public humiliation, false accusations, …
Ayatollah ,Sand Nigg**, Dune Coon, Dot Head, Extremist, … basically Those who’s profile were put on the List as: Can Not Be Trusted.
From 1973 When Iranian Student took Hostages to Now, The afflicted are due Reparations. They have been living the Modern Servitude and relentlessly shamed for something Whites and Zionist bestowed upon Them..
Or have you forgotten already? Not surprising, let us be reminded: Dessert Storm, Libyan War, Iraq War. Palestinian War, Syrian War, Lebanese War, Kuwait War, and numerous Covert warfare in Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Egypt, …
These People are due Reparations.
@Fred….”Oy vey!!!”
Dr. Thomas Sowell addressed the issue of reparations, etc., in his collection of essays, “The Quest for Cosmic Justice.”
Here’s Dr. Boudreaux summarizing Sowell’s essay(s): https://fee.org/articles/the-quest-for-cosmic-justice/
Here’s Sowell himself, speaking about “cosmic justice”: https://youtu.be/xkDMVdEci4Q
The real story here is that this is another Biden appointee. Who nominates a guy like this? Who appointed the bald “woman” luggage stealer to be a nuke expert? Who appointed the “female” admiral? Who, who who? The same leftists monsters that appointed Myorkas, Garland, the woman trying to censor Fox News to be head of the FCC, the woman that decries capitalism to be on the Fed Board. These leftists are dangerous anti-American anti-capitalism traitors.
Imagine having a Biden appointee going to THE UNITED NATIONS to argue that this corrupt international joke should DEMAND that people that have never owned slaves pay reparations to people that have never been slaves. People that have elected many, many black people to Congress, elected a black president and currently have a black VP are now the devil incarnate???
Please note that the president’s spokesditz argues that the Republicans are anti-police and that the Dems never wanted to defund the cops and yet this BIDEN APPOINTEE speaking to the UN is for defunding the police. Cori Bush is for defunding the police. AOC is for defunding the police. Name one Republican that has ever said we should defund police departments around the country. Name one!
Maybe the UN could focus on actual slavery actually being practiced in the rest of the world.
This professor supports the democratic party’s decades long systemic racism of forcing urban children to attend failed schools, permanently impairing them.
Black people need to get in line. If anyone gets reparations it needs to start with native Americans. The whole damn country which had been theirs for 12k plus years was stolen from them. 1619, pshaw, Johnny come latelys, upstarts in the list of those who are entitled to reparations. Get in line brother if you want to deal home.
Probably more liek 6-8K years not 12K.
Further they took it from those here before them.
There were atleast 3 major migrations from Asia over the course of just under 40K years.
each wither exterminating the prior group or driving them south.
Finally – “native americans” are not some monolithic group. They are many indpendent nations who were warring with each other taking each others property and taking each other as slaves.
When europeans arrived most groups of “native americans” tried to exterminate those europeans – frequently succeeding.
But in the long run we slowly exterminated themselves or pushed back or assimilated.
You can not like that – but it is perfectly consistent with the values these native americans had themselves.
Remember the old saw about two foxes and 1 chicken voting on what is for dinner? Well only the moronic Biden based Democrats would offer up having 13% voting on trying to make 87% pay them unearned money???? I guess this is the New Math.
How about the Monarch butterflies? Surely reparations are owed for the plowing up of milkweeds!