The United Nations General Assembly has voted to recognise the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, a move advocates hope will pave the way for healing and justice.
The resolution - proposed by Ghana - called for this designation, while also urging UN member states to consider apologising for the slave trade and contributing to a reparations fund. It does not mention a specific amount of money.
The proposal was adopted with 123 votes in favour and three against - the United States, Israel and Argentina.
Countries like the UK have long rejected calls to pay reparations, saying today’s institutions cannot be held responsible for past wrongs.
Except that many of the descendents of the people who suffered most from slavery are now citizens of the countries which “committed it”, if by that you mean the countries which enslaved them. So telling the US to pay reparations to Ghana would in effect make descendents of enslaved people in the US pay reparations to the descendants of the people in Ghana who weren’t enslaved.
Add to that, as someone else pointed out, the people who actually captured Africans in Africa to sell to the European enslavers, were other Africans, often from rival tribes.
So not only would it mean US descendents of enslaved people would pay reparations to countries of descendants of non-enslaved people, but they’d actually be paying it to people who are in some cases the descendants of the people who captured their ancestors.
There’s no way to do this with precision, and people need to stop calling it racism every time someone points that out.
And guess what? The people living in those countries are still the most systematically disenfranchised and discriminated against of the population. Frequently getting the blame for all the problems caused by the right-wing politicians, white people keep voting in.
And the countries of their ancestors are still in shambles from the slavery and colonialism. So returning is not an attractive option.