Georgetown U. Creating Reparations Fund to Benefit Descendants of Slaves Sold by School
“In 1838, the university sold 272 slaves to pay off debts and ultimately keep the school open.”
Students at Georgetown voted in favor of this last spring. It’ll be fascinating to see how much gets paid out to the beneficiaries.
ABC News reports:
Georgetown University announces reparations fund to benefit descendants of slaves once sold by the school
Georgetown University announced on Tuesday it will create a fund that could generate close to $400,000 a year to benefit the descendants of slaves once sold by the university, the latest in the school’s efforts to address the historical legacy of slavery.
In 1838, the university sold 272 slaves to pay off debts and ultimately keep the school open. Georgetown has been engaged in conversations over the last few years about how to acknowledge that history, including rededicating buildings named after two former Jesuit university presidents that facilitated the sale and creating an admissions policy for the descendants of the slaves.
Students voted in support of implementing a fee of $27.20 a semester for a reparations fund in April, but the university’s Oct. 29 announcement said they will move forward with the fund, without a student fee. The school said that as officials began to openly discuss the effort more, members of the community connected to the school said they wanted to participate in benefiting the descendants of slaves.
“We embrace the spirit of this student proposal and will work with our Georgetown community to create an initiative that will support community-based projects with Descendant communities,” Georgetown President John HJ. DeGioia wrote in the letter to the school.
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Comments
Can hardly wait to see the formula whereby the Approved And Certifiable (er, um “Certified”) recipients are to awarded their 40-acres-and-a-mule equivalent (and just what that equivalent will be in today’s livestock-and-monetary remuneration.
O joy.
Do they forfeit their “reparations” if they become so “uppity” that they forget their “rightful place” in the “natural order of things” and dare to leave the Dem/Lib/Prog Plantation?
Hmm??
Count myself fortunate not to have my money involuntarily redistributed in this fashion. I feel sorry for others who aren’t so lucky. However, I pity not the brainwashed crusaders in lockstep with this farce.
I’m curious as to how this will work; I used to have the kind of job where Management would come up with a hare-brained scheme like this and tell me to make it happen.
I suppose that the first thing one would do is to hire someone to start doing genealogies on these 272 Slaves. I tend to believe that this would be possible, (to some considerable extent) assuming one were willing to spend the money.
However, the next question which arises is “how closely related must one be to the original 272 in order to eligible for a benefit?” Genealogy Today says “ The average span between one generation and the next is about 25 to 30 years.“ So, let’s say we’re talking about six generations; each generation producing offspring.
According to 23andMe (a genetics site) I have 1223 DNA relatives whom they have identified, so I suspect this will turn out to be “everyone gets 49 cents” deals.
I am so white I make chalk jealous. A glass of milk is virtually invisible when held next to me.
However, but, I also have a great great great grandmother who was a black slave down in Tennessee during the mid 1800s.
So, theoretically speaking, suppose someone such as me pops up with verifiable ancestry to one of these slaves? Are they going to get reparations? And does the university understand the legal fire they are playing with if they refuse?
By the principle of the thing, I don’t like this. By principle, other people do like it. That means those aren’t my sort of people, and I am glad I’m not there.