- Herschel Walker said during a hearing in the U.S. House that black Americans should not receive reparations.
- “Reparations teach separation,” argued Walker. “Slavery ended more than 130 years ago.”
- The House, led by Democrats, is about to create a commission to study proposals for redress.
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Former NFL player Herschel Walker said last Wednesday that black Americans should not receive compensation for slavery during a congressional hearing on the matter.
The virtual hearing was being held for Resolution 40 of the House, sponsored by Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who would create a commission to study the proposals for redress.
Walker, a prominent University of Georgia athlete who won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 before starting a longtime professional football career, said the repairs could force black Americans to use genetics companies to determine payments based on their ancestry and, at the same time, claim that some black Americans were involved in the slave trade.
“We use black power to create white guilt,” he argued. “My approach is biblical … how can I ask Heavenly Father to forgive me if I cannot forgive my brother? America is the largest country in the world for me, a melting pot of many great races, many of great minds that have joined with different ideas to make Americans the greatest country on Earth. “
He added: “Many died trying to get into America. No one is dying trying to get out.”
Walker, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump and a keynote speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention, then launched the convenience of making indemnity payments.
“Reparations, where does the money come from?”, He asked the House Judiciary Committee subcommittee. “Does it come from all other races except black taxpayers? Who is black? What percentage of blacks should you be to receive reparations? Do you go to 23andMe or do a DNA test to determine the percentage of blacks? ‘t here during slavery, neither did their ancestors. Some states didn’t even have slavery. “
He added: “Reparations teach separation. Slavery ended more than 130 years ago. How can a father ask his son to spend time in prison for a crime he committed? I feel it keeps telling us that we are still African Americans. , and not just American. Reparation or atonement is outside the teaching of Jesus Christ. “
The reparations have been part of the national dialogue for years, with supporters arguing that the United States has never atone for the forced labor of slavery and the land taken from black Americans over generations.
Author Ta-Nehisi Coates explored the idea in “The Case for Reparations”, his 2014 article for The Atlantic, which urged the country to face its past.
“An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane,” he wrote. “An America that looks to the side is ignoring not only the sins of the past, but the sins of the present and certain sins of the future. More important than any check given to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturing. from the childish myth of his innocence to a wisdom worthy of its founders. “
The issue became a central line of questioning for Democratic candidates when they started to enter the 2020 presidential race, especially with black Americans serving as the party’s foundation.
After the assassination of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year, which launched a wave of racial and social justice arrangements across the country, the issue became even more prominent during the summer, when the Black Lives Matter movement and other equality movements racial reached a social peak.
The Review of Black Political Economy estimated that a reparations package that sufficiently resolves the injustices of the past would cost about $ 12 trillion and give each descendant of slavery $ 254,782.
Democratic House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler of New York said there was a possibility that reparations would not involve financial payments, but argued that the proposal “sets out a process by which a diverse group of experts and stakeholders can study the complex issues involved and recommendations. “
“The discussion of compensation is a path in which the path taken is almost more important than the exact destination,” he added.
The White House said last week that President Joe Biden would support a study on the subject.
“He would certainly support a study on reparations,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “He understands that we don’t need a study to act on systemic racism now, so he wants to act within his own government in the meantime.”