OK this seems to be a hot topic since
the Danes are through the city gates and threatening to burn more of the
town if they aren't paid off. Keeping Kiplings thoughts on this topic
in mind, let's see if there isn't some way to figure out who is owed
and how much.
Between 200 and 400 years ago, some
black people were rounded up by their fellow black people, and sold
to some white people who took some of them to the British colonies or
the recently formed United States, and resold them. There they
labored up until 1865 for room and board and minimal healthcare
provided by their owners. After this they were freed to do with their
lives whatever they wished. 150 years later, lets see how they are
doing compared to their former countrymen who avoided their evil
fate.
I looked up some statistics, and
keeping in mind that such numbers may not be entirely accurate, let's
use them anyway as no others are available. First off how well are
the Africans who avoided slavery by selling their cousins doing: I
picked 2 countries, Ghana and Nigeria to represent Africa. Good
picks? Who knows. Feel free to look up others. Most American slaves
came from the West Coast of Africa, and there are a lot of small
countries along that coast.
Current average income per household in
Ghana is listed as $7442 USD/yr. Current average household income in
Nigeria is listed as $15,746. I suppose it's higher there because of
the larger proportion of royal princes in the general population. I
could be wrong. Sue me.
The average black family in the U.S. is
earning some $67,426 USD/yr. This is lower than the U.S. Average by a
bit, but that's the published number.
This implies that at worst the former
Africans are on average bringing home between $51,680 and
$59,984/year MORE than they would be making had their ancestors never
been enslaved. Put another way, the average black American is
bringing home between 4.28 and 9.06 times as much as he could have
been making “back home”.
Was the long strange trip easy? No!
Life's like that. Easy for some and harder for most of the rest of
us. The methodology has been published and re published, Simply
follow the directions, and Voila! Cake! At this point it might be
fair to ask how much of a gratuity the rest of us should be asking
from these fortunate few for their 400-900% pay raises.