- Herschel Walker said at a US House hearing that black Americans should not receive reparations.
- “Recovery payments teach divorce,” said Walker. “Slavery ended more than 130 years ago.”
- The Democratic-led House is ready to set up a committee to study proposals for recovery.
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Former NFL player Herschel Walker said on Wednesday that black Americans should not receive reparations for slavery during a congressional hearing on the matter.
The virtual hearing was held for House Resolution 40 sponsored by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who would set up a committee to study recovery proposals.
Walker, a standout athlete at the University of Georgia who won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 before embarking on a long-lasting professional football career, said reparations could force black Americans to use genetics companies to determine payouts based on their origins and while they were also claim that some black Americans were involved in the slave trade.
“We use black power to create white guilt,” he said. “My approach is biblical … how can I ask Heavenly Father to forgive me if I can’t forgive my brother? America is to me the best country in the world, a melting pot of many great races, many great minds working together. have come up with different ideas to make Americans the best country in the world. “
He added, “Many have died trying to get into America. No one dies trying to get out.”
Walker, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump and a prominent speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention, then began making reparations.
“Restitution payments, where does the money come from?” He asked the subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. Does it come from all other races except the black taxpayers? Who is black? What percentage of black do you have to be to receive reparations? Do you go to 23andMe or a DNA test to determine the percentage of blackness? Some black immigrants were neither here during slavery nor their ancestors. Some states did not even have slavery. “
He added: “Restorative payments teach divorce. Slavery ended over 130 years ago. How can a father ask his son to go to jail for a crime he committed? I feel it keeps letting us know that we still being African American, instead of just American. Recovery or reconciliation is beyond the teachings of Jesus Christ. “
Restorative payments have been a part of the national dialogue for years, with supporters claiming that over generations the United States has never atoned for the forced labor of slavery and land taken from black Americans.
Author Ta-Nehisi Coates explored the idea in “The Case for Reparations,” his 2014 article for The Atlantic, urging the country to face its past.
“An America that asks what it owes to its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane,” he wrote. “An America that looks away ignores not only the sins of the past, but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future. More important than a single check abbreviated to an African American would mean the payment of reparations. America’s coming of age, from the childhood myth of her innocence to a wisdom worthy of its founders. “
The issue became a focal point of questions for Democratic candidates as they entered the 2020 presidential race, especially with black Americans serving as a foundation of the party.
After George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis last year, which sparked a wave of racial and social justice bills across the country, the issue became even more prominent during a summer when the Black Lives Matter movement and other racial equality movements reached a societal peak.
The Review of Black Political Economy estimated that a recovery package that adequately addresses past injustices would cost about $ 12 trillion and earn each descendant of slavery $ 254,782.
Jerry Nadler, chairman of the New York Democratic House Judiciary Committee, said there is a possibility that reparations may not involve financial payments, but argued that the proposal “ sets out a process by which a diverse group of experts and stakeholders can address the complex issues. can study and make recommendations. “
“The discussion of repairs is a journey in which the road traveled is almost more important than the exact destination,” he added.
The White House said last week that President Joe Biden would support a study of the matter.
“He would certainly support an investigation into reparations,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “He understands that we don’t need a study to take action against systemic racism now, so he wants to take action within his own government in the meantime.”