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reparations

MLB’s Historic Move to Incorporate Negro Leagues Stats: Long Overdue and Inadequate

Saturday, June 1, 2024 at 6:39 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

On Wednesday, Major League Baseball (MLB) finally acknowledged the remarkable achievements of players from the Negro Leagues by incorporating their statistics into its historical record. It’s about time! This groundbreaking decision elevates legends like Josh Gibson, now the all-time Major League batting champion, and Satchel Paige, who is third all-time for a single-season ERA. It’s… Read more.

The Supreme Court Has No Legal Reason to End Affirmative Action. But Its Political Reason Is Compelling.

Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 6:12 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Based on legal reasoning, precedents, and the justices’ sworn representations, the Supreme Court has no legal reason to end Affirmative Action in college admissions. But it had no legal reason to end a woman’s constitutional abortion rights. Yet the Court did so anyway. Mend, do not end, Affirmative Action Those arguing to end Affirmative Action insist… Read more.

DR Congo Demanded Reparations. Belgium Gave Lumumba’s Tooth.

Tuesday, June 21, 2022 at 6:21 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Patrice Lumumba was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But his martyrdom has made him as much the face of Pan-Africanism as MLK’s has made him the face of Black civil rights. This is why even I can appreciate the “closure” the return of Lumumba’s remains represents for his family. Never… Read more.

Capitalizing ‘B’ in Black and Demanding Reparations!

Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 8:23 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Capitalizing the B when referring to Black people might not seem like a big deal. However, when editors at The New York Times, USA Today, and the Columbia Journalism Review all make a big deal of their change in style, it’s certainly worthy of comment. Here is how the Times announced and rationalized its (belated)… Read more.

Juneteenth and Reparations for Slavery

Wednesday, June 19, 2019 at 6:56 PM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

Juneteenth and reparations for slavery Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. It stems from slaves in Galveston, Texas, not being informed of their emancipation until June 19, 1865. That was two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. What about reparations? The US House of Representatives… Read more.

British PM Rejects CARICOM Demands for Reparations for Slavery … and Rightly So 

Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 8:23 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

For years, CARICOM leaders have been demanding billions in reparations from the British government for slavery. For just as long, I’ve been trying to disabuse them of their legally, politically and morally unsustainable demands. I tried in such commentaries as “The Fatally Flawed Demands for Reparations for Slavery,” February 16, 2007, and “CARICOM Demands for… Read more.

French Forgiving Haitians like Germans Forgiving Jews

Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 12:23 PM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

The media are lauding President Francois Hollande for announcing that France will finally right one of history’s greatest wrongs by forgiving what remains of Haiti’s “independence debt.” In an address at the opening of the memorial and cultural centre in Guadeloupe on Sunday, Hollande said Haiti’s debt of US$81.2 million will be cancelled… Haiti, which became the world’s… Read more.

CARICOM Demand for Reparations Smacks of Extortion

Monday, November 4, 2013 at 9:18 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

It speaks volumes that Europeans are ascribing no blame for this Lampedusa tragedy to the African governments that have failed their people so abysmally. This failure, after all, is the only reason why so many Africans, utterly bereft of hope at home, are fleeing to Europe in desperate pursuit of peace, prosperity, and happiness. But… Read more.

Britain Apologizes and Pays for Colonial Atrocities

Friday, June 7, 2013 at 5:28 AM
Written by Anthony L. Hall

The British government argued in court last year that too much time had passed for victims to claim legal compensation for the human rights abuses British officials meted out during Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion 60 years ago. But here, in part, is what I wrote to disabuse the government of this unconscionable and unsustainable defense: If… Read more.