The United Nations wants reparations for slavery.  But who actually gets the bill?

This is the Wilmington Standard Daily Update for Friday March 27 2026.

The UN yesterday passed a resolution declaring “the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity,” noting that claims for reparations “represent a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs against Africans and people of African descent.” 

123 countries voted for the resolution.  The United States, Israel and Argentina voted against it.  52 other countries – many of whom were involved in the slave trade – bravely abstained.

The irony of this resolution is that it was put forth by Ghana, the homeland of the Ashti Empire – who were black – who routinely captured and sold African war captives as slaves.  Just a few miles from them in present day Benin was the Kingdom of Dahomey – again African themselves – whose immense profit from the African slave trade was only matched by their sheer brutality. 

This resolution is also historically inaccurate – as people of all races have been taken prisoner and used as slaves.  White Europe was often invaded by Black Africa – with captives being ferried back to work in miserable conditions.   The United States Navy was formed in part to combat the pirates of the Barbary coast in Northern Africa who enslaved American merchants.  Today the slave trade continues throughout the Asian rim.  And women and children of all races right now face another bleak day without freedom as they are violated on a regular basis as part of the sex trade.

Slavery is not an African problem.  It is a human problem.  Every race in America – and lets be honest our country is the real target of these reparations – can lay claim to being enslaved at one point or another in their genetic history.  Africans, Irish, the Slavs – from which we get the word Slavery – the Chinese, the Russians and yes Americans have all benefited from – and been the targets of – slavery. 

In the West slavery is indeed a stain on our history.  Whether it was legal or not it was clearly wrong to enslave, demean and treat as cattle anyone made in the image of God no matter what their color.  However, we also have to remember that it was the West – including America – who made slavery illegal.  It did not die out because Dahomey and other African kingdoms stopped supplying slaves.  It ended because we finally realized in one way or another we could not be the land of the free as long as some of us were in shackles.

Want to repay or makeup for slavery?  Then we should make every effort to free those who live in bondage today, and start treating each other in the reality that our shared humanity goes deeper than the color of our skin.

For the Wilmington Standard, I’m Reuel Sample.  Thanks for listening.

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