参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(mitch mcconnell)周二回应了有关他的19世纪祖先拥有奴隶的报道，指出前总统巴拉克·奥巴马也是如此——他们在奴隶赔偿问题上意见一致。
“你知道，我发现自己和奥巴马总统处于同样的位置，”r-ky麦康奈尔说。当被问及他的祖先是否影响了他反对赔偿非裔美国人时，他告诉国会山的记者。“我们都反对赔偿，我们都是奴隶主的后代。”
nbc新闻周三报道说，内战前，麦康奈尔的两位曾祖父詹姆斯麦康奈尔和理查德戴利在阿拉巴马州拥有至少14名奴隶。据nbc报道，这些记录是在1850年和1860年的人口普查中使用石灰石县的“奴隶时间表”追踪的。
在6月美国众议院就美国政府是否应该向奴隶的后代支付赔偿举行听证会的前夕，麦康奈尔对这一想法泼冷水。米奇·麦康奈尔和巴拉克·奥巴马。
照片:Michael brochstein/SOPA images/light rocket via Getty images；肖恩·盖洛普/盖蒂图片社
“我不认为对150年前发生的事情进行赔偿是个好主意，我们现在的生活中没有人对此负责，”麦康奈尔说。
奥巴马一直坚持赔偿是试图为非裔美国人创造公平经济竞争环境的错误方法。
奥巴马在2008年说:“我过去说过——我会再重复一遍——我们能提供的最好赔偿是市中心的好学校和失业人员的工作。”
在他1995年的自传《我父亲的梦想》中，母亲是白人的奥巴马写了家庭传说，说他与南部邦联总统杰弗逊戴维斯有关系。业余系谱学家威廉·雷特维斯纳发表了奥巴马母亲的家族史，揭示了他的曾曾祖父乔治·华盛顿在肯塔基州总共拥有两个奴隶。
根据人口普查记录，他的曾曾祖母在该州也拥有两名奴隶。自1865年联邦将军威廉·t·谢尔曼向被解放的奴隶许下“40英亩和一头骡子”的著名承诺以来，关于前奴隶或他们的后代是否应该从美国政府获得赔偿金的争论就一直存在。
在亚伯拉罕·林肯遇刺后，安德鲁·约翰逊总统推翻了谢尔曼的命令。很少有非裔美国人收藏过它。
针对麦康奈尔对赔偿的评估，提交人ta-nehisi coates在众议院委员会作证说，这个问题仍然存在。科茨在《大西洋月刊》上发表文章，主张赔偿，他说，“解放是为了抵御美国强盗，吉姆·克劳把窗户楔得大大的，这就是麦康奈尔的‘某些东西’”。那是150年前，现在也是。"
McConnell cites Obama in reparations debate: 'We both are the descendants of slave owners'
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responded Tuesday to reports that his 19th-century ancestors owned slaves by pointing out that the same was true of former President Barack Obama — and that they were in agreement on the issue of slavery reparations.
“You know, I find myself in the same position as President Obama,” McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked whether his ancestry influenced his opposition to reparations for African-Americans. “We both oppose reparations, and we both are the descendants of slave owners.”
NBC News reported Wednesday that two of McConnell’s great-great-grandfathers, James McConnell and Richard Daley, between them owned at least 14 slaves in Alabama before the Civil War. The records were traced using Limestone County “slave schedules” in the 1850 and 1860 censuses, NBC reported.
On the eve of a June hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives on whether the U.S. government should pay reparations to the descendants of slaves, McConnell threw cold water on the idea.
Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama. (Photos: Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images; Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living is responsible for, is a good idea,” McConnell said.
Obama has long maintained that reparations are the wrong approach for trying to level the economic playing field for African-Americans.
“I have said in the past — and I’ll repeat again — that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed,” Obama said in 2008.
In his 1995 autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama, whose mother was white, wrote of family lore that said he was related to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Amateur genealogist William Reitwiesner published a history of Obama’s mother’s family that revealed that his great-great-great-great-grandfather George Washington Overall owned two slaves in Kentucky. His great-great-great-great-grandmother also owned two slaves in the state, according to census records.
The debate over whether former slaves or their descendants should receive compensatory payments from the U.S. government has been around since 1865, when Union Gen. William T. Sherman made his famous promise of “40 acres and a mule” to freed slaves.Sherman’s order was reversed by President Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Very few African-Americans ever collected on it.
Responding to McConnell’s assessment of reparations, author Ta-Nehisi Coates testified before the House committee that the issue was still very much alive.
“While emancipation dead-bolted the door against the bandits of America, Jim Crow wedged the windows wide open,” Coates, whose article in the Atlantic advocating for reparations reignited the issue, said, “That’s the thing about Sen. McConnell’s ‘something.’ It was 150 years ago, and it was right now.”
