You say that…and then you say this:
So who are “these people” that you’re talking about? Hmmm?
The ones sold as slaves are all long dead. Their descendants have never been slaves. So who are “these people?”
I have no idea whether you are racist. You are clearly ignorant of history and, while reparations are a bad idea, the opposition you have expressed against them in this thread appears to be based on nothing more than a desire to pout and a rather petulant desire to flaunt that ignorance.
Slaves and their descendants. Like I said.
And your argument appears to me to be nothing more than Marxist historical revisionism and cultural relativism, along with a very large dose of white guilt and self-flagellation. But I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I’ll see you in Rhodesia!
There is nothing Marxist about an accurate presentation of history, which mine is. It is not even revisionist.
I have proposed no cultural relativism: slavery is no more monolithic than other human endeavors, on the one hand, but I have not claimed that it is ever good, only that the slavery for which reparations are demanded differs from the slavery that is currently practiced–an historic fact.
I make no claim that whites should engage in self-flagellation. That is nothing more than your invention. In the interest of the Straight Dope, I do note that boasts that whites ended slavery should be tempered with the acknowledgement that they only ended what they had created. However, I assign no guilt to anyone based on their complexion and I do not encourage anyone of European ancestry to feel shame for actions taken by similarly complected people between the 15th and 19th centuries. That is, again, your invention.
Actually, Tom, I’m going to have to concede that you raise a very interesting point, which is this: the Arabs were arguably just as involved in the slave trade as the Europeans. The Arabs, today, have vast wealth. I am sure, for instance, that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have even deeper pockets than Uncle Sam. Why, then, do those seeking reparations not petition Saudi sheiks - the heirs to the vast fortunes of the great Caliphs - for their dole? Why further strain the already put-upon U.S. government, a weak and sickly jackass loaded down with cargo, when they could be hitching a ride on a sleek Arabian stallion?
There you go, just got label people as racists…:rolleyes:
And they only thing this country owes a descendant of a slave is to treat him like they treat every other member of scoiety. That’s it.
Get a dictionary, friend. I said you had made some good points, not that I necessarily agreed with your position. In your book, I guess it’s pretty fucking amazing someone could do that, huh?
Newsflash: you’re part of the problem. You’re a perpetuant.
Yes, let’s talk about what Martin Luther King said:
Uh-huh. And how do you feel about the collective reparations made to the state of Israel after the Holocaust?
Ignoring social facts such as race and culture makes no sense if you seriously examining human history, as a human being. It would be like doing something incredibly rude, and then demanding that people not take offense, since after all they don’t need to feel that.
As for later generations seeking compensation, this is also not unprecedented:
As is the case of the Japanese, and other groups.
Reparations are kind of outside the scope of the debate, because that’s a policy matter.
So let’s try to get this thing back on track, and go back to the OP:
This questions focuses on abstract conceptualizations of racism: implicit versus explicit, and binary versus graduated.
This question focuses on the strategies needed to implement policies.
This debate is not about reparations. It is not about whether blacks can be racist.
I’m aware of that. Still, like I said, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch and when when a cultural phenomenon develops that includes the fashion I’m describing as part of the drug, thug and gangsta lifestyle, and music and celebrities that glorify those lifestyle elements, the fashion and music becomes a sort of symbol that is used to suggest that the wearer adheres to or supports that way of life.
Blacks don’t have to changer their fashions as the majority of the black population doesn’t dress and act in the way that I’m talking about. Neither to they belong to gangs or rob people or deal drugs or call their wives and girlfriends bitches and ho’s. What I’m talking about is the subset that does, and that subset has evolved the dress and language and attitude it has, IMO, for the express purpose of NOT fitting in equally with the rest of society (i.e., white society). They are perfectly happy to think of themselves as rough, tough badasses doing what they’ve got to do in order to survive, and laughing at the unhip and uptight white culture and the other blacks who seek an equal place in it. In other words, THEY DON’T WANT EQUALITY. Yes, they’d like to be treated as equals as long as they can cling to their thug image and way of life, but that goes back to what I said about the Hispanic kid I mentioned above. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re deliberately going to adopt a way of talking and dressing and comporting yourself that says you not only have no use for normal societal mores but that you are contemptuous of them and very likely prey upon its members, you can’t expect to be greeted with open arms and friendliness whenever you happen to need to interact with its members.
So we have a situtation now in this country where great strides have been made in achieving civil rights and racial equality. It’s rare anymore to hear anyone use the n-word or to speak negatively of black people for no reason other than they happen to be black. Black people are now able to live, shop and go anywhere they want and nobody pays any attention. Racially mixed couples can be seen everywhere with hardly a raised brow in sight. Black kids and white kids who have gone to school with each other all through their school years are the best of friends and truly love, support and defend each other.
So by and large, much progress has been made in eliminating the divisions that separate the races. However, a few problems remain and they are standing in the way of even greater progress. There are still vestiges of racism among both everyday blacks and whites that are throwbacks to the attitudes and resentments of the past. And blacks and whites for the most part still don’t socialize with one another in their homes. (I expect this to change over time as the school kids who are more comfortable with each other grow into adulthood and bring those friendships with them. Right now there are simply too many differences in the way black culture and white culture typically do things for the majority of the nation’s populace to feel comfortable just hanging out with each other.)
So there are problems and situations that exist which still need work or the passage of time to correct.
And then there is another element to the racial question that is making progress in these all these areas more difficult to achieve than it would be otherwise, and that is the culture of rap and thug life and the gangsta modes of dress and speech. And given that blacks and whites don’t really socialize with each other much, and given its dominance of the music and much of the entertainment industry, that negative and destructive element of black culture seems so ubiquitous that it has come to virtually define black culture for much of the white population.
And, given that blacks and whites don’t really socialize with each other much, and, given its dominance of the music and so much of the entertainment industry, that element of black culture seems so ubiquitous as to virtually define black culture for much of the white population. And given the unquestionable negative aspects of that lifestyle, it creates a negative impression among whites and makes them less inclined engage in the social interactions between the races that are going to be necessary in order to achieve a truly colorblind society.
This simply isn’t so. I think most people these days would love to have a comfortable and friendly relationship with members of every race. I know I would. But again, there are still differences that separate us. I don’t think most white people feel comfortable or that they are accepted and welcome when they find themselves among a group of Vietnamese or Chinese people, and I don’t think most Vietnamese and Chinese people particularly care to have whites wanting to befriend them and hang out at their houses. Similarly, I don’t think that at this point in time most black people really want a white guy coming over to their house to watch a ball game or barbeque steaks in the back yard. And whites are largely the same way with regard to members of other races. People simply prefer to spend their leisure time with people that they understand and have the most in common with. This is why men and women gravitate toward members of their own group at parties and their children’s ball games and during breaks at the workplace, and its why even now that blacks and Asians and other minority groups have great freedom as to where they can live and work, there are still areas that are predominately black, Asian, Hispanic, etc.
It won’t be until the time comes, if it ever does, that all of these cultures thoroughly blend together socially that a racism in all its forms will become a thing of the past. But the type of racism that is the most troubling today is the racism and tension that still exists between blacks and whites, and the existence of rap and gangsta culture is serving only to drive a wedge between the races and make the day when race no longer matters that much further off. It gives ammunition to those who are already inclined toward racism anyway; it puts off and/or frightens people who would like to see more social interaction between blacks and whites; and it makes the struggle for equality that much more difficult for the majority of the black population who have to deal with the repercussions of the false and negative images of black people that the gangsta lifestyle, by virtue once again of its preponderance in the music and entertainment businesses and the number of young people who appear to embrace it, creates.
People make value judgements about people based on the way they act, and they extrapolate that to entire groups. You could be the nicest, sweetest, most generous and caring person in the world, but if you have a mullet and live in a trailer park and have bad teeth and wear wife-beater T-shirts, the majority of the population, black, white or otherwise, is gonna peg you as a lowlife who probably is dishonest and has a problem with alcohol or meth and who physically and verbally abuses your wife, kids and pets. That’s just the way it is. And if whites were a minority and the primary and virtual sole image the rest of society got about white people was that of white trash alcoholics and wife-abusers who wore mullets, had bad teeth and did meth, you wouldn’t get very far by trying to point out that they are not representative of all whites.
And now, even I am tired of talking so I’m gonna bow out for the night. I hope the time I’ve taken to answer your post will prove to have done at least some good in helping you see that what I’m saying is different than what you think it is.
They know how to ride a bike. The problem is that they keep getting it kicked out from under them. Training wheels help with the stability while it’s being kicked.
Were those reparations made A HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS after the Holocaust?
So what’s the cut-off date for you? What’s that magic number after which time the group in question needs to “get over it”?
You said I made a lot of good points, and went wrong at the end. I pointed out that you probably hadn’t really gotten the points I was trying to make, since you, for instance, said you loved the quote that I was ridiculing. Thank you for the advice about getting a dictionary.
I didn’t label anyone as a racist. If I was in the business of telling people what they are, I’d have come up with a few more labels before I got to that one.
You and your colleague here have predictably begun frothing about how I’m whining and crying and calling you racists, as if the important thing here is what box we put each other in, when I don’t give a good god damn whether you personally are a racist or not. What I did was say that a particular perspective was a racist one, a point which has been entirely ignored thus far. This is a thread about combating racist perspectives. I suggested that it is a problem that the United States never took appropriate measures to remedy the social ills it had created, and that many “modern” social perspectives are unfairly distorted and prejudiced as a result of that.
In response, I get “WAAHH WAHH I’M A RACIST” and some little pictures of a green man rolling his eyes at me, along with a few lame-ass attempts at a gotcha moment.
Anyway, sorry, sleeping. I know this was a serious attempt at a conversation, and that isn’t what’s going on now. I won’t continue to pee in it.
–edit to add:
In addition to which, pointing to the promptness of Holocaust reparations isn’t much of an argument against the proposition that a remedial measure for slavery is late in coming, is it?
The cut-off date is when everyone who perpetrated the crimes and everyone who was affected by them is dead.
Based on your attempt to place the blame for racism on your “one bad apple” analogy and your effort to set up a fairly small minority of blacks as the “reason” for continued racism, then I contend that rednecks and crackers are the “real” reason for racism and the “whites” need to “do something” about rednecks and crackers in order to resolve the problem.
You admit that the people you are singling out are a minority of the population and the the majority actually behave in ways of which you approve, yet you still contend that is the people of whom you do not approve who are at the heart of racial division in the country.
You do later make good points about people not interacting socially, much. But to place the blame for that on a gangsta subculture when, by your own admission, that group is a small subset of the population, is nothing morer than your decision to put up arbitrary barriers where no real barriers exist. (Frankly, that subculture is most prevalent in neighborhoods of the inner cirty where you are unlikely to find a lot of white folks hanging out and the whites who do are likely to be, like Eminem, fully integrated into that culture. Claiming that as an excuse for non-fraternization is silly.)
I am affected.
Well, Holocaust reparations were paid to individual survivors, but there were also collective payments, which I is what I focused on.
It seems that your objection is to any kind of transfer of wealth that is not from one individual to another, since you predicate guilt only on individual responsibility. The time issue is actually peripheral, since you would presumably also object to all Germans (of varying beliefs and generational status) being taxed, collectively, to make a collective payment to the state of Israel, or even to individual survivors.
The problem with that is it ignores the social reality that race and ethnicity matter, and still play enormously important roles in our societies. And while the effects of past injustices may be attenuated by time, that does not mean that they don’t exist, or that they are trivial.
You claim that “the US government changes every 4-8 years.” Well, if that should preclude any sort of reparations process from commencing, then why was Germany, which had a complete regime change after WW2, held responsible for the aforementioned collective payments?
That’s your opinion. The facts disagree.