Allow me to present an anecdote: when I was in highschool, my lab partner in science class was a black guy. We were the two smartest kids in class, and I know for a fact that he was smarter than me. I was called on in class on many occasions, he was never called on.
That, my friends, is trampling on a young intillect. Meanwile, I was encouraged.
When a group is kept out of competition for real jobs, that benefits everyone else who is in the work pool. In the long run, it is a hindrance to society, but in the short term you and I are competing with fewer people.
I don’t think it’s fair to give someone preferential treatment based on who their ancestors were or more importantly because of the color of their skin. White in this country are given preferential treatment, and they have been so accustomed to it that they fail to see it in action. Take a black person today and a white person and send them to a car dealership, a real estate broker, a bank, a school, a job interview, what you’ll you find is that the black person a large part of the time will be treated differently. When I say differently, I mean they will not get the same benefit of the doubt that the white person does.
I’m not really concerned about a person getting a check, but I am concerned that a) an apology is given and b) reparations are made, and I’ll leave it to those involved to figure out what the best way to proceed is, though a massive education campaign, and federal reinvestment in urban infrastructure along with some serious job training would go a long way to making things better.
If you only view reparations as handing someone a check, then I think you’re missing the point. The things that you have indicated could be a form of reparations. It’s still handing out cash, it takes money to do anything. It seems you’re just pissed off by the idea of someone getting money, while you aren’t. 
I think everyone who thinks that every white gets all these benefits and don’t get affected by a lot of the stuff you claim are exclusive to minorities should go to New Mexico and stay there for a little while. I’d like for you to go to El Cerro Mission in Valencia county and tell all the white people there about their privileged lifestyle.
As for Grendel’s question about the ghetto with underfunded schools, yes I did grow up in a ghetto with underfunded schools and there were fewer than a dozen black people in my HS when I went there. The school counselors talked me out of doing things because I was never going to leave New Mexico. I left New Mexico three weeks after graduation.
I think that reparations are racism. I think that many of the actions of black culture over white culture are more racist than I see being reciprocated. Yes, profiling is terrible, yes underfunded inner city schools are terrible, but that’s a function of poverty as much as race. I’m tired of seeing comedians on BET making fun of white people constantly and that being ok. I feel a bit of good natured ribbing is fine, however I think it goes beyond the pale in that good natured ribbing from white to black is unacceptable and a lot of the black to white ribbing isn’t good natured. Not to mention a lot of the black UPN comedies have “white” minstrel characters. Equality isn’t taking because something was taken from you, it’s levelling the field so that the same rules apply to everyone.
Erek
That’s reasonable. I’m not sure that payments are “warranted” in any event. I think that working more to rectify current injustices has rather more to recommend it than Krauthammer’s “pay 'em off and tell them to go back to being quiet” attitude.
The physical infrastructure was built, but unlike the colonial practices in Asia, the Africans were rarely allowed to develop positions of authority, so when the colonial powers bugged out, they simply left a rotting physical infrastructure with no one trained to maintain it. The spread of any of the empires would have more likely increased the central control along African models that would have been less likely to create the conflicts we still see today. (Picture the unifying and civilization-enhancing early dynasties of China, the Mughals (or Mogols) of India, or the Roman conquest of Western Europe rather than the piecemeal grab by Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and Portugal.) The European central governments are a very tangible cause of most of today’s African conflicts because they created European-style nation-states out of mutually hostile peoples who could not easily work together. Europeans did little to control disease (and, with the intra-continental highway system, they have actually facilitated the spread of some diseases).
But should the education campaign (I assume you mean better funding for urban schools) be for predominantly black schools? Or for every school that needs it? Should the urban reinvestment go to only predominantly black neighborhoods, or every neighborhood that needs it? Should the job training be only available to blacks, or to everyone who needs it?
My thinking is that they should be available to everyone. Not only that, but the idea that these things should be done as ‘reparations’ is, IMO, not a good idea. They should be done because they are our ongoing duty and responsibility, not as some onetime token done because of some injustice in the past.
This is my main objection to the campaign for reparations…they are distracting from the real issues at hand and take attention away from real solutions to problems. As I said before, if civil rights groups put as much effort into getting adequate funding for job training and education into needy communities, rather than high-profile campaigns about flags, things would be progressing a lot quicker in this country.
Once again, the baseline for comparison has to be other Americans, not Africans. The status of Africans is irrelevant to the issue. Black Americans = West Africans is faulty reasoning. Any more questions, check out one of the many “does race exist” threads.
Do you have a cite for this, Tom? In 1991, Samuel Barclay Charters published a book called Roots of the Blues, in which he described his search in West Africa, specifically Gambia, for music related to the blues. In that book, he relates how his many questions about the effect of the Atlantic slave trade on those left behind were met with complete indifference and how a Gambian official finally snapped, “If you’re so interested in slaves, come with me to visit my family this weekend.” At the family compound, Charters was amazed to find black Gambians keeping black slaves, and asked, “But I thought slavery was made illegal?”
“Yes,” was the response, “but they never offered to pay us for them, so we kept them.”
Doesn’t sound much like bribes and threats had much to do with that.
You’re automatically skewing the baseline. If slavery had not existed, those requesting reparations based on past-slave status would not be in America. So comparing them to other Americans won’t wash.
I’m not equating Black Americans with West Africans, and if you’d read a little closer you’d see that. I was suggesting comparing and contrasting the lifestyles of the two groups (actually, those Americans who had ancestors who were slaves vs. West Africans). tomndebb has outlined some excellent reasons why that method won’t work.
I can understand why you would want to deny the negative impact of slavery, but the fact is our ancestors did some evil shit and the world still hasn’t recovered from it. If slavery had never existed people everywhere would have a higher standard of living. If you want to deny that, fine, deny it- just don’t act like black americans should be thankful that their ancestors were beaten, raped, and enslaved.
Um, grendel72, is that if slavery never existed in the US, or if slavery never existed anywhere?
Just want to know what how far back in history we’re going here…
Seeing all this talk about “lazy whining pieces of crap” in the talk about reparations for slavery makes me wonder if the same argument would have been raised if the issue of reparations to Japanese-American civilians was still on the table.
Yo, Grendel72 Are you asserting that A) Americans invented slavery, and B) the institution of slavery is responsbile for various unnamed global ills? You don’t help your case by making preposterous claims.
There’s no question that 500 years of European exploitation has harmed Africans, but you can’t know how they would have developed in an alternate timeline–there are simply too many variables.
I don’t think anybody here is saying that, but if you want to read a black Washington Post reporter’s thoughts on the differences between Africans and black Americans, and on his gratitude for that very thing, read Keith Richburg’s *Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa *, available at your local library. For a comprehensive history of the global slave trade and its legacy today, read The Slave Trade, by Hugh Thomas.
While it is indisputably true that black America suffers from the residual effects of slavery, your posts reflect an achingly simple-minded view that racism is an evil perpetuated by the evil blue-eyed devil against the innocent nonwhite peoples of the world.
Here’s a news flash: Humans discriminate. Every race and ethinic group does it. some white hate some blacks. Some blacks hate Jews and Koreans. The Koreans think the Japanese are a bunch of arrogant colonialists, the Japanese think the Koreans are slow-witted, dishonest bumpkins, and both groups think they are superior to everyone else. In New York, some Dominicans and Puerto Ricans resent the Mexicans moving in.
EVERY race, every nation has held slaves at some point in their history. The Egyptians owned slaves, the Romans held slaves, the Greeks held slaves, the Old Testament Jews, the Thais, the Koreans, the Aztecs, the Polynesians–everyone has held slaves, dating back , no doubt, to when the Shell People were captured by the Rock People.
Instead of fixating on the evils of two centuries ago, why not work to fix the evils of today?
If slavery never existed at all we would all be better off, but the slave trade in the US took it to a new scale.
Prior to the colonization of the US, slaves were captured enemies- they weren’t a bought and sold commodity.
I don’t have any ancestors I know of who actively benefitted from slavery, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have benefitted from it’s legacy whether I wanted to or not.
I’m not in favor of reparations, I think they would be meaningless. I am, however, opposed to white guys bitching about the fact that people are pointing out an injustice. Read this thread in it’s entirety- notice that people like Olentzero are taken to task for the statements of some of the speakers at the march, meanwhile on the opposition we have ignorant little shits like 'Uigi. Those who favor reparations, even those of us who are just less than rabid in our opposition to them are taken to task for what extremists on “our side” say- why the fuck don’t you guys take responsibility for the ignorant bigots on your side?
Olentzero, you should know better than to attempt to draw such an inaccurate parallel. The reparations paid as an attempt at restitution for the unjust imprisonment of Japanese Americans were paid to the actual victims of the imprisonment, not their remote descendants**. The people marching for slavery reparations essentially want free money; they want to be paid for the suffering of their ancestors from the 19th century.
and let us suppose that reparations are paid, and all the demands are met. Do you think that will be enough? No. The same people will keep making new demands in perpetuity becuase their grievances can never be satisfied, no matter what.
Untrue. I refer you to the slave markets and slave breeders of Ancient Rome, as well, as the history of Hispaniola. Read some books.
I’ve already slapped down one racist loser (see page 1) using this issue to air his microcephalic views. Those idiots are NOT on “my side.”
When it comes down to hisoric injustice, U’m torn. On my dad’s side, I guess I’m owed reparations for the loss of ancestral lands when Andrew Jackson kicked the Choctaws out of Mississippi and forced them to march on the Trail of Tears to Oklafrigginhoma. Yet on my mom’s side, I owe reparations because my maternal ancestors owned slaves. Should I just shuffle some money from my left pocket to my right pocket and call ity even?
Ding! Wrong, but thank you for playing!
I’m sure that all the slaves bought and sold in the Roman Empire would love to debate the issue with you, though.
As well as those that suffered under the Sumerians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians… well, maybe you get the point?
I’m not trying to draw any parallels, I’m just trying to figure out why reparations for one group is relatively unquestioned while reparations for another group provokes fierce debate whenever it’s brought up.
It seems here that people think there is some sort of statute of limitations on reparations, generally the last generation to actually have suffered under the injustice. Do you therefore think that the lot of Blacks improved drastically after 1865? Did racism disappear the day the last Black man or woman born a slave in the US died?
Of course not. The racism that was developed and used to justify slavery is the same racism used to justify the Jim Crow laws; it’s the same racism that bolstered the Ku Klux Klan; it’s the same racism that underlay Plessy v Ferguson and the Birmingham church bombing and the violent reactions against the Freedom Riders and the civil rights marches and so on and so on. You cannot honestly argue that the descendants of slaves did not suffer from the oppression of their ancestors. They still do.
So, in other words, they should really not try to voioce their criticisms of past and present injustices, nor should they try to organize efforts to redress those injustices, either. They should just stay quiet and (I hesitate to use this term) “know their place”?
I don’t see the Japanese who received reparations clamoring for more. Why, then, do you assume Blacks will do that?
Ahem, I’m not assuming “Blacks” do anything–if we’re going to eradicate racism, let’s not assume about a whole group, most of whom already oppose reparations. I’m saying the the head cheerleaders of reparations are more interested in maintaining perpetual moral blackmail than they are in righting wrongs.
The difference between the Japanese reparations and Black reparations is that the former was a restitution paid to the direct victims. That issue has been settled. But the victims of slavery are dead; no restitution can be paid them. so even if the US government handed a fat check to every Black American, the grievance of the reparations lobby will stay alive. No amount of reparations can ever settle the issue because their ancestors were still enslaved.
“Here’s a check.”/ “My ancestors were enslaved.”
“Here’s some land”/My ancestors were enslaved."
“Here’s free college tuition”/“My ancestors were enslaved.”
Excuse me, but I have already agreed that present injustices should be addressed, but historical injustices ought to be declared moot because righting those injustices means wronging the innocent today.
And imputing racism to me really doesn’t serve to persuade me of the justice of your cause. :mad:
So we’re not talking about reparations for slavery. We’re talking about reparations for racism. Although the two were intertwined, they are now mutually exclusive.