# Regarding the blacks marching for reparations tomorrow... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 17, 2002, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303 "2002-08-17T05:30:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/121 "2002-08-22T06:21:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squish \* > \*\*What **belowjob** sees as hostility to blacks in this thread–although I haven’t seen it here–is in my estimation in response to the hostility shown by the comments made by blacks involved in the march and by a similar hostility towards whites evidenced by some posters on this board. \*\* I take it that you now see the hostility towards blacks in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![H8\_2\_W8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c77e96/32.png) [@H8\_2\_W8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H8_2_W8)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/122 "2002-08-22T13:00:32Z")
DMC or others - what do you consider to be “hostile” toward blacks in my post? The point I intended to make is that many billions of dollars have been spent by the government to improve the lives of blacks over the years. Has it been enough? I don’t know, but I think this should be factored in and deducted from any total amount of reparations given. There seems to be no acknowledgment by the black leadership of the money spent already by the government or the hundreds of thousands of lives lost fighting a war which ended slavery, probably because they feel it would hurt their cause. I’m not against reparatations at an institutional level - money for more job training, education, child care, healthcare, etc. but I can’t support reparations at a personal level, which some people in the movement seem to think they deserve. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/123 "2002-08-22T13:38:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Octavia is surely a nice lady and a great writer but she is a female and I’d say more fantasy than sci-fi. I know this is OT, but whaa? Octavia Butler is definitely science fiction, **zen**. And what does her being female have to do with anything? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/124 "2002-08-22T14:36:40Z")
For some reason some of you are attributing my posts to **Neurotik**. Please be more careful in the future. > [@](#): > > by Lonesome: > Ptooey. You don’t know what you’re talking about. In the Old South, black slaves (and not just the house servants) were encouraged to look down upon and despise the “white trash.” There was even a song popular among slaves which had the refrain, “I’d rather be a nigguh than a po’ white man.” Should I get a violin out and whip out a sad, self-pitying tune? Sorry if I’m not oozing with sympathy here–especially given the fact that poor whites have suffered and I fully realize it–but hearing you compare people who at least could buy property, learn to read (!) without violent repercusion, learn a trade, go wherever they pleased without getting a permit from Massa first, and raise their own children without worrying about them being lawfully taken away and sold and and/or raped and whipped…with people who were treated like livestock (and worse), truly takes the spit right out of my mouth. Who cares what popular songs the slaves sang? They were ignorant of what they had and most importantly, what they DIDN’T have, simply because they never had it. By considering poor whites lower than themselves, perhaps black folks in those times could eke out a little dignity, just a little something to keep their chin up. It seems to be human nature for people to consider themselves better than at least one group of other people, no matter how low they sit on the totem pole. Slaves were no exception. “I’d rather be a nigguh than a po’ white man” sounds like a coping mechanism if there ever was one. Do you really think that the plight of the poor white man in the 1800’s was worse than the plight of a slave? Both groups had it bad, but if I had to chose between the two, the poor white had it infinitely better than someone who had 0% control over his destiny or even less control over the destiny of his offspring. You can insist until your lips turn blue that I’m wrong, but it will only make you look like an idiot in denial. No matter how you slice or dice it, a poor white could at least how to read, which is probably the most basic right imaginable. Can you grasp how truly fucked up it is blacks were legally forbidden to read? Can you grasp how dehumanizing it is not only physcially enslave someone but mentally enslave them too, by depriving them of literacy? > [@](#): > > A common misconception is that the “3/5” law was enacted as a way to demonstrate that black slaves were less than human. Actually, this law was put into place by the anti-slavery states-to-be to keep the south from having too much power. I’m not going to argue that you are wrong, but it still should be said that blacks were considered less than human and that although the 3/5 law was politically-originated, it was socially-applied. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/125 "2002-08-22T14:54:02Z")
H8\_2\_W8, Your post was probably the least bothersome of the group that I listed, and even less so now that you have explained what you meant. The part that bothers me is when trying to place a price tag on what someone deserves to be compensated for having their lives taken away. Since you later said that you didn’t know if your numbers were enough to compensate, but should be factored into any actual numbers, I’ll agree that that’s not something I would consider hostile anymore. Squish, The “paid in full” comment is much worse than what I was attributing to H8\_2\_W8, even before he clarified his position. This not only places a value on the life of a slave, but thinks that we have surpassed what was owed. I can’t speak for you, but I’m not willing to give my life away for a trillion dollars. How much do you think a black person is worth? The comment that you thought was a stab at Farrakhan spoke of an organization that was supposedly returning to afro-centric values. Then it tells of its leader, the gun-hording child molester (dozens of times), who is sitting in jail awaiting his fate. For the record, the equation: gun-hording child molesters = represent afro-centric values, is not very friendly. Much worse than that, is that fact that it just isn’t true, which is why I asked for a cite. For those of you who didn’t get why I thought it would be funny if he got life or the death penalty is because not only is he not actually in jail on said charges (nor can I find any evidence that he ever was even accused of such a thing), but he’s been dead for over a year and a half. As for the million dollar Cadillac statement, t-keela could have picked any item in the world as an example, if he was interested in showing the affects on inflation that reparations would have. He chose a Cadillac. I was surprised he didn’t say a “Cadillac with watermelons coming out of the trunk and ten welfare babies in the front seat.” I find Joe\_Cool’s statement so obviously hostile that I don’t the need to actually explain the reason why. If it’s okay with you, I’ll skip “thinking it over.” At any rate, you made the claim that there were no hostilities in this thread, but you then acknowledged that there were. Whether you agree with my every assessment doesn’t really matter. ---
**Author:** ![W.Panic\_Snopes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@W.Panic\_Snopes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/W.Panic_Snopes)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/126 "2002-08-22T15:14:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DMC \* > \*\* > > And, as long as it remains citeless: > W. Panic Snopes: (Irrelevant but interesting [if only to me] side story: Near where I live, Farrakhan gave a speech commending the exemplary virtues of the local Nuwaubian cult in returning to Afrocentric values. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have both spoken at the same cult compound as well, holding this sect up as a pillar of light in the spiritual desert of America. Currently, the leader of the sect, Malachi Z [aka Khalid Muhammad, aka many others] is in prison awaiting trial on dozens of counts of aggravated sexual assault of minors; Malachi Z is the father of more than 100 children and has been stockpiling weapons for more than two decades.) \*\* My apologies for not posting sooner but I haven’t been to the board in a variety of days. The confusion of this quote is due to a multiplicity of names. Malachi Z. York is a cultleader who heads a compound of the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors in Eatonton, GA, a group whose theology is essentially a cross between paint-by-the-number UFO mythology, some of the more loopy NOI tenets, and the belief that heaven looks like a mini-golf course (which you can see for yourself at [http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~rviau/nuwaubians.html](http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~rviau/nuwaubians.html) ). York has gone by many aliases in his day, including Isa Ibrahim, Yahweh Muhammad, and Khalid Muhammad. He is NOT the same Khalid Muhammad who was a member of the Black Panthers and was ostracized by Farrakhan for making comments far less vitriolic than those Louis Louis makes before his bean omelettes on most mornings; that Khalid Muhammad died of natural causes last year. If you need a cite for the Malachi Z story, there was an excellent cover story about him in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 7, 2002 Sunday, Home Edition, Pg. 1A. You can access its full text from the LexisNexis General News database at most libraries. Using the keywords Nuwaubians and the leaders names will also retrieve articles about Jesse Jackson, Sharpton, and Louis the Charmer’s endorsement of him. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/127 "2002-08-22T20:48:42Z")
W. Panic Snopes, As it’s certainly understandable that one could get Khalid Muhammads confused, I’ll retract your statement from the “DMC’s List o’ Hostilities and Other Minutiae.” . It seems to be a fairly common name. I know little about the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, but I’m definitely going to read up on them now. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/128 "2002-08-22T22:53:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DMC \* > \*\*As for the million dollar Cadillac statement, t-keela could have picked any item in the world as an example, if he was interested in showing the affects on inflation that reparations would have. He chose a Cadillac. I was surprised he didn’t say a “Cadillac with watermelons coming out of the trunk and ten welfare babies in the front seat.” \*\* I think you are really reaching on this one, **DMC**. I was not really aware that only blacks drove Caddy’s. Or even that mostly blacks. I thought it was old folk 😉 Anyways, Cadillacs are frequently used as an object of value, as in, “An original Stradivarius is considered the Cadillac of violins.” Etcetera…etcetera…etcetera. Again, I think you are really reaching, **DMC**. On this instance, there have been undoubtedly instances of hostility on both sides of the issue, but more so towards blacks. So let’s all just stop with the negative vibes, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/129 "2002-08-22T23:25:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DMC \* > **The “paid in full” comment is much worse than what I was attributing to H8\_2\_W8, even before he clarified his position. This not only places a value on the life of a slave, but thinks that we have surpassed what was owed. I can’t speak for you, but I’m not willing to give my life away for a trillion dollars. How much do you think a black person is worth?** You’re deliberately twisting his comment, so I’ll ask you: how much is the life of a white person worth? All those soldiers who fought in the Civil War–most of them white–their lives aren’t worth diddly-squat to you? > [@](#): > > \*\*For the record, the equation: gun-hording child molesters = represent afro-centric values, is not very friendly. \*\* You’re reaching here. That equation was not made. > [@](#): > > **I find Joe\_Cool’s statement so obviously hostile that I don’t the need to actually explain the reason why. If it’s okay with you, I’ll skip "thinking it over."** You do that. You skip thinking about the violence perpetrated every year, every month, by Bloods and Crips and various other gangs o’ thugs. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/130 "2002-08-22T23:59:19Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Neurotik \* > \*\* > I think you are really reaching on this one, **DMC**. I was not really aware that only blacks drove Caddy’s. Or even that mostly blacks. I thought it was old folk 😉_\* I take it you’ve never heard the term “Welfare Cadillac”, which is quite widely used, in fact, there is even a song about it. It’s also one of Reagan’s bigger goofs, when he made up a story about it a Cadillac driving welfare cheater to help him get support for welfare reform. Most cites I’ve dug up consider it to have been a part of American folklore well before Reagan’s goof. I certainly remember it from my youth (the 70s), and I lived in a town that was almost completely white, other than the university students (Out of 1500 students in my high school, 1 was black). If I was familiar with the term, I assumed everyone was. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/131 "2002-08-23T00:10:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squish \* > **You’re deliberately twisting his comment, so I’ll ask you: how much is the life of a white person worth? All those soldiers who fought in the Civil War–most of them white–their lives aren’t worth diddly-squat to you?** As I said, I wouldn’t give up my life for a trillion dollars, and as I’m white and consider every life to be as monetarily valuable as mine), I think that answers that question. This isn’t about what we (the country) did to rectify a situation that we (the country) were the ones responsible for in the first place. You’re also aware that the Civil War was about a whole lot more than slavery, correct? > [@](#): > > **You’re reaching here. That equation was not made.** Based on the original text, I don’t feel it was a reach. Smearing a group’s leader, and then saying they are representative of afro-centric values, is hostile. After W. Panic Snopes explained the mix-up, I retracted it. > [@](#): > > \*\*You do that. You skip thinking about the violence perpetrated every year, every month, by Bloods and Crips and various other gangs o’ thugs. \*\* I’m glad you backed up this one. 🙂 The point originally made was that some people use threads as such as this one to voice their hostilities towards blacks. You previously claimed no hostilities towards blacks have been put forward in this thread, in fact telling said poster that maybe they should read the thread. Whether you agree with all of the ones I put forward, some of which I myself consider iffy, borderline, or possibly misinterpreted, are you standing by your original statement? ---
**Author:** ![racekarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@racekarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racekarl)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/132 "2002-08-23T00:59:37Z")
OK, I’m mostly tossing this out there to see what people think of it, but some interesting things to think of perhaps. I’ll try to keep my conjecture seperate from the facts. Fact: In a census of the “black” population taken around 1865, it was found that there were about 2 million blacks and 2.2 million mulattoes. Conjecture: Many mullatoes were born as a result of slaveowners, overseers, what have you sleeping with slave women. Most of the “black” population in the US at the end of the civil war had white ancestors. Given that many of these ancestors were likely southerners with some connection to the slave industry, is it totally outrageous to deduce that many blacks today (perhaps even most) are also descended from white slave holders, traders, etc.? Fact: Many prominent abolitionists believed that blacks were inferior to whites, and in fact regarded them as sub-human (theory of polygeny). The majority of Americans prior to the civil war regarded blacks as intrinsically inferior. (I don’t have a cite at the moment, but it is certainly fair to say that most infulential Americans held this view) Conjecture: It is not really correct to say that slavery was responsible for the second class citizenship of blacks in the US. Contemporary scientific thought held that all other races were inferior to whites. As the civil war was winding down, the US govt began hatching plans on what to do with all the freed slaves. The “commitee” (for want of a better term) that came up with the recommedations was stocked with staunch abolitionists who abhored slavery, but nevertheless firmly believed that blacks were inferior and must not be allowed to interbreed with whites, have full sufferage, etc. So what we have is a politcal system free of slavery that still does not believe in the equality of the races. If slavery had never been a legal institution in the US, and a boat full of free african blacks had landed here in 1865, would they really have been treated any differently, given that the full weight of science held them to be inferior? Given all of that, it seems untenable to claim that modern white americans bear sole responsibility for the injustices that modern black americans still supposedly feel as a result of slavery I hope I haven’t offended anyone, I just find these concepts intriguing, and I’d like to hear what you think. ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/133 "2002-08-23T03:15:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DMC \* > **This isn’t about what we (the country) did to rectify a situation that we (the country) were the ones responsible for in the first place. You’re also aware that the Civil War was about a whole lot more than slavery, correct?** Indeed I am. However, reparations aren’t about what the country did to rectify the situation, what are they about? > [@](#): > > **I’m glad you backed up this one. 🙂** I’m just thrilled to see you dodged it. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > \*\*Whether you agree with all of the ones I put forward, some of which I myself consider iffy, borderline, or possibly misinterpreted, are you standing by your original statement? \*\* I’ve already answered that. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Belowjob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/134 "2002-08-23T03:32:06Z")
But that science developed within the social and economic context of an international slave trade. The Swedish scientist Linnaeus began developing his racial theories in the Netherlands at a time when the Netherlands were a major slave trading nation. In the US during the colonial period there was slavery in the North as well as well as the South. There was a major slave rebellion in NYC in 1720 for example. By 1865, many black Americans had ancestors in English speaking NA going back 200 years. They were quite distinct, culturally and genetically, from Africans. So comparisons with a “boatload of free Africans” are irrelevant. In the early colonial period, it was common for African indentured servants to intermarry with English indentured servants, and the children produced from these unions were the first black Americans. As the system changed from indentured servitude to racially delineated chattel slavery, these types of marriages were banned. (see Fredrickson’s _White Supremacy_, Oxford University Press, 1982) So a sounder basis for comparison is the status of white descendents of these indentured servants versus that of the black descendents. Along these same lines, we can compare, for example, the status of the descendents of the black soldiers in the Revolutionary War versus the status of descendents of white soldiers. The question is not whether or not a great injustice has been done. That much is obvious. The question is how best to address this injustice. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/135 "2002-08-23T04:34:34Z")
W. Panic Snopes, I just finished some research on the _other_ Khalid Muhammad that you referred to. Man, we’re talking fruitcake city. Koresh could have learned a thing or two from this guy. Jackson’s judgement on his visit to their little community was just as ill-advised as Bush’s Bob Jones stopover. I agree with Jesse that blacks owning large blocks of land is a dream for many of them, but I’m sure he can find plenty of other examples of blacks living the American dream, ones who don’t require a spaceship to travel home. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/136 "2002-08-23T05:08:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DMC \* > \*\*I take it you’ve never heard the term “Welfare Cadillac”, which is quite widely used, in fact, there is even a song about it. It’s also one of Reagan’s bigger goofs, when he made up a story about it a Cadillac driving welfare cheater to help him get support for welfare reform. Most cites I’ve dug up consider it to have been a part of American folklore well before Reagan’s goof. I certainly remember it from my youth (the 70s), and I lived in a town that was almost completely white, other than the university students (Out of 1500 students in my high school, 1 was black). If I was familiar with the term, I assumed everyone was. \*\* Ah. No, I can’t say that I have ever heard the term. Maybe part of the problem was that I was only 8 when Reagan’s term ended. Maybe it was a hostile remark, but I’m not sure that it was. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/137 "2002-08-23T13:06:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Go stufff it if you aren’t willing to learn some history > > Ooh, you showed me. Come on, smiling bandit, if you know US history to the degree that you claim, you know that whites in America simply haven’t experienced the degree of abuse and persecution that blacks and Native Americans have. Even Irish Catholics were not defined as second class citizens under law the way that free blacks were. Yes. And No. Your point is technically correct and wildly useless. These prearations are marked “For Blacks Only”. I point out irish abuses simply because the attitude of many posters indicates they neither care nor considered the problems of non-black immigrants. Though never as bad across the board, at various times any immigrant group has been mistreated in ways equal to the worst plight of blacks. > [@](#): > > If you want to talk about history outside of the US, feel free. But events outside of the US are not what’s at issue here. I don’t recall doing this and none of my posts seem to indicate this, so I assume you are talking to the people pointing out that foreign governments had as much or more guilt, including African bigmen. Nevertheless, these issues are closely tied together. I do not thnk it obfuscating to consider them together. The idea of reperations is, at the heart of it, about guilt. SOme people wish to assign guilt to others, in as loud and public a method as possible. Thing is, they don’t have the power to do this outright, and thus must try to shame others into accepting it. They don’t want justice, they want to be justified by law. > [@](#): > > I didn’t imply that you were a racist. If I want to call you a racist, I will. I’ll say, “Smiling bandit, you racist!” or something to b that effect.(It sounds a bit melodramatic, so I’ll probably never say it quite that way.) Then watch what you type. Your last post implied more than it said. I noticed. > [@](#): > > I have noticed, on this reparations thread, and a variety of others, that posters will dredge up every anti-black stereotype as justification for oppostion to reparations. Some people will do a lot of things. In this case, i don’t have time to post oppositions to several hundred statements. So I pick the last or most interesting one. I ignore those whom I consider not worth the effort. > [@](#): > > I oppose reparations for practical reasons. The focus on reparations will take time and energy away from real problems facing black Americans. Of course, remedies that focus exclusively on blacks are not practical. Any effective remedies would have to help the urban poor and isolated rural poor without regard to ethnicity. Yup. See below a couple of quotes. The problem with this is that it isn’t beoing sold as a package to help urban poor. Its being sold as a package of , “Get Whitey”. And Whitey don’t like that. > [@](#): > > Over the past 25 years or so, black Americans have consistently demonstrated a willingness to live among whites, to marry whites, to send their children to school with whites, to work with whites etc. So programs that are based on the idea of black Americans as a separate people will gradually become less and less useful. Agreed. > [@](#): > > The whole question of what kind of help to provide is quite complex. “Help” may mean refusing to hire public school teachers who can’t master basic skills. It may mean automatic expulsion from school for violent acts. Both of these measures have been opposed, incidentally, by the NAACP. “Help” may mean making poor neighborhoods safer by coming down extra hard on street crime. Its a freakishly simple idea. getting it done is fiendishly difficult. Partly becaues of entrenched interests. Teacher’s unions, communities steeped in drugs and poverty, often who mistrust the police, and police that fear and mistrust the communities: these all comcine to slow or reverse any progress. > [@](#): > > It’s clear that a great deal of poverty can be alleviated by making sure that people wait until they’re finished with school, gainfully employed, and married, before they start having kids. Helping people to do this may be seen as unfairly stigmatizing single mothers, or denying individuals freedom of choice. Yep, but these measures are difficult to implement and sure to be wildly unpopular. ---
**Author:** ![racekarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@racekarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racekarl)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/138 "2002-08-23T13:14:15Z")
OK, I’m mostly tossing this out there to see what people think of it, but some interesting things to think of perhaps. I’ll try to keep my conjecture seperate from the facts. Fact: In a census of the “black” population taken around 1865, it was found that there were about 2 million blacks and 2.2 million mulattoes. Conjecture: Many mullatoes were born as a result of slaveowners, overseers, what have you sleeping with slave women. Most of the “black” population in the US at the end of the civil war had white ancestors. Given that many of these ancestors were likely southerners with some connection to the slave industry, is it totally outrageous to deduce that many blacks today (perhaps even most) are also descended from white slave holders, traders, etc.? Fact: Many prominent abolitionists believed that blacks were inferior to whites, and in fact regarded them as sub-human (theory of polygeny). The majority of Americans prior to the civil war regarded blacks as intrinsically inferior. (I don’t have a cite at the moment, but it is certainly fair to say that most infulential Americans held this view) Conjecture: It is not really correct to say that slavery was responsible for the second class citizenship of blacks in the US. Contemporary scientific thought held that all other races were inferior to whites. As the civil war was winding down, the US govt began hatching plans on what to do with all the freed slaves. The “commitee” (for want of a better term) that came up with the recommedations was stocked with staunch abolitionists who abhored slavery, but nevertheless firmly believed that blacks were inferior and must not be allowed to interbreed with whites, have full sufferage, etc. So what we have is a politcal system free of slavery that still does not believe in the equality of the races. If slavery had never been a legal institution in the US, and a boat full of free african blacks had landed here in 1865, would they really have been treated any differently, given that the full weight of science held them to be inferior? Given all of that, it seems untenable to claim that modern white americans bear sole responsibility for the injustices that modern black americans still supposedly feel as a result of slavery I hope I haven’t offended anyone, I just find these concepts intriguing, and I’d like to hear what you think. ---
**Author:** ![racekarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@racekarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racekarl)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/139 "2002-08-23T13:16:15Z")
Doh, sorry for the double post, SDMB is sort of slow and crappy ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303/140 "2002-08-23T13:48:44Z")
by racekarl: > [@](#): > > Given all of that, it seems untenable to claim that modern white americans bear sole responsibility for the injustices that modern black americans still supposedly feel as a result of slavery Who said the whites of today bear sole responsibility for anything? It has been said ad nauseum that any reparations paid out by the US government would be taken out of **all** taxpayer’s dollars, not just the white folks. So let’s stop making this a black-white thing, please!!!. I said it before and I’ll say it again: slavery reparations is a race issue only if people want it to be. And it’s funny to hear the kinds of “arguments” people have when they let color get in the way. by ElJeffe > [@](#): > > First of all, it is often stated that black people should not get reparations, because they’re better off today than if their ancestors had not been shipped to the US and made slaves… However, the cold truth is that the average black person in the US is much better off financially than the average black person in most African countries where we bought slaves…Given that one of the many arguments in favor of reparations is that blacks are suffering financially as a result of slavery, this is a perfectly valid counter-argument. No it absolutely is not, as **Belowjob** wisely pointed out. Why not? As soon as African slaves started having babies on American soil, we were no longer dealing with Africans. We were dealing with Americans. Why would you compare the plight of an American with the plight of an African? Would it not make more sense to compare the plights of countrymen if you were trying to make an analysis of who came out on top? And as hard as it is for a lot of people to process, the slaves were not just African in a heritage-sense, either. They had white blood, too. So if you had a biracial slave, does it make sense to say that slavery was a good thing for him because if not for it, he would be over in Africa fighting malaria and eating hand to mouth? In reality, if you view the scenario without the blinders of racism (not to imply that you are a racist, **ElJeffe** ), you’d rule that it’s a stupid thing to say. Such a statement ignores the fact that half or more of that slave is as white as the man who screwed his mama, which therefore makes him in this case very _unlucky_ to be a slave. Because if it wasn’t for slavery, he could have been a rich man eating roast beef every Sunday. He could have been a lawyer, a teacher, a farmer, or a doctor, and his children could have been those things, too. But instead, because of reality, he is only destined to be someone’s property. So is his children and their children. Slavery wasn’t perculiar. It was fucked-up. > [@](#): > > Second, it’s frequently argued that “reparations has already been made in the form of social service programs”, to which reparations supporters reply, “but that money goes to everyone, not just blacks”. Well, true, these forms of assistance are not made exclusively to blacks. However, if blacks are really that much more likely to be poor, then they’re more likely to qualify for such programs, which means that such assistance is disproportionately allocated to blacks. Thus, there is already a net cash flow going from white people to black people. I’ve never understood why people call welfare programs reparations for slavery. Not to be overdramatic or anything but let me paint a scenario. If I ran you over with a car, not killing but leaving you hanging within an inch of life, and instead of driving away and letting you bleed to death on the concrete, I get out my cherry red Lexus with the leather interior and 20-inch rims, and so kindly apply a tourniquet to your arm and slap a couple band-aids on your worst abrasions, maybe even slip a twenty into your pocket to further clean my conscience, and then I drive off to get to the mall before it closes, would you consider that due compensation? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Welfare is like epinephrine to someone in cardiac arrest. It can jumpstart a stopped heart, but it can’t make a failing heart work as productively as a normal one. And not only does it not repair (\*repar[/I}ations) anything, it can cause some pretty bad problems on its own. It’s better than nothing and that’s about all. Calling it reparations is a big unfunny joke. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-blacks-marching-for-reparations-tomorrow/124303.md?page=8)