I get it – you don’t think it’s worth it. You don’t think you bear any responsibility. Fine. You are allowed to have this opinion. Just as plenty of Americans think that any social spending isn’t their responsibility, and amounts to “pocket-picking”.
There are plenty of Americans who actually do believe the overall society has some responsibility to those whom it has harmed. My advocacy is for them, not for those, like you, who think it’s all pocket-picking.
I am happy to pay to solve problems that are occuring today. In fact we have so many of them, we dont have enough funds to solve them all. Homelessness for example. I am against agreeing to pay a undisclosed amount of money to solve problems *in the past- *many of whom have already had some sort of solution.
Once we solve all of* today’s* problems, for things happening RIGHT NOW, maybe we can delve into the past. Until then, things like “reparations” are just a distraction from current real world problems *now.
Me too! Glad to see we’re on the same page. Right now I’m just advocating for research.
I’m also advocating for addressing things happening right now, in addition to things that happened in the recent past, that are harming or have harmed living Americans. I believe we can do multiple things at once. You disagree – which is fine. It appears that the point of our disagreement is clear, which is much better than endless straw-manning.
The problem with wasting money on research on bad things of the past is that it takes money away from doing stuff to help fix bad things TODAY.
No, you’re not- actually. You might think you are, but every dollar wasted on the past is a dollar that cant be used to help fix things *today.
So, rather than the past, lets focus on today. Still racial issues today, even.
I believe I am focusing on today. Today involves history. I think you’re advocating for ignoring and dismissing history.
We don’t need to go on and on about this. We’ve identified the point of disagreement – you aren’t interested in anything in the past, even if it might still have effects today. I am interested in history, and its effects on the present.
But, what if, things from the past are causing us problems now? Do we ignore the root cuase of those problems because we only want to look at now, or do we actually try to see where these problems have come from?
If there is a problem that we can identify originated before any of us are born, does that absolve us of responsibility to address it?
There need not be a law in order to establish that a property owner is holding property illegimately.
Did Coates ever respond to Walter Williams’ arguments other than complaining that he had already made them?
Seriously, a lightweight culture critic and comic book writer is your guiding light on this? There has to be some legitimate intellectual making a case somewhere. I thought Coates’ 15 minutes were up two years ago.
From what I can tell, Williams’ arguments had virtually nothing to do with what Coates actually wrote. Williams didn’t even mention redlining, at least in the articles I read.