I’ll expand on the last point – politically, reparations for Native Americans would probably be easier than for African Americans. This is for a few reasons – chiefly that there are many, many fewer Native Americans than black Americans, but also that it’s my understanding that white Americans are less likely to hold hatred, contempt, or disdain for Native Americans as compared to such feelings for black Americans. So it would be cheaper (since there are many fewer people to consider), and (if my understanding is correct) would have less of a bigotry-barrier, in terms of public acceptance. Which is not to say it would be easy, by any means. In any case, I’d similarly advocate that such a process would start with a large-scale and in-depth investigation and research program.
Can you clarify what you mean when you say “come to terms” then? Because I don’t know what you mean when you say that. Can you describe what that would look like, how we would be able to measure it, etc.?
The US killed, enslaved, and conquered the people and land that was held by Native Americans. The value of the recompense is effectively infinite. Even surrendering the entirety of the US land and assets to living Native Americans, and forcibly removing all other inhabitants of the country would not cover the value of the harm and lost wealth. Would you be in favor of that?
Something like the modern German attitude about Hitler, the Nazis, and the Holocaust (without the free speech restrictions). I’m not sure how it could be measured, except perhaps in various statistical outcomes (i.e. income, education, health, crime, etc.).
No, I would not be in favor of that, because that wouldn’t accomplish what I’m trying to accomplish (ultimately, a fair and equitable society). I’m most interested in justice for living people. What has harmed living Native Americans? Certainly some past policies and actions have. Many present policies and practices as well. How about the very poor state of access to various necessities of life, prosperity, and health on reservations? Or discrimination in how those lands are treated by industry? How about law enforcement mistreatment, housing discrimination, employment discrimination, etc.?
Are you satisfied with the status quo of how American society and institutions treat Native Americans, and African Americans? If not, are you in favor of any action to try and change this?
This is just an astonishingly incorrect summary of the issues at Harvard. That Harvard is [del]possibly[/del] discriminating against Asian-Americans in their “personal ratings” is an important issue that needs to be addressed, but it is not related to affirmative action, and is not benefiting any particular other group at their expense. There is no systemic discrimination against Asian-Americans by African-Americans at Harvard, and the only people alleging so are those who wish to convince you of their own racist, anti-Black agenda. Please don’t fall for it.
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But not with substance, obviously. Oh well.
I’ve been enjoying a substantive discussion on this with many posters in this thread. It’s a challenging topic, but many so far have engaged on the substance.
Bone - I agree that if we got to a point where we are truly in a post racist society, reparations would not help, or be necessary. But I don’t think we can get to that point without addressing the elephant in the room and admitting exactly how screwed up the United States has been for how many years.
Again, I don’t know what this means. What is the modern German attitude about Hitler, the Nazis, and the Holocaust? I’m assuming that it’s negative, but that’s simplistic so there has to be more than that. I’ve never been to Germany so you’ll have to elaborate on what this means. And further, what does attitude have to do with income, education, health, and crime? It’s all very vague.
We administer civil justice with money. That’s why in my view, reparations = money. There are certainly living Native Americans that continue to be harmed by the atrocities of the past. Based on the wealth that was taken from their ancestors, I’d say those folks to achieve justice should be the wealthiest people in the country.
No, I’m not satisfied with the status quo. I’d prefer American society be color blind in its laws and I’m opposed to things that are counter to that goal.
The German attitude towards Nazis and Hitler is one of national embarrassment and regret. They recognize it as a very, very low point in their national history, but they don’t deny or understate what happened and how bad it was. That’s what we want American southerners to accept. That they, too, have an extremely fucked up period in their history, that SHOULD be a source of shame rather than pride. People who fly confederate flags in Virginia should be reviled, not respected, the same way a German flying a swastika flag would be. Now, in Germany, it’s both frowned upon by society and illegal to fly a swastika flag. iiAndyiiii is arguing that we in the US shouldn’t take things quite that far. I’m not sure I agree, but that’s probably another thread.
In my understanding, Germany underwent a successful “denazification”, which has mostly held firm today – modern Germans learn in school in detail about the crimes of the Nazis, and about the collective responsibility of the German people and German society for these crimes, and anti-semitism is mostly anathema in modern Germany, far more so than white supremacist attitudes in America (again, in my understanding). So that’s the societal part in brief (very brief!). As far as justice and renumeration, Germany, as a whole, accepted this collective responsibility, and gave financial reparations to the surviving Jews that suffered under the Holocaust. I don’t know all the details of how the amount was determined.
As far as statistics, I’m talking about how we’d measure my ultimate goal – a fair and equitable society. Those statistics – equal access to health care, education, employment, housing, treatment in the justice system, etc. – could at least give us some indication as to whether we’re close to meeting that goal.
If you want to advocate for that, feel free. I’ll just advocate that we look into the possibility of justice for the harm they (and other groups) have faced with regards to a fair and reasonable chance at a successful, safe, and healthy life.
So are you advocating any particular action with regards to this topic? What in the status quo do you think needs to change?
Of course. Until this thread, I had never heard that there was any other thing for reparations to be other than money. However, until we find out just what that is, we’ll have to stick with what we know.
We *do *administer civil justice with other things than money, such as nondiscrimination laws and executive orders consent decrees and affirmative action programs and the like. It’s how we rectify, as far as we can, the existing, remaining, very real effects of the injustices of the past, and, unfortunately, of the present as well.
That is very often presented as a noble-sounding rationalization for actually locking in the current effects of past injustices. It’s a good goal eventually, but it can’t happen until those effects are cleaned up, and until the attitudes that led to those injustices are cleaned up as well so that they cannot recur. Meanwhile, we do need AA.
This is another way to put what I’m advocating, and I like the example of the swastika and confederate flag – one of the ways we’ll know as a society that we’re at least in the ballpark of what I’m hoping we will eventually achieve is if American society (including southern white American society) reviled (without making illegal) those who fly the confederate flag as much as modern Germans revile anyone who proudly displays Nazi imagery.
My point was that this is not a viable solution, and neither are reparations. At some point in magnitude of damages, and passage of time, rectifying past atrocities with money is no longer feasible. Improving race relations is a wonderful but far fetched goal. And if by some miracle it ever comes to pass, reparations to me are destructive to that goal.
I’m not advocating for per se, but I would be glad if things like affirmative action, preferential hiring in the public sector, disparate impact analysis and its progeny, utilizing race as a factor for anything, anywhere from the government, were totally abolished. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
You haven’t offered any reason why what TNC is proposing (and I’m advocating) is “not a viable solution”. That it would be impossible to give the whole country back to Native Americans is not an argument for doing absolutely nothing. That it would be impossible to deliver 100% justice is not an argument for delivering no justice. We already know it’s possible for at least some historical misdeeds to be positively addressed with reparations, because we’ve seen it done before. You haven’t countered any of my actual proposals with a real argument that I can see.
This sounds like a way to pretend there’s no discrimination by race, in a way that just so happens to (further) benefit white people. It appears what you are willing to “offer” on this topic is something that would materially harm black people in America.
Hopefully, at least you don’t wonder why many or most black Americans might see this country, and its white majority, as fundamentally hostile to the possibility of their fair and equal treatment.
Yes, but that was for the people actually harmed, the people we had good records of.
And it’s racist to shell out trillions to the blacks, while ignoring the Indians and Asians.
I’m not interested in reparations for anyone who wasn’t “actually harmed”.
I’m not advocating ignoring anyone.
Boy are there are lot of straw-man slayers in this thread.
So, nothing to the descendants of slaves, then? Nothing to any Black person who was harmed and wasnt already paid? (Because there were millions paid out for redlining lawsuits to Blacks). Who then?
What are you responding to? No idea what the hell you’re talking about. It’s like you’re ignoring everything I’m saying.
That’s really the crux of the matter; to a lot of people, reparations seem like basically taking money from people who themselves have not hurt anyone of another race, and giving it to people of another race, who have not been hurt by those people whose money they’re being paid from, because their great-grandparents did something awful three quarters of a century ago.
If we start quibbling about exactly who is eligible, then you also probably have to quibble about who actually pays- should we fund reparations out of black and native american tax money? What about immigrant families since the end of Jim Crow?
And the other consideration is that NONE of this stuff happens in a vacuum. If we were to pay reparations, that would necessarily mean that something else doesn’t get funded. What would that be?
This is why I advocate a relatively slow process with tons of research and investigation, and even long-term experiments, so that people understand that the first paragraph above is not what is being attempted.