Your solution is that each of these marginalized people should have to redundantly do research to find exactly how they are harmed and how much that is worth before we are able to recognize that they have been harmed? Do they need to list everyone who has ever discriminated against them? What proof would you accept?
If not, and I hope I misunderstood your position, I invite you to clarify your position. If so, then that is essentially victim blaming.
If they were passed up for 10 different jobs in favor of an equally qualified white man, you can show that they have been harmed by systematic discrimination, but you cannot show exactly who it was that harmed them, should they have a suit against just one, or against all? If against just one, how do we decide? If against all, then actually it starts making sense that society is responsible for the damages, rather than the actions of several individuals.
If not for the generational harm that has been and is still being done to these population groups, what would your explanation be as to why they have lagged so far behind in enjoying the growth of economic opportunities that were taken advantage of by majority populations?
Yes. Because we allegedly want “to identify the actual living Americans who have been harmed by various discriminatory policies, how they were harmed, and how this harm might possible be addressed in a just and fair manner.”
Same standard as any other civil suit.
Saying “prove that you are an actual living American who has been harmed” is not victim blaming.
That’s what you said you wanted. Now when presented with an existing process process for doing it and a well-developed standard of evidence and liability, suddenly you seem reluctant.
Do you mean majority populations like Jews and Asians?
And you are mistaking where the burden of proof lies. If someone is going to claim to have been harmed, they have to show who harmed them, and how, and show damages.
If by that you mean it will take time then yes. If you mean that some people will never let go of the hatred then yes. If you want a perfect answer to any of this then I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you.
In your world it seems like no change is possible, racists remain racists as do their kids, I suppose by that logic, all ethnicities are doomed by their own environment as well. Not a very hopeful thought.
There is no world in which it gets “solved” magically and perfectly. There is only a change of opinion over time backed up by societal pressure and codified by laws where we can. The needle gets moved and that’s the best we can hope for.
If money was doled out and nothing else done that would be pointless. If something else can be done to advance change and equality then what additional benefits exactly would the payments add?
maybe I should have been clear. In my example the mixed race kid was not from the USA. Do they still count for reparations?
Which speaks exactly to my point. If there is any evidence for racial discrimination regarding where a person can live then it should stamped on hard. A person should have the right to live exactly where they wish to and where they can afford, no restrictions. If there are any obstacles put in their way then the full force of the law should come down.
I wish there was a smiley that represented a long, slow, sad shaking of the head. It isn’t “white majority thinking” it is my thinking.
Stop with the “we”. You don’t speak for a race and nor do I. This is precisely how identity politics poisons the discussion. If you do not think that such a course of action as reparations will breed resentment all round then I simply don’t know what to tell you and would have to conclude that your interactions with other humans must be limited.
I’m certainly not talking just about white resentment (though whether you like it or not it would be a massive issue). Start down a path of monetary reparations and there won’t be enough courts in the land to hear the appeals from black people, mixed race and every other ethnicity, all with plausible claims for harm.
But you are saying that they each need to do so individually, what I believe iiandyiiii is saying is that we should look at the aggregate effects of many sources of discrimination upon many different people.
Okay, so will you take the preponderance of evidence and the decision of a plurality of jurors as binding on whether or not society owes someone something?
We can certainly show harm. The problem is showing who was responsible for what proportion of the harm, as everyone can point to their neighbor, and say that their neighbor did just as much harm as they did. Comes a time for the community to actually take responsibility for the damage it does.
Telling the victims of generational discrimination that they need to determine the exact nature of every form of harm that has ever been perpetuated upon themselves and to prove that all of those harms were done with malicious intent is asking the victim to take responsibility for the crime.
If someone is robbed or assaulted or raped, is it the victim’s responsibility to investigate the crime, and until the victim has proven that the crime happened and has proven who committed it, the police will not act?
No, actually that is not what I said I wanted. I didn’t say anything at all even remotely like that, and I do not believe that anyone else has either. Well, you keep insisting that that is what we wanted, but your insistence upon a thing does not make it true, it just makes you wrong and digging in deep.
Lets take a slightly different example to see where you stand on basics like community and responsibility.
If there are 5 smoke stacks belching out pollution into your neighborhood, do you demand that I prove exactly which one caused my child to develop a respiratory condition, before we can ask that they reduce the pollution that is causing a very high and disproportionate number of children in the neighborhood to develop respiratory conditions?
What you mean, is that when you misrepresent someone’s position, then suddenly they seem to feel the need to tell you that that is not the position that they are taking?
No, I do not mean Jews or Asians, and I wonder why you would think that they are majority populations in the US.
We can certainly show damages, but the harm is not caused by a single individual. Unless you are saying that we need to pick a scapegoat or a patsy upon which to blame all of the harm that has befallen marginalized minorities, then it would make sense for society in general to accept the responsibility for the very real harms that they have suffered.
This is a good metaphor for what I am proposing. We have oodles of evidence of moral crimes against many living black Americans (and other groups) – we should fully investigate the scope of those crimes, and the harm they caused, and possible methods of redress and justice. The onus shouldn’t be (and usually isn’t) upon every victim of crime to provide proof of the crimes against them.
Evidence of harm caused by being a slave’s descendant? Or simply racism in general?
The sample size is getting bigger because now we are at “moral harm”
In any event, the onus is and should be on the victim to prove harm from a moral crime. It’s called a civil suit.
I read what you are proposing but it seems to change. You want a big research project into harm caused by what exactly though?
Slavery is where it started, where is it now?
I mean, I may be on board but I’ve got to know what I am either advocating for or against.
I don’t think reparations should come in the form of checks cut out to random black people based on what percentage of their ancestors were black. That’s ridiculous, to me. But what we can do, as a society, is take a look at how the black communities within our societies have been harmed by slavery, racism, discriminatory laws, etc., and spend that money to fix those problems. And we should call it reparations, because it’s important for the healing of this nation that we point out that yes, we WRONGED the black members of our society, and have continued doing so until the present, and in fact in many ways are continuing to do so. And yes, non-blacks will benefit from these policies too. All the better, but we need to focus on the racism so that we push our culture as far away from that as we can.
Policies and practices like redlining, housing discrimination, financial discrimination, employment discrimination, discrimination in the justice system, etc., all of which have done significant harm to living Americans.
Civil suits don’t work? Or whom are you proposing pay?
I mean if its the “justice system”, was it a judge, was it some police officers, lawyer? They should be held accountable, but does that mean the government is going to pay (something) ?
Employment, the same. Housing, the same.
Now, providing documentation that a government policy did something, ok. The government is on the hook. Which is exactly why this won’t get done.
Someone has to take the blame and responsibility
The only realistic answer to this problem is to take the advice of Chief Justice John Roberts, " The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race".
Like I said earlier, it is silly to try to make one person to be to blame for systemic discrimination.
If you are a black man, and you are turned down for 10 jobs in favor of a white man with the same or lesser qualifications, which of those employers discriminate against you? Which of them should be held to account?
If multiple people each contribute to a bit of the harm, how do you justify calling just one of them out to be held accountable?
This is actually a terrible metaphor unless what you’re discussing is criminal in nature. Certainly if there are alleged crimes being committed then those resources tasked with investigating should do so. But here we’re not talking about crimes. We’re not talking about atrocities of the past, right? We’re talking about any lingering effects of those practices and policies and current actions.
Based on what you’ve presented, this studying approach, I think is ill conceived. Without more parameters, it looks like an avenue to continually grow and expand the scope such that when one avenue doesn’t produce intended results, then the approach would be to devote more time, resources, and money. It’s like a process designed to be a never ending rabbit hole.
What you describe isn’t systemic discrimination.
As to which employers would be guilty of discriminating? All of them in your example and all should be held to account. We have a system in place to do this already. If you’re suggesting that the EEOC and others should be given more authority or latitude, then that’s a real proposal. But that’s not reparations either.
Of course change is possible, but change without meaningful, concrete redress isn’t sufficient. A wise society does more than simply saying ‘Sorry’ and trying to move past the discussions about the very real damage that has been caused by generations of racist policies. You can’t just enslave a few generations, lynch a few more, and for another generation or two after that separate them from the rest of society so that they can’t have a good education, can’t get a good job, can’t join the nation’s military, can’t get loans from banks, can’t live near white families, and then ship their working class jobs and mass incarcerate them for petty drug offenses when they’re finally “free” and finally “equal” – you can’t do all that and then for a moment seriously think that “better enforcement” is enough. It’s just fucking laughable. Who are black people going to trust to do the enforcement - the police officers who shoot them when they enter the wrong home?
Real progress is when we acknowledge the reality that communities of certain people are now socially, economically, and politically disadvantaged relative to other races because they’ve been treated differently and not given the same opportunities.
I disagree. Change happens when people are confronted with the reality of their prejudices and shown the consequences that they have. Change happens when you stop worrying about the optics and anxieties of people who are afraid of causing a disturbance and instead confront them with the truth about how simply and utterly wrong society is. Slavery didn’t end because the needle moved; it ended because people confronted it as a moral sin. Jim Crow and lynching didn’t end because of a moved needle; it moved because Americans saw the decomposed body of Emmett Till in a coffin. It moved because brave people refused to accept being second class citizens and the rest of America was forced to confront the ugliness of white supremacy and American apartheid turning powerful fire hoses on people who were peacefully marching, and hanging them in trees for voting.
Agreed - money by itself is pointless. I wouldn’t know what the correct formula for redressing the economic disparities other than reversing the trend of economic austerity in poor, mostly black communities. To be sure, this austerity hits the economically disadvantaged in other communities as well, but what there is literature available online that describes how there has been discrimination even when it comes to aid programs. The worst forms of social assistance discrimination was probably cleaned up in the 1960s and 70s, but now lawmakers in states with a history of discrimination - and even those without it - run campaigns on eliminating black welfare.
Perhaps not - I think there are some situations that would have to be considered more carefully for sure.
That doesn’t really address the point i was making. The reason there are black neighborhoods now is that those neighborhoods have existed for decades, not because there’s discrimination now. They lived in segregated communities that, over time, became hubs for cyclical poverty and crime. Sure, individual black families are able to escape those bonds one at a time. And in theory, they all should be able to, but it’s not that easy. One thing that is accomplished by segregating people is that you make it easier to exclude them from things like, say, having friends of friends who are hiring summer interns. Even in modern times, whites who move away from cities take their money and jobs with them. nd when they come back into the middle class neighborhoods that turned into war zones over the 20-30 year period they were gone, they bring so much money that they push them out and force them to live somewhere else.
The problem is proof. It’s a fact that black people are discriminated against every day (I don’t think anyone reasonable questions that?) And that this discrimination does cause real, tangible harm (I don’t think anyone reasonable questions that, either, although how you quantify that is a much harder question to answer). We can look at this black man who has applied for a bunch of jobs that he is very qualified for, and was rejected from all of them, and conclude that the preponderance of evidence shows that discrimination took place. But we can’t prove it beyond reasonable doubt in any particular case out of the 10, so it’s not like we can throw the 10 CEOs of those companies in jail and call it a day. What we CAN do is try to mitigate the harm.