# Reparations for Jim Crow **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 24, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252 "2008-11-24T15:12:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/81 "2008-11-26T04:03:47Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > The institutions that implemented and enforced unjust acts. Is this some kind of a trick question? How does it accomplish that goal? The vast majority of people you would be punishing had nothing to do with these institutions. If you see it as a punitive measure, surely it is incredibly unjust to punish people who weren’t even born at the time, let alone being old enough to do something about it? ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/82 "2008-11-26T04:08:48Z")
Some good points, Sampiro. I’m definitely with you on this one. I think we need to consider that this particular issue is one of a society discriminating against another; it wasn’t individual businesses or governments discriminating against black people as an entire society. That being the case, we are left with a problem: are we to compensate everybody done injustice by society? Is that really any different from compensating people because their lives are unfair? Incidentally, laws against discrimination today universally come with (fairly low) statutes of limitation. I vaguely recall these statutes coming up on the boards before. That would push Sampiro’s grandmother’s case right out the door. Of course, justice is also at stake. Should we punish businesses now for actions they took that were entirely legal and acceptable at the time? I should think not – that’s just an ex post facto law posing as tort. On the other hand, people responsible for murder in the Civil Rights era are still at risk of prosecution. I personally think that the FBI’s ongoing investigation and prosecution of a bunch of eighty-year-olds for murder under Jim Crow is _freaking awesome_. ---
**Author:** ![Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesus_Harold_Christ)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/83 "2008-11-26T04:42:41Z")
```auto [quote="Measure_for_Measure, post:80, topic:474252"] Ok, so blacks experiencing Jim Crow should probably receive $10,000,000 compensation, if I understand the OP correctly. In 2006, there were 8.7 million blacks of age 50 years or older in the US. So we're talking about 87 trillion dollars, which is over 6 times the level of US annual output, and about 30% above gross annual world product. [/QUOTE] The continued dishonesty in this thread is staggering. Reparations are not punishment. They are compensations. [ ``` ---
**Author:** ![Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesus_Harold_Christ)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/84 "2008-11-26T04:59:11Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Ok, so blacks experiencing Jim Crow should probably receive $10,000,000 compensation, if I understand the OP correctly. In 2006, there were 8.7 million blacks of age 50 years or older in the US. > > So we’re talking about 87 trillion dollars, which is over 6 times the level of US annual output, and about 30% above gross annual world product. Have you read this thread? There is no suggestion of giving all black people reparations only those that suffered underJim Crow. PLEASE STOP THE DISHONESTY!!! ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/85 "2008-11-26T05:07:16Z")
> [@](#): > > **Jesus** : Only those that prove by a preponderance of the evidence that they were affected should get compensation. > [@](#): > > **Jesus** : I not suggesting this be done through the courts. You seem to be a little unclear on this. > [@](#): > > **the raindog** : Millions and millions and millions of reparation dollars have been paid to date in the form of AFCD, HUD, the expansion of welfare, affirmative action, the Community Reinvestment Act and other forms of “reparations.” You’ve put quotation marks around _reparations_ because you are aware that that really isn’t the correct word. The things you have listed are not reparations and you haven’t shown that most of the money is allotted for African-Americans. > [@](#): > > **Monstro** : Monstro: Jim Crow did serious damage to black Americans. It deprived them of quality education, the right to vote and carry out civic duties (like serving on juries), and fair treatment by law enforcement. During Jim Crow it was perfectly legal to pay black people significantly less than their white counterparts, not to mention discriminating against them in hiring and promotion. The inequity reasonates even today. If you’re an elderly black person drawing a SS pension, you’re probably getting paid less than the white guys you worked alongside with. That has to sting. I agree with what you are saying and I don’t object to reparations. Sadly, most of it is going to have to be to the decendents of those who suffered most. Note, however, that everything you described has also been true for women. They were treated with a kind of pretentious respect that victims of Jim Crowe laws were not. And we received some of our rights earlier. But we were denied them nevertheless. Who decides who has to pay these reparations? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/86 "2008-11-26T05:50:58Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > How does it accomplish that goal? The vast majority of people you would be punishing had nothing to do with these institutions. If you see it as a punitive measure, surely it is incredibly unjust to punish people who weren’t even born at the time, let alone being old enough to do something about it? So I take it you aren’t in favor of individuals ever suing institutions? Because it’s never the _individuals_ running an institution that are being sued, but rather the institution they represent. Using your rationale, all the US government would have to do to avoid paying its debts would be to wait long enough. Taken to an even more ridiculous extreme, the Obama administration won’t have to pay benefits to veterans of WWII, since Obama wasn’t even alive during the war. I again ask people to think about a situation in which their government bombed their home and stole their money. Let’s say it takes you twenty years to have the wherewithal to bring a lawsuit against the city. Do you think it would be right to deny you compensation because there’s been turnover in the administration? No, because you aren’t suing the people. You’re suing the institution. > [@Sampiro](#): > > The interrment of the Japanese, the most universal reparations for a group of people mistreated by the US so far, is something I would have supported due to the demonstrable damage done: these people lost their homes (couldn’t very well pay the mortgages), businesses (sometimes outright confiscated) and livelihoods. FYI, the heirs of the survivors also got reparations, as well as people who were interned as children. And everyone got pretty much the same amount ($20,000) plus an apology…from a president who was just a kid when it all happened. It doesn’t make me sad at all that the Japanese received tax money (some of which was from me). It _does_ make me sad that people support reparations for them but _not_ for Americans who were screwed over for decades in their own backyards. I don’t understand why people don’t see the contradiction there. > [@](#): > > The survivors of Rosewood (though I doubt there are any, but let’s assume it had happened in 1963 as opposed to 1923) should also have some recourse since some elected officials and civic employees of Gainesville deliberately turned a blind eye to the violence and the property crimes there. Where there has been provable bodily injury and or provable loss of property, civil suits should be an option- and they are. The victims of Tulsa received compensation for their race riot, so there is precedence for this. > [@](#): > > However, it is impossible to prove injury in, say, Jane was an intelligent African-American woman who had to work her entire life as a maid because she couldn’t get a decent education. Had she been educated she might have been a lawyer or a doctor or a nurse or a pharmacist, but instead she never made much over minimum wage. > Well— there’s no shortage of intelligent people of all races and creeds who don’t reach their potential. Tuskegee University and Fisk and Morehouse and many other colleges were available for black students, and many northern colleges that were integrated did as well and gave full scholarships. At the same time, very few white men and even fewer white women went to college, and income has always been disproportionately low down here. It’s impossible to prove what could have been. True, but that’s not the intention behind reparations. The Japanese received $20,000 not to make up for what could have been, but because it was agreed that $20,000 would be adequate compensation for the harm they endured. I don’t know the price of separate but unequal education any more than I know how much a life is worth in a wrongful death civil suit. That’s for the law to decide. Also, those wonderful institutions you named were not free in cost or from discrimination. Spelman required applicants to submit photographs so that the “wrong kind” (read, people darker than a paper bag) couldn’t get in. Also, it’s unfair to take one’s tax dollars and use it to fund an educational institutional that they are barred from. It could be argued that that would constitute theft. > [@](#): > > Somebody mentioned women above- very good point. True story: my grandmother was an ABD professor of Chemistry at an Alabama college in the late 1920s through the early 1930s. When the Depression happened, she was fired from her position and had to take a job paying less than half as much teaching elementary school in the boondocks. The reason she was fired, and this isn’t conjecture, was because she was a woman: the university (still in existence) fired several married women professors because their budgets were cut and the logic was “a man needs money to support himself more than a married woman does, because her husband will take care of her”- little or no regard to how qualified the man and the woman were for the position or who had seniority. This was quite legal and happened all over the country. I feel like a broken record but I’ll say it again: If a person can prove that the government screwed them over, they have every right to seek legal redress. Even if they are a woman. Jim Crow reparations have nothing to do with women reparations, which have nothing to do with Japanese reparations, which have nothing to do with Native American reparations. So I see no problem with your grandmother suing the government. I don’t know why her doing so would invalidate the argument for reparations. > [@](#): > > I can also see where reparations could block social progress. Excessive lawsuits have most certainly had many negative effects on the costs of healthcare (malpractice insurance, pharmaceutical companies recouping losses, etc.) and other industries. Do you have any trouble imagining this being spouted on Fox News and by socially conservative pundits… Did Japanese reparations block social progress? Did Holocaust reparations block social progress? Why should black people be expected to be extra forgiving and forgetting? Why should they alone be responsible for social progress? And why should they care about what Fox News says? You know, if Fox News had been around during Emancipation, I’m quite sure Hannity, Coulter, and all of 'em would have blown up the airwaves. But that wouldn’t change the fact that slavery was wrong and black people deserved to be free. If people can prove their governments screwed them, they shouldn’t care what other people think! > [@](#): > > “If gays were given the right to marry and to not be discriminated against, then in a few years might not gay and women who were affected by the inability to wed their partner and who lost employment have the right to petition for reparations as well? And this could be bankrupting. Therefore, prevent this from happening: keep discrimination legal and gay marriage illegal.” Why would it be bankrupting? And why would it be so wrong? I’m asking seriously. What would be a better way to ensure against legislation stripping away rights than to the raise the risk of future reparations cases? Perhaps people will think twice before voting for such laws. Lord knows nothing else is working. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/87 "2008-11-26T06:12:39Z")
> [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](#): > > The continued dishonesty in this thread is staggering. Reparations are not punishment. They are compensations. Well, that was a provocative post. I characterized the $87 trillion as compensation in post 80, so it appears that the dishonest one is not I. > [@](#): > > There is no suggestion of giving all black people reparations only those that suffered underJim Crow. I tabulated African Americans who were born in 1956 or earlier. Are you saying that a large fraction of them did not suffer under Jim Crow? It seems to me that the legacy of separate facilities would persist for a while. At any rate, you could divide $87 trillion by 10 and the number is still preposterous. By the way, when you use all caps, it looks as though you are shouting. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/88 "2008-11-26T06:21:31Z")
In the pit thread [I cooked some numbers](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10497960&postcount=13) and, conservatively, reparations- just for the living, mind you, would cost in the tens of billions of dollars. That could be 250,000 of the 5-6 million black people old enough to have been affected by Jim Crow getting a quarter million each, or 2,500,000 getting $25,000 each, however you want to slice it, and all of this using figures waaaaaay under what the OP would suggest. Now, let’s take a hypothetical case. We’ll call her Hypothetica L. Case (Hypo for short), a 75 year old retiree who could demonstrate harm under Jim Crow and got $250,000. She uses it to reverse the past, become young again, undo the harm th… Oh wait, she can’t do that. So, like most people who’ve never had a large sum of money, when Hypo comes into her quarter million windfall, she invests it wisely and increases it. (Oh wait, most people don’t do that, do they? Well, we’ll assume Hypo does- she’d have in fact been a multimillionaire tax lawyer if it weren’t for Jim Crow.) Hypo is seventy-five years old. Let’s assume she uses it to pay off her house ($100,000) and puts the rest in trust ($150,000). Now, the reparations required for her and thousands of others to get their reparations have increased the per capita national tax debt by over $600. This means that Lua Tanthongsack, a dental hygienist who came to the country from Laos in 1982 and is barely getting by but still earns enough that she has to pay taxes, now has to pay about $7600 per year in tax rather than the $7000 she could already barely pay and it’s to atone for the actions of people who lived under a system she not only had nothing to do with but wasn’t born and her parents weren’t here when it happened and Hypo still doesn’t have back her lost opportunities. Now Hypo’s rambunctious young great grandson, Shrodinger Case, puts her in a box as part of a failed science experiment and she has a stroke. It’s hard to tell which exactly, but one of two things happens. 1- Hypo has a stroke in there, and when she comes out she requires long term care. She lives for years, and the money she banks goes to her healthcare expenses, including the house, which is sold. Once her assets are depleted, the government begins kicking in. 1. Hypo dies quickly and painlessly, signally a sign for forgiveness to great-grandson Schrodinger so that he’ll grow up well adjusted. The money she banked and the house go in the will to Hypo’s three children: Hypocriticus, a preacher, aged 52; Hypothalamus, a psychiatrist, aged 50, and Hypocampus, a teacher, all of them middle aged. They get roughly $100,000 each. Now, all three of her kids had opportunities Hypo never had. They went to college (except Hypocriticus, who was ordained by a mail order firm), any memory they have of being required to drink from separate water fountains or use a separate restroom or going to an all black school that was inferior to the white school are distant faded memories not unlike the memories they have their great-grandmother who died in 1960 or a pet rabbit they had. They’ve never suffered from Jim Crow Laws. But, that’s okay- cause a hundred grand is a hundred grand! Meanwhile Lua gets a note from her daughters school (where, coincidentally, Hypocampus works) to “please supply us with 2 packs of copying paper, a box of tampons, a box of maxi-pads, a 3 rolls of paper towels, and $10 for miscellaneous office supplies” because the school system is too broke to by these things (this not being hypothetical but from a note a friend of mine recently got from her daughters’ public school). She also has to turn down a job offer that pays $5000 per year more because the insurance plan disallows her special needs daughter’s condition, and Lua makes too much to qualify for government assistance and too little to pay for private health insurance even if she could get it (and don’t even start on trying to pay out of pocket). There’s no public health plan because programs like reparations, especially when added to the war and to the bailouts, have already taxed too many people into the poorhouse, so Lua has to turn down the job. Too bad, it offered a lot of opportunities the current one doesn’t. But, Lua’s happy, because she’s read about Jim Crow laws and true, while she has to make Ramen noodles and canned tuna once a week because of the extra $50+ per month taken out of her check, at least she got to see the look on Hypo’s face when that check magically reversed the past and once again she was young and this time could sit anywhere in the bus she wished and was never called nigger and could choose any college she wanted and… oh, wait, it didn’t do that, but it did buy her kids who never suffered new cars and new wardrobes and bought little Schrodinger that Wii. That was worth Grandma suffering in her young adulthood and childhood, and it’s all fixed now and the races will love each other. ## It’s worth it to mortgage the future to pay for a failed attempt to fix the past. I realize I’m being a bit assholier than thou on some of this, but do you at least acknowledge some of my statements? That 1- With the terrifying economy there is simply no way we can afford to add, at the minimum, tens of billions of dollars to the public liability? 2- That most of the people who survived Jim Crow would probably, at the end of the day at least, RATHER see that money applied to education and healthcare reform and other things that can help the children who haven’t lived their lives yet have a better one? 3- That it is unfair to settle extra tax burdens on tens of millions of Americans who had absolutely nil to do with what the reparations are for? 4- That NOTHING- not if it were a billion dollars each- can atone for indignities or worse suffered in the past? 5- That there is not a single minority group that has not suffered systemically in this country (and that includes poor whites and it includes women, who are half the population)? 6- That the future is more important than the past, and that if we can’t pay for both then the future is the better bet? 7- That the people who would ultimately benefit are the people who never had to endure Jim Crow to begin with? I could go on but I don’t expect to change minds. The point is that it would be nice, but we can’t afford it, and throwing money at a problem doesn’t make it go away, and frankly it would probably damage race relations more than it would help them and ultimately accomplish nothing as far as the peace of mind for those who survived the Jim Crow laws. And while I do not minimize for one second the brutality and inherent injustice of those laws, let us not pretend that all social problems derive from them, or that every moment spent under them was a misery: even the Elephant Man was happy sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/89 "2008-11-26T06:23:12Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I again ask people to think about a situation in which their government bombed their home and stole their money. Let’s say it takes you twenty years to have the wherewithal to bring a lawsuit against the city. Do you think it would be right to deny you compensation because there’s been turnover in the administration? No, because you aren’t suing the people. You’re suing the institution. Well, in many cases that sounds a lot like warfare. Under such circumstances the victims are simply screwed. > [@](#): > > True, but that’s not the intention behind reparations. The Japanese received $20,000 not to make up for what could have been, but because it was agreed that $20,000 would be adequate compensation for the harm they endured. 😕 How could that sum be anything other than symbolic? $20,000 in the late 1980s amounts to a heck of a lot less in the 1940s, after adjusting for inflation. > [@](#): > > And why would it be so wrong? I’m asking seriously. What would be a better way to ensure against legislation stripping away rights than to the raise the risk of future reparations cases? Perhaps people will think twice before voting for such laws. Lord knows nothing else is working. I doubt whether this would be effective: for one thing reparations burdens fall on one’s children at most. You ask some fair questions **monstro**. Personally, I’d advocate something like a bunch of truth and reconciliation commissions and continued support for affirmative action and anti-discrimination measures. But in the end, I doubt whether everyone will end up even-Steven under any circumstance. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/90 "2008-11-26T06:38:04Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I don’t know the price of separate but unequal education any more than I know how much a life is worth in a wrongful death civil suit. That’s for the law to decide. What law is applicable in this case? The Jim Crow Laws, even the longest lasting, were repealed more than 40 years ago. If you’re interested in law, any kind of liability has LLLOOOOOONNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG ago gone; the statute of limitation expired on everything but murder (and that _is_ still prosecuted- Edgar Ray Killen was jailed just last year, too late but better than not at all). Let’s take the case of Emmett Till, for it was among the most heinous crimes from the Civil Rights Era if not from American history in general. It was a gross miscarriage of justice. Emmett Till was brutally murdered by two redneck brothers, both of whom were let off scot free by the courts. Both of them gloated about it in a magazine story they sold and profited from. You can’t ask for anything scummier than his killers, except perhaps the judge and jury who let them go free. Both his killers are dead. Both men died in their beds of natural causes (cancer in both cases- we can hope it was painful, but then no shortage of good people die painful deaths everyday). In short, they not only got away with it, they profited from it. There are no words for that kind of evil. I truly mean that. And… it was brought about by the Jim Crow South. Now riddle me this: what can make it right? Or, what can ease the pain? Can money to his siblings (if he has any- I know his mother died recently but I’m sure there’s family somewhere) help atone? The brothers who murdered him had nothing. They were poor whites who lost their store because of the publicity, though they’d probably have lost it anyway, and their widows have squat. (One is still considered for indictment occasionally, which I think would be a miscarriage of justice: she lived in terror of her husband and actually tried to hide from him that Emmett had whistled at her- he learned about it through people told by people who were told by Emmett’s cousins who were with him; she later divorced him after enduring years of abuse [known from court records].) So it was gross injustice. The court was liable. Should the county (or the district) be held liable and forced to pay a fortune to his family? A fortune that would, incidentally, come from that area of the country, which means the people of that area of the country, the majority of whom are… black, and the majority of the black population (and almost a third of the white population) living already below the poverty line ([cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leflore_County,_Mississippi)). What possible use could that be? Not rhetorical, I want to know— what use would it be? Would you hate white people any less? Would it stop one more hate crime from happening anywhere in the nation? Would it punish the guilty? Would it ease suffering? Please, show me what I’m missing. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/91 "2008-11-26T06:44:11Z")
How about a middle ground? Token reparations. Nothing can ever atone for the past. A token payment, a few hundred dollars perhaps, not intended as full compensation which can never be gauged, let alone paid, but as “on behalf of our state we apologize and pay this voluntary indemnity as a sign of our sincerity”. This would cost millions to each state, but nothing they cannot permanently recover from, and while not life changing it would be more than empty words. Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/92 "2008-11-26T07:00:12Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > How about a middle ground? > > Token reparations. > > Nothing can ever atone for the past. A token payment, a few hundred dollars perhaps, not intended as full compensation which can never be gauged, let alone paid, but as “on behalf of our state we apologize and pay this voluntary indemnity as a sign of our sincerity”. This would cost millions to each state, but nothing they cannot permanently recover from, and while not life changing it would be more than empty words. > > Thoughts? That would be middle ground if the country was composed entirely of Democrats. Reparations etc are a nonstarter. This is the sort of thing that chases away independents, strengthens Republicans, and blocks the passage of universal health care. I’m not saying that African Americans over 50 haven’t suffered grievous harm. They have. I’m saying that these sorts of proposals are poor tools for advancing either social welfare or social justice. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/93 "2008-11-26T07:16:31Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > How about a middle ground? > > Token reparations. > > Nothing can ever atone for the past. A token payment, a few hundred dollars perhaps, not intended as full compensation which can never be gauged, let alone paid, but as “on behalf of our state we apologize and pay this voluntary indemnity as a sign of our sincerity”. This would cost millions to each state, but nothing they cannot permanently recover from, and while not life changing it would be more than empty words. > > Thoughts? I apologize for not thoroughly reading the whole thread, and I hope I’m not repeating someone else’s thoughts, but reparations in the form of a cash payment seem like a sneaky way for the government & business to give itself a bonus. You give most people some extra money, what do they do with it? Spend it. Then it’s gone right back to government and business. It’s like those lotto winners you hear about who quit their jobs, buy houses, cars, boats, motorcycles they can’t afford and five or ten years later they’re broke and worse off than they started, and government & business got all their money. Reparations would be like an economic stimulus package that pumps money into the economy but doesn’t end up helping the people it was supposed to help. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/94 "2008-11-26T07:48:42Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > That would be middle ground if the country was composed entirely of Democrats. > > Reparations etc are a nonstarter. This is the sort of thing that chases away independents, strengthens Republicans, and blocks the passage of universal health care. I’m not saying that African Americans over 50 haven’t suffered grievous harm. They have. I’m saying that these sorts of proposals are poor tools for advancing either social welfare or social justice. I agree completely. Which I’m sure makes me racist. > [@](#): > > Also, those wonderful institutions you named were not free in cost or from discrimination. Spelman required applicants to submit photographs so that the “wrong kind” (read, people darker than a paper bag) couldn’t get in. Also, it’s unfair to take one’s tax dollars and use it to fund an educational institutional that they are barred from. It could be argued that that would constitute theft. I decided not to do a point by point, but the academic historian part of me just couldn’t rest until I addressed this one. First, Spelman’s paper bag policy- if it existed (there’s doubt)- was the decision of a private college. No state agency enforced, required, or in any way dictated it. That said, check out a picture of [Spelman’s graduating women of 1892](http://www.gutenberg-e.org/gordon/details/images/Academic-Graduates-1892.jpg)- not to touch a sensitive subject, but the phrase “light skinned” doesn’t seem to universally apply to those students. Class of 1942 graduate [Esther Rolle](http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u28/per0czide/9495_0004.jpg) versus[two brown paper bags](http://www.qualitycleaningsupplies.com/images/Brown_Paper_Bag.jpg). Damn, damn, damn but it’s a fine distinction, but I think Esther (and for that matter her sister [Estelle](http://www.frankwbaker.com/calpurnia.jpg), also a Spelman graduate) might be just a shade darker. Some trivia: Estelle Evans and Esther Rolle were the 4th and 10th respectably of the 18 children born to a Bahamian couple [the father later had 3 more with his second wife], and I’m guessing their parents didn’t exactly send them off to school with brand new 1941 Pontiacs and chide them about the amount they spent on fresh flowers on dad’s credit card. More likely, they had financial aide, which is another point. Collis Huntingdon, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, J.D. Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, Henry Flagler (and for that matter southern white millionaires J.B. Duke and A.G. Chandler among others) donated lavishly to black universities. Go to Tuskegee, Morehouse, Fisk, Spelman, etc., and you’ll see buildings named for all of these people or their families. There was actually a lot of (completely boneheaded I don’t argue) irritation expressed by white southerners at the endowments of many black colleges versus the far more paltry white public universities. If your grades and your recommendations were good, you could generally get a generous aid package. (That said, I completely understand that it’s hard to have decent grades and be college material when your primary education was atrocious, though while I don’t claim to have gone to a black school in 1912 Alabama I can attest as a graduate of an atrocious public school in Alabama that the education is to be had if you want it; most real learning, as Malcolm X or Abraham Lincoln or Frank McCourt would all attest, is something you do on your own inititiative.) And, at the same time, there _were_ state supported black colleges throughout the south (which was not, as is not argued in this thread, the geographic extent of the Jim Crow Laws). In Montgomery, where I live, there’s Alabama State University- founded 1867, state supported since 1874; Alex Haley’s father Simon was a professor at a black college in North Alabama. Admittedly they did not offer as much diversity of courses as white colleges, but- and this is not to excuse legalized segregation- the state would actually provide stipends to black college students who wished to study a field (law, medicine, others) that were only offered at colleges that didn’t allow blacks. It was insanity in a way: they’d pay three times the amount of in-state tuition to send a black guy to law school in Virginia or whatever, but it happened. Read the biographies of several black doctors from early 20th century Alabama and this is how many of them got at least a part of their education. (Coretta Scott King got a stipend from Alabama when she studied in Boston, though only a small one as most of her financial aide package came from private scholarships.) College was actually harder to afford for poor whites than for black people due to the much larger endowments and smaller pool of applicants at most private black colleges. If you were from a white affluent family it was pretty easy to advance, but then it still is (and the affluent family part is the important one). The point is that the Jim Crow system did not make it COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY impossible to advance. It’s beyond question that you had to work much harder to achieve the same as a white person and much harder still to achieve the success of a white person from an affluent family (still the case), but it _could_ be done. Also, as the Great Migration proved, there was geographic mobility available as well, and many who left prospered; most weren’t totally stuck here. Life was undeniably unfair, but there were options. Fortunately there were enough blacks who said “Goddamn it I am from here, my family is here, and I _will not leave_ and will _have my rights_!” that change was made, but even before it was made, it wasn’t totally the gulag this thread would imply. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/95 "2008-11-26T08:10:41Z")
People of any ethnic background who demand reparations for actions that occurred long ago and that have been corrected by legislation do more to widen the gulf between races than any other single thing I can think of. ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/96 "2008-11-26T08:32:27Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > People of any ethnic background who demand reparations for actions that occurred long ago and that have been corrected by legislation do more to widen the gulf between races than any other single thing I can think of. The gulf being that the beneficiaries then of Jim Crow wouldn’t be the persons getting any additional compensation? For those asking where the money will come from, we obviously as a nation have the ability to pull together billions to bail out banks who I’m sure didn’t suffer damages from Jim Crow. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/97 "2008-11-26T08:34:29Z")
> [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](#): > > The continued dishonesty in this thread is staggering. Reparations are not punishment. They are compensations. > [@Jesus\_Harold\_Christ](#): > > Have you read this thread? There is no suggestion of giving all black people reparations only those that suffered underJim Crow. > > PLEASE STOP THE DISHONESTY!!! Your are wrong on two points: 1. Your OP made no claim that the reparations would not be punitive, so the most that you can legitimately complain in this thread is that your intention has been misunderstood. Making it a matter of “dishonesty” demonstrates a fairly careless attention to your own posts and those who support your position (who have also accepted the “punitive” nature of the reparations in their responses); 2. It is not permitted in this Forum to make claims that other posters have lied, and screaming “dishonesty” in the thread comes much too close to accusations of lying to be permitted. Calm down and try to consider the actual discussion. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/98 "2008-11-26T08:36:17Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > The point is that the Jim Crow system did not make it COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY impossible to advance. It’s beyond question that you had to work much harder to achieve the same as a white person and much harder still to achieve the success of a white person from an affluent family (still the case), but it _could_ be done. Also, as the Great Migration proved, there was geographic mobility available as well, and many who left prospered; most weren’t totally stuck here. Life was undeniably unfair, but there were options. Fortunately there were enough blacks who said “Goddamn it I am from here, my family is here, and I _will not leave_ and will _have my rights_!” that change was made, but even before it was made, it wasn’t totally the gulag this thread would imply. So I guess you’re saying you wouldn’t mind being a black person work much harder than your white counterpart? No big deal for you huh? ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/99 "2008-11-26T08:38:21Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Reparations would be like an economic stimulus package that pumps money into the economy but doesn’t end up helping the people it was supposed to help. You mean like the money that’s being used to bail out the banks, right? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2008, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252/100 "2008-11-26T08:47:13Z")
> [@EasyPhil](#): > > The gulf being that the beneficiaries then of Jim Crow wouldn’t be the persons getting any additional compensation? Largely because they’re dead. Please show me where I or most others have benefitted from Jim Crow. > [@](#): > > For those asking where the money will come from, we obviously as a nation have the ability to pull together billions to bail out banks who I’m sure didn’t suffer damages from Jim Crow. 😃 Dude, we don’t have those hundreds of billions: we’re having to borrow it. IF we can borrow it. That argument is roughly the same as a kid telling his parents “Well, if you can max out fifteen credit cards, borrow money from Grandma, Grandpa, weird Aunt Shirley and Cousin Cindy, cash out your 401K and your IRAs and get a third mortgage on your house in order to pay off those massive medical bills and tax liens and judgments, then you ought to be in an excellent position to buy me this new $40,000 SUV!” Uh no, it means it’s a really _bad_ time to consider that. We can’t afford it. Period. Be nice if we could, it’d be nice if fried chicken had no more calories than canned tuna and mayonnaise made you lose an ounce, but it’s not true and no amount of squinting or posturing will make it so. Reparations are not ever going to happen because they would solve no problems and cost a ridiculous amount of money better applied to the TRILLIONS in debt and the leaking at every seam education and healthcare and transportation and you-name-it other systems, not to mention it would set race relations back 30 years at least and open the floodgates to everybody who’s ever been discriminated against for any reason which is the majority of the population. To paraphrase Melvin Udall, “Go sell victimization somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here… and we’re broke.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reparations-for-jim-crow/474252.md?page=6)