What about those of us who were born after these abuses. After we suffer under ttyranny of having to pay out trillions to everyone who feels slighted by the US, do we deserve a million dollars for being forced into poverty without any other government services as the entirety of the government budget went to making people feel better? When we suffer massive inflation as a result do we get reparations? Since by the of this 1,000,000 won’t really be that much money after inflation, how much should our reparations be worth?
Weren’t the reparations for Japanese Americans specifically for property taken away lost when they were interned? More like compensation?
Just so.
Wow. We agree.
JHC doesn’t seem to realize that this is just sanctioning another form of government abuse and tyranny. The irony is so hot it almost burns.
I’ve got a better idea, as we cannot afford the suggested reparations lets instead find everyone still alive that lived in Jim Crow states and make them sit in the back of the bus and I know we warehouse them in state run institutions like they were second class citizens. That should help even the score. Right?
**JHC **can personally spit at them too to complete the alternate to Reparations.
Jim (No, I am not serious about any of this, the Op is just too unreasonable and unrealistic for words.)
One thing to think about is that civil rights are not a zero sum game. Even if every person living under Jim Crow had an average of $1,000,000 worth of damage done to them in monetary and emotional damages, that does not mean that $1,000,000 of benefits accrued to others of that era who weren’t subjected to it. Even disregarding the saying about an eye for an eye leaving everyone blind in the purely moral social aspect, the diseconomies by selecting based on race rather than on ability alone mean that white society benefitted far less than black society suffered.
Thus, it is possible that if exactly enough wealth were transferred to make up for past wrongs, it would hurt society at large far worse than the sufferers under the original Jim Crow laws:
Xw Xb Assumed relative economic and social positions without JC
Xw + Dt - DE Xb - Dt With JC: Dt is real wealth and social transfer, DE is diseconomies
Xw - DE Xb Now let's transfer that million dollars back
So assuming, and I think it’s a fair assuption, that we are still suffering from diseconomies and non-zero-sum racial inequalities due to the lingering economic effect of racism, transferring that money back will still leave everyone else worse off than before, just changing who the target is.
There was a 1948 law passed that allowed Japanese-Americans to file for compensation for property lost as a result of internment. The 1988 reparations did not require proof of property loss, only of internment.
JHChrist while blacks suffered under Jim Crowe-era segregation policies, it’s also true that millions of them also became doctors, lawyers and teachers, factory workers and business owners. Annie Turnbo Malone, the first black woman millionaire, was born just four years after the Civil War ended and made her fortune in Missouri, a segregationist state.
If one million dollars is appropriate compensation for someone who succeeded in spite of legalized racism, what’s appropriate compensation for an uneducated sharecropper? More or less?
Reparations are not a punishment. They are compensation. We are not punishing the evil racists (if any person can be identied as any part of Jim Crow they should rounded up as domestic terrorists and executed after a criminal trial as a part of conspiracy that committed murder. As a part of conspiracy they be tried for all acts of the conspiracy and there is no statute of limitations on murder) through the reparations. The punishment comes seperate.
Yes but your plan is impossible and unreasonable at this point and time.
So what? Suppose I’m in an accident with someone else at fault, and need hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical care, which costs I sue them for. They didn’t realize hundreds of thousands of dollars of benefits, either. Should I not sue on account of that?
It is not impossible there are records of people who owned segrated businesses and the names of public officials and school administrators. These people are a million time worse than the mafia or al Qaeda. If we don’t catch bin Laden or another member for 40 years, should all be forgotten?
Sure, but if the person you’re suing cannot pay (perhaps on account of being DEAD,) and you get recompensed by the government to the exact extent of your injuries, you’ll be just as well off, by definition, since if you weren’t you’d need more money, but society as a whole will be worse off than had the accident for which they are not at fault hadn’t taken place.
When you sue a corporation the shareholders may be different (just like different taxpayers) are against lawsuits against corporations, too?
:eek:
Anyways, so if 40 years ago a person has to use a different restroom because of their race, that entitles them to a cool million, huh?
How would this work in practice? Could a white man claim that having to sit in the front of the bus was part of Jim Crow and get his million? What about being forced to attend a segregated school?
Yes, because, magically, the result of a lawsuit is that the suitors and the corporation dance in a circle and sing tra la la all day with flowers in their hair.
Or maybe my point was that it will leave innocent people worse off than before either way of dealing with it, regardless of the legal precedents for it.
Want to try that one again in English? I have no clue what your point was.
Meanwhile how many people to you estimate would be due your million dollar or more Reparation? If it is only 1 million it would cost the US over 1 trillion dollars. I believe the number however would be far over 1 million and thus we come back to Impossible. The country could not afford it. Period.
I agree with the OP. Most of the impetus for slavery reparations is due not to distant enslaved ancestors but more recent history, e.g., Jim Crow. This is the right path.
I’m willing to go lower than $1,000,000 per, if that’s the sticking point. $999,995.
Are any of is OPs ever serious?
Can the people who have been released from Guantanamo Bay without charge be compensated then?
Do they get extra for being tortured?
How about guys like me? I am as white as the new driven snow but I attended grade school while Jim Crow was still with us. I was taught by several of my grand school teachers that Blacks were inferior, incapable of higher learning and would never be more than field hands, yard hands, maids, etc., etc. Such teachings influenced my opinions of Blacks for several years. Do I get compensated? I’ll settle for $1,000,000.00; I won’t even ask for 10 x that amount.
I could be bought off much less expensively that that; I’d be overjoyed to see the last of you.
Let’s take this out of the realm of the hypothetical for a moment, and look at some real examples of reparations for Jim Crow atrocities:
For the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riots, the Oklahoma state legislature passed the “1921 Tulsa Race Riot Reconciliation Act” in 2001, which provided for 300+ college scholarships for descendants of Greenwood residents, mandated the creation of a memorial to those who died in the riot, and called for new efforts to promote economic development in Greenwood.
For the survivors of the 1923 Rosewood, FL massacre, the state passed the Rosewood Compensation Bill in 1994, a $2.1 million package to compensate the survivors and their descendants. It provided for $150,000 for each of the nine survivors, and a $500,000 pool for the descendants. Descendants could apply based on demonstrating that each had an ancestor who owned property in Rosewood in January 1923. Later a college scholarship fund was set up for Rosewood descendants.
What do you think of these states actions? Were they a good idea?