Tyranny? Do you want some more argument in your hyperbole?
:rolleyes:
Oh, wait, you really believe that. Oh my word.
A few monuments to a few symbolic individuals are not “reparation.” They are certainly not the most powerful & helpful reparations. And the desire for “codas,” for endings, for having done with all that & never having to hear about Affirmative Action or reparations or racial justice in general again–such desire has been voiced since Affirmative Action was instituted; it was premature then, it’s premature now.
It doesn’t have to be $1,000,000 in every case. It just has to be enough compensation for someone who can prove the state screwed him over.
But admitting that would mean that some other white guy might have to pay money to a nigger. So y’all scream blue murder. We are not done. We are not there yet, Dr King. The responses to the OP are actually madder than the OP, for all they call him mad.
Taxes, of course. Why is that such a mystery?
Oh, I guess you mean where would it come from given that most governments are broke right now. Believe me, that won’t last forever. But surely you aren’t suggesting that if people were wronged by their governments and can prove it, they should give their government a pass just because it says its broke? If I owe you money, can I get out of it by saying, “Gee, I’m broke right now. Let’s just call it even?” The real world doesn’t work that way.
First off, the fact that it affected millions of people makes it even more horrible, not less (which you suggest by your use of “but”).
Secondly, unless there was some kind of class-action lawsuit, not all of them would get money. Just those who could prove they were harmed.
Third, saying “It won’t change anything” is pretty, I dunno, oversimplistic, isn’t it? If I run you over with my car and you sue me, does me paying your hospital bills change the fact that you’ll never walk again? Does sending the serial killer to prison ever resurrect the people he’s killed? No, but that doesn’t mean we let him get away.
Fourth, how do you know it wouldn’t change anything? Let’s say my grandmother was able to prove that her local government denied her the right to a fair and quality education, both lower and higher ed. If she received some financial compensation for that, she could help send her great-grandchildren to private school or college. She could establish a trust for them so that after they graduated, they would be able to buy a house. Or she could finally move out of her pre-fab home in the ghetto and buy a condo in the city. For an individual and their family, money can change a lot. I don’t know what kind of world you’re living in if you think otherwise.
So what you’re saying is that all we have to do is wait till China’s current leaders are dead and then we won’t have to pay back our enormous debt? Sweet!
If you can prove that Boondocks, Mississippi screwed you over, then you’d be bringing suit against Boondocks, Mississippi.
If it was the state of Mississippi that fucked you up, then you’d take them to court.
And if it was the Feds, why not?
No, it wouldn’t seem that way at all. If I stab you repeatedly in the back and then decide that I shouldn’t have done that, does that mean you shouldn’t sue me for the holes I left in you? Of course not.
It is not correct to use the legality of Jim Crow as a reason against reparation. Were black people in the minority in this country during Jim Crow? Yes. Were black people barred from the voting booth during Jim Crow? Yes. Were the majority of black people able to nominate and elect their own representatives, in both state and national legislative bodies during Jim Crow? No, for the reasons above. So is it all that surprising that Jim Crow was legal? Nope, not really! Furthermore, the Holocaust was perfectly legal in the eyes of German law, because the oppressors came up with the law. Do we really think the Jews in the concentration camps were sitting around thinking, “Lord, we really shouldn’t have voted yes on Proposition 88!”
If an individual can prove that Vermont screwed him over, then Vermont would owe that individual just as much as his counterpart in Alabama. I don’t know why what happens in one state should determine what a plaintiff is entitled to in another.
This isn’t a good excuse, Sampiro. If we were having this conversation in 1998 instead of 2008, do you think you’d be asking this question? How about if we woke up tomorrow and suddenly the economy was awesome. Would your opinion change? Would Jim Crow victims suddenly seem more sympathetic?
A debt is a debt, whether the debtor is broke or rich or dead.
These platitudes are all well and good to say when you aren’t the one carrying the memories and the scars. The thing is that they could have easily been trumped out to deny the Holocaust victims or the interned Japanese their reparations. But for some reason, even though there’s no dispute that millions of black people (many of which are still alive) were dicked over for generations, they are told to let by-gones be by-gones. Stop wallowing in the past, move on and be happy. That’s not only condescending, but it’s blatantly self-serving.
No, I’m not suing anyone (I always feel like I have to say this when I post in reparations threads). But I will always support the right of people to sue institutions, including my own government. If people can prove they were harmed in the court of law, then they should get whatever it is they are owed. A society that discourages people to seek legal redress is a society I don’t want any part of!
I have to agree with this.
I agree in principle that reparations are the decent thing to do. Unfortunately, it would also be one of the most ill-considered.
Sure, a few bucks might make the problems of today vanish, for a time. But forever forward from that point, I fear there would be added impetus for racists and disgruntled non-blacks to say, “You got your cash, buddy. We’re even. Any problem you cannot now deal with is your own fault, and you ain’t gettin’ nothin’ from me.” I fear that large-scale reparations would make things worse, not better, in race relations.
As has already been pointed out, blacks are hardly the only example of racism in the history of the country; they’re just the most prominent. How will black America feel when the Chinese, who labored to create the transcontinental railroad, all step forward and demand their millions? How will we feel when the Native Americans demand cash to assuage the loss of their multitude of nations? Will blacks eagerly hand over their tax money as reparations to the Spanish for the loss of Florida and Texas?
Cash won’t solve the problem, I’m afraid. Reparations would simply be a pathetic excuse to say “we’re even; you’re on your own now.” That’s not what we need to heal the divide, is it?
I’m sorry. I should not ascribe to racism what is probably for the most part due to ignorance & miseducation.
If the worst of it were separate drinking fountains & sitting in the back of the bus, the OP’s suggestion would be ridiculous. And anyone of that era who suffered no more than that should not be paid any reparation of consequence, let alone $1,000,000.
But of course, separate drinking fountains & sitting in the back of the bus were the least of what blacks suffered on Jim Crow. Persons were denied education, were denied opportunity for employment, denied promotions & raises, even denied service by industries that told them their money was no good. Racial animus was such that a white man could commit a crime & frame a black man for it, & the populace would unconsciously abet the frame.
For all those who lost sons, brothers, & fathers, surely $1,000,000 per victim is not ridiculous. And for all those denied real opportunity for income all those years, a number in six figures might be worth contemplating.
This is disgusting, an insult to me and to all other posters in this thread. And how dare you “inform” Dr. King of where you are? For wherever that is rest assured you had nothing to do with it. I started a pit thread but unfortunately, the board ate it- just as well. This has shortcircuited any reason to respond to you or your vile and racist allegations. (And is somewhat ironic cry of victimization and racial insensitivity coming from somebody with a racial slur in their username.)
If there were reparations given out for Jim Crow, I don’t see why blacks would be angry over this.
At any rate, this argument is not very strong anyway. Whether or not somebody is going to be mad about something doesn’t determine whether a valid case exists. If we were talking about reparations in 1965, white people would be mad about the concept. It’s 2008, and white people are still going to be mad about it. Somebody is always mad.
Okay… what’s going on with the boards— I posted a long response to monstro- and it showed up— now it’s gone… hmm. I pitted foolsguinea, it showed up- now it’s gone. Let me post to see if this one shows- apologies for the hijack. It also shows monstro as the last poster (post 62) when there’s several more.
Anyone else having this problem?
The goal of reparations wouldn’t be to solve race relations. It would be to compensate people for the harm they suffered.
Black people shouldn’t care a whit about racists and their opinions. They didn’t ask racists for their opinion when they were emancipated from slavery or when they released from the chains of Jim Crow. So why should opinion polls be taken now? If they had let racists dictate their behavior, they would still be picking cotton!
Questions:
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If individual Chinese or the Native Americans can prove that the government screwed them over, why shouldn’t they bring a suit against it?
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Why would black people as a group have a problem with another group attempting to get legal redress? And even if they had a problem, so what? You know, if people were really concerned about opinions, they’d be wondering how black people feel to see other groups get reparations while they have received none. But no one ever talks about that.
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What is to be gained by bringing in ancient events, like the annexation of Florida and Texas, to this discussion? We aren’t talking about ancient history. We are talking about something that happened in our parents’ lifetimes.
Again, reparations wouldn’t be issued to fix problems, but as punitive damages. Were the interned Japanese expected to fix “problems” when they were cut a check? No. No one expected them to change the world. Why would the expectations be higher for black people? Guess what? If we had a crystal ball that showed black people using reparations checks to buy fried chicken and watermelons, that still wouldn’t change the fact that they were owed reparations and that they were justified in receiving them. The government that owes them money does not have the right to dictate what they do with it, like some kind of paternalistic master.
I’m experiencing weirdness as well, Sampiro.
Some Chinese and Native Americans might say it’s an awfully convenient standard specifically designed to hand out cash to blacks and to exclude very real damages to other peoples.
You say the cash is designed to be punitive. Whom, exactly, are you hoping to punish?
Why would they be excluded from sueing for their own reparations?! This is a strange strawman.
I repeat: Why should the opinions of people matter in the quest for justice? If random opinions were in any way relevant to court rulings, we’d be living in a very oppressive society indeed. If I’m owed something, it’s owed regardless who has a problem with it. Do you disagree with this?
The institutions that implemented and enforced unjust acts. Is this some kind of a trick question?
This reparations talk is will NEVER happen even if we had the money to give everyone 1 million dollars and a pony and ticket to Disneyland.
Should women be given reparations, too? How about everyone but white men?
I’d just like to say that the arguments being brought up in this thread are the very same ones used against reparations for slavery. It seriously makes me wonder what it would take for Dopers to ever favor reparations.
When the Gitmo guys come after us, will we tell them, “How would it look if we gave you money but not the other political prisoners we’ve kicked around?”
Will we tell them that they’ve been given reparations already by simply being released from prison?
Will we point to our president with the Muslim name and tell them that their reparation is in this symbolic achievement?
Will we give them a one-way plane ticket to Pakistan or Iran and tell them that that’s their reparation, so shut up and be happy?
Will we hope they wait a long time before they sue us so that we can tell them that the statute of limitations has run out? Too bad, so sad. No money for you.
It seems to me that a lot of Dopers would be in support of this weasily behavior, based on the postings in this thread. But I guess consistency is good!
And now the Pit Thread is back. Foolsguinea… for you.
Reparations for Jim Crow are not punitive. They are compensatory. Too many people are suggesting otherwise.
In another post that I can’t “REPLY TO” due to some kind of board problem, monstro says (paraphrasing, with apologies for any inaccuracy) that he wonders if Dopers would be in favor of any kind of reparations. I think this is actually a better subject for a debate.
Frankly, I can’t think of that many for things that happened long ago. Since I’m not black I’m trying to personalize it as much as I can, and since I am gay I’m thinking about men who were arrested for their having consentual sex with other men (most notably perhaps Michael Hardwicke but there were certainly many others), or gay men like Lou Reed who were forced to undergo electroshock therapy- should they be able to sue the states many years later for what is today an outrage? I honestly don’t think they should be.
Now, for young Mormon men who were subjected to electroshock therapy after the early 1970s, I think they should have the right to sue. The reason: homosexuality was no longer regarded as a mental illness by the APA or AMA and electroshock therapy had been proven to be completely ineffectual as a “remedy” in major papers by that time; the Mormon church was acting against all medical advice and those who prescribed electroshock would at least be guilty of malpractice.
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. 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.
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.
So, no, sorry. I really am regretful that things were awful, but we can’t afford reparations for people with such claims.
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.
My grandmother remained in elementary schools and junior high schools until she retired. She returned to teach a couple of adjunct college classes during the 60s (when she was in her 60s), but never completed her doctorate and never returned to academia fulltime, largely because her career had been derailed.
So let’s suppose this had happened in the 1960s instead of the 1930s, and that my grandmother was still alive: should she be able to sue this university, which is still in existence? She would actually have a good case to prove lost earnings: college science professors at research universities make a lot more money than elementary school teachers and probably have more job satisfaction, so in today’s money she was probably out several hundred thousand dollars over the course of her career.
Again, I say no- the time has passed, any legal obligation has expired due to statute of limitations.
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:
“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.”
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Bottom lines for me: Where bodily and or monetary damage cannot be proven, there should be no reparations. We can’t afford it financially, it would be impossible to determine real damages, proving who is liable would be next to impossible, it would establish very dangerous precedents, the most it would do is make a few very old people (and their younger relatives who stand to inherit) richer. We acknowledge the nightmares in our history more than almost any other country on Earth (I don’t know this but I seriously doubt England has ever considered reparations to Indians or France and Belgium to their former colonies and the Japanese government rarely even admits to its atrocities), and we have taken steps to make amends (and yes, I’m going to say them again- Affirmative Action, minority quotas, antidiscrimination laws of all kinds, social programs of all kinds). The past cannot be undone, it cannot be corrected, it cannot be changed in any way, and most of the people who were truly affected by it are either dead or too old to have much enjoyment from any windfall.
And if I can be called a racist for being against reparations I can certainly say imply greed is the motive of the pro-reparation folks: “What does Grandma need with a $340,000 check from the government? She’s on a walker and is deaf as a post… but I can use it to buy her great-grandchildren and me a house and…”).
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.