COLLOUNSBURY –
Aw, baloney. If you think the arguments are “fallacious” and “poorly framed,” then take a shot at proving so. Don’t just swan in to declare that arguments you don’t agree with are “bankrupt” or “silly.” You’d be a great addition to the debate if you actual bothered to make a point. So far, however, you post as if you’ve been appointed Chief Judge of Post Quality, which, so far as I know, you haven’t been.
Welcome greymatters, I’m sure I’ll come to love you too.
Now in re the facts of the matter, I don’t see arguments with me, I see me noting logical problems with one or two critiques.
Elaboration on them, is it necessary? Well in re the genetics it strikes me as self-evidently non-sensical. All persons are of mixed lineage, the fact that some blacks descend, largely through violence against black women, from white slaveowners, in no logical way speaks to the issue. (Although the knotty issue of determining “race” in general does indeed as already elaborated) I frankly don’t see this as needing much elaboration.
Secundo, I believe I addressed albeit in condensed format the idea that because there are a legion of injustices in the world that ipso facto reparations or other remedies to redress slavery’s impact are unworthy of consideration. This logic is clearly fallacious for it would preclude addressing any injustice. Simple as that. An unnecessary argument as there are specific reasons brought forth to oppose reparations, in this thread and other prior discusions, before your time but you can unearth them through the wonderful search function.
The argument on moral relativism on the other hand really requires a different thread, I’ll grant this is a harder nut to crack.
Nothing much then, dear greymatter, for me to have elaborated, unless you yourself have specific comments on any of my critiques.
In re Jodi, well dearie, I expressed me dear little opinion, as you rather frequently do yourself.
Oh, I all for expression of opinions, “darling,” but when I do it in Great Debates I at least make an attempt to back my opinions up. It being the forum for, y’know, debate. Positions like “your argument is bankrupt and silly, but that’s a matter for another thread” just make me roll my eyes, and if you’re honest, I’m sure you can perfectly easily see why.
I think know darn well I’m not talking about slaves raped by masters and their descendents. I’m talking about free blacks who OWNED SLAVES. Yes, there were some. And there were probably some of your mixed races that may even have married and condoned this sort of thing in certain places. Yes, it is rare, but I think that would be a factor.
[hijack]
I would argue that African Americans of today have been harmed more by various political programs of the last 35 years than by slavery, segregation and Jim Crow.
In the 1940’s and 1950’s, equal rights efforts were mostly led and conducted by Black people, and they made tremendous progress. Yes, there were certain whites who deserve to be cited as heroes, such as Hubert Humphrey and Branch Rickey, but the majority effort came from Black people and Black organizations like the NAACP.
In the mid 1960’s, government jumped on the band wagon. Today, we think of progress due to the various civil rights acts, affirmative action, welfare, etc. Trouble is, white people had their own agenda. It’s no coincidence that these programs did not improve education, did not reduce drug usage, and did not provide safety in the inner cities. In fact, welfare almost destroyed the inner city family structure.
I don’t mean to say that people supporting these programs wanted these bad results. I do assert that for some politicians the success of the program was less important than having a program – a program that they can point to and take credit for. These programs have become a rich source of political patronage.
And There are people who believe in the value of big government, so they use the problems of any group as an excuse to expand government. For them, too, having a program is more important than whether it works.
We now are raising too many people to believe that they cannot succeed on their own, without government help. This is a destructive psychology for them, but it’s good for those in the business of providing government services and for those politicians who support them.[/hijack]
(a) Well in re Jodi’s argument since you want the flesh of my thinking I direct you to the consideration of actual reparations cases such as in re the Japanese-American (and foreign national) internment (and other internments) and reparations paid. In these cases the original action was (i) legal at the time (ii) morally justified according to then prevalent views (iii) only in retrospect and according to current, contemporary reflection and a desire to ‘right’ a wrong for various reasons, among which perhaps we might include a perceived increase in social capital by undoing or mitigating past harms which have present consequences.
Certainly retrospective reconsiderations of morality does not always make good history or possibly even law, however neither history nor law are necessarily the correct yardsticks for a reparations case, but rather current and future social perhaps socio-economic utility.
Now, as you know from past threads I find a number of practical considerations (many of which are raised already in this thread and in the past). Reparations for slavery is unworkable. Perhaps something more tightly defined, and focused perhaps on states and North American black lineages (which geneologically can ressolve the ‘who is black’ issue, in re this case by simply exploiting segrationist records)… I don’t know haven’t thought about that but the wide-ranging argument doesn’t work.
There you have it. Now the deeper concept of moral relativism, justifications thereof etc, does indeed require a seperate thread, IMO.
(b) In re Guinestasia: (free) black (id’ed as such by contemporary society) slave holders were a tiny minority in North America. So tiny as to be a trivial consideration. They can be id’ed via geneological records etc insofar as they were restrained to specific regions and times. I don’t see this as in any way a genuine problem. Apologies that I misread your initial comments insofar as it seemed to me you ref’d as I noted previously.
© In re december. Okay, in regards to the “tainting” race relations argument or encouraging racial separateness, I don’t see that you have a valid point. Clearly the issue (recognition of the black communities’ suffering in slavery) is important and has long been an important issue in the community, for better or worse. Further, it doesn’t seem to be one which will go away by pretending it doesn’t exist. Talking about it is probably the best way to help heal the wounds, including opponents dealing respectfully and intelligently with the arguments by the reparations requestors. Properly framed it could lead to a dialogue. Could. I wouldn’t lay bets on this but it could. Just not talking about it means festering will go on.
Otherwise, in many respects it is a distraction above all as presently framed.
Now in re your postulating that blacks have suffered more from government programs in the past 30 years than from Jim Crow, well that is just an amazingly ignorant and ideologically distorted assertion. One can certainly make a number of arguments about how portions of the impovershed blacks have been poorly served by some government programs (as poor whites equally). You can make some general libertarianesque arguments about government being bad, and various programs not having done what they should have and perhaps many having somewhat held back progress otherwise made (but be bloody specific for chrissakes rather than this ‘guvmint bad’ mumbo jumbo).
but I think if one looks at the rather stunning progression in socio-economic terms of black americans in general since the early 1960s in virtually every arena it is impossible, quite literally * impossible * to * ** rationally *** argue that government programs have done * more * harm than slavery, or Jim Crow or both together. You’re smoking right wing crack if you’re making this assertion, which strikes me as absolutely unfounded and unnecessary. Nor do you seem to have a terribly good grasp of the history I might add, but this is hardly the place to tackle that.
Bloody hell, we don’t have to make every topic a forum for your aversion to government and the subsequent overheated rhetoric.
C’bury, you have a point about overheated rhetoric.
Two comments:
Although Black Americans have made stunning progress since the 1960’s, their progress in the 1940’s and 1950’s was significantly more rapid, based on various socio-economic data. These statistics are laid out in the S. and A. Thernstrom’s book. The statistics make it plausible that progress from the 1960’s on might have been even more rapid absent the various programs.
Of course slavery did more harm than government programs, but I was arguing that that most of that harm has had time to dissipate by today. I know that you disagree with what I meant, but I wanted to clarify your comment.
Anyhow, I apologize for the hijack and for the overheated rhetoric. 
This is ridiculous. There’s a difference between someone getting mugged two weeks ago, and a mass enslavement that happened 150 years ago. I don’t know what the statute of limitations on slavery are, but I’m damn sure that they ran out as soon as the people responsible for these heinous acts died.
THAT is the difference between slavery and other injustices, Collounsbury. It assumes a “no-limits” worldview, which is quite fallicious itself… using your logic, we must choose between either providing reparations for ALL injustices, or none of them, which is simply not the case.
December
Valid points, I’m sure some research would make a good argument in either direction.
Spoofe:
I believe you’ve fundamentally misunderstood me. My logic simply implies looking at the detials of the problem, it poses absolutely no either-or logic to the question at all.
To amplify my thinking in another direction.
The mere fact that slavery is 150 years dead does not ipso facto make reparations unnecessary or unworkable. Another factual situation might make it workable. Might. It depends on the facts. As for being necessary, again a society may see utility in issuing reparations to some subset of itself for a long ago wrong if there is an overall gain. Time depth alone doesn’t strike me as an automatic disqualifier although certainly increases the liklihood that it’s factually unworkable.
In any case folks, you do recall I am in fact against reparations, considering it unnecessary and unworkable. I rather simply see many of the arguments here as poorly thought out, as noted.
As are the actual descendents of many slave OWNERS. I for one am the descendent of serfs back in Europe, in Poland and Hungary, Slovakia. I also had ancestors who were too busy starving to death during the Civil War. What gives?
Collounsbury-then what are YOUR arguments against reparations?
Oh wait. You addressed my point. Never mind-I’m tired.
Basically, the main problem I have is that is the whole sins of the fathers aspect of it. That we are to blame for what our ancestors did.
Perhaps I have misunderstood you. But when you say “it would preclude addressing any injustice”, that sounds a lot like “If we don’t provide reparations for slaves, then we can’t provide reparations for ANYTHING”.
But the sheer amount of time involved in this situation is, indeed, a factor. Think of “slavery” as a simple crime: There are no perptrators left alive, and there are no victims left alive. Hence, there is nobody left to blame, and there is no one left to receive compensation. As such, I utterly reject any plan to give “something” from Entity A to Entity B.
I think the only wise course of “reparation” action is to have congress put a chunk of money (however much they deem reparations to be) towards civil rights programs.
No, I specifically addressed … I forget now to be frank, well the idea was that someone was using an argument that I view as something of an ipso facto, ahhh, I think it was the set of arguments going on about all the other injustices etc etc and using this as a reason why one should not entertain reparations. Overlybroad sweeping argument. (not that I am doing justice to either my point or the other point presently but I am tired, heavy vacation duties liking drinking you know and listening to boring relatives etc) My point was reparations for slavery should be attacked on specific factual grounds, which of course has been done here and in fact much better in the past on this board.
As the case actually is, yes I agree it is unworkable. However I am rejecting the simple assertion that time alone is an sufficient argument against.
There is more to it than just slavery.
There are also the history of: the Jim Crow laws, the burning of entire neighborhoods over false rumors, the lynchings, the emergence of the KKK, the ‘separate and inequal’ justice system, lack of enforcement of environmental and food laws in Black neighborhoods, the steering going on in real estate (steering people to certain neighborhoods regardless of income and creditworthiness), outright refusal of treament in hospitals because of race, and job discrimination. There is more America has to answer for than slavery.
Then we are in agreement on that issue.
Also in agreement. The way I see it, time is just one part of the whole thing.
Very good thought Collounsbury but this thread is not the only place the subject comes up. Personally I agree with you, but there are others who obviously don’t.
The actual chance of any government pouring out billions in cash to the descendants of slaves is not likely under the best circumstances. The idiots who thought this thing up can sue the government and watch their grandchildren carry on the suit because it will never be settled. The only thing that this is doing is getting large groups of Blacks another excuse to get angry at Whites, giving them false hope and unity as well as a common ground to voice their hatred and grievances at. In the process, it is giving the leaders much press, much political clout among the poor fools and no doubt, some fantastic money in the way of donations.
Blacks have been deceived by Black leaders in similar ways for ages, one of the best being Jessie Jackson who has little interest in anything but power and cash, especially the latter considering that he actually is on no ones payroll and is a business unto himself and his money comes from donations by the Black communities. It angers me to see the rise of this type of Black leader who always gets the Black communities all fired up over impossible things, knowing full well that they will fail, causing tremendous trouble by playing on their fears, hopes and dreams, stoking the already burning coals of racism to new heights and in the end, only they profit from the rabble rousing they have done and they leave the masses angry and unfulfilled, with the blame for the failures transferred expertly to those not Black.
It happens time and time again.
Large groups? Does anyone have any actual numbers regarding the number of black supporters for reparations? There are absolutely none in my (rather limited) circle of acquaintances.
At any rate, the call for reparations that triggered this thread originated among Africans preparatory to the current Human Rights meeting (and I have seen no indication that the sponsors there are in a majority, either). We have naturally wandered into a discussion of intra-national reparations, but I still see no large groups.
Interestingly, among the biggest supporters of reparations in the U.S. are people like Charles Krauthammer who simply want to assign a cash value to the pain and suffering, hand it out one time, then use that disbursement as an excuse to avoid addressing any future issues: “Denied a job or house because of your appearance? Sorry, we disbanded the EEOC when we bought you off a couple years back.”
Regarding generalized attacks on “black leaders,” I suspect that broad brush claims that they (all) are only interested in cash and power would carry more weight if the claims were based on actual references and specific points. Certainly, Sharpton and Farrakhan have established that they are, themselves, racist, (and I think a case can be made that Sharpton is doing it for personal power although I suspect Farrakhan believes a lot of his own rhetoric), but everyone’s favorite target, Jackson, has actually engaged in real world attempts to change the black community (although he was better focused a few years ago than he appears to be, currently). Nevertheless, we have now thrown out names of three whole people perceived to be (or self-proclaimed as) black leaders. What is the evidence that they are typical, as opposed to being best known because they are newsworthy and not typical?
Jackson to make reparations a priority
One thing that I think will be interesting to observe, in a general sense, is whether a shift in public opinion will come about due to these campaigns. It is evident from this thread and previous threads on the subject that even most liberals are at present opposed to reparations. It will be interesting to see if the “party line” will shift in this regard.