I’m a descendent of people who suffered during the Potato Famine (which some scholars have put forth the argument that it should be counted as genocide). Do you think me and my family are owed a debt by the British government?
My ancestors also were likely serfs in Eastern Europe, which was simply slavery in another name – the set up with a bit different, but the life was basically the same.
Do the Habsburgs, or the Romanovs owe me anything?
What’s my point here? The vast majority of us are probably descendents of some group that was horribly oppressed, abused, assaulted, etc, at some point in the past. There is no way on earth we can all be compensated for this – nor should we be.
Now, if this were 100 years ago, 1919, and the U.S. government said hey, we think it would be good idea to offer reparations to any former slaves still alive today, I think that would have been wonderful. MAYBE even a few of their older children. But their great-great-great, whatever? No. It’s just not feasible.
History is nasty, ugly, and you’ll find that human beings have been shitting all over each other since time began. Offer compensation to people who directly experienced something, like the Japanese-American internees, yes. But to the descendents of people who suffered from something? That merely opens the floodgates, and we’ll never have enough to cover everything.
iiandyiiii, you know I love you to bits. But I think you don’t understand just how impractical how this really is. This is not the same as the Holocaust, or the Japanese internees. If it were done in the past, when there were former slaves still living, it would have been a fantastic idea. Sadly, that’s no longer the case.
You cannot possibly right every wrong, sometimes you can only go foreward, and learn from it.
I’m much more interested in exploring the details and harm done of discriminatory policies within living memory, which directly harmed large numbers of living Americans. I don’t believe these have been fully accounted for, and in fact, I don’t believe most non-black Americans are even aware of them beyond a very, very superficial understanding. I think it’s vital for the country (at least, if we want a country without a permanent aggrieved black underclass) that we make a serious effort to account for all of this harm and make sure that our people are as educated about it as we are about slavery, the Holocaust, the Civil War, and more.
I think the alternative to at least trying to fully account for all of this is a continuation for the foreseeable future of an aggrieved black underclass that has very good reason to believe that they are not fully part of this country and do not have a fair chance to succeed.
I have not read the whole thread so sorry if this has been mentioned. Just wanted to add my $0.02:
I am a pretty liberal person and I see no utility to paying reparations to black people over slavery.
Have black people been badly mistreated in this country? Absolutely.
There are about 37 million non-Hispanic blacks in the US. How much is each person owed? Do you give the money evenly or consider how long they can trace lineage in the US? As a practical matter I think you have to divvy up the money evenly, anything else would be insanely difficult to manage. So, a newly minted black US citizen would get the same as a black person whose family has lived in the US for 200 years.
Then how much is enough to make up for the evils done? $1,000 per person seems a pittance. Nice to be sure but won’t change anyone’s life probably and will disappear mostly unnoticed. That costs the US $37 billion dollars. That is a lot even by today’s measures. $10,000 might make a difference but now at $370 billion.
And if this is done you will enrage the racists in the country for decades and probably generations to come. It will be a rallying cry for them forever which will show up at the polls and we know there are a lot of them out there. Indeed, Ta-Nehisi Coates even pushing this as seriously as he is in front of a House panel is enough to convince diehard conservatives that they had better do something more to keep black people out of power or else they will be writing checks. I am sure Ta-Nehisi Coates is committed to what he is saying and he is very eloquent but I think he may be causing more trouble than he is helping.
In short, the whole thing is a non-starter that is a huge mess if attempted.
Instead, if the US wants to make reparations, take that money and put it into inner-city schools populated by minorities. Make new scholarships available to black students with that money. Clean up inner-city parks. All sorts of things.
I’ve tried, in as clear a way as possible without accusing you of naiveté at best and white nationalism at worst, to point out the problem with what you’re suggesting. I’ve even agreed, multiple times, that nobody is keeping anybody hostage in America and if people wish to emigrate, they are free to do so. That you believe people in any significant numbers are waiting for the government to pay them to leave is an idea without merit and frankly would come off as a slap in the face of most if offered in the way you suggest. I don’t know how else to explain to you that what you’re saying, even with the best of intentions, is absurd in every conceivable way.
On the plus side, a slightly condensed version of your modest proposal would fit nicely onto a 12" x 3" sticker suitable for affixing to the rear bumper of a pickup truck.
Now if ever there was tap dancing. Actually, White people make up a disproportionate amount of the poor not black people. If $22 trillion has been spent on Anti-Poverty issues, my bet is that more than 80% of that went to white people and not to poor black folks.
In any case reparations is for the more than 200 years blacks were denied the ability to own or create wealth and for work done to build this nation - without compensation.
I take this to mean you are going to avoid the fact that real world examples of reparations, made in living memory of those wronged, have been made and are still being made today. Saying, “Yeah, but NOT in AMERICA!”, in no way improves your position. In fact, it makes it worse but underscoring the reason for the entire subject being discussed.
That’s not what I got from his comment - more likely - a significant number of … were / are racist as demonstrated by the evidence of history and news, so to clean up the mess you’d have to be sure they all no longer have racism in their hearts.
Considering he campaigned on ending slavery, it defined his campaign for candidate and president, and it was the consuming issue dividing the states for decades, it had boiled over to the point of secession/rebellion - I think you overestimate his willingness to compromise. He faced the secession issue because in the Good Old Days inauguration happened in late March and so the states had 5 months to fall apart, it was a fait accompli by the time he became president.
I think this is the important detail. As I said in an earlier post, perhaps what we need is for everyone to submit a 23-and-me report; if you have African heritage, you are entitled to reparations. If you have European heritage, you are obliged to pay reparations. So if your personal DNA report shows more European than African, you are on the paying end, although if you can document proof that your white ancestors arrived after the civil war, you can subtract that proportion from the obligations. So those with more African than European heritage get money, those with more European than African DNA pay money.
It’s only fair - your ancestors were on the oppression side, you owe. Your ancestors were on the oppressed side, you get - in proportion.
Unless you want to use the Teutonic maxim of 1/4 ancestry?
Or how about this for an idea - instead of reparations, how about spending the money on social programs to help alleviate the problems of social injustice an poverty for all, thus promoting a more egalitarian society instead of paying people and pretending that fixes things?
My other objection is - guys like Jesse Jackson made a living out of the same thing - the Rainbow Coalition shaking down assorted industries and organizations for the past injustices done to blacks, so as to line their own pockets. (He’s certainly not hurting financially). Obama really screwed up his narrative that blacks were and are oppressed. I suspect any future arrangement for actual reparations will again be funnelled through self-serving organizations which will manage to rake off a decent share for those running the overseeing organization, rather than it all going to the intended recipients.
Allow me to quote him directly (bolding/underline mine):
But even using your generous interpretation, do you also believe that gov’t sponsored emigration policy is a reasonable approach to solving issues of injustice due to racism (past and present)?
This thread is about reparations due to systemic discrimination and justification, or lack thereof, for same. Cite where you believe evidence of similar actions is excluded from consideration in this thread. I’ll wait; but I won’t hold my breath. :dubious:
No, that’s false. It’s just the opposite - black Americans are about 14% of the population but 22% of the poor. Do you know what “disproportionate” means? It does not mean “the majority”.
This is precisely the path American was on, from the New Deal to Johnson’s Great Society and onward… Until Gingrich and his ilk inflamed the partisan divisiveness (falsely professed as self-reliance and fiscal responsibility) that has grow to the cancer it is today.
You can’t fix the problems of history, all you can do is try to move forward in a way that helps everyone as much as possible. There’s no magic wand that remove racism from the heart of everyone - that is, from those who have it in their hearts in any degree, so that everyone is free of racism - all we can do is work to make those who are at the bottom of the social ladder more able to climb it going forward, and make manifestations of racism as socially unacceptable as we can.
I have no objection to your proposal. It’s entirely reasonable. I’m also not opposed to a comprehensive study that looks at the more recent/current injustices to minorities (blacks specifically because thread topic), to see if specific reparations are justified. It’s interesting that the assumption is immediately that the answer will be “YE$$$”. It’s entirely possible that the conclusion will be that your way will be the more sensible way to address it across the board.
I’m seeing this theme throughout your responses. You don’t want to tie any payments to specific victims, nor are you proposing cash handouts. If I understand you correctly, you are concerned about a permanent black underclass and want to use the “reparations” money to invest in black communities with infrastructure, schools and the like, etc.
If that is what you are proposing, then why even discuss reparations? You are simply advocating a massive social program of investment in the inner cities. We could have a debate on whether that is a good thing or not, but the merits of your proposal have nothing to do with past wrongs and everything to do with building things for the future.
Why does it matter if blacks are in their current position because they were treated horrifically instead of simply terrible? If these things need built, then they need built regardless of the outcome of this study. In short, your proposal is about 180 degrees apart from anything approaching “reparations” which is the subject of the bill.
What do you think this “study and research” will show that will change one single mind? At the end of the day, conservatives will say that the problem is broken homes, gangs, drug use, out of wedlock births, and failing schools. Liberals will says it is because of systemic racial injustice.
I mean, we already know what is currently going on and we already know what happened in the past and we have a disagreement about how to handle it. What do you anticipate that these studies will show?
You’ll probably say that we won’t know until we do the studies, but the studies will be colored by the biases of the people doing the studies like everything else is. It seems a waste of money and resources if all you are proposing is social spending the black community. We can debate that now without any studies because we know what the problems are and that from your side’s perspective, money will fix it.
To put it more simply, if a guy is living in poverty, is not a homeowner and sees no way forward, why is it important if this is because his grandfather was screwed out of a good home loan in 1963 or alternatively, if his grandfather pissed all of his wages away at the horse track? The problem to be solved is today, 2019, not how his ancestors were treated.
And let’s say we do identify (through these studies) living people who were demonstrably screwed over by redlining or other policies, we still have the same debate over whether the current generation is responsible for those past injustices. The study won’t solve that.