I don’t believe the country has even come close to coming to terms with the harm done by government policies and practices towards black people (or Native Americans, for that matter) – officially cataloguing these harms in detail and officially acknowledging them. I think this is necessary to having a chance at avoiding a permanent aggrieved black underclass. That part (a real and rigorous program of research, to the level of detail of Holocaust research, which, IIRC, has successfully identified over a million Holocaust victims by name) might even be more important than any potential payment or investment, and that part requires something like HR 40.
So better to aggravate the problem and make things even worse?
And I do not see how not giving money is “placating” anyone.
If this is just about “study” and “research”, then why do you even need the government to do it?
This is an incoherent response which doesn’t actually address Clu-Me-In’s claim. The fact that a higher percentage of blacks than whites are poor in the US, or that poverty rates have fallen more sharply among blacks than among whites since the 1960s, does not necessarily imply that black recipients received a disproportionate share of total antipoverty spending.
It doesn’t even necessarily imply that white recipients received less than 80% of the total. (Personally, that estimate seems high to me too, but there’s nothing in Shodan’s evidence that factually contradicts it.)
Because the country as a whole is responsible - we need an official report, official details, an official acknowledgement, an official apology, and if action is determined to be necessary, official action.
Again, the analogy with Japanese Internees and now Holocaust victims, is false. Firstly because those programs concerned specific, identified victims, secondly because the redress was for active acts of those governments ( or of the government to which they are the successor of)
New question: why limit it to a specific group who are disadvantaged? Why not pay all who are disadvantaged?
I advocate for a program that would study the possibility of reparations to “specific, identified victims” and for “active acts” of the government, in addition to acts that the government allowed to occur.
What, now we’re going to remedy affirmative action?
How do you do that though? What “acts” count?
What about things like the drug war which disproportionately affected minorities? Do they count?
What about things like Gerrymandering?
There are loads of “acts” the government instituted to indirectly harm minority communities.
Sounds like some very interesting topics to study. Thanks!
So, again, if we are against the idea of direct payments to people, then there is no need for this study or H.R. 40, right?
I thought before you were talking about social spending and said no direct payments in response to criticism, now you are talking about direct payments.
You keep saying study, study, study. What are we studying? Say we take Kevin White, black male, age 24. What do we look for to determine if he is a “victim” of the government? Wealth, income, home size, rent or own, career path? What is the criteria for determining if he is a victim?
This doesn’t compute from what I said.
I haven’t advocated for any particular policy aside from study and research (and eventual recording and acknowledgement).
I’ll repeat what I said to you before, which you didn’t answer:
I don’t believe the country has even come close to coming to terms with the harm done by government policies and practices towards black people (or Native Americans, for that matter) – officially cataloguing these harms in detail and officially acknowledging them. I think this is necessary to having a chance at avoiding a permanent aggrieved black underclass. That part (a real and rigorous program of research, to the level of detail of Holocaust research, which, IIRC, has successfully identified over a million Holocaust victims by name) might even be more important than any potential payment or investment, and that part requires something like HR 40.
I’m not sure what you even mean by this statement. There is not a single American with any sort of power at all who does not concede that slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, lynching, segregation, et al were wrong, wrong, and absolutely wrong. We know that already.
What as a result of this study would we be coming to terms with?
“Knowing” and officially recording all the details (again, to the level of detail of Holocaust research), and officially acknowledging and apologizing for that harm done, are very different.
The utterly horrific and unjust way black Americans have been treated throughout American history, continuing to the present, and the ramifications from all the past and present discriminatory policies and practices on Americans today. For that to mean something, we actually have to know what these ramifications are, in detail… and that will require research.
At this risk of repeating myself, there are no objective criteria for these studies that will change the debate that we have on these issues today:
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Should the U.S. government apologize for past acts? We can have a thread about this right now.
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Should private acts of racial discrimination be something that the government apologizes/pays reparations for? We can have that debate now.
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Having a roster of names for “victims” of these past acts suffer from the problem of no objective criteria for people who were not alive when they happened.
If we show that Kevin Smith III, black man age 24, is going through a lot of stuff that could be fairly attributed to his grandfather, Kevin Smith I having to grow up in segregated schools, being harassed by the KKK, and not being able to live in a nice neighborhood because of redlining, we would have exactly the same debate we are having today.
Liberals would say that Kevin Smith III should get reparations/community help/affirmative action and conservatives would say that we have eliminated those things and that it is up to Kevin Smith III to live his own life and it is not the responsibility of young whites, many of whose ancestors were not in the KKK nor bankers participating in redlining, to pay for the sins of their ancestors.
You mention the Holocaust studies and research, but other than the academia aspect of it, what governmental change has happened or been proposed because of it?
I could agree with what you are proposing if there was a constitutional amendment pending to re-segregate schools or restore Jim Crow. Then we look at what happened before to see the horrible results of it so it is not repeated. But when everyone who means anything recognizes how bad it was, I’m not seeing the benefit of the studies.
Absolutely, IMO. But we should be very specific – what was done? Who did it harm? How did it harm them? What are the specific ramifications today?
If the government allowed these to occur, then yes, IMO, with the same questions as above.
Sure there could be objective criteria, at least to some extent – the same objective criteria used for identifying Holocaust victims and other historical research of atrocities.
The primary benefit is that Jews around the world recognize that Germany has taken responsibility for the Holocaust and made a serious, significant, and good-faith attempt to make amends. Black people in America, quite rightly, do not believe this for America, for the most part. Neither do most Native Americans. And with very good reason – because we haven’t come close to doing what Germany did.
I don’t believe this is the case. Trump supporters, by and large, really do seem to believe that America was much better back in the past. Prominent conservative celebrities like the Duck Dynasty guy really says that he thinks race relations were better before the CR movement. So does Roy Moore, who almost won a statewide election in Alabama! This also jives with my conversations with my largely older, white, and conservative co-workers – they think black people support the Democratic party because “they want free stuff”, or they’re “stuck on the Democratic plantation”, or that they’re too uneducated or stupid to think for themselves.
So no, “everyone who means anything” do not recognize how bad it was. Not even close. Tons of Americans really believe slavery wasn’t so bad – that families stayed together, it was idyllic fishing down by the creek, and so on. Many are almost entirely ignorant of the brutality and oppression of Jim Crow, Redlining, and segregation.
And most importantly, most black people do not believe that their country recognizes the harm they and their ancestors suffered (and continue to suffer, in some cases) due to government policies and practices. Until black people have good reason to feel like truly equal citizens, I don’t believe there’s any chance that we’ll avoid the continuation of an aggrieved black underclass.
I notice that you, along with your hero,* leave out the harm done by government policies and practices towards *women, gays, hispanics, Chinese, etc.
And promising pie in the sky ($1Million checks) and delivering stale bread (some more college grants, some aid to inner cites, etc) will indeed lead to a permanent aggrieved black underclass.
No, no we’re not.
That’s because the topic of this thread (and TNC’s focus of study) is “reparations to African Americans”. But I’m very much open to studying such harm done to any groups, including those you mention, and I’d gladly contribute to a thread on such topics.
Do you similarly criticize MLK Jr. for focusing on Civil Rights for black people, and discussing CR for other groups significantly less often? Or is this just silly bullshit to cover up your baseless and cite-free vitriolic name-calling of TNC?
Thankfully, there are no plans for this. But good job taking down this straw man!
The question is legitimate even if it goes beyond the scope of the OP because it is a very reasonable follow up question: If blacks, then why not other groups equally?
What about white coal miners in West Virginia who were paid in scrip and forced to live in company housing and were prevented from joining unions? That was my great-grandfather. Do I get a check? Does it matter that I have a successful career now? What if I could have had a successful career, but chose instead to drink all day? What if I have a successful career, but my father didn’t. As his heir, do I get his check?
The reparations for gays question is even more on point. Millions are alive today who suffered discrimination (as may be defined by some or many). Millions were prevented from marrying prior to 2015. What about the guys who didn’t get a wedding cake from Masterpiece Cake Shop? If they win their case, do we say that they get no reparations because the government ultimately didn’t allow the injustice? Or if they lose the case, do we say that is government injustice and pay them at that point? If so, what is the point of pending litigation if you win anyways?
Is the bill going to be so comprehensive and expensive that we analyze all of the events of the past 100 years for every claimant and make a just and individualized determination about me and everyone else? If not, then many people get a windfall and others are undercompensated.