Why not indeed? HR 40 addresses harmful policies and practices against black people, and I would be open to considering similar bills for other groups (especially discrimination and harm against Native Americans, which TNC and I have mentioned repeatedly because they might be the only other group in US history that suffered such sky-high levels of brutality and oppression on a large scale).
Interesting questions. You ask but do not answer – what do you think? I don’t know but I’d be willing to consider any serious and thoughtful arguments on such a bill.
I don’t see why all these issues need to be wrapped up in a single bill – that seems extremely unwieldy and making things more difficult unnecessarily. But if you want to advocate this case, go right ahead. I’m not sure how it affects the thread topic, though, unless one isn’t interested in addressing the arguments for HR 40 on their own merits.
He’s not “illustrating” this, he’s just asserting it. Reparations for Japanese-American internees didn’t lead to boundless reparations for anyone that asks for it – in fact, it’s led to zero reparations for any other group so far. I’m sure opponents of these past reparations used similar arguments, but it was irrelevant then and it’s still irrelevant now – that was the right thing to do, and more importantly, it made American stronger, better, and more just.
For the sake of your own argument, you really should disconnect reparations for Japanese-Americans and African-Americans. As others have pointed out, they are two different things with two different, distinct circumstances and illustrate the fallacy of your argument.
These platitudes - made American stronger, better, and more just - IMHO aren’t helping either.
Honest question from a co-worker: Can a person double tap on reparations? Say Tiger Woods applies because he’s African-American and applies because he’s Asian-American (under the Asians built the railroads reparation law). Can be get say $2M; $1M for each, or is it capped to one issue?
Actually, it does. You too might be missing or misunderstanding “disproportionate”.
If a group suffers disproportionately from a disadvantage, then they disproportionately benefit from efforts to remove that disadvantage, especially if they benefit twice as much.
Fair enouogh, but I don’t think they’re hurting either. Just my own thoughts and why I feel so strongly about this issue.
I can’t possibly respond to such a thing when no such proposals have been put forward in any way, and even were such a proposal put forward, bank-breaking sums like the above would not be feasible even from the perspective of the vast majority of pro-reparations advocates. IMO such thinking shows a flippant and unserious approach to this complex issue.
As I’ve said before, I’ll be ecstatic if the US just decided it was going to fully investigate, document, acknolwedge, and apologize for past discriminatory policies and practices. That hasn’t been done, needs to be done, and wouldn’t involve paying anyone but researchers and historians. The possibility of going beyond that to actually trying to make up for this harm, in some way, financially, is extremely remote, even if it’s crept up a bit lately in polling.
I’m still saddened that so many seem to reject absolutely just the possibility of identifying in detail and acknowledging all the harm done to black people due to discriminatory government policies (and government tolerance/support for discrimination) in America, to say nothing of trying to make up for it in some way.
Do I really need to re-iterate, for the fifteenth or twentieth time the arguments against linking these two issues? You honestly don’t recall the arguments made repeatedly over this thread? There is a vast difference in finding people directly harmed by action 42 years previously in the modern era, than there is to find similar linkage to people 155 years ago.
You don’t think the Great Society and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were efforts to "make up for it in some way?
My biggest issue is the vast gulf between doing something in the art of the possible, say $25,000 that will do virtually nothing, and doing proposing to do something that is impossible, say $500,000 that might actually help some people. And waving this away with platitudes won’t solve the issue.
Apparently you’ve missed that, over and over again, I’ve been pushing that after the research/study phase, any warranted reparations would start with those living Americans who have been harmed by discriminatory policies and practices (segregation, Redlining, and more). I don’t see how it’s particularly different focusing on government action that harmed living black people (and their kids, since reparations for Japanese-American internees also went to surviving children when the victim was deceased) in the mid-20th century as compared to focusing on government action that harmed living Japanese-Americans (and their kids) in the early/mid-20th century.
There are some differences – internment was a direct policy by the federal government, while segregation was a direct policy by state and local governments (tolerated by the federal government), and Redlining was generally private action tolerated or encouraged by the federal government using discriminatory Federal government maps that deliberately downgraded black neighborhoods. I’d certainly be in favor of states taking action to investigate, specify, and acknowledge harm done by segregation, but due to the generally white and racist-tolerant government of most of those states this doesn’t seem likely, and thus I advocate for the federal government to do it as well.
I don’t believe these differences are even close to significant enough to render the example as entirely irrelevant to this discussion. They both involve actions that were discriminatory by some form of government and tolerated by the federal government.
I believe these were efforts to, going back to the metaphor I’ve been using for a while, pull the knife out. But pulling the knife out isn’t enough – the wounds still need to be healed.
Just hypothetically (I wouldn’t advocate for this step at this time), giving $25K to every single black member of a black neighborhood or town would be fantastically beneficial to that community. Many of them could now start small businesses, or upgrade their homes, or afford medical care they’ve been putting off, or pay off overdue bills… plus all the businesses it would attract to the area. Suddenly the folks there can afford to go out to eat occasionally, or shop for new clothes, or regularly buy fresh groceries – easily attracting new restaurants and stores (along with the accompanying jobs). That kind of investment can revitalize a community in a very significant, Econ-101/Adam Smith way.
And that’s only the economic benefit. More importantly, IMO, would be the psychological benefit to the entire black American community (and the country as a whole). Finally, America really would have made a significant effort to repair at least some of the damage it caused to black people. Not just stop causing the damage – the CR movement didn’t repair anything, it just made illegal a lot of the ways the law was used to harm black people (vital and necessary, quite obviously, but not enough on its own). But it didn’t do anything to make up for past harm. Until there is such a serious effort, I don’t see how we avoid a permanent aggrieved black underclass. People who have good reason to believe they are not considered fully equal members of their society are going to have less chance of getting out of poverty than those who believe their society sees them as fully equal. Considering the incredible amount of harm done, directly and indirectly, to black people today, I don’t see how we accomplish this without at least fully investigating and researching the harm done and potential redress.
Asking how much it will cost shows a flippant and unserious approach? I don’t agree. Especially I don’t agree when the question is waved off with a lot of waffling about how we aren’t talking about reparations, just a study to see if we should pay reparations.
So we are going to investigate something we probably aren’t going to do. And you think that will make the black underclass less bitter and disaffected.
You apparently think the US taxpayer should be on the hook because the US government tolerated slavery (in some states). Should the cost of the Civil War count against that? It was about 3.4 billion in 1860 dollars (cite).
Should the cost of the Great Society count against the US obligation?
Should both those be included in the investigation you want to conduct?
No – that’s a reasonable question (and not the one I was answering), though it’s not one I have an answer for at this time. With sufficient study, we’d have much more information to make such an estimate.
I doubt we’re even going to investigate it. I hope we do, but I have no illusion that reparations (even studying the possibility, officially) is anything but very unlikely.
That was part of the effort to “pull out the knife”. I’m not talking about pulling out the knife – I’m talking about healing the damage caused.
They would be part of the information studied, IMO.
The standard of “tolerated by the government” is quite broad. I’d say the cost is nigh infinite. Based on that, most of the country should be ceded to the living Native Americans. I would view it more favorably if it were simply an unsubtle ruse to drum up motivation at the polls rather than a bona fide effort toward a path to reparations.
*Offer me money. *
Yes! Power, too, promise me that. *
All that I have and more. Please… Offer me anything I ask for. * Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch!
There will never be satisfaction for those so aggrieved.
It’s not being opposed to studies, to gaining knowledge. That’s fine, but resources are scarce, and demands unending. And since any effort arising from these studies would be opposed, no reason to throw good money after bad. If the purpose were to improve the historical record then that’s a viable goal, though it’d have to compete against every other resource utilizing activity for prioritization.
The reparations to Japanese Americans was only $20,000. Not much considering the had California real estate taken from them that would be worth millions today.
How do we determine that reparations aren’t also just pulling out the knife? What would make them different?
This is what I meant by waffling. You aren’t advocating for it, but you assert it would be fantastically beneficial. Does this mean you aren’t prepared to explain why it would be so fantastically beneficial, or are you going to retreat back to “we just want to study”?
Yes, and correspondingly, the economic loss suffered by a non-black community footing the tax bill would be substantial as well. Not as much as the benefit, because the economic loss would be spread out over a wider taxpayer base (since in this hypothetical, 87% of taxpayers would be paying taxes to give reparations to the 13% of Americans who are black,) but the increase in taxes would mean that a non-black community would have less money to pay bills, less money to afford medical care, less money to spend, less money to upgrade homes, and there would be a downturn for business.
Part of the idea is to avoid an aggrieved underclass. Most poor people in the US are not black (a disproportionate amount, but not most). So we should study giving money to some of the poor so they aren’t aggrieved. What about the rest - do we care if they’re aggrieved? Do they have to wait until we are done studying if black people get cash, or do we include them too?
If we have to study the historical records and family and financial history of every poor person in America to figure out why they are poor, it’s going to be a hell of a study.
Hypotheticals are fine but you do at least owe your idea the courtesy of considering the implications.
Are there any 100% black neighbourhoods? If so and those are the ones you go with then prepare yourself for unrest in the neighbourhoods that are only 99.9% black. Or of course if a few white families are going to prevent that payout by having the temerity to live in a majority black neighbourhood then watch their lives be made a living hell or worse.
Or you could always include those 99.9% areas but just not pay out to those not black enough. Or pay out to the white people as well and stand by for unrest in underprivileged areas that aren’t demographically suitable.
I don’t think I’m scaremongering here. The above is pretty much guaranteed to play out if you implement any cash reparation scheme.
My suggestion? restated here and echoed by others in the thread is that you abandon any racial component to this at all.
Give support to the poorest areas that need it most. Funding for schools, jobs, medical care, infrastructure. Do it on the basis of need and clearly badge it as a sign of an equal society. If the claim that the black community has been most disadvantaged is true then the bulk of that support will naturally go to the black community without any need to set up divisive racial criteria.
This sounds like a policy that would essentially dismantle America, which is pretty much the opposite of my goal of making America better, stronger, and more just. With that as a limiter, the cost certainly isn’t “nigh infinite” – it couldn’t be.
So you’d view if more favorably if it were a dishonest and dishonorable advocacy based on cynical political aims, rather than an honest proposal put forward by those who want to make the country better? If so, I don’t understand this at all.
This would seem to require mind-reading. What about those of us who believe that it’s necessary for the government to make a good-faith effort to fully account for and acknowledge the direct and indirect harm to living Americans? Isn’t it possible that we’d be satisfied by such a good-faith effort, even if this is just as broad a description as your “those so aggrieved”?
This seems like an excuse to do nothing no matter what argument is offered. I don’t accept this. Are there any circumstances under which you would support federally-funded resesarch into the harm done to black people? If so, what are those circumstances – do you have an example?