Reparations are not just about dead people. If the British government has been presiding over brutalization, theft, and dehumanization of you personally within your life, then yes, I think they owe you reparations.
Then if that’s the case, why is slavery part of the issue? Why are we even including it? You can’t have it both ways.
That’s what people are getting at here. If we’re talking about reparations, it should be about something that happened to someone themselves, personally. NOT their ancestors.
(And yes indeed, people in Ireland themselves have continued to be oppressed by the British government. I can’t include myself then, but the citizens there? Oooh yeah)
However, as Clu-Me-In mentioned slavery, I’d like to hear HIS thoughts on this, and if he thinks descendents of other attrocities should be compensated.
So racism will still exist and people will still be getting hurt by racism. But we’ll be paying them for the suffering they experience. So it’ll be okay.
I think ending racism and the harm it causes is a more important goal. And we shouldn’t divert our efforts away from that cause.
Or the Jews for the endless, endless pogroms, prejudice, torture and institutionalized discrimination?
This shit is trickier than it looks on the surface.
I think there’s supposed to be a study of some sort made by some people somewhere.
Focusing on 150 years in the past is super counter productive. There are many groups of people who have been treated poorly in the past. Moving forward with a positive attitude is by far the best solution. I don’t know why anyone would even seriously consider a proposal like this.
But the government and private corporations pay damages to people they’ve wronged all the time. So paying people who have personally suffered damages from the various sorts of discrimination is not ludicrous on the face of it. I think that couching it in terms of making up for slavery is another story, both because everyone has oppression in their past, and the actual damages from slavery had it been a legal case would be crippling to the government to pay out. I know that if I had slaves in my background then I hardly think a mere $100,000 or so would let me forgive if I were otherwise not of a mind to.
Who are they supposed to sue?
They need to get Haley Joel Osment as their attorney.
I sue dead people
Regards,
Shodan
Dammit that did make me laugh.
Whomever caused them harm.
That would be the Government and people of the United States of America.
Welcome back. It’s been a while so could you clarify who it is that you would like to sue the Government, and what direct harm was suffered due to the Government’s action or inaction, and which people of the United States should also be named as defendants, and what direct harm was suffered due to those people’s action or inaction?
Deprivation of constitutional rights is a direct harm, by the way. Ubi jus ibi remedium.
~Max
If payments must be made, perhaps by the people and corporations and municipalities who discriminate against blacks till economic equality is reached.
According to our friend Wikipedia, the Union death toll during the Civil War was a total of 360,000 killed or dead of disease and accidents. (Nobody will ever know for sure, as record keeping was not a strong point during the C.W.)
It seems to me that spending this many lives to destroy slavery should be worth something in this reparations debate.
240 years and many millions died on the transatlantic transfer and many millions died in slavery here in the US along with the stolen wages of slaves for 240 years.
Deduct the 360,000 dead from all of that.
Discrimination on race is already against the law. Sue them when it happens, but would you rather just have them liable for all the damage that has been done that past 200 years?
The thing here is, be honest with yourselves. You want economic equality and damned if ability, or opportunity is enough! We need to make sure that equality of outcomes is the reached!
As in all the previous comments, ok! Who pays? Who gets paid? Be specific
That doesn’t make any sense. The Confederate dead were also Americans, so our ledger would be “minus” the Confederate dead fighting to maintain slavery too.
Are you going to answer my question or not?