It seems to me that this is something completely different than “reparations for slavery”. Are any politicians or activists actually proposing this or discussing this at all?
Would the reparations be a one time thing to the blacks currently living on a certain date? What about the baby born on the next day, week, or month that still has the same issues as their parents and siblings?
Will the United States government go after money from the Afrixan countries that were involved in the slave trade? Will decendents of slaves that were raped get more money for the additional crimes perpetrated against their ancestors?
I disagree entirely. First, slavery was a much greater tort than simply withholding wages. Back-paying slaves for their labor would hardly have even put a dent in the damage. Imagine a civil suit today where a kidnapper sues his or her assailant for keeping him locked up, beaten, and forced to a life of hard labor. Then her children were stolen and sold. The payout would be in the millions. Nobody would even think about the “lost wages” aspect of it. It would be millions upon millions. Now multiply that by every slave and all of their descendants. Now add interest accordingly.
Second, I disagree with your statement that “all blacks living in America” suffered from slavery. There are plenty of black families who immigrated here well after slavery was abolished. There are black men, like President Obama, whose African ancestors came here very recently, but whose white ancestors actually owned slaves! That’s not the same as, say, Alex Haley’s children. I understand you’re saying that all blacks in American suffer from racism, but that’s an entirely different monster than slavery.
I do agree that solving the problem is more important than assigning blame. I’m not sure that a monetary payout is actually going to solve anything, though.
I can’t imagine that could possibly be the case, unless the bar by which success is measured is set so high as to be unattainable. No amount of money could adequately compensate the ancestral legacy of slavery. To even come close to compensating the millions of African Americans would require the equivalent of multiple years of the US’s entire GDP. Some reparation payment either directly or indirectly would probably be welcome to the community, but its not as if it will suddenly make blacks equal to whites in society.
I agree with you in general about the difficulty of recompense high enough to make up for immense injustices without creating an economic injustice on everyone else.
I’d go further: in my opinion, it’s literally impossible to make things right by paying people off. The vast majority of the injustices were and are negative-sum. As a whole, we are all hurt by the war on drugs, and inefficient labor markets caused by discrimination and education shortfalls, and the injustice of blatant discrimination by police is even more clearly negative-sum, since the minute twinge of joy a handful of people experience when they get someone to look down on is dwarfed by the danger and stress on the victims, with no benefit to the non-bigoted masses, who indeed, are paying out of their own pockets for inefficient policing. So, since society as a whole is worse off, everyone cannot be made just as good as if the injustice had not happened: someone will be worse off, even given a hypothetical unanimity in who was hurt by how much.
Yes, it’s absolutely part of the conversation, and the policies that harmed living Americans are indeed an integral part of TNC’s argument for reparations (TNC is the most prominent advocate for reparations).
I think the only really fair thing to do is to not pay individual people anything. Create an endowment that establishes large, free women’s hospitals in the 10 largest predominantly black cities in America, as well as the capital of every slave-owning state not on that list. Each hospital can be named after great, anti-slave activists, former slaves, prominent leaders, etc. The hospitals will be established in the areas that are most predominantly black. So if there is a neighborhood that is statistically 90% black in one of the cities that is 70% black, then the hospital gets built in the middle of that neighborhood.
By the very nature of their location, the vast majority of the citizens they serve will be black. Because of present day discrimination laws, they will not discriminate based on color or race. They will offer free women’s services to people of all colors. So there’s no, “prove you’re black for free service”. If Whitey McWhitestein wants a free pap smear, she just has to drive across town to the “bad” neighborhood and wait in line at the Harriet Tubman Federal Reparations Women’s Hospital. It’s up to her.
How much would that cost? It’s the federal government, so maybe an endowment isn’t necessary. They could just build the hospitals and keep them permanently funded. indefinitely.
This way, a formal acknowledgement is made by the government, money is put toward a good purpose that actually helps the community, and since the hospitals are funded indefinitely, the total amount of money spent on reparations is “infinite”, much like the damage and suffering caused by slavery. Who wouldn’t support that idea?
Is reparations the right term at all? It seems to me that the discussion is now revolving around real efforts (including funding) to undo systemic inequalities. I support that, but it’s an entirely different project than one that hands out a check to individuals. Reparations sounds like the latter endeavor. I am also skeptical of efforts to repair society that do not look at society as a whole, and do not include Native Americans, women, the Chinese, the disabled, and so on.
Thanks for this idea. I’m not sure if this is the best way to go forward, but it’s a good-faith effort, and I think all such good-faith efforts should be considered. I’m in favor of a period of very rigorous research, including a look at historical records, private financial records, interviews, and much more, to determine the actual harm these policies did, especially to living Americans. With that information, we could entertain different ideas to make up for these various financial losses – the idea wouldn’t necessarily be “Jim would have $1 million dollars more wealth had he had the opportunity to get a loan and buy a house in X neighborhood”, but rather “Jim’s family would have been likely to have a middle class existence had this and that discriminatory policy not been in place”, or something like that.
I think it would be impossible and extremely unfair to consider these sorts of policies without considering, at the least, the harm done to Native Americans, which in my understanding is the only group that suffered anything comparable, in the long term, to what African Americans suffered, due to government policies and practices.
I deny your premise.
In 2017, the median household income for blacks was a little over $40,000. How on earth is that middle class?
Not concerned about the communities ravaged by the US military?
The point is, why focus on victims of a relatively harmless (as compared to a drone bombing for example) practice many years ago when there were people killed or maimed months, days, or minutes ago? Is it simply because they are foreigners? I ask because I sense a strong nationalism in American progressivism and social democrats and this seems like another example of it.
Interesting topic that might be worthy of another thread, but I don’t think it has anything to do with this topic.
So if I can prove to you and show you evidence that I am a direct descendant of 2 slaves, you do not believe I am owed anything - not even an apology?:dubious::mad:
Some think that this apology is insufficient. Do you consider it an apology?
No, not at all.
IIRC, those were given to the actual internees, not their descendents, or just Japanese Americans in general.
I can’t see it as being practical, and I too think it will only end up with, “we paid you off, so go away, we shouldn’t have to do anything else.”
It’s a nice idea in theory, but in the real world, will it work? I’m skeptical.
I agree with this. If reparations are paid, then any future complaints about racism will be met with “We gave you reparations, now shut up!”