Biden backs reparations study

[SoTier]

My personal opinion is that the time for reparations to slaves is about 150 years too late.  Giving some kind of compensation to men and women who actually suffered from slavery would have been pretty straight forward and would have been akin to the Japanese Claims Act of 1948.  

 

There actually were proposals for reparations to ex-slaves during Reconstruction.   The most well known -- and popular among ex-slaves themselves -- was the one that would break up plantations to give ex-slaves a farm plot and the supplies to become subsistence farmers.  This plan was popularly described as "forty acres and a mule".   It obviously never went very far.

 

The problem with making reparations today is that they would be extraordinarily complicated and somewhat unfair to many Black Americans.   Millions of Black Americans are not descendants of people who were enslaved in the US as there's been significant immigration of Blacks from the Caribbean islands like Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba as well as more recently from Africa itself.   Millions more Black Americans would probably have difficulty proving that they descended from slaves.  

 

If reparations would be given en masse -- given to every Black American -- it would open the can of worms of "who's actually Black?".   At present, the definition is fairly open -- if you identify as Black, then you're Black.  With money involved, I don't think that would be good enough.   Certainly, those that are left out of the

reparations would feel cheated.   It would divide Black communities just as the Native American gaming industry dividing many Native American communities over who was a tribal member and who wasn't.

 

[Motorin']

The Case for Reparations

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ 

 

I've been meaning to read this article for a long while. Finally did yesterday after this announcement... There is a long, detailed history which grounds the conclusions he arrives at below. If anyone is serious about discussion of race in America, you simply cannot dismiss this. 

 

"Perhaps after a serious discussion and debate—the kind that HR 40 proposes—we may find that the country can never fully repay African Americans. But we stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion—and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America’s heritage, history, and standing in the world.

 

The early American economy was built on slave labor. The Capitol and the White House were built by slaves. President James K. Polk traded slaves from the Oval Office. The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer.

 

And this destruction did not end with slavery. Discriminatory laws joined the equal burden of citizenship to unequal distribution of its bounty. These laws reached their apex in the mid-20th century, when the federal government—through housing policies—engineered the wealth gap, which remains with us to this day. When we think of white supremacy, we picture colored only signs, but we should picture pirate flags. On some level, we have always grasped this...

 

We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past—at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge—that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.

 

And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckons us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans.

 

Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill-gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.

 

What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history."

[Doc]

How much do they go after African nations for starting the slave trade, or Portugal for making it explode, or England for introducing it to the US?  Do immigrants and their descendants have to pay since we had nothing to do with it?

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, Doc said:

How much do they go after African nations for starting the slave trade, or Portugal for making it explode, or England for introducing it to the US?  Do immigrants and their descendants have to pay since we had nothing to do with it?

I said it before. I’m willing to toss in two bucks if it’ll make this nonsense stop!! (And my entire family came to America long after slavery ended.)

[SoCal Deek]

12 minutes ago, Doc said:

 

If $2 were all it would take...

Doc, two dollars is probably the inflationary equivalent of the hand out they seek when translated into 1865 dollars. We are now five or six generations past slavery. This idea is an insult. Entire extended families have come to America in the meantime and made it in this country. One of them was recently the twice elected President of the United States! 

Just now, SoCal Deek said:

Doc, two dollars is probably the inflationary equivalent of the hand out they seek when translated into 1865 dollars. We are now five or six generations past slavery. This idea is an insult. Entire extended families have come to America in the meantime and made it in this country. One of them was recently the twice elected President of the United States! 

Another is the CURRENT Vice President.

[Doc]

7 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Doc, two dollars is probably the inflationary equivalent of the hand out they seek when translated into 1865 dollars. We are now five or six generations past slavery. This idea is an insult. Entire extended families have come to America in the meantime and made it in this country. One of them was recently the twice elected President of the United States! 

Another is the CURRENT Vice President.

 

Sorry, I deleted my post.  But I agree with you.

[SoCal Deek]

1 minute ago, Doc said:

 

Sorry, I deleted my post.  But I agree with you.

No worries. I’m really tired of so many who are looking to the federal government to hand them money for something that ‘happened to them’ in their past. The bail outs in the Great Recession set a truly awful precedent. 

[Unforgiven]

Welp maybe 6 generations from now  whites will get reparations from the liberal

far left menace that are attacking them

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

Candice Owens, who liberals tend to accuse of not being African American because she has conservative view points, directs attention to the fundamental problem this data set illustrates and how it’s a key indicator of crime and poverty likelihood. 
 

https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race#detailed/1/any/false/1729,37,871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133/10,11,9,12,1,185,13/432,431

 

it’s a fair question to ask, if money really is the problem or the solution? 

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, Unforgiven said:

Welp maybe 6 generations from now  whites will get reparations from the liberal

far left menace that are attacking them

Nobody’s getting reparations. If they were Obama would’ve done it when he had the majority. The Dems need this issue to run on year after year.  

[Motorin']

32 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Nobody’s getting reparations. If they were Obama would’ve done it when he had the majority. The Dems need this issue to run on year after year.  

 

You're probably right.

 

There has never been and probably never will be the desire amoungst a majority of white Americans to repair the damage inflicted upon black people. 

 

It's pretty much the Irish Catholic method of dealing with child abuse. Suck it up and pretend it never happened. And if you talk about it, you are the problem. Carry on Fr. O'Malley.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Motorin'

[reddogblitz]

12 hours ago, Motorin' said:

 

There has never been and probably never will be the desire amoungst a majority of white Americans to repair the damage inflicted upon black people

 

I don't know about that.

 

The Abolitionists were almost all white.  A white man signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  360,000 Union Army mostly white men were killed in the Civil War, a war fougHt primarily to end slavery. The Civil Rights law of 1964 was passed by a wide margin by an all white congress.  Jim Crow was deemed uncostitutional by an almost all white Supreme Court.  The 13th ammendment was passed by white people.  Affirmative Action laws were put in place by primarily white people.  A ton of white people voted for a black man for president in back to back landslides.  

 

A lot has been done. A lot more needs to be done.

 

Your statement above which I quoted is awfully broad.  Do you have any proof that a majority of white Americans do not wish. to repair the damage inflicted upon black people?  Reparations is not the only way to do this and probably not the most effective either.

 

 

22 minutes ago, reddogblitz said:

 

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by reddogblitz

[Motorin']

1 hour ago, reddogblitz said:

 

I don't know about that.

 

The Abolitionists were almost all white.  A white man signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  360,000 Union Army mostly white men were killed in the Civil War, a war fougHt primarily to end slavery. The Civil Rights law of 1964 was passed by a wide margin by an all white congress.  Jim Crow was deemed uncostitutional by an almost all white Supreme Court.  The 13th ammendment was passed by white people.  Affirmative Action laws were put in place by primarily white people.  A ton of white people voted for a black man for president in back to back landslides.  

 

A lot has been done. A lot more needs to be done.

 

Your statement above which I quoted is awfully broad.  Do you have any proof that a majority of white Americans do not wish. to repair the damage inflicted upon black people?  Reparations is not the only way to do this and probably not the most effective either.

 

 

 

 

 

I appreciate the post. I think we both agree that more needs to be done to make lasting  amends, and that our country will be stronger if we are able to. 

[SoCal Deek]

3 hours ago, Motorin' said:

 

I appreciate the post. I think we both agree that more needs to be done to make lasting  amends, and that our country will be stronger if we are able to. 

Nothing ‘needs to be done’.  The current state of black Americans (and I hate to generalize) has very little if anything to do with slavery. The far bigger problem is the utter breakdown of the nuclear family, which was/is caused by well intentioned social programs run amuck. Giving people money now will actually make the problem worse. And it won’t make the victim hood go away. Ask anyone who’s received a court settlement if they feel less violated, raped, abused, etc....they don’t! 

[oldmanfan]

I think all but the most twisted-minded would agree that slavery is a horrific stain on the history of the country.  That said, I'm not sure how giving descendants trillions of dollars somehow would take away that stain.  What we need to do is end any kind of racism once and for all in the country, and create a country where all citizens have truly equal rights and equal access to the American dream.

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, oldmanfan said:

I think all but the most twisted-minded would agree that slavery is a horrific stain on the history of the country.  That said, I'm not sure how giving descendants trillions of dollars somehow would take away that stain.  What we need to do is end any kind of racism once and for all in the country, and create a country where all citizens have truly equal rights and equal access to the American dream.

Easy...pass legislation that reinforces and rewards the outcomes you hope to achieve.  So, if you want to reinforce the nuclear family, pass legislation that reinforces that family structure instead of making heroes out of single parent families. That one move alone will raise more Black Americans out of poverty than all the social programs that have been tried to date.  What we are doing, clearly isn't working. It's time to try something different!

Edited February 22, 2021 by SoCal Deek

[RochesterRob]

On 2/21/2021 at 8:39 AM, Doc said:

How much do they go after African nations for starting the slave trade, or Portugal for making it explode, or England for introducing it to the US?  Do immigrants and their descendants have to pay since we had nothing to do with it?

  They don't go after other entities because they know those parties will not being writing any checks concerning the matter. 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

20 hours ago, Motorin' said:

 

You're probably right.

 

There has never been and probably never will be the desire amoungst a majority of white Americans to repair the damage inflicted upon black people. 

 

It's pretty much the Irish Catholic method of dealing with child abuse. Suck it up and pretend it never happened. And if you talk about it, you are the problem. Carry on Fr. O'Malley.

 

 

 

 

 

What have you done to make amends? maybe you can help give the rest of us guidance on what we can do as individuals.

 

[RochesterRob]

1 hour ago, oldmanfan said:

I think all but the most twisted-minded would agree that slavery is a horrific stain on the history of the country.  That said, I'm not sure how giving descendants trillions of dollars somehow would take away that stain.  What we need to do is end any kind of racism once and for all in the country, and create a country where all citizens have truly equal rights and equal access to the American dream.

  This is not 1950's America.  Racism while not totally dead is very dormant.  Any person can go to college and follow their dreams as long as it corresponds to talents that they have.  Regardless of background it is impossible to make every person a scientist.  Some people regardless of background will not grasp advanced mathematics and science.  There are plenty of rewarding careers out there that do not require advanced degrees.  We as a society have placed great shame on working with a person's hands even though there are well paying jobs out there that utilize basic skills.  

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

2 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

Nothing ‘needs to be done’.  The current state of black Americans (and I hate to generalize) has very little if anything to do with slavery. The far bigger problem is the utter breakdown of the nuclear family, which was/is caused by well intentioned social programs run amuck. Giving people money now will actually make the problem worse. And it won’t make the victim hood go away. Ask anyone who’s received a court settlement if they feel less violated, raped, abused, etc....they don’t! 

the data supports this point.  AND if you look into every demographic and evaluate the broken nuclear family population, in terms of crime and poverty rates, it’s almost identical.  
 

Strong Family is the ubiquitous privilege.