Reparations for slavery

[Svartalf]

Reverse racism still is racism, only by treating all citizens equally will anything worthwhile be achieved.

[laklak]

Well it's all good and well to compensate the descendants of slaves, but what about the descendants of slave owners? Oh yeah, Marse Abe gave owners in the District of Columbia $300 a head, but what about the rest of us? Nary a cent. My many many great grandpappy spent good Union money on those legal field hands, come 1865 and it's Fuck Off, Beauregard, tend your own hogs.

Ain't fair.

[JimC]

Leaving aside any ethical considerations, I would suggest that it would be a political impossibility in present day America...

[Seabass]

Historically beleaguered groups would be better served by a decent social welfare regime than a one time lump sum. Reparations make no sense, either ethically or logistically.

I don't understand what's unethical about reparations.

Taking money from someone who had nothing to do with slavery and giving it to someone else is unethical, in my opinion.

Anyway, the way I see it, ethnic groups who are poor because of institutionalized racism will be disproportionately helped by the government if you live in a country with decent safety nets.

In other words, help should be given based on socioeconomic factors rather than skin color. Roscoe down at the trailer park shouldn't be paying reparations to Oprah.

[pErvinalia]

Revo down at the trailer park shouldn't be paying reparations to Oprah.

[Sean Hayden]

Revo can't pay reparations.

In other words, help should be given based on socioeconomic factors rather than skin color.

--six of one and half a dozen of the other

The stats posted in the link I provided earlier are quite illuminating.

[Forty Two]

If reparations are for slavery, and based on races having been held in enslavement, then no racial group is exempt from reparations, at least on a worldwide scale.

Slavery was the norm through most of human history. It was the western Enlightenment which ended it. The British Empire was one of the greatest anti-slavery forces out there.

I'm against it, because I oppose collective punishments and guilt by association, or guilt for the sins of one's ancestors.

[Sean Hayden]

Reparations for slavery are not punishment. You would not be punished. You are being asked to address and correct the effects of racism directed at African Americans in the US.

Just check out the recommendations from the link I provided earlier. Where do you see yourself being punished in all of that?

[Forty Two]

Reparations for slavery are not punishment. You would not be punished. You are being asked to address and correct the effects of racism directed at African Americans in the US.

Just check out the recommendations from the link I provided earlier. Where do you see yourself being punished in all of that?

If someone is asking me to pay recompense or restitution for someone else's crimes or wrongdoing, then even if they don't use the word punishment, I'm being punished for those wrongdoings. To avoid the use of the word punishment, though, I oppose "collective requirements to pay for the effects of [insert bad act here]..." Call it punishment, or don't, it's still collective responsibility for something someone else did.

[Sean Hayden]

I'm not avoiding the word punishment. It literally isn't a punishment. You're attempting to make it about punishment.

It is a request to deal with the issues today that are a result of slavery and racism. We're being asked to pay for a better more equal society.

[Forty Two]

Well, you don't think that's punishment, but to me, that's punishing people today for things that they did not do.

Also, it doesn't matter if it's not punishment. It's collective responsibility for the effects of something we had nothing to do with.

The world is not a single-effects place. Lots of stuff happened to lots of people over the centuries, not just African Americans, and slavery was the norm. Europeans were enslaved in as large numbers as Africans, in north Africa and Arabia for centuries. The Brits enslaved Americans with forced conscription on their ships. The Romans had slaves of all races. The Norse had slaves of all races.

Slavery, genocides, they've been everywhere. The Japanese enslaved hundreds of thousands of Korean women, and Chinese women. They slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Manchurians in the Rape of Nanking.

The history of the world is violence and oppression. If we are to eliminate the effects of oppressions, then one form of slavery is not the only one.

[Sean Hayden]

Ah, it's a collective responsibility for the effects of something we had nothing to do with! Yes, we are responsible for making the world a better place, despite our not having put it into the state it's in now.

As to the rest of your post, check out the stats from the link I posted --this shows the problems the US still faces-- and the recommendations; I think you will actually support several of them eg taking a closer look at how our children are being policed in schools.

[Forty Two]

Ah, it's a collective responsibility for the effects of something we had nothing to do with! Yes, we are responsible for making the world a better place, despite our not having put it into the state it's in now.

Sure, but everyone has that equal responsibility, not just white people.

And, you're making the assumption that paying reparations will make the world a better place. That hasn't been established.

And, you're making the assumption that only one historical wrong must be addressed with reparations, and it's not apparent to me why that one is the only one chosen.

As to the rest of your post, check out the stats from the link I posted --this shows the problems the US still faces-- and the recommendations; I think you will actually support several of them eg taking a closer look at how our children are being policed in schools.

I've looked at it. How will the reparations proposed fix those problems?

[Sean Hayden]

Sure, but everyone has that equal responsibility, not just white people.

I don't see why taxes collected from everyone shouldn't be used to implement the proposed suggestions. So yes, white, blacks, browns, whatever.

And, you're making the assumption that only one historical wrong must be addressed with reparations, and it's not apparent to me why that one is the only one chosen.

Not really. I mean implementing measures to address systemic racism should benefit everyone affected by it. But I have been talking about the US, yes.

And, you're making the assumption that paying reparations will make the world a better place. That hasn't been established.

Not really. I expressed my doubts early on in the thread. I just asserted that making the world a better place was the intent so that we could get over the I'm feeling punished business. It seems that we have.

Now, I don't think it would be too difficult to argue for the utility of some of the measures, for example, requiring better reporting by police regarding violent encounters with African Americans, or requiring police departments to look into the impact racial profiling is having. Some of the other measures may be more difficult to support.

Of course we can always say that someone has failed to show how some as yet to be implemented policy will make the world a better place. Merely arguing that it will can never convince everyone. Which ones were you most skeptical about?

[Forty Two]

I'm not avoiding the word punishment. It literally isn't a punishment. You're attempting to make it about punishment.

It doesn't matter to me if you call it punishment or not. It literally is punishment when you're asking someone to take responsibility for something they did not do.

It is a request to deal with the issues today that are a result of slavery and racism. We're being asked to pay for a better more equal society.

Well that would not be slavery reparations, and the reparations would not be focused on just descendents of slaves, because many other factors go into making the society less equal or worse. Treatment of native Americans, treatment of the Irish and Italians. Treatment of the Japanese. Poverty in general.

I mean, right now, the groups that are doing best are not the WASPs - you could point to Asian immigrants, Jews and Indian immigrants all doing per capita better than WASPs, so maybe reparations need to be made to combat that inequality?

...if your answer is that those groups did not oppress the WASPs through something like slavery, then you're not just limiting the analysis to the present day inequality, you are pointing to a past "wrong" which one group has to make more "right" by paying money.