Should we have reparations to black folk?

originally posted by: cenpuppie
a reply to: ketsuko

And that is the biggest damning lie of all. if you believe this straight up idoicy, then your saying the past dont count.

Well, with all the Civil war monuments being torn down and all the past folks college wont teach about because they are "old white guys"

Yeah, history no longer counts

Hooray PC culture!!

a reply to: thedigirati

While we are at it, let's teach about all the Native Genocide, The California Genocide, the forced sterilizations of people of Mexican Descent, the imprisonment of Native kids in assimilation schools, etc

originally posted by: XAnarchistX
the forced sterilizations of people of Mexican Descent

That one's entirely, 100% on California's shoulders... the rest of the nation had nothing to do with it.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

This is true

a reply to: spiritualarchitect

As a white man I agree. I have a squaw for a wife and 2 daughters that are half squaw.. I for one say my wifes tribe be given back Manhattan.

Don't worry folks, I am sure my wife will work out a long term lease..

Or we can all just move forward like adults...

a reply to: blueman12

sure why not? as soon as they pay war reparations. for the loss of 160,000 americans that died to free them... they must also pay for any private property destroyed. cost of fielding arming & combatants .....add in pensions to the widows and orphans

a reply to: thedigirati

I'm not for racism of any kind, but slavery, oppressive laws, and open societal racism is much more different than today's safe spaces....

Whites are rarely excluded, and when it happens (like the recent reddit thing) there is a lot of backlash. You can't compare that with racism in the past...

a reply to: thedigirati

Many people protested about what confederate civil war monuments represented. I believe most people weren't saying it was because of old white guys being white.

College won't teach civil war? Um.. High School and grade school is chalk full of civil war. If anything, there is a problem of history being watered down in schools.

Many civil war statues were built long after the civil war. Look at the confederate statues that were built in the jim crow era, and tell me that racism wasn't involved.

Why should we be keeping monuments of people who fought for slavery?

My families history in this country goes back 70 years - if you plan is to steal from me and give it to people who never suffered a day in there life because they "may" have been related to someone who had centuries ago - my family escaped the Nazis, I want some of that money, and the Chinese because they were slaves and the Indians and the Mexicans be cause they had parts of this country for six minutes, the Irish and Jews may still be alive from the days of persecution, certainly there are still interned Japanese still around, children of veterans who died, people who missed the last episode of lost and those suffering Xbox failures - what about the poor heroin addicts they suffer all day, even poop themselves and the mailmen - do you know how hard it is to drive on the right, Jesus I'm surprised they all don't blow themselves up.

When we are all victims, no one is.

30% of my local Mercedes dealers sales are funded by state aid - the number of homes people in other states would call mansions that are filled by never worked single mothers with 7 children sitting around getting high all day in California alone is in the high six figure range. They got there reparations and then some more, now I care about them 12% because equality

Saying an individual black person has suffered diminished opportunities is a logical error.

It's taking a statistic and applying it to a person individually. That would be just as foolish as looking at the crime statistics for black people, and deciding that an individual black job applicant is likely to be a criminal, and not hiring them.



What if the individual black person who is applying for reparation happens to be Oprah Winfrey's nephew?



No individual black person can be said with certainty to have ended up where they are in life due to events that transpired prior to 1961. Not unless they are actually more than 58 years old.

My white ancestors did not have slaves and lived a very poor life. If the slave owner desendents pay for it and pay me too then ok.

OP, I hear you, but this thread was a big mistake.

The logistics of reparations that should have been paid long ago (and were to a "lucky" handful, before they were stolen back) are too convoluted to unpack, so I'm not even going to bother, but I'll just say that the African diaspora was dealt a terrible hand which has affected them for posterity.

But this isn't the place to talk about it. No matter how diplomatically you phrase such an idea, you're not going to get "fair and balanced" on this forum. Someone even replied that "the strong conquering the weak is just the way of the world". Think about what this place is supposed to represent, and then think about where that comment was popularised. This is the wrong bubble for progressivism. It just is what it is.

a reply to: blueman12

I do not think we should have reparations. That doesn't of course mean I think we should ever trivialize slavery or the tyranny it represented for millions of Americans.

I only oppose reparations because nobody involved in slavery is alive today, and how would you know which citizens had relatives either for/against? "Sins of the father" just is not a practice we have here in the US

The best thing we can do is arm ourselves, and stand by our fellow Americans should such a threat to freedom ever come to pass again.

a reply to: blueman12

A lot of wealth for our country was generated by enslaved people. I agree with you -- there should have been reparations paid at the time of emancipation. That didn't happen.

But, I also agree with many that reparations for the descendants of slaves should be paid, at the prevailing rate. It would cost the country billions, but it's the right thing to do.

And, I think the disenfranchisement of African Americans occurred long after slavey was abolished, like the practice of red lining to keep black people out of certain housing developments and segregation in the south.

I largely agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates and his remedy for reparations that he lays out in his brilliant essay: cash paid to the descendants of the enslaved and a robust system of benefits and protections for African Americans today.

a reply to: icanteven

To be sure, it was Southern Democrats who codified the policies of segregation and "separate but equal" nonsense into law. It was Republicans who took the country to war, in part, over the South's desire to maintain the status quo of slavery

Haven't Republicans - party of Pres. Lincoln - paid enough for the sins of a few, in our blood and tears? How many lives were lost during the civil war, which again was in part due to our abolition of slavery and willingness to confront a tyranny in our own backyards

With respect, I contend that America has paid its debt through blood vs. cash assets. We honor their memory by standing always ready to confront tyrants through force, in whatever form they take or ideology they arise from

a reply to: blueman12
Alot of groups got crapped on when they came to this country. The Irish, Jews and others. It is true that black folk had a bigger disadvantage by laws enacted not just individual prejudice.

I once heard an Indian man on NPR say his father hated the British period. There was no redeeming value in what the British did at all. The man speaking said he disagreed with his father in that the British left India in a better social state in that they now had a Parliamentary system to govern. Many things were learned from that time that benefited the society.

Now looking back look at what blacks have today. The alternative was to be back in Africa where not really one government in that continent is worth a damn. So with some competitive disadvantages they had many more opportunities than their brethren back in Africa. Does this justify paying money to people who were not alive then? Its a bad idea and if it is ever enacted most white folk, including myself, will protest by not paying in their taxes. A tax revolt. This idea is really only good for those that are self employed as others have it automatically withdrawn but hopefully there would be other ways.

a reply to: Ansuzrune

trying to use colonialism and "slavery" as a way to justify some kind of savior complex?


what if they didn't want that kind of "Government"? what if they didn't want to leave Africa, or wherever they were taken from?

originally posted by: blueman12
a reply to: JAGStorm

Except a lot of white slaves had the opportunity to free themselves. Most black slaves lived in generations of hopeless slavery.

From just what I read.................... Most blacks in the US got there early on while most other groups like Irish, Jews, Japanese came later. Did the blacks get paid back for this preparatory effort in paving the way for the later Caucasians and Asian arivals?

a reply to: blueman12

My family were irish slaves. Prolly

a reply to: blueman12

On the other hand, a few years after reparations, you’ll be able to buy a used lamborghini pretty cheap