Do you support reparations for blacks?

I appreciate you taking my post into consideration.

You’re right that the US is not systemically racist in a way that inherently favors Indian, Japanese or Jewish people. The US, being a capitalist market economy, is always going to favor wealth first and fore most. While this may not rule out the possibility of interpersonal racism or implicit bias in our court system for instance, it does mean that they while have an ingrained leg up.

Remember, it’s not race that divides us, it’s class.

 

Dave, a nation IS its citizens! And when a nation gets brow-beaten into thinking that it owes somebody money because of the way things were many decades or centuries ago, it is the tax-paying citizens that are directly affected! The United States changed very much for the better way back in the mid-1960's when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became the law of the land. Redlining is against the law and anybody found guilty of practicing it is committing legal and financial suicide. But that has little or nothing to do with shoveling out money to any ethnic group because of what happened much earlier in history.

There used to be a poster here who argued that if reparations are justified, then Italy owes him reparations because his German ancestors were enslaved by the Roman Empire. We can laugh and say that's ridiculous, but then so is all this clamor for reparations for American Blacks today.

 

Do you agree then, that the promise of all men being created equal is a lie and should be stricken from our founding documents? I don’t think so, but then that’s because I believe that it’s something that we should strive for as a society and as long as we’re working towards that then I think it’s appropriate.

You seem to either be denying the affects of history on people alive today, or accept it and don’t want to do anything about it.

 

I voted no. They have the same if not better opportunities than their white peers with affirmative action. Many are advocating to restrict access to spaces on college campuses to whites. The actions they are displaying in college is a shining example of their collective intents towards whites. The more power we give them the more they want to enslave whites. A Colorado politician is calling to only tax white businesses as well. None of these policies will end. They will want more. If whites allow this to happen we are morons.

 

I will change my vote to yes, but if it’s for Asians only.

 

To be a righty. They have double standards on everything.

 

I do agree that "all men are created equal" as you say, and what that tells us is that all American citizens of all races, creeds, and religions should be treated equally, too. Nobody gets money for being White. Nobody get money for being Asian. Nobody gets money for being Black. We're all equal in 2023!

A lot of people were treated like crap during the history of this country, including Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Middle-Easterners, Blacks, and ethnic Whites like Italians, Irish, Polish, and people from Eastern Europe too. Today, all discrimination is against the law, and all of us are completely equal before the law. That's how it should be. But it doesn't mean that one race or ethnic group should be able to demand reparations from everybody else for wrongs that actually ended many years ago.

 

Except for the fact that many people, black people disproportionately so, are born into generational poverty as a direct result of the US’ racist history. Policies such as redlining have lasting real impacts. Until we dedicate the funds and efforts to correcting those ills, among many others, all men are not created equal.

 

'redlining' is illegal. So if someone does it and it's proven they were denied because of a being in a certain demographic, then lawful actions ensue.

Saying 'generational poverty' is an issue in the here and now is basically saying that people cannot pull themselves out of it. With many government programs already aimed at certain demographics, for the most part it becomes a choice to continue it.

Many existing programs go underused because people don't know they are there. That is what needs to be addressed, not additional programs, not payments to people for something they did not suffer, paid by those who did not commit the sin.

Provide information about existing programs that will help them break out of the situations that drag them down. Actively do something about the schools and influences that continue undermining community social projects.

 

Yes, but not necessarily for slavery. That was a wrong committed by individuals who are dead. Dead people neither have obligations to atone for anything, nor can they 'repay' anything without it being taken from people that are still alive, none of whom ever owned any slaves (at least in the US or 'the West'). However, the government is still every bit as much alive today as it was when it offered blacks, for example, to go fight in a war on our (or, its, depending) behalf in exchange for compensations (such as '40 acres and a mule') that was then never paid. The government arguably still has a debt to those people (their descendants) and the ability to pay at least some of it without taking from anyone else. I do believe their are some people who are currently owed 'reparations' by fedgov in the form of federal land that can be transferred without emburdening anyone not associated with the 'crime'. And if the govt owes people for the wrong of reneging on compensation to their ancestors, I suppose there is precedent for an argument that the govt also owes people for the wrongs that govt allowed to be committed against their ancestors, though some method of objective determination of value of loss would be required for restitution. '40 acres' is objectively valuable. Freedom is a lot harder to define in material terms.

ON a side note- does anyone know the feasibility of sueing the govt on behalf of a deceased relative? Perhaps a class action lawsuit by everyone who can demonstrate they are deprived of something may be the way to go...

 

Correct.
The effort has not been effective enough.
Education and training has to be too effort.

Improvement has been made, but still hasn't been enough.

 

Yes. Education is the single most important tool that the underserved communities need.

 

The Democrat Party does all it can to rip off the scabs and scares that have covered historical wrongs. No one can change the past, but when you are a Democrat you can do everything you can to make sure it ruins the future. Keep the races hating each other for past wrongs. It’s a great Democrat vote gathering strategy.

 

What nonsense. They are born into poverty for the same reason as the MORE numerous whites were born into poverty. Silly CRT nonsense you spout.

 

I disagree. There is way you can say that the Black families who got “40 acres and a mule” would still have the land. Most descendants end up going somewhere else. Some families have a good generation or two, and then a loser dumps the whole thing and has nothing.

I have posted this before and will post it again. We owe disadvantaged minorities the opportunity to get a good education. That involves more than paying teachers higher salaries. If fact it might involve NOT paying them higher salaries and allowing them to go to better schools. That is the only real way out of poverty. If you give them a pile of money, many of them are just going to blow it. It does not take long to go from rich to poor, especially if you abuse drugs or continue to stay in rotten neighborhoods.

 

That was in 1865. The war was over. And they got 400,000 acres and the next Democrat as President rescinded the order.

 

They got no acres. It's a lie
It was proposed but rescinded immediately after Lincoln died. It was all given back to the former slave owners.

 

If we were all created equal, then we would have all invented E=mc2, all lifted 500kg like Eddie Hall did, and run the 100m at the speed of Usain Bolt.

So mankind is not equal, but we can have fairness and strive to give equal opportunity. An example of fairness is weight classes in boxing.

 

Equal in opportunity is all it can ever mean. But, we don’t have that. Not even close. I doubt it’s even achievable. No matter what, those with means will always be able to have more, do more and, probably most importantly, get away with more. Don’t do the crime unless you can’t do the time, or, have a LOT of money and power,

 

You know what you get when politicians throw enormous amounts of money at a situation? Just more "problems" that require enormous amounts of money. Meanwhile, those politicians train entire generations of people to look to government to solve all their "problems", in return for their votes, of course.

 

Would you say that applies to all situations in which government throws money at problems? All of them?

Let’s say roads for instance. Would you say government putting money into our infrastructure only causes problems and causes citizenry to look to government to solve their problems?

 

Youre not qualified to make such assessments.

The response to the Order was immediate. When the transcript of the meeting was reprinted in the black publication Christian Recorder, an editorial note intoned that “From this it will be seen that the colored people down South are not so dumb as many suppose them to be,” reflecting North-South, slave-free black class tensions that continued well into the modern civil rights movement. The effect throughout the South was electric: As Eric Foner explains, “the freedmen hastened to take advantage of the Order.” Baptist minister Ulysses L. Houston, one of the group that had met with Sherman, led 1,000 blacks to Skidaway Island, Ga., where they established a self-governing community with Houston as the “black governor.” And by June, “40,000 freedmen had been settled on 400,000 acres of ‘Sherman Land.’ ” ....
Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor and a sympathizer with the South, overturned the Order in the fall of 1865, and, as Barton Myers sadly concludes, “returned the land along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it”
The Truth Behind '40 Acres and a Mule' | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (pbs.org)

 

Agreed

Reparations for everyone, UBI is a coming thing

 

Just raise California taxes to pay these people for what's rightfully theirs. How much could it cost? A 5% raise in state taxes is chicken feed. Plenty of money out there, let them pay their fair share.

 

Ok. Thanks for correcting me by taking the long way to say exactly what I said. They never got the land.