Do you support reparations for blacks?

More poor white people were impacted by redlining. More poor white people are impacted by funding public schools with property taxes.

 

While I agree with your stated principles, I had just wanted to point out that the federal government's influence is limited, because I had believed that the D.O.E., for all the unwarranted attention it gets, from those who want to eliminate it, only provided a few percent, of the country's educational funding.

My argument had been intended to go: Sure, states conform to national standards, in order to qualify for that relatively little bit of federal money (and, one would hope, in support of maintaining some competency bar, and enough uniformity, to foster an ease of national citizen mobility, and good interstate relations), but mandating that students be able to pass a given standardized test, I think is a long way from controlling any state's curriculum.

Now that I've checked the figures, that argument is less clear cut. The current cost for U.S. primary & secondary education, I found to be $800 billion; the amount distributed from the D.O.E., is $175 billion, which would be close to 22% of the total. (More, below).

*So is "promote the general welfare," among other things. IOW, not every specific, future function of government is detailed, nor were they meant to be seen as being enumerated, in our short, foundational document. It is concerned only with laying out a general template, and principles, to be followed.

That said, I just found that D.O.E. funding is much greater than I had imagined (see my other reply, in this post). I am guessing, that it has grown, over the past couple of decades, which I would have supported, if & when that funding was below 10% of national education spending, and would have not seen as objectionable, when the federal share was at 15%. Now that it is over 20%, however, I would expect us to be seeing better results, than it is my impression, we are achieving. But nor do I think that many states are doing a good job, certainly not statewide, in poorer areas, as well as more affluent ones. I think that levelling of the field, is an important role which the federal government should play, in education. Other than that, I agree that they needn't have a hand, in every school; but I would advocate a more limited, yet still crucially important role: that, being to fund promising new approaches to education.

Perhaps you have occasionally seen profiles of schools, trailblazing new educational philosophies, and getting strikingly better results, as have I. The federal government, I envision, as both supporting these innovative attempts, as well as being an informational resource, for school & state officials who want to look into, what is being tried, and see what have been the measurable results. When new methods work, I think states will, largely, want to employ them; but this is dependent upon their knowing of the improved approaches, from all around the nation. That role of promoting successful techniques, seems to me, to be one for which a federal agency would best situated, to fill.

 

How are we ever going to get local school districts that aren't ruled entirely by the teachers unions if we don't bust up their little fiefdoms from one end to the other. Maybe we should try having one central school district for an entire state, ruled at the state level, and the membership on those school boards must be 50-50 Republican and Democrat. Nearly anything would be better than the teacher union's monopolies that run everything in the districts today.

 

Numerically, maybe. But black Americans are disproportionately affected. I advocate for policies that would help both. How about you?

 

Sure, but thats not how "reparations for blacks" or CRT work. Such approaches raise both blacks and whites, while the disparity remains.

 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

 

Not at all! A poor white man has more in common with a poor black man than a rich white man. What divides us is not race, but class. Reparations, or at least what I advocate for, would undoubtedly disproportionately help black Americans, but that’s only because they are disproportionately affected by the ills that plague our society. I want to raise up all people. I believe in an egalitarian society.

 

Ah, the constitution. A document so perfect that it only had to be amended 27 times.

 

Right, read that again: "the Powers not delegated..." That is different than, "the uses of the powers..." Congress is given the power to raise funds. The Executive branch is given administrative powers, and the power to employ the funds designated by Congress, towards whatever particular purpose, Congress has approved. Nothing else required, for Congress to pass a budget that includes education spending.

 

when are the africans who sold other africans into slavery going to pay up? when are the whites who have b been victims of servitude going to get reparations. I lost ancestors fighting for the Union. I think we have paid in full. BTW is a descendant of an American slave better off than say he would have been if he was living in some of those African nations that were the source of slaves? If so, he has no claim

 

congress doesn't have any proper power to engage in reparations. states might but it is idiotic to do so

 

No. Their reparations are that they get to live in a free society today.

 

The US built itself off the backs of slaves over the span of hundreds of years. It bred them like animals to toil in the fields. Entire generations of people never in their life knew freedom. Then on top of that it oppressed them with on the books racist laws for more than a century, and even to this day systemic racism still has its boot on their neck. The US inflicted far more suffering on the people it owned than the tribes in Africa that sold their prisoners of war, and it became the most powerful nation on earth for it. The US is more capable and has more culpability righting these past wrongs than some African tribe.

My idea of reparations would cover poor white people as well, so no worries.

Union soldiers in the civil war weren’t on some kind of rescue mission to free slaves from the south. They were putting successionist traitors in the ground where they belonged. It was about regional hegemony, not some great noble effort.

Their lives are still disproportionately worse off than the people around them today because of the history of their ancestors. Let’s say I do something really horrible to you that doesn’t leave lasting physical damage; I’m talking some serious psychological and emotional trauma, but then I give you fifty bucks! Your life is inarguably better now for having the fifty bucks right? You should be happy for the experience, grateful even, right?

 

Japanese Americans got some for WW2 actions taken against them some 50 years earlier and they're doing dandy today, but I doubt it is due to the reparations themselves. EDIT: Why? Because Japanese Japanese in Japan? We nuked them. And without reparations, they're doing dandy as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_redress_and_court_cases

 

A fine example of the model minority myth. Bravo!

 

Only if I can self identify as a black person and get a piece of the pie.

 

Not heard of that before. Will review. Feel free to update me with what it is to which you are referring.
EDIT:
https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/what-is-the-model-minority-myth
Can't agree with your apparent point if you are stating that observable reality should be compared with prejudice against an individual based upon a group identity in which they appear to be a member.

 

Your assessment of my point, and the model minority myth (mmm), is inaccurate.

The mmm is used as a bludgeon against minorities, particularly within the US, that disproportionately experience economic hardship and lack of social mobility. It contends that X minority, usually East Asian people, experiencing disproportionately high economic and educational attainment discredits the struggles of Y minority, typically Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans, while disregarding a number of critical factors. The most prevalent being the selection bias associated with first, second, and third generation East Asian migrants. Immigration, especially intercontinental immigration, typically requires a substantial amount of wealth and educational attainment. The people that immigrate here are more likely to benefit from intergenerational wealth which improves the success rate for themselves and for their offspring.

This creates a false narrative that they somehow started on the same level ground as other minority groups and they, through their own acumen, found success; where other minority groups, through their deep personal faults, have not.

It is a fallacious argument with the ultimate goal of hand waving away social and economic inequities that disproportionately affect minority populations within the US.

 

???? That was by design.

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, ......

 

In those very rare cases that reparations are justified, the money should be extracted by the persons who committed crimes against other people, but not their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, their great-great-grandchildren, their great-great-great grandchildren. Get the idea?

How does someone who never was a slave qualify for "reparations" that is owed to someone who was put into slavery? Besides, if you look back through human history, at one time or another, nearly every group of people was invaded by someone else and made to become the slaves of the invaders. Should we go back to the beginning of recorded history to start doling out the reparations cash? If so, then where do I submit an application to get mine?

 

Well, it seems to be the rage these days to identify as anything you want, so you might be onto something here.....oh....just one thing though.....you have to be a Lefty

 

I guess, maybe? But, it's going to be really hard to get descendants of African slave traders to pay up, considering they're on another continent and not beholden to our laws. Then you also have the ethical problem of taking from people who are likely already poor because of something an ancestor they never met did. If you can figure out a way to get past the legal and ethical hurdles I'm on board with you. Until then, it's a no for me dawg.

 

I can self identify as one of them also. I just have to decide what my double standard will be.

 

This feels like an NPC dialogue tree post. This is yet another gotcha that I’ve heard far too often. Are you certain you’ve read my posts in this thread?

I don’t want any individual to pay any other individual. I want a nation, the most powerful nation on earth, to right the historical wrongs that built it. I’m not asking to make every black person a millionaire. I want the US to address the residual and continued affects of its explicitly and implicitly racist history. For instance, I want it to dedicate the funding it will take to reverse the negative impacts of redlining.

I want the US to live up to its egalitarian founding statement that “All men are created equal.”

 

I have heard hand waving of the idea that the US is systemically racist in favor of white people over others in that white people are not the top median income demographic. I think currently Indians are and it is hard to believe that the US is actually systemically racist in favor of Indians (or Japanese or Jews,) over white people... got to review to see what those number are but you have given me a lot to think about, thank you.