Should Blacks be paid "reparations" today because of slavery in the United States?

One way would be to get government off our back, let the economy flourish. Another BIG way would be to stop the race baiting. Now we are getting into the responsibility of individuals.... we need to evaluate individuals not only as fellow human beings but on merit as well. MLK said it pretty well "judge men and women not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". There is no way government can dictate this.

 

1 person back then could have several descendants now. Do you split that among that persons descents or give them all the full 40?

 

And withhold doing so for whites? How much money has already been spent on the Great Society and all the other government "commitments". Blacks had their greatest income improvement under Trump and the Republicans. Did you vote to reelect them?

 

It would be a HUGE project - requiring a hell of a lot of DNA testing, genealogical work and bureaucracy etc to figure out the details.

For a start an argument could be made that it couldn't/shouldn't be paid to anyone of black descent if their forbears arrived in the country post civil war emancipation since by default the forebears of these citizens were not brought to the country as slaves. (If only because if this rule didn't apply then any citizen with a history of social and economic disadvantage would be inclined to argue that they to were entitled to compensation for past injustices and economic discrimination imposed upon them by historical events.)

Secondly current generations of Afro-Americans would have to work through their genealogies or have the government do it for them to work out what % of the total amount they were entitled to give at some point in history direct lineal descendants of slaves would/could/did marry into and out of other family lines with no history of slavery. Using genetic traits as a template you'd end up with some people who were 75% 'slave', some who were 50% etc. You could even end up with weird situations where nominally 'white' American citizens were entitled to some degree of compensation based on ancestry.

Then there would be non Afro-Americans who could argue they shouldn't have to pay for the compensation given none of their ancestors were even in the US at the time and that they are being 'punished' if forced to pay via taxes/levies for something they had no involvement in. If this argument was accepted the only citizens obliged to pay would be 'old family' Americans with lineages going back to the pre-civil war period.

In short lots of problems and issues to sort through.

 

We are talking about handing people with below average IQ and elementary grade math competence tens of thousands of dollars. This is the reparations thread not the wealth redistribution thread.

Your complaint is BS because the wealthiest most powerful people on earth are fanatical democrats including the Duchess of Sussex.

The wealthiest did fantastic during the Obama years while the working class and poor were stagnant.

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/rich-get-richer-poor-poorer-under-obama/

Under Trump working people and blacks did better. You hate Trump!

Of course people who are smart with money will keep getting wealthier. My wife and I are among them. But if you reject capitalism as evil and unfair from the beginning you sure in the hell are not going to thrive within it.

 

How much will the duchess of Sussex get in reparations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghan,_Duchess_of_Sussex

She marries into the royal family of England and pretends to be a victim. The richest most powerful people on earth are now victims while normal working people are called deplorables. Oprah and Hillary are victims. Reparations for Hillary! See the first few minutes of the video.

 

Capitalism is a system that makes us as a country richer, gives us more individual freedom and choice. Gives us a much higher standard of living. Simply look at countries that have done their best to reject capitalism and a market economy. Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.

You have to be brain dead to think there is a better economic system. So why is the question even asked in this New Yorker article if capitalism is racist?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/is-capitalism-racist

Because capitalism works best for smart people who understand it and works least well for dumb idiots who are brain washed to hate it for political reasons.

 

It should go to whomever would've inherited their estate. In any case of multiple legit claimants, it would have to be divided up.

 

How about converting the value of the award to its value in say 1880 at the time of the offense? instead of $1000, it's $9.46, and taxable.

 

Hpw about paying for a one-way ticket back to the land of their ancestors for those who don't like the US? By air not sea....

 

Is that adjusted for inflation and relative scarcity? I don't think we want to set even more precedent that its acceptable for the govt to cough up its dues to The People only after those dues can be reduced in value...

Real estate value relative to average income (a rough approximation of relative scarcity) is actually 1000% higher today than it was in 1950. Though, its also true that govt land isn't necessarily subject to that relatively, since the govt ostencibly isn't in the business of buying or selling land for profit.

I think at the end of the day, 40 acres of govt land = 40 acres of govt land regardless of the timeframe. A mule is prolly more like an ATV today.

 

How do you give a reparations check to a person who does not even have a bank account?

The federal government going to create a public bank for them? We going to hire thousands of financial consultants?

How long after or before the checks get sent out do we hear about how it is not enough?

I already mentioned that. They need to give up their US citizenship though. I would even give them some cash to get settled.

What African country does not want a bunch of lazy low achievement whiners? Like these people.

 

None of that really means anything. Why worry about what someone else owns? The object is to try and improve ones own financial situation. When I started out into the workaday world I was told when I got my paycheck and paid my taxes and bill that the next 10% goes into savings. Pay yourself first. It wasn't there to go and buy a beer or waste on frivolous stuff. I was told that if the company had matching contributions to put as much money into the 401 as the match and more if possible. It was tough at first because one has to readjust their life style with less money. I had a Filipino lady told me that if I wanted something, too buy the best quality, and wait until I had cash to pay for it. She also told me most people don't ask for a better price but it doesn't hurt. Your right that I'm comfortable but it hasn't all been peaches and cream. It is just part of life. Hospital bills, loss of job, death in the family, house fires, car accidents, etc. All that stuff happens. You cannot depend on others or the government to keep your head above water, that's the reason, you start to take care of your own financial situation. Corporations want cheap labor, your neighbors and family have their own problems and the government only cares about political power. Not us.

 

They aren't Africans anymore.

 

You have no basis to know the IQs of those who would be receiving checks, under some, as of yet, nonexistent plan. Do you want to provide some sort of factual justification for your contention, or are we all just to assume that black people are of below average intelligence?

This is the reparations thread, not the ignorant bigot, racism thread.

That the 10% wealthiest Americans are the also the smartest Americans is NOT what I, nor my cited sources, implied. Basic understanding of the world & our economy would typically prevent anyone, with even less than a modicum of intelligence, from coming to that conclusion through their, "reason." Funny, then, that such an exceptional thinker as yourself would hold this patently false belief. Just curious-- does your wife agree with you on that?

If you were as intelligent as you claim, it is a wonder that you do not realize that this, "point," does NOT show that my, "complaint (sic) is BS," but, rather, has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the perspective I was adding, in order to expand your less-than fully informed view.

This is a reparations thread, not a partisan, anti-Democrat thread.

Once more, your, "argument," makes a contention that is totally irrelevant to the point, which was, to remind you,1) that it takes having disposable income (because no investment is guaranteed) in order to invest, therefore it would be erroneous for one to assume that anyone not investing was doing so merely as a matter of choice, or from lack of interest, or was simply too lazy, or too stupid to see the benefits, or unable to mentally manage the task, or did not trust whitey's market; 2) the vast majority of the value of our entire stock market is owned by an extremely small part of our population.

To repeat myself, from the previous section of this reply: A) one would think your above-average intelligence, so-called, would preclude your not being able to realize this, prior to posting it; B) This thread is about reparations, which should not automatically be a partisan subject. The Red State legislature of North Carolina passed a bill to fund a Commission tasked with investigating the reparations issue & coming up with suggestions on how they might best be addressed.

Once again: REPARATIONS thread, not OBAMA-haters thread, or partisan, anti-Dem thread.

Incredibly, this is one more part of your, presumably considered, case which is has NOTHING, really, to do with the main issue we are discussing, & to which you are replying.

Also, though my post makes NO MENTION of former-President TRUMP, or Republicans-- or even POLITICS!-- you can somehow conclude that I, "hate Trump?" Should I add psychic to your list of attributes, alongside highly-intelligent?

I assume, by the word, "you," you are referring to black people, in general, believing this. Such a grand contention would normally be expected to be served-up with a side of supporting evidence, even when coming from a brilliant psychic.

If, by chance, you actually were directing that comment toward me, I never said I rejected Capitalism, overall, as, "evil & unfair from the beginning." In fact, I put forth no moral judgement in my post, which was merely an attempt at interjecting some facts that seemed missing from your discussion of the stock market's role, vis a vis the economic position of blacks in America, & how that might potentially relate to individual reparations pay-outs.

I would go into the subject of capitalism's strengths, flaws, & overall fairness (as well as modifications which might address shortcomings) further, with another thinking person, whose opinion would quite possibly differ from my own, but I see I have now quoted every bit of your, "reply," without your being able to formulate a single argument that even hit the broad as a barn-door topic of, "reparations," so I don't think I shall waste my time & effort, with you.

Oh, there was one line of yours that I missed quoting:

Thanks, for the tip.

 

Yes, life is not easy, for even the most fortunate of us. Lucky for you, substandard schooling, racial discrimination in the job market, discrimination from the credit & loan industry, housing discrimination, and being viewed with automatic suspicion by many in law enforcement-- which can & does lead to victimization of the innocent by a racially-prejudiced judicial system-- don't need to be added to your list.

 

You said' "Instead, we should make opportunities available to all and encourage one another".

So now you are saying "we" - as opposed to the government - should make "opportunities available to all".

How are "we" supposed to do that? ie, how exactly are you and I supposed to make "opportunities available to all"?

Your assertion the economy will flourish all by itself with less government intervention is sheer ideological nonsense.
Not everyone can prosper or succeed in private sector, competitive, free markets in which unemployment is a constant factor.

"Race bating" is a diversion from the real causes of economic disadvantage; and your conflation of personal responsibility on the one hand , with "merit" on the other hand, amounts to a survival of the fittest ideology. Fact is both whites and blacks live in entrenched poverty in the US, but for historical reasons, blacks are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites.

So I say again: Conservatives who insist poverty cannot be eradicated are THE problem. And unlike you who could only come up with the vague remedy of "getting government off our backs", others propose more effective solutions.

The Case for a Job Guarantee | Pavlina Tcherneva (pavlina-tcherneva.net)

"One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false.

In this book, leading expert Pavlina R. Tcherneva challenges us to imagine a world where the phantom of unemployment is banished and anyone who seeks decent, living-wage work can find it – guaranteed."

 

You keep telling yourself that. Do you honestly believe that white people don't go to sub standard schools, aren't discriminated in the job market by the cloths they wear, style of hair or jewelry hanging out of their eyeballs and face or general looks and body build? Many of us have been turned down for loans and denied home loans because we didn't qualify. Banks are notorious on dragging their feet if they think interest ranks are about to change. I personally have been stopped many times by the police for no apparent reason. Many times it's the car or van your driving . They think your dealing or running drugs. White people, brown people all go through the bulls**t and that is one reason many of us don't really give a damn about BLM. Look at our plight. Blacks get a whole month to celebrate, woman get a whole month to celebrate, Muslims get a whole month to celebrate and Christians get to celebrate a couple times a year. Chinese get a whole month to celebrate. Now we have special days for LBGT people. Man what about us poor old white guys? Gotta go to work so we can send money to the government and keep the nation afloat. They telling me about a couple million illegal aliens are invading our southern border ,so, I guess it won't be long before we have to give them a month.

 

Yes, both whites and blacks can experience, and are subject to entrenched disadvantage and poverty, as you say; even so, black poverty and unemployment rates are double that of whites.

So rather than whining about who gets to celebrate their own culture and for how long, how about coming up with a solution to the entrenched disadvantage and poverty?

The Case for a Job Guarantee | Pavlina Tcherneva (pavlina-tcherneva.net)

"One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false.

In this book, leading expert Pavlina R. Tcherneva challenges us to imagine a world where the phantom of unemployment is banished and anyone who seeks decent, living-wage work can find it – guaranteed.

 

All the things you list, also affect black people. That is, a black person who dresses or grooms themself, or has body art, that would cause them to be, "discriminated against," in the job market, will have an additional strike against them. These, foregoing, things are not, properly speaking, clearly discrimination, because employers have a right to set certain standards, for appearance. Whether or not it was discrimination would depend on the specifics of the case. But the important difference, for the purposes of this debate, is that ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS, THE PERSON CAN CHOOSE TO CHANGE, in order to avoid the unwanted reaction.

As far as discrimination against grossly overweight people (most Americans are overweight to some degree), and the like, there is criticism of this prejudice, though it is less of a publicly-embraced cause than BLM, and it is not the subject of this thread. While you could certainly cite others who undergo discrimination-- Muslims, Middle-Easterners, the homeless, etc-- that does not make the effects of racism NEGATABLE (even considering their boon, of Black History Month-- it's a shame that so much of this American history isn't taught in schools). And your belief that you, as a white male, can understand the obstacles erected in our society against blacks, in fact that you have even encountered & overcome equivalent road-blocks, is what is divorced from reality (not my belief that blacks are treated unequally in, not just America, but probably any country in which they are a minority).

Certainly, people will always show preferences to others, based upon their looks. It would be foolish to believe anything could be done about this. It would also be foolish to assume it causes a bank's real-estate assessor to undervalue their homes by more than 30%; or causes a police officer to make you get out of your car for nothing more than a minor traffic citation (as over a broken tail-light), or to assess that an 8-minute choke hold, with others' weight on your back, is necessary to, "subdue," you, way past the point of losing consciousness.

 

I just got caught up on this thread tonight, and it was quite obvious to me that you were being facetious. No idea why others didn't catch that.

 

So....I asked for your solutions, and you say we already have them.... all we have to do is "encourage one-another" to take the opportunities, despite the fact that:

" One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is also false."

Er... that was 2000 years ago; since then science has discovered how to make robots that are capable of making things.

And note Jesus also said : "It's easier to thread a needle with a ship's cable, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven", so his view of the massive economic inequality we see today would likely present you with a problem....

Er...."the Left"? Not whites in general? Or more importantly, not the economic system noted above, namely "One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary"....

Speaking of Marx, I can't wait for China's economy to sail past the US within the decade, with its policy of "socialism with Chinese characteristics", in which we will see full employment and the eradication of poverty, via central government subsidization of housing, food, health and education costs, for the the working poor.

While the US will still be arguing about the introduction of a living wage, how to create jobs, how to fund necessary public infrastructure, and dealing with BLM riots, homelessness, etc. ....your "democratic freedoms" will rightly be regarded with the contempt they deserve, in the eyes of the Chinese, if that outcome is the best you can achieve.

(link)

The American Dream Is Alive and Well—in China | WEB OF DEBT BLOG (ellenbrown.com)

 

At the time I wrote the post I was the lone vote for reparations. So I very jokingly in big bold black letters pronounced myself as the only woke poster and everybody else a RACIST!!!!!!!

The post was removed for a flaming violation. Lol. Who was I flaming myself?

 

So China's economy is superior to ours? We should eliminate 50% of our freedoms? Have a dictatorship? Do why is our per capita GDP 4.5 times higher? So you are impressed with their carbon footprint? Slave labor?

Perhaps it should not be our objective as a country to enrich them.

Totally ignorant post. They unleashed a bio engineered virus on the world and you praise them.