Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill-gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt.And here's Isaac Chotiner in "Get Ready for a National Debate About Slavery Reparations."
What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.
The best argument against Coates's proposals is simply that they will prove to be more trouble than they are worth, i.e. that their practical effect will be a negative one... But... [i]f we can't even have the conversation he wants because people are so defensive or unwilling (or plain racist), it's just more evidence for what his essay rightfully bemoans.ADDED: Look at the fluid interchangeability of "reparations" and "the conversation." Are we talking about "the conversation about race" that we've been talking about (not) having for the last 2 decades? This almost feels like a negotiation about the conversation, where the demand for "reparations" is designed to get your attention and to prepare you to feel relieved that all you really need to submit to is the conversation.
But, as has often been observed, the supposedly desirable conversation isn't a real conversation. On one level, there's nothing to debate. No one who is to be taken seriously opposes the high level abstraction that is racial equality. On a less abstract level, debate isn't really wanted. The conversation-seekers want to teach lessons and have those lessons acknowledged and taken to heart. There is resistance to that kind of conversation, and I don't think it will be overcome by presenting it in terms of "reparations."
Coates speaks of "spiritual renewal." He professes concern about our national spirit, our our national "consciousness," and our national "self-image," our national "psyche." This is the stuff of religion and its substitutes. I don't believe in or really want awakenings on a grand scale. The human mind belongs to the individual. I would resist the charms of relocating psychic and spiritual matters to the nation.
AND: Coates's analogy to the recovering alcoholic makes my point. The recovering alcoholic is an individual, with an individual problem, going through a personal psychological (and physiological) process. It's imaginative but ultimately specious — and dangerous — to think of the nation as a person.
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278 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 278 of 278TNC himself has already received reparations. He has a column at "The Atlantic" due to the color of his skin.
If he wasn't black, we wouldn't be talking about him, because he's a mediocre writer and thinker.
From Coates - for those who haven't read him:
Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized. In the Deep South, a second slavery ruled. In the North, legislatures, mayors, civic associations, banks, and citizens all colluded to pin black people into ghettos, where they were overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated. Businesses discriminated against them, awarding them the worst jobs and the worst wages. Police brutalized them in the streets. And the notion that black lives, black bodies, and black wealth were rightful targets remained deeply rooted in the broader society. Now we have half-stepped away from our long centuries of despoilment, promising, “Never again.” But still we are haunted. It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us.
Broach the topic of reparations today and a barrage of questions inevitably follows: Who will be paid? How much will they be paid? Who will pay? But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point, there has for some time been the beginnings of a solution. For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for “appropriate remedies.”
A country curious about how reparations might actually work has an easy solution in Conyers’s bill, now called HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. We would support this bill, submit the question to study, and then assess the possible solutions. But we are not interested.
The Crack Emcee said...
"Science recently discovered that, even after you present the facts, you can't convince anti-vaccine believers they're doing the wrong thing by all of us.
Conservatives are the same way - so much so, that they don't even look at the facts."
I smell a non sequitur here.
Crack Emcee also said:
"That's fine. They said slavery would never end - it did.
They [conservatives]said Jim Crow would never end - it did.
They said a black would never be president - he is."
Who are those conservatives who said those things?
Well, yeah. Crack, you are leaving something out... like the fact that blacks are moving BACK to the Republican South from the shining, racially enlightened Democrat North...
Illuninati,
"Who are those conservatives who said those things?"
If you're still trying to deny the Democrat/Republican transference, save your breath. Nobody's buying your lies - we've been alive to witness it for ourselves - including your capacity to lie about it.
You think just like the racists of old.
You talk just like the racists of old.
You find today's representatives of the old ways inspiring - until they embarrass you.
You think you deserve to keep what the racists of old bequeathed to you.
You adamantly fight the same groups of people the racists of old fought.
You use the same arguments the racists of old used.
Face it - don't get stuck on the Dem/Republican mix - when it comes to America's historical racism, you're the bad guys!
And that's all that matters.
Amazing how Coates conveniently forgets the trillions in welfare payments since the 1960s. Wasn't that reparations?
Ann...
For those of you who are relying on the old argument that you (or your ancestors) did not own slaves, you're revealing that you didn't read the article. Coates is not arguing for reparations for slavery alone. He's talking about much more recent history. Reject his argument if you like, but show that you understand what his argument is.
Uh no thanks, I don't think I want anything to do with naked race hustlers. Coates, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton all part of the same shakedown brigade.
The Economics of Reparations: Why Congress Should Meet Ta-Nehisi Coates's Modest Demand
I read the whole thing, Prof. The history was fine but beyond that it's unfocused and unimpressive.
Coates emphasizes several times that we're all one country, all accountable, all responsible--for all our history, good and bad. He likens us to one body, one unit. He then discusses reparations to be paid...to whom, from whom? To America, from America? He gives the example of German reparations and the various reactions in the young Israel to same, but by his own earlier analogies the comparison is clearly inapt.
Coates makes the case for reparations by showing the harm done to blacks in America in different ways throughout our history. He then switches back to asking only for a discussion: A crime that implicates the entire American people deserves its hearing in the legislative body that represents them.
John Conyers’s HR 40 is the vehicle for that hearing. No one can know what would come out of such a debate. Perhaps no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America. Perhaps the number is so large that it can’t be imagined, let alone calculated and dispensed. But I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as—if not more than—the specific answers that might be produced. So now it's a discussion, a debate, or a public hearing that Coates wants? Does he believe payments should be made? Is his voice not able to be heard in a debate over reparations, now? He is posing here as only supporting a debate--this is a bit disingenuous, no? Why does he not have the courage to state his number, explain the payment mechanism, be clear about what he wants to see happen? Does anyone believe all he wants is a conversation or debate? Should anyone agree to a debate on the terms offered here?
HR 40's full title is:
To acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to examine the institution of slavery, subsequently de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
Who doesn't acknowledge the referenced cruelty, injustice, and brutality? [Inhumanity is arguable if you have a sufficiently cynical view of human nature and/or familiarity with history.] Have academics not studied--and are they not still studying--the impact of those forces on living African-Americans? Oh! "make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies" So we are talking about action, then, and not just a conversation. Why won't Coates say that?
One of the findings of the bill is
)sufficient inquiry has not been made into the effects of the institution of slavery on living African-Americans and society in the United States When will sufficieint inquiry have been made? Is there a number of studies, a dollar amounts spent, a volume of works, etc., that will suffice? Is there any limiting principle to the need for study, since of course that's all Coates is asking for? Or perhaps is there a particular conclusion that would signal the issue had been studied enough, or the "science settled"?
The commission is to be made of 7 people, appointed by the President, Speaker of the House, and President Pro Temp of the Senate. The selections "shall be persons who are especially qualified to serve on the Commission by virtue of their education, training, or experience, particularly in the field of African-American studies" so you're sure to get a diversity of viewpoints, there. Oh, and what should the commission recommend? Well, whether the US should apologize formally, whether African Americans still suffer, whether if they still suffer they should be compensated, and finally:("D)If the Commission finds that such compensation is warranted, what should be the amount of compensation, what form of compensation should be awarded, and who should be eligible for such compensation."
I ask again, compensation from whom, to whom? The bill says the commission should recommend whether compensation is owed to " the descendants of African slaves." Coate's assurances that the reparations discussion isn't just about the direct descendants of those harmed by slavery is undercut by the text of the bill for which he's arguing.
I could go on, but that's more than enough. Coates should say what he wants and from whom he wants it. No one should believe him when he says all he wants is a conversation. His implicit claim that reparations would promote national unity is illogical. If we're all responsible we're all guilty and we're all harmed. If we're one America we can't pay ourselves for the damage we've done ourselves.
Crack and his friends also forget that blacks commit a disproportionate amount of violent crimes in the USA.
Or have you already forgotten about what happened to Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome? I certainly haven't nor will I ever.
Crack Emcee said:
"If you're still trying to deny the Democrat/Republican transference, save your breath. Nobody's buying your lies - we've been alive to witness it for ourselves - including your capacity to lie about it."
Oh yes, I see now. Republicans are really Democrats. Sounds like the old game of "heads I win tails you lose." So you still didn't answer the question. Who are the conservatives who said that?
Crack Emcee said:
"You think just like the racists of old.
You talk just like the racists of old."
Do you care to support your claims?
Illuminati, I think Crack wants you to pay him reparations via charity in this thread. Since you called him out on making shit up.
Conservatives said whatever Crack claims they've said. And they've been proven wrong. Because racism!
The Crack wrote:
"The Economics of Reparations: Why Congress Should Meet Ta-Nehisi Coates's Modest Demand"
Even if we could afford it, I'd be opposed to paying Reparations.
First we need to give back the land to the Native Americans. This is their land, not yours.
Once we've given them back what is rightfully theirs, then you can go and beg them for a piece of the pie.
The concept of collective guilt being attached to people simply for who they are is antithetical to any reasonable system of justice. If you want to punish someone, specify what crime they have allegedly committed and prove they did it.
The call for reparations fails the tests for legal justice on all counts. It is extralegal. As an appeal to emotion, it is not something we should consider as a legal requirement.
Will Asian immigrants, who had nothing to do with black slavery, have to pay too?
I don't find myself persuaded by people who argue that America has never been democratic in any real sense. When America was founded in 1783 there had not been a democracy since the time of ancient Greece. Democracy is now a universal aspiration and this is largely due to the American example.
African-Americans are extremely bitter about the way they have been treated and inclined to reject with contempt versions of American history which concentrate on those whom America helped or set free or for whom America was an opportunity. I think that is very limiting. It just doesn't work to say "stop talking about yourself and your friends, talk about me."
Then too I don't see that asking for money is the way to initiate a healing dialog. It's hard for me picture having a dialog with someone - a frank conversation - when my goal is to get some money by steering the dialogue in a certain way and the other person knows this.
And who would get reparations? - it has been said that in America 28% or more of those called "white" are just as "black" genetically as those who call themselves black. That doesn't matter now but if being "black" meant acquiring a substantial fortune then I think you would see a lot more "blacks", claiming the benefit. Cases like that of Elizabeth Warren or the Pigford claimants show this.
But my main feeling is that concentrating on old racial wrongs is hiding new dangers. African-Americans are being wiped out by contraception and abortion which are strongly pushed by an African-American president with socialist leanings and by the Democratic party. This, not reparations, should be the subject of the dialog but it seems that the African-Americans would rather die than admit that the progressives are letting them down. And as irrevocable decline sets in for African-Americans, the progressives move about bathed in that golden glow of self approval which TNC finds so revolting. I know how he feels.
"The same way we feel now but with money - because that's how we're treated, now, but without."
So, reparations would fix nothing, punish the innocent, and enrich people because of their skin color. Africa still suffers from such tribalism. Almost always to the greater detriment of minority tribes. Such is not the path to justice.
From the text of HR 40:
The Commission may, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act, hold such hearings and sit and act at such times and at such places in the United States, and request the attendance and testimony of such witnesses and the production of such books, records, correspondence, memoranda, papers, and documents, as the Commission considers appropriate. The Commission may request the Attorney General to invoke the aid of an appropriate United States district court to require, by subpoena or otherwise, such attendance, testimony, or production.
Any subcommittee or member of the Commission may, if authorized by the Commission, take any action which the Commission is authorized to take by this section.
Obtaining official data
The Commission may acquire directly from the head of any department, agency, or instrumentality of the executive branch of the Government, available information which the Commission considers useful in the discharge of its duties. All departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the executive branch of the Government shall cooperate with the Commission with respect to such information and shall furnish all information requested by the Commission to the extent permitted by law.
Termination
The Commission shall terminate 90 days after the date on which the Commission submits its report to the Congress under section 3(c).
To recap: A committee appointed by politicians with the power to compel testimony via subpoena, form subcommittees with the same power(s), and given a mandate to make findings supporting the idea that reparations are owed. The Commission would end a year from when it was fully created, though, so no chance things would drag out (in appointing the members, holding hearings, finalizing the report, etc). No chance of any of the appointees using their Commission powers towards their own agendas/purposes, anyway.
Wonder what something like this would cost to run?
Sec. 8.Authorization of appropriations
To carry out the provisions of this Act, there are authorized to be appropriated $8,000,000.
From the text of HR 40:
The Commission may, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this Act, hold such hearings and sit and act at such times and at such places in the United States, and request the attendance and testimony of such witnesses and the production of such books, records, correspondence, memoranda, papers, and documents, as the Commission considers appropriate. The Commission may request the Attorney General to invoke the aid of an appropriate United States district court to require, by subpoena or otherwise, such attendance, testimony, or production.
Any subcommittee or member of the Commission may, if authorized by the Commission, take any action which the Commission is authorized to take by this section.
Obtaining official data
The Commission may acquire directly from the head of any department, agency, or instrumentality of the executive branch of the Government, available information which the Commission considers useful in the discharge of its duties. All departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the executive branch of the Government shall cooperate with the Commission with respect to such information and shall furnish all information requested by the Commission to the extent permitted by law.
Termination
The Commission shall terminate 90 days after the date on which the Commission submits its report to the Congress under section 3(c).
To recap: A committee appointed by politicians with the power to compel testimony via subpoena, form subcommittees with the same power(s), and given a mandate to make findings supporting the idea that reparations are owed. The Commission would end a year from when it was fully created, though, so no chance things would drag out (in appointing the members, holding hearings, finalizing the report, etc). No chance of any of the appointees using their Commission powers towards their own agendas/purposes, anyway.
Wonder what something like this would cost to run?
Sec. 8.Authorization of appropriations
To carry out the provisions of this Act, there are authorized to be appropriated $8,000,000.
RESOLVED: Democrats should pay reparations to African Americans. Do I have a second?
God ! I came by here and found Crack still blathering. I would go back to my grandson's baseball game but it's over.
I'm worried that stupidity might be contagious.
hundreds of thousands of white men and boys died freeing the slaves. Hundreds of thousands more were permanently injured doing the same. I'd call that a fucking national reckoning if there ever was one. The bill has been paid, now fuck off, freeloaders.
Is there any doubt that American blacks as a group have been damaged by racial fear, racial hatred and race discrimination? The case for that is incontestable.
The case for reparations gets complicated because the sources of the damages have been multiple and allocating responsibility is next to impossible.
Part of the source is government action--slavery laws, segregation, exclusionary laws, failure of government to provide equal protection of law, etc.
A second major source is private action, all the way from lynching to job discrimination, housing discrimination, etc.
So you have a problem sorting out the source of the harm between multiple governments, federal and local, and multiple private actors.
Then you get to equitable and political factors that make it hard to allocate responsibility fairly. Those include (1) the fact that many of the perpetrators of the damages are dead, (2) the inherent philosophical-political problem with making the present responsible for the sins of the past, (3) the fact that many present Americans are recent immigrants with little tie to the past conduct and (4) the difficulty of determining and allocating personal responsibility of blacks individually and as a group for their own condition today. There's more but that's a good part of the landscape.
Thus, even if you accept, as I do, that white America's action and inaction has been a significant cause in the present condition of black America, it's hard to see how a political consensus for repair of damages can be achieved.
Moreover, even if it were achieved, reparations will not end the fight. Indeed they might intensify or perpetuate it. The problem of white resentment and backlash has already been mentioned. But an equal issue is that fact that many blacks likely will not agree that the reparations are adequate to pay the debt. Then there are the worst of the worst, the whites and blacks on both sides of the issue who have an interest in perpetuating not ending the struggle, because they get political or psychic benefit from it.
It will take a people with more wisdom and better leaders than we have ever had to design a reparations system that would be accepted without making racial hostility greater on the part of both blacks and white.
For these reasons, and for reasons more starkly racial and political, I think it hugely unlikely that we could ever agree on a repair that would be reasonably acceptable. I think therefore that reparations are a false hope, and a cruelty, because humans are better off dealing with reality than a mirage. This is true even for the oppressed, and perhaps especially for the oppressed.
But if you accept my argument, you must also accept that the solution of the oppressed to this reality is not just to soldier on in the system that will not redress their damages. They may also choose to attack the system, or choose to live in it without accepting its values. All three of these reactions are happening now, and they are not going to disappear.
richard mcenroe said...
Well, yeah. Crack, you are leaving something out... like the fact that blacks are moving BACK to the Republican South from the shining, racially enlightened Democrat North...
Richard, there is some truth to the fact of the movement. We see it here where I live. But I am not sure what it proves. In my experience the reasons are largely personal, vocational, financial, etc. It's not a rebellion against the racial climate of the north, or an embrace of some new enlightened south. It's people making personal life decisions. All it says about the south is that it's no longer as overtly dangerous as it was. Indeed the dangers north and south are now pretty much the same.
Crack quoted Coates writing -
"For the past 25 years, Congressman John Conyers Jr., who represents the Detroit area, has marked every session of Congress by introducing a bill calling for a congressional study of slavery and its lingering effects as well as recommendations for “'appropriate remedies.'"
Yeah, representing Detroit. Heck of a job, John. Way to keep your eye on the ball.
Conyers has represented Detroit for 24 terms (48 years)! And is currently shooting for a 25th term. He's a piece of work and has been one from day one.
Full disclosure. When I was organizing voter registration drives in '72, I went to his office to ask for his help. He wasn't there at the moment, but a young aide said I could wait for him in his inner office. He arrived shortly thereafter, took one look at me with disgust, and went back out. I heard him yell "What the hell is that honky doing in my office?" And the same poor clearly frightened aide then came in to politely escort me out with his apologies. I wonder whether he still had a job at the end of the day.
So John Conyers, Jr? Yeah, heck of a guy. A real prince.
Seventeen trillion to date in the War on Poverty. Debt paid.
If only Obama's father had realized how despicable white Americans are as well as Crack does....
Anyone can do well in this country. Crackhole for all his vaunted talents can't seem to get it together so he wants a handout and he has all the soothing rationalizations to protect his ego from the glaringly obvious fact that he's a loser and an incompetent. I know too many productive, prosperous black people to buy this shit. I know plenty that are fuckups with chips on their shoulders too. It's easy to see how a good attitude is really the difference between success and failure in many if not most cases.
White people, with the exception of the weak, self loathing liberals, are rapidly getting a belly full of the angry black shtick, and as things get harder for everyone as this country circles the drain people's patience will wear thin. Bad things will follow I fear.
I'm willing to pay reparations for slavery - as soon as the descendants of the slaves pay my ancestors who FREED them from slavery. My ancestors fought and died on the Union side in the Civil War, and if there are reparations to be paid by the South, then certainly there can be payment to the soldiers who freed them.
Better yet, since none of my great-grandparents had been BORN in 1865, nor had the great-grandparents of any living African-American, maybe we ought to declare a truce.
How much money, for instance, is due to black America? -- from the TNR article...
How much you got?
From what I've read of the 20th century, North American blacks were far from the most oppressed people on the face of the earth. I'm sure they had some hard times, but compared to those who endured the siege of Leningrad, the fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, the death camps of Auschwtiz, the famines in China and the Ukraine, et al. ad infinitum, their sorrows fall well within bearable limits......American exceptionalism. It doesn't just apply to whites.
From what I've read of the 20th century, North American blacks were far from the most oppressed people on the face of the earth. I'm sure they had some hard times, but compared to those who endured the siege of Leningrad, the fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo, the death camps of Auschwtiz, the famines in China and the Ukraine, et al. ad infinitum, their sorrows fall well within bearable limits......American exceptionalism. It doesn't just apply to whites.
"Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. "
Crack, from this point, I would like to see more details. Surely you realize that African blacks hold other blacks in slavery and then sold them to the White people in America. You seem to believe that slavery was launched out of the blue in America in 1610. Well, that's not exactly true, given that blacks were slaves in Africa for thousands of years. American slavery was a short and relatively mild period for them. Moreover, there were very few slaves brought to USA in the 17th century, most of them were brought in the 18th. But facts are not relevant, right?
"You think just like the racists of old."
You wish to punish my children for the sins of some other white people. That's racist.
When McArdle was at the Atlantic, after reading her blog I would sometimes wander over to Coates' area. I think he's basically a genial and likable guy, but he does sometimes flash a chip on his shoulder.
If I might indulge in some internet psychoanalysis, I think the root of that is imposter syndrome: the feeling that he really doesn't belong in his position. The twist? He's right. He knows he's not a very skilled writer or a very original thinker and probably doesn't deserve his high-prestige post. If he were an Althouse commenter, he would be in about the 60th percentile, which is to say about 40 percent of us are better at organizing our thoughts, presenting our ideas clearly, getting our facts straight, and spelling and grammar. He has very poor attention to detail.
This manifests itself in defensiveness about the issues of privilege, affirmative action, and the idea that blacks still have to be twice as good to get half as far. But he knows he's gotten pretty damned far without being nearly as good as people he sees around him. There's been a lot of turnover at the Atlantic. McArdle, Goldberg, and yes, Sullivan have moved on to greener pastures, because they're in demand. Coates? Still there, and not going anywhere.
Why do you suppose that is? And how do you suppose that shapes his world view?
Slavery. "What difference -- at this point, what difference does it make?"
This is a hustle and a shake down, nothing more.
If they day ever comes when I'm required to make payments to someone else on the basis of their skin color, I will leave the country.
Should those who can prove they are descended from freed slaves be obligated to pay reparations in perpetuity to those who can prove they are descended from soldiers who fought to free the slaves?
Reparations have been paid many times over by the white victims of the disproportionately large amount of black crime, by the white taxpayers paying into a system that disproportionately benefits blacks, and by white employees, students, businesses, etc. passed over in favor of lesser-qualified blacks for contracts, college, and whatever else the system of racial preferences has touched.
Professor, without slavery, he is then requesting relief due to people being mean. And with that, blacks have zero claim to money.
So, Crack, can't name a single conservative who said that, huh?
If this passes, a race war will launch and I feel it will be fully justified.
Crack
I agree that the Conyers bill should be passed and debated in public, televised, hearings. I would urge Republicans to co-sponsor and support. Would begin this summer.
The linked article is not helpful in determining a number but does come way off the $100 Trillion that has been bandied about making anyone uttering it look entirely stupid and detracting from the seriousness of the issue. The highest figure cited is $3.5 trillion which would equate to $875,000 for every black man, woman and child. You can see that this will not attract sympathy from even the most sympathetic.
But if the practicalities, not the justice, of reparations are the true sticking point,
The practicalities are, in many ways! an indication of the justice.
Who pays is the same as, from whom does it cause justice to make pay?
Who will be paid is the same as, for whom will justice be served to be paid? Who was harmed, how were they harmed, and who is the person who can get paid now to right the old wrong?
You can see that the justice part is very difficult, if not impossible. Because those who deserve the justice are for the most part gone.
As for Conyers, he introduces a bill each session to keep his constituents believing they have been oppressed and cannot move forward without him protecting them. Without getting some kind of retribution. They are stuck unless they get something from someone else, he tells them. It is the same shameful politics those who have run Detroit have used for decades, and used to create an uneducated, government dependent populace which votes in corrupt officials.
Like Kwame Kilpatrick, the thieving members of the board of education, and John Conyers's wife, Monica (who has met justice by serving jail time for her corruption).
I believe in reparations based on race. It's high time black and white America joined together in paying reparations to Native Americans, who have been truly isolated from the economic mainstream of this country. Once that debt is paid, we can talk about others.
Yes, by all means, let's have a "national conversation," televised hearings, etc. Get on it, Democrats!
Would love to see polling on what percentage of Americans are in favor of borrowing more foreign money to pay blacks reparations. And also on where this purported debt to black people ranks on the list of issues Americans are most concerned about.
(1) Other than a blanket statement that reparations would somehow assuage white guilt by acknowledging that society is biased towards the majority, there is no indication of how reparations would actually help blacks. There's an implicit assumption that money is the great equalizer, but the recent history of many lottery winners (and TV shows) suggests in the absence of some kind of special characteristics, money can make things worse. Fundamentally, if reparations don't add any permanent positive benefit to the recipient and actually create conditions that (based on logic and observation) lead to harm, then they should not even be considered; if you don't start the argument with how reparations will help in a concrete way, focusing solely on the "crime," then there is no real point.
(2) "Jim Crow, racial terror in the south, redlining, contract mortgages that destroyed what little black wealth there was" is a canard; however it should be recognized that "Jim Crow" and "racial terror in the south" was mostly (not all, but clearly by far the majority) in the south. Hence the qualifier "in the south." Extrapolating economic and social conditions in the south to the nation as a whole is wrong fundamentally wrong; different pressures.
(3) Even given an atmosphere of racial discrimination, blacks today benefit in both an absolute sense and in any comparison you care to undertake other than rich white folk. If you're going to prepare a balance sheet to make some kind of meaningful proposal, it's wrong to ignore assets. I can't think of a legal situation where in the division, contract, or sentencing stage one ignores the positive.
You guys don't understand - we won't be paying the reparations, it would be the government!! What's the big deal?
Since Hawaii didn't become a state until well after Brown v. Board of Education, and there was never anything like Jim Crow there, anyway, I move Hawaiian residents (and Alaskan residents, for that matter) be exempted from the Democrats' moral obligation to pay reparations to African Americans.
P.S. As an Irish-American, I believe consideration must be made for those thousands who were shipped to the New World as slaves under Cromwell and into the early 1800s. Where do I file a claim, Crack?
“True compassion does not sit on the laps of renovation; it dives with an approach to reconstruction. Don't throw a coin at a begger. Rather, destroy his source of poverty.”
― Israelmore Ayivor
David,
"The solution of the oppressed to this reality is not just to soldier on in the system that will not redress their damages. They may also choose to attack the system, or choose to live in it without accepting its values. All three of these reactions are happening now, and they are not going to disappear."
As for Conyers, he introduces a bill each session to keep his constituents believing they have been oppressed and cannot move forward without him protecting them. Without getting some kind of retribution. They are stuck unless they get something from someone else, he tells them. It is the same shameful politics those who have run Detroit have used for decades, and used to create an uneducated, government dependent populace which votes in corrupt officials.
That might be coming to an end given that he doesn't qualify for the Dem primary.
What is up with MI pols having issues with petition signatures to run. First Thaddeus McCotter, now this decrepit clown?
Also, assume they get paid.
They wouldn't "revisit" this...why? Cry and get cash? That might lead to repeated usage.
"Professor, without slavery, he is then requesting relief due to people being mean. And with that, blacks have zero claim to money."
It's closer to the other way around. Slavery was part of the law in its time. Post-slavery there were laws entitling people to equality, but illegal things were done that denied this equality. It wasn't just "meanness." There were many crimes and torts and to such a great extent and with such a well-known pattern that it burdened everyone in the targeted racial group, and it was a burden that lasted for generations.
Scott said...
"It is a tour de force of willful blindness for Ta-Nehisi Coates to write an entire article about the wrongs meted out on Black people while surgically removing the political context of those injustices. Yet it's so necessary for him to do this ridiculous task, because Coates knows that if you tell the whole truth, you cannot avoid acknowledging that historically the Democrats were the the perpetrators of the biggest injustices.
"And that is one truth that a Black man in America today cannot write, without receiving fierce retribution from the very same party. How ironic.
"I don't know if that is something that I should pity Coates for not being able to tell the truth, or scorn him for perpetuating the myth of the non-involvement of Democrats in the suffering of his people. It would be more honorable for him to be teaching English at a community college someplace."
-----------------------------------------
Scott, did you read Coates's article?
"The work of mobs was a rabid and violent rendition of prejudices that extended even into the upper reaches of American government. The New Deal is today remembered as a model for what progressive government should do—cast a broad social safety net that protects the poor and the afflicted while building the middle class. When progressives wish to express their disappointment with Barack Obama, they point to the accomplishments of Franklin Roosevelt. But these progressives rarely note that Roosevelt’s New Deal, much like the democracy that produced it, rested on the foundation of Jim Crow."
Ann Althouse,
"It wasn't just 'meanness.'"
It is if you're a racist, and you and your racist allies are determined to minimize hundreds of years of evil as much as possible.
Then hundreds of years of laws, being outnumbered and held by force, rape and theft - all of it - is just whites with a bad attitude, nothing more. And they want to do it to us and our families and friends - with our approval, and while insisting we love them, too.
And then they wonder why we don't like them - or even hate them - and KNOW they're out-of-this-world crazy,...
"The solution of the oppressed to this reality is not just to soldier on in the system that will not redress their damages. They may also choose to attack the system, or choose to live in it without accepting its values. All three of these reactions are happening now, and they are not going to disappear"
Yes they will, because African-Americans, as a group, are themselves disappearing. Two more generations, and they'll be too decimated, too diluted, to ever be a national political force. And the Democrats will turn the conversation to reparations for Hispanics...
There were many crimes and torts and to such a great extent and with such a well-known pattern that it burdened everyone in the targeted racial group, and it was a burden that lasted for generations.
And it ground to a halt over fifty years ago. I think it's past time to start living in the 21st century, don't you?
"875,000 is 3.5 trillion"
Um, to make it easy, round it up to one million, then multiply it by 40 million, you get 40 trillion,(six zeros plus six zeros is twelve zeros) so the number you are looking for is 35 trillion.
Nice though that you dismiss anybody who came up with an estimate in the neighborhood as "entirely stupid" when your calculation is off by an order of magnitude.
Dr Weevil said...
Has no one done the arithmetic? I did it a couple of months ago and posted my results in a comment on this site, to deafening silence from supporters of reparations. Crack wants 100 trillion dollars in reparations, which comes to $2,500,000 each for 40 million black Americans. (By the way, does Obama get $1,250,000 since he's only half-black?)"
He (Crack) said dollars but not all dollars are the same: pay them in Zimbabwe dollars.
And, in the end, what are reparations if not the standard left wing solution to every problem: throw money at it?
If we really wanted to help Black people we would (1) discourage out of wedlock pregnacy; (2) improve education at K through 12th grade, in part by sanctioning the chronic classroom disrupters and in part by ending tenure outside the university system and ruthlessly removing the worst teachers regardless of gender or skin color; and (3) change affirmative action from being ethnicity based to being economically based and putting time limits on the opportunity (i.e., young poor people of any race or background get extra support but if they don't use it, they lose it).
But that's all way too much like work for a Democrat.
It's high time black and white America joined together in paying reparations to Native Americans, who have been truly isolated from the economic mainstream of this country. Once that debt is paid, we can talk about others.
We already are, quarter by quarter, every weekend at the casinos......
If they day ever comes when I'm required to make payments to someone else on the basis of their skin color, I will leave the country.
If that day ever comes, the country will have already left you.
Thus, even if you accept, as I do, that white America's action and inaction has been a significant cause in the present condition of black America
So we're damned if we do, damned if we don't.......
But if you accept my argument, you must also accept that the solution of the oppressed to this reality is not just to soldier on in the system that will not redress their damages. They may also choose to attack the system,
Yeah that worked out well for the Black Panthers.......
or choose to live in it without accepting its values.
You mean values like marriage, not killing your babies, not forming gangs and terrorizing your neighborhood, not becoming politically corrupt and ruining your cities, and not refusing an education?
Mr. Coates is not really interested in any "conversation," but in bullying and dominating others, like most race hustlers.
Perhaps that's why he banned me from commenting on The Atlantic site merely for questioning the identification of those who oppose same-sex marriage with slave-owners. (No, I didn't use any profanity nor did I attack others. The banning violated The Atlantic's stated policy on banning commenters, but that hardly matters; in reality, the magazine simply lets writers follow their whims and animus with no accountability. Laws and policies are for the little people. Any parallels here?)
On the issues Coates cares about, there is no debate. The final revelation has been handed down, and he is its prophet. That kind of messianic absolutism is typical of the left nowadays--the same left that (long ago) used to preach "ask questions" etc.
Now we increasingly hear that too much debate and questioning is harmful to the great leader, or amounts to bullying women,
or makes you a traitor to Gaia, etc.
The notion of collective responsibility based on race (or any other external characteristic unrelated to personal moral agency) is regressive, not progressive, and profoundly antidemocratic.
"they don't even look at the facts."
Because we come to different conclusions?
I am really curious where the trillions are going to come from. Crack has made clear that none of us are going to pay them, they are going to come from the "treasury."
Last I checked, that place was empty. I think we are borrowing half a trillion dollars a year just to get by.
And we've spent decades making up for it, lasting thru several generations. At what point is it enough? They've had preferences in employment, college admissions, etc for 50 years.
And again, who pays? ALL Americans, including blacks? Everybody EXCEPT blacks? What about people who have not experienced racism, but fAil becAuse black leadership tells them, repeatedly, they have no chance? Should Asians and Hispanics be exempted from paying?
And why wouldn't whites just rise up and kill people en masse? There's going to be substantial outrage from the largest racial group who has as shown restraint so far...stealing trillions from for sins they didn't commit would, rightly, cause bloodshed.
The last person who SERIOUSLY tried to punish an entire group for the actions of a few was Hitler.
From Coates:
From the White House on down, the myth holds that fatherhood is the great antidote to all that ails black people. But ... Trayvon Martin had a father.
Trayvon Martin had a father who divorced his mother when he was three, to marry the woman who became his stepmother, and he was raised by his father and stepmother. When Trayvon was 15 his father divorced his step-mother and Trayvon went to live with his mother. It was only after his father had broken up his second home that Trayvon started having the issues at school that led to multiple suspensions.
It is not enough to have a father. You need to have a father, married to a mother, and committed to raising a family. This is what Trayvon lacked.
Would having such a father have saved Trayvon's life? The trivial answer is clearly yes, since, had he not been visiting his father's fiancee, he would not have been there to be killed. The serious answer is that we can't know, since we don't know how the altercation started. What we do know is that while alive, Trayvon was seriously screwing up his education. The choices his father made were certainly a contributing factor.
"Yes they will, because African-Americans, as a group, are themselves disappearing. Two more generations, and they'll be too decimated, too diluted, to ever be a national political force. And the Democrats will turn the conversation to reparations for Hispanics... "
This is a good point. Demographic shift means black people are becoming a smaller and smaller minority.
Soon they will have trouble competing with other minority groups who really don't care about them at all.
Be honest: none of you wingnuts actually read the article.
Suspicion: And probably damned few of the moonbats, either!
I tried to read the article in its entirety. I would estimate it to be between 14,000 to 16,000 words long! I just do not have the time to give it a thorough reading. I 'skimmed' it after the first few thousand words to quickly assimilate the main points. Even with my rapid-reading technique it was a long slog. War and Peace is longer but at least it's an example of genius.
"The Case for Reparations a wind-baggy, poorly written thing, as long as some short novellas, droning on and on – all merely to say:
You owe us money because bad things happened to us that were done by people who are mostly dead now. We blacks in no way contributed to our present predicaments and are not to be blamed for anything whatsoever. Pay up you racist bastards because it's the only path to our happiness and the redemption of your evil souls.
Note: It is emphatically NOT necessary to read this thing in order to intelligently debate black reparation. It brings nothing new to the issue.
Opinion: I think that anyone who counts heavily on reparation is doomed to live a disappointed life.
Prediction: This article will become an "authoritative" source for countless diatribes against all us racist white people. It may eventually become a quaint artifact about which future scholars will scratch their heads in puzzlement.
grackle,
I liked your earlier post as well.
I had a similar but not quite as strong reaction to TNC's article.
I think we would do well to think about who is TNC's audience. Not who will reflexively nod their head in agreement, but rather who he needs to convince.
My personal read FWIW is that younger black activists realize without quite understanding why that the old white guilt standby just ain't working like it used to. Oh sure, an appeal to history still works with reliable boomers like Althouse and Meade and me (to some extent), but it just doesn't cut it with non-blacks under 50. He lives in fear that society might possibly productively move on. But he doesn't realize that the old approach, like the old white guilt no longer works it magic.
So absent any actual realization as to the nature of his task, TNC concludes that the solution is "more cowbell." Darn those people, why won't they be guilted like before. It must be because they don't know the history. I'll give them history by the barrelful. That'll learn them.
But an appeal to History is just that. It's an appeal, not an argument. It's the beggar telling you his life story for a handout.
So absent an actual argument, he has an historical appeal that will convince only those who have living memories of at least some of what he recites. While the audience he has to actually convince rightfully responds with "meh."
So grackle, I agree with your prediction about the ultimate fate of this article, and simply repeat what I've commented before, real permanent progress in black white race relations will not be cemented in place until the last of us boomers are cold in the grave.
P.S.: I have an impeccable "ancestors in the Union army and others immigrating long after slavery was abolished" pedigree. Citing them is just as weak as the historical appeal used by TNC et al.
Part of the greatness of the American spirit is we do not believe in generational sin. I am not responsible for the deeds of past generations. We react in disbelief to those in other countries that carry hatred for killings done in the 1500s. I am responsible for assumed wrongs of my ancestors. Should we acknowledge the wrongs that where done in the past - of course. Should we right current wrongs - absolutely. It makes no sense to demand payment of people for the wrongs of past generations. It makes no sense for payment to be given to those who have not suffered those wrongs. The complexity of giving payment to anyone with African skin color boggles the mind. Who is worthy of payment? 1/2 black ancestory?1/32? What of those who are recent immigrants - do they share in the reparation bounty? What about the Indians,Irish, Chinese, Mexicans, Jews, and Gypsies who were subject to discrimination? It ignores history that whites were also indentured servants (slaves). The reparation discussions is senseless and extremely divisive, and serves no useful purpose.
I think it would be a valuable exercise for Coates -- or maybe Crackster -- to set up a voluntary reparations fund. Anyone, black, white or chartreuse, who felt that reparations are deserved would be free to pay any amount they felt fair. I'm sure it would be a lucrative hustle, just like Jesse Jackson's various shakedowns.
I bring this up, because Coates seems to believe he has an argument that ought to convince most Americans. And yet, he doesn't seem to think that most Americans will be convinced, unless his friends in DC put a gun to our heads.
Well, I've read through this whole commentary here and Mr. Holder and others who "want" a conversation on race ought to read it...if they can stand to. There is your answer, big boys, now what? I didn't bother reading Coates article, I taught the subject for 20 years, I can even name the court cases. I know about the lynchings and the failure to enact anti lynching laws. I know that the Reconstruction era persisted only so long as the Union Army served as army of occupation. I know that the Klan was the military wing of the Democrat Party in the South to terrorize blacks and prevent them from voting. The Klan was actually the basis for a proposed guerrilla army to keep fighting the Civil War, which in a way is what they did.. The carnage of the war had sickened the people of the North and they needed what was left of their men folk to tend to their farms and put food on their table. One theory I had on why the majority in Plessy v. Ferguson decided the case the way they did was they were afraid of restarting the civil war or having the court decision ignored.
If history is your weapon of choice, beware! It is a double edged sword. The lesson of Lyndon Johnson serves as a warning. Shortly after the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, an arrest in Los Angeles led to the Watts Riots and the first of the urban riots that brought down the Great Society majority in Congress the following year. If cash reparations had any chance, it would have happened in a second Lyndon Johnson Administration. Now, there is too much history on the other side of the ledger.
"The conversation-seekers want to teach lessons and have those lessons acknowledged and taken to heart."
Why should that be taken at face value? I really would like to know why you assume that.
I demand reparations from Mr. Coates of the phoney name because his ancestors threw mine out of the ancient African paradise. Should amount to the quintillions after compound interest. Or Mr. Coates can self-deport back to Africa and I'll call it even for his personal share of what I'm owed.
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