Do we owe Black American citizens reparations for Jim Crow laws and maybe for slavery too. - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15014882
Well, do we?

I know that slavery was a much greater evil, but it was also much longer ago.
Also, the white people of the north paid a steep bill in blood and gold already (in the Am. Civil War) to end slavery.

However, Jim Crow ended (sort of) around 1960 to 65. I was n HS then so there are a lot of Black Americans who were also alive while Jim Crow laws were in force.
And as Black Lives Matter has pointed out, Blacks are still being shot dead because some white person with a gun "thought" they there were threatened. Just being a racist twit and being scared as a result is enough to justify killing an unarmed Black man.
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Because I believe in MMT, I believe that the reparations could be paid and not have to raise anyone's taxes. And there would be little inflation.
#15014884
@Steve_American

Steve_American wrote:Well, do we?

I know that slavery was a much greater evil, but it was also much longer ago.
Also, the white people of the north paid a steep bill in blood and gold already (in the Am. Civil War) to end slavery.

However, Jim Crow ended (sort of) around 1960 to 65. I was n HS then so there are a lot of Black Americans who were also alive while Jim Crow laws were in force.
And as Black Lives Matter has pointed out, Blacks are still being shot dead because some white person with a gun "thought" they there were threatened. Just being a racist twit and being scared as a result is enough to justify killing an unarmed Black man.
.
Because I believe in MMT, I believe that the reparations could be paid and not have to raise anyone's taxes. And there would be little inflation.


Absolutely reparations are owed. Bear in mind that race based slavery and it's legacy has created vast racial disparities that are felt to this very day in a huge way. However, the tricky part to paying reparations is how these reparations should be paid and paid in a way to best address the vast inequalities that African Americans suffer to this day to give them a truly level playing field with white Americans and to also ensure they are given equal treatment. Despite the legal end of segregation if you look around America we still see a great deal of segregation instead of diverse, healthy and well integrated communities.

A lot of the segregation we see in communities today can be traced back to red lining and whites ensuring they keep all the money, wealth and power despite the legal end of segregation. Plus, it seems wealthy whites sought to put their kids in basically all white private schools when legal desegregation came partly to ensure their children get a first class education and a competitive edge and thus maintain their wealth, status and privilege in society.
#15014933
Steve American wrote:Well, do we?

No. It would violate sovereign immunity. That's actually what the political left is pushing by the back door. That's why they tried to use a special counsel against Trump, even though he cannot be prosecuted for the same reason--the government has sovereign immunity.

Would your proposition also apply to indentured servitude, where people were in effect slaves for a specified duration?

Steve American wrote:And as Black Lives Matter has pointed out, Blacks are still being shot dead because some white person with a gun "thought" they there were threatened. Just being a racist twit and being scared as a result is enough to justify killing an unarmed Black man.

Legally, this is untrue. I definitely do not suggest killing someone and offering "being scared" as a justification. If you don't have a well-founded fear, you will be going to prison.

Politics_Observer wrote:Plus, it seems wealthy whites sought to put their kids in basically all white private schools when legal desegregation came partly to ensure their children get a first class education and a competitive edge and thus maintain their wealth, status and privilege in society.

My parents put my in private school. We had a few blacks, although most could not afford it. The schools taught religion. Generally, people who get married, stay married, and live moral lives have more wealth, status and privilege in society. The bible has been teaching this for nearly 2000 years.

Godstud wrote:Yes. A good start would be free education, to let them get a leg-up.

Primary and secondary education is already free in the United States. College is not.
#15014935
blackjack21 wrote:No. It would violate sovereign immunity. That's actually what the political left is pushing by the back door. That's why they tried to use a special counsel against Trump, even though he cannot be prosecuted for the same reason--the government has sovereign immunity.

Would your proposition also apply to indentured servitude, where people were in effect slaves for a specified duration?


Legally, this is untrue. I definitely do not suggest killing someone and offering "being scared" as a justification. If you don't have a well-founded fear, you will be going to prison.


My parents put my in private school. We had a few blacks, although most could not afford it. The schools taught religion. Generally, people who get married, stay married, and live moral lives have more wealth, status and privilege in society. The bible has been teaching this for nearly 2000 years.


Primary and secondary education is already free in the United States. College is not.

Your reply just proves that a progressive like me and a conservative like you can never agree on anything.

1] The Japanese Americans who were interned got reparations. So, you 1st point is wrong.
2] I didn't say that reparations were owed for slavery. I said they were owed for Jim Crow and maybe slavery. Indentured servants was over 200 years ago.
3] You claimed that they "will" be going to prison. In my America if the white was a cop he would almost never go to prison and even a non-cop will maybe not go the prison. Maybe 50-50 chance.
4] Your idea of "moral" and my idea of "moral" are different I think. Almost every rich businessman has been immoral in my opinion. The following are all immoral IMO --- dumping poison into a river, looting the pension fund of a comp. you just bought, bribing Congress to keep the minimum wage low, bribing Congresspeople with big campaign contributions that were routed thru a 3rd party to keep the people from knowing who bribed them, moving your comp. out of America in search of lower wage workers, lying about ACC with a comp. paid propaganda program to keep humanity from acting until it is too late, and many others.
5] The reparations might take the form of the US Gov. paying every public school district something like $3000 + half the grade level in dollars per year for each Black student in its schools. So, at grade 12 it would be 12/2= $6000 + $3000 = $9000/per Black student. This would really help the inner city schools improve.
Also, Black parents could be given this money to pay for private schooling for their children.
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#15014936
SolarCross wrote:You can generalise the OP:

Can liability for injuries be inherited? If yes then for how many generations?
Can reparation claims be inherited? If yes then for how many generations?

Are you liable for what your grandad did? Are you owed what your grandad was owed?

But, if the reparations were for Jim Crow, then it isn't your granddad.
And MMT means white's taxes don't go up.
#15014940
There are no more slaves alive so reparations are not justified. they already got everything civil rights their own president
black celebrities are all over the media.
it did not happen to any blacks alive today nor to their parents or even grandparents
this victimhood mentality need to end if blacks want to stop being the most criminal and uneducated group in the US
they need to take responsibility to their own actions reparations wont change anything its another tactic of the democrats to make sure blacks will stick to them during the coming elections

#15014941
blackjack21 wrote:Primary and secondary education is already free in the United States. College is not.
I know. I was talking about all education, not just to the basic grade 12 diploma.
#15014944
Godstud wrote: I know. I was talking about all education, not just to the basic grade 12 diploma.

Inner city schools are under funded, therefore inferior.
If you think otherwise, then why are the richest neighborhoods in the suburbs spending over $20,000 per student in HS?

Also, K-12 is no longer free. There are now fees that were not there when I was 12 yo. in 1958. The PTA has to have bake sales to raise money for this and that.
#15014951
I don't want to burst anyone's bubble but . . . in the U.S. a higher percentage of Black kids go on to college after high school than White kids. I sent my daughter to an expensive private college. She was the valedictorian of her little school, had good SAT scores and I paid the full bill. I saw Black kids with poor/marginal scores/grades in the same school going for free. Any Black kid who can do a 1000 on the SAT can get a free ride somewhere.
#15014956
Suntzu wrote:I don't want to burst anyone's bubble but . . . in the U.S. a higher percentage of Black kids go on to college after high school than White kids. I sent my daughter to an expensive private college. She was the valedictorian of her little school, had good SAT scores and I paid the full bill. I saw Black kids with poor/marginal scores/grades in the same school going for free. Any Black kid who can do a 1000 on the SAT can get a free ride somewhere.


Education should be free for all tax paying citizens. Plain and simple.
#15014972
Steve_American wrote:1] The Japanese Americans who were interned got reparations. So, you 1st point is wrong.

Your assertion was that reparations were "owed" in a legal sense. You offered no legal theory in your assertion. Despite many lawsuits, Japanese internees were never awarded "reparations" by any US court of law, because of sovereign immunity. Therefore, I am right. It is true that Norm Mineta, a Democrat; Alan Simpson, a Republican; and, Pete Wilson, a Republican co-sponsored legislation to give grants to Japanese-Americans who were actually interned by the US government--Norm Mineta himself was so interned.

Slavery was constitutional and it was practiced by certain private citizens. The US government itself did not own slaves. The state cannot be held liable for the lawful practices of private individuals operating within the law. There is nobody alive today who was enslaved. Segregation was imposed by some of the several states, mostly in the US South. Using the formula of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, states that had segregation laws could, in theory, give a grant to those who permanently resided in the state and were substantially affected by the state's policies. Like Japanese internees, the people who would get such benefits are getting older, so they had better act fast. Segregation in the federal workforce was implemented by Woodrow Wilson, a progressive like yourself. At Wilson's direction, his administration fired many black at-will employees simply because they were black. Wilson's appointees were recorded to have said such things as "A Negro's place is in the cornfield." This policy lasted until FDR, where it began to come to an end just as FDR interned Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. FDR maintained a racially segregated military, however. Again, these people are getting old, so if the federal government were to offer some sort of grant to such individuals, it would not affect all blacks. It would mostly grant some form of payment to people who are pretty old already.

Steve_American wrote:2] I didn't say that reparations were owed for slavery. I said they were owed for Jim Crow and maybe slavery. Indentured servants was over 200 years ago.

I'm sure Pants-of-dog would argue that time heals no wounds, as indentured servitude was also used against native Americans as a form of debt peonage. The Thirteenth Amendment eliminated indentured servitude in the United States, along with ending debtor's prisons and instituting bankruptcy laws. Indentured servitude continued in other parts of North America into the early 20th Century, when it was finally abolished by the British Empire.

Steve_American wrote:3] You claimed that they "will" be going to prison. In my America if the white was a cop he would almost never go to prison and even a non-cop will maybe not go the prison. Maybe 50-50 chance.

This is usually because the white person has a well-founded fear. One of Barack Obama's proposed remedies was to get police to start wearing body cameras. A lot of police objected. I think, in many cases, because they treat others the way they are treated and they don't like being called out for foul language and such. However, one of Obama's suggestions has led to what I think may be an unintended affect: complaints against police officers are getting more quickly resolved as body cameras are showing that the complaints are by people calling the cops racist and charging them with misconduct when the body cameras show that no misconduct occurred and the detainee or arrestee simply lied. I hope such people will face legal sanction if it is determined that the complaint was willful. At any rate, body cameras on police officers is a good thing. Police agencies need to start releasing more footage of false charges against police officers to combat the fraud perpetrated by groups like Black Lives Matter, and the leftist Democrats in the media.

Steve_American wrote:4] Your idea of "moral" and my idea of "moral" are different I think. Almost every rich businessman has been immoral in my opinion.

Perhaps. I don't think every rich person has been "immoral" in some dastardly way. Sure, I would think there are many people who would complain about them. For example, I'm dismissive about complaints that Zuckerberg stole people's ideas to get Facebook running. If the ideas aren't subject to copyright, patent or trademark, people are free to use ideas. Such complaints are usually about people trying to get money. However, once it was clear that the US government's (In-Q-Tel, CIA) interest in Facebook was broad based and not just on using six-degrees of separation to get members of terrorist groups, my opinion of Zuckerberg changed. I also have a very dim opinion of Larry Page and Sergey Brin at this point, and Google in general. I consider their efforts to help the Chinese government oppress its citizenry is deplorable. However, I do use Android and GMail. I've switched to using DuckDuckGo.com, and in my opinion, you should too.

Steve_American wrote:lying about ACC with a comp. paid propaganda program to keep humanity from acting until it is too late

I think lying about ACC with government-paid propaganda to get people to accept higher taxes, more regulations and fewer freedoms via a dictatorship of a "scientific-technological elite" that Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address is similarly immoral. In my arguments with ACC people, they simply attack people who are skeptical of ACC theory and the government-paid propaganda surrounding it.

Steve_American wrote:5] The reparations might take the form of the US Gov. paying every public school district something like $3000 + half the grade level in dollars per year for each Black student in its schools. So, at grade 12 it would be 12/2= $6000 + $3000 = $9000/per Black student. This would really help the inner city schools improve.

I would support school vouchers with additional supplements for poor black students, including school breakfast and lunch programs, provided the vouchers could be used for a school of the parent's choice, and provided that none of the funds of the voucher be used for religious instruction if the parent chooses a private school.

Zionist Nationalist wrote:There are no more slaves alive so reparations are not justified. they already got everything civil rights their own president
black celebrities are all over the media.

That is the problem with the reparations debate. The Democratic party, for the most part, is totally unserious about it. After all, they elected Barack Obama and had political majorities in both Houses of Congress and did nothing to address the issues, just as they did nothing to address the immigration issue. Barack Obama's position before DACA late in his second term was no different than Trump's, and nobody is calling Obama a racist for deporting even more people than Trump or Bush.

Affirmative-action, for all intents and purposes, is judicially imposed reparations. Today, it has somewhat of a deleterious effect in that a lot of blacks who are not college ready are admitted to college, fail in their studies, and are saddled with student debt. I find it somewhat amusing that today's left is in a back door sort of way acknowledging the debt-peonage college graduates face. Many 4 year college programs could be completed online with proctored testing centers for under $10k. Higher education institutions are even more corrupt than the medical system.

Zionist Nationalist wrote:this victimhood mentality need to end if blacks want to stop being the most criminal and uneducated group in the US
they need to take responsibility to their own actions reparations wont change anything its another tactic of the democrats to make sure blacks will stick to them during the coming elections

Welfare was also, in many respects, a form of reparations for the economic exploitation of blacks. It also has had a lot of unintended consequences. Non-racial age-based systems like Social Security are what got blacks to start voting for the Democratic party, even as it was the Democratic party in the Southern states that was actively oppressing them. Imagine a 65-year old sharecropper in 1940 getting his or her first Social Security check. It must have been like manna from heaven. Welfare was supposed to help poor single parent families, but it had unintended consequences. Perverse incentives like the man-in-the-house rule and providing more money for each additional child born--including, and usually out-of-wedlock births--left blacks with broken homes. Most black children in America are bastards. Instead of addressing that fact by trying to repair black families, the establishment pushed to disuse the word "bastard" and consider its use insensitive or even "offensive." First coined in a Readers Digest article in the 1960s, the term "welfare queen" came into use to describe women who abused the welfare system--often with fraudulent claims. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, issued a report entitled The Negro Family: The Case For National Action as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Lyndon Johnson--he was later an esteemed US Senator from New York, back when the Democrats were a respectable party. It's well worth reading for anyone seriously interested in the unintended effects of welfare, which have been known now for 50+ years, but is employed by the Democrats as a vote-buying scheme. It's sickening.

This whole exercise in reparations or basic guaranteed income is just more "money for nothing". Not a single serious Democrat is ignorant of the reason a basic guaranteed income was not adopted--addictive drugs. We're currently dealing with a massive inflow of heroin, fentanyl, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana from the Mexican border and no doubt huge numbers of our politicians in both parties are on the take and betraying the people they purport to serve.

Steve_American wrote:Inner city schools are under funded, therefore inferior.

If you think otherwise, then why are the richest neighborhoods in the suburbs spending over $20,000 per student in HS?

The richest neighborhoods also have troubled kids, albeit not at the rate of poor neighborhoods. Money isn't a cure-all tonic or panacea. There isn't nearly the correlation between funding and test scores that you are supposing. Desegregating schools was done not because black schools were inherently bad. In fact, blacks did better in school before desegregation. Black schools were dilapidated compared to white schools, and the books were more up-to-date in white schools. This sense of pity among liberals not only required desegregating schools, but required busing to integrate schools--often imposing 30-60 minute bus rides for students that weren't thrilled about it. It was more of a social experiment than a remedy.

The reason for the difference in school funding is that elementary and high school education have always been handled at the local level--since Thomas Jefferson set up the first public schools. Black neighborhoods tend to have high property and violent crime rates, which drives property prices down. This drives down property values, which are the primary source for school funding.

Suntzu wrote:I saw Black kids with poor/marginal scores/grades in the same school going for free. Any Black kid who can do a 1000 on the SAT can get a free ride somewhere.

Hell, if they can play football or basketball well and write their own name they can get a free education.
#15014978
Suntzu wrote:"Hell, if they can play football or basketball well and write their own name they can get a free education."

NCAA requires a SAT score of 700! :lol:

Yeah, but for companies that require a college degree, there are people who go get dubious degrees in women's studies, black studies, and so forth. The degrees are worthless from a STEM perspective, but colleges and universities tell prospective students that employers find them valuable. Look at this from Portland State: What Can I do With a Degree in Black Studies?

Portland State wrote:Black studies majors develop skills that are highly valued by employers. These skills include: research, analysis, writing, critical thinking, oral presentation, & problem solving skills. Students and alumni may find employment in government agencies, nonprofits, educational institutions, and businesses depending on their skills and experience.

That's pretty cruel and fucked up. Some poor kid thinks their "black studies" degree is going to get them a great job. Maybe 1% of them will get a job in HR. None of them will be getting a high paid programming job. Many of these diploma mills are just taking the meager resources of young adults and leading them down the path to debt and post-graduate unemployment in their field of study, leaving them to think they are 'overqualified' for Starbucks and end up on the unemployment lines. The reality is that the kid who gets a black studies degree from Yale has a much better chance of landing that HR job than someone from Portland State. If you look up "worthless degrees", you will see things like anthropology (some pre-med), Communications (sales people), culinary arts (restaurant chef), fashion design (retail sales), art history (janitors), psychology (mass transit janitors with fat union pay). They don't mention women's studies, black studies, etc. You can see why they want to make that stuff free, because the degrees are worthless and they are feeling guilty about robbing poor black people but still want the opportunity to indoctrinate them into left wing thinking that will leave them broke if they actually live under those values rather than becoming part of the elite and lying to the masses for a living.

The reality is option 1: a black studies degree MAY get you a job in government. You can start at DMV and work your way into the jobs that require a 4-year degree, and the worthless black studies degree ticks off that requirement. It's cynical and cruel.
#15014984
I don't agree with direct reparations as it would lead to inflation and abuses.
What the US should do is establish several social development programs, tax cuts for certain areas (both black and white, generally poor areas) to increase investments in it, establish a free education and health care programs funded by tax increases on the upper class as well as on major corporations, banks, and high-frequency trades (again, nationwide, not just for black communities), and finally, establish low interest (potentially zero interest) loan funds in poorer areas not only to support the establishment of small businesses on a wider scale but help it succeed by allowing it access to a good credit line without having to be fucked over by multinational banks.

The problem with the proposal of reparations for African Americans is that the US have nearly half its population either in poverty or on the verge of poverty, which means that a sudden move by the US government to give significant reparations for African Americans would up the anger in many communities and lead them to an even more radical route.

Many people, especially on the liberal side, would start talking about racism and the regular strawman argument to dismiss these people. But it's not, racism is not the driver of everything you don't like, poverty is. Half the states in the US are crumbling and poverty is spreading all around, not to mention the trade war going on which raises the prices on many things that the working class especially needs (the middle class isn't all that dependent on Chinese products) and as such sinking more and more into poverty. Poverty makes people angry (against everyone); It radicalizes people and pushes them further to the right, you can took a look at the middle east to see the effects of poverty over time when people have no choices and no future.

What is needed, in my opinion, is a solution to poverty throughout the US rather than just focusing on African communities.
If the problem of poverty was solved, then the right and far right will lose as people become more relaxed, more open and accepting of other people, less stressed, etc when they can afford to fulfill their needs and those of their families. Which I would say is more in alignments with liberal ideals rather than the shortsighted policy proposals by left-wing parties we've been seeing throughout the world, not just in the US.
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