Lets Discuss The Elephant In The Room: Reparations

[MusterX]

I've always been in favor of reparations. The Jews got an entire country, massive subsidies for all their organizations, as well as individual monetary reparations, and much more--and the Holocaust wasn't even that bad compared to the North Atlantic Slave Trade.

The problem with that argument is that the Jews that "got a country" actually suffered under the thing they were paid for. You understand? All of the black people that suffered under slavery and could have been paid reparations are all dead.

 

[Anewt]

Wow. The holocaust wasn't that bad compared to the north Atlantic slave trade. I'm not even going to touch that.

But in regards to reparations who gets it ? Do you need genetic proof? Or do you just need to be black ? What about recent arrivals to America? What about those with one side of their family descendent from slaves the other a recent arrivals.

Going to try get reparations from Portugal? They were the major player in the north Atlantic trade slave. What about those who provided the slaves for purchase? Going to get reparations from those tribes who directly captured and sold the slaves to Europeans?


Even if you give reparations to everyone now that doesn't change the history of slavery. In two generations those who are still in financial trouble will still be descendants of slavery. Unless somehow everyone does brilliantly with whatever these hypothetical reparations are. Which is unlikely. So why were their grand parents entitled to reparations when they aren't?

Just like you said with the 40 acres of land example. Those who collected that are they exempt ?

I personally cannot see it ever working and I'm hesitant to start awarding rewards for past injustices. Does it come out of taxes? why should someone who brought their family here well after slavery have to pay ? Do the Japanese get reparations for the internment camps?

Millions of people have suffered over 100s of years to make the country where it is now. Of all races.

Over 3 quarters of the world don't have access to the education the clean water and many of the things Americans take for granted. Work for less than a dollar a week getting the raw materials making the goods Americans consume etc etc.

( I'm not American and of course that's Generalizations ) but I can't see fixing historical injustice. It's always going to be there. Even those who aren't middle class in the states are still amongst the top 5% ( probably lower honestly) wealthiest people ever. In all human history. Even crap like shoes employs probably 30 40 people along the chain worldwide ,barely scrapping by. No education terrible conditions etc etc.

Should focus more on the injustice thats occurring right now all over the world more so than what happened in the past. I don't think reperations will change anything imo

 

[Philo-Publius]

It seems like all of us at this point would like to see equality for all people - we may disagree on the methods to obtain it and when the scale starts turning the other direction

im hearing tons of calls for reparations from the media including from robert johnson from BET asking for 14 trillion in a recent interview

how do you feel about this? I know reparations were already paid in the form of "40 acres and mule"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_acres_and_a_mule

Only rich people owned and benefited from slavery. Among those people who owned slaves were Jewish Americans, American Indians, and black Americans.

The quest for reparations is a quest for power and control and at the expense of middle class Americans, and there is a lot of potential for fraud.

 

[kuroro]

A basic numerical account of the human toll? What is that and how do you arrive at it?

Well, like I said, if you wanted to do a thorough analysis you would have to weigh the factors I listed (among several others) and then assign them a variable, which might or not be right and which might just come down to personal preference.

Anyway, I take it your pro reparations? I'd rather hear you present your case and support it than hear you argue as to whether the slave trade was worse than the Holocaust.

If one got reparations then the other one should too, especially since it was worse.

 

[morgado388]

American blacks are not special, slavery happened since the beginning of time. Slavery was on this continent before the west ever got there. Now if you want to free the 40 million slaves in the world today we can talk. England paid the slave owners money because they were taking legal property it's one of the reasons they didn't have a civil war. We had a war over it. We have spent trillions to balance it already.We actively discriminate in favor of blacks now. What else?

 

[BisexualMMA]

If one got reparations then the other one should too, especially since it was worse.

No. You'd have to demonstrate still that the first instance of reparations was just and correct in order to repeat it.

And even then you'd have to demonstrate that the same factors apply in the second case.

Alternatively, you can not bring up the first instance (Jews) and just make your case for black reparations on its own merits independently.

 

[kuroro]

Wow. The holocaust wasn't that bad compared to the north Atlantic slave trade. I'm not even going to touch that.

Okay, just show me the numbers that say how wrong I am.

 

[San Marino]

Okay, so Israel isn't reparations?

Is that a question or a statement?
The Jews, as a people, got 'reparations' for the holocaust through the creation of Israel in 1948. Thanks to the U.S. and the United Nations. The Palestinians lost their land for this to happen. Did the Palestinians get any reparations?

Blacks were 'imprisoned' by other blacks in Africa and sold for slavery to the United States and Brazil. The story really begins in Africa.

 

[Anewt]

Okay, just show me the numbers that say how wrong I am.

I'm not interested in playing that game. It's irrelevant

 

[kuroro]

Blacks were 'imprisoned' by other blacks in Africa and sold for slavery to the United States and Brazil. The story really begins in Africa.

It's hilarious how no one here is going to post the Homer Simpson going in the bush meme for tripe like this.

 

[kuroro]

I'm not interested in playing that game. It's irrelevant

okay so the one thing that would settle the question once and for all is irrelevant got it.

 

[MaxMMA]

The United States is the only country on this planet that drew a hard line as it pertained to slavery.

In all other corners of the globe, governments had to plead, beg, negotiate, slowly chip away, and finally even some had to compensate the slave owners to finally free their slaves.

The US is the only country that said "from this date forward slavery is illegal, and if you don't like it square up."

This is quite extrodinary considering the institution of slavery is nearly as old as time itself.

Please stop with the US is racist BS.

 

[kuroro]

In all other corners of the globe, governments had to plead, beg, negotiate, slowly chip away, and finally even some had to compensate the slave owners to finally free their slaves.

slave owners got compensation from the government after the civil war. that was part of the emancipation proclaimation.

 

[Anewt]

okay so the one thing that would settle the question once and for all is irrelevant got it.

Genocide wasn't attempted in the slave trade.. It's why it's called the slave trade. The holocaust was attempted genocide. Apple's and oranges.

 

[MaxMMA]

slave owners got compensation from the government after the civil war. that was part of the emancipation proclaimation.

Even Jefferson Davis got bitched out after the civil war by the Union, you're going to need to provide some serious links to back that statement up.

 

[kuroro]

Even Jefferson Davis got bitched out after the civil war by the Union, you're going to need to provide some serious links to back that statement up.

https://newsone.com/3012856/did-you-know-us-govt-paid-reparations-to-slave-owners/

 

[smooth assassin]

I ain’t given em sheeit

 

[TUFNewb]

I've always been in favor of reparations. The Jews got an entire country, massive subsidies for all their organizations, as well as individual monetary reparations, and much more--and the Holocaust wasn't even that bad compared to the North Atlantic Slave Trade.

Lol yeah it was just like 5 measly years in the 1940s they had it rough. The other nearly 2000 years leading up to that were some really fun times for jews in Europe.

 

[San Marino]

All of 'this' is driven, and paid for, by the Democratic party here in the United States in a major effort to have Trump loose a re-election this coming November:
. Reparations for blacks
. BLM
. Monuments coming down
. The renaming of military installations, schools, and other locations
. Antipolice rhetoric
. Black national anthem

* This will only backfire and guarantee Trump a re-election in November 2020.

 

[degoj99]

Pros and cons aside, it would make race relations way worse. When racial policy becomes a zero-sum game (i.e., when one group wins, it means another loses), the walls come up, people distrust each other and become resentful, and things get a lot worse. Our country will be better when race matters less, and doing some sort of reparations draws those lines even more prominently because race matters more because it determines who gets paid, and who gets taken from.