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[Mumei]

Since American class is primarily about race, that means that those programs do nothing to advance the class struggle.

This reminded me of an article that I read earlier this week on The Nation:

What’s especially frustrating about this episode is that is such a missed opportunity for Bernie to connect his democratic-socialist vision to issues of racial injustice. A number of black scholars have defined reparations in ways that that would be completely consistent with Bernie’s socialist politics. Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, for example, supports a form of reparations that centers on universal health, education, and jobs programs. And sociologist Sandy Darity and economist Darrick Hamilton are proponents of race-neutral “baby bonds” as a tool to narrow the racial wealth gap. It’s depressing that Sanders has given reparations so little serious consideration; does he even have close African-American advisers he consults on these issues? The one saving grace is that Sanders has shown an ability to learn and grow from his mistakes. Early in the campaign he stumbled over Black Lives Matter issues, but he now discusses BLM concerns in an engaged, heartfelt way. In short, he gets it. Those of us who support him can only hope that he makes a similar recovery from his self-inflicted damage on the reparations front.

I quoted at a bit more length just to give a flavor of the article, but the first paragraph is what I found interesting. I've only ever read arguments for reparations in a sort of nebulous, abstract way, but not in terms of specific policy suggestions. Both Ogletree and Darity / Hamilton (pdf) have suggestions that get into more specific (though depressingly unlikely) policy suggestions. It gives lie to the notion that socialism can't incorporate race as part of its analysis, in any event.

 

[AlimNassor]

When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.

You're white, and I'm white. None of us whites really don't deserve any fucking reparations. We are the reason why blacks and other minorities are treated like shit in America. In a fair and just world all of us whites would be doing everything in our power to help minorities. As it remains whites still profit off the blood and sweat of minorities. Don't matter if rich or poor, we're all equally guilty of profiting off this corrupt system at their expense. So no, we don't deserve shit.

 

[User 73706]

When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.

You know slave owners were paid thousands per slave (and that's before inflation) released at the time, right?

You must be super bummed about not getting rickets.

Or anemia.

 

[ugaboga232]

You're white, and I'm white. None of us whites really don't deserve any fucking reparations. We are the reason why blacks and other minorities are treated like shit in America. In a fair and just world all of us whites would be doing everything in our power to help minorities. As it remains whites still profit off the blood and sweat of minorities. Don't matter if rich or poor, we're all equally guilty of profiting off this corrupt system at their expense. So no, we don't deserve shit.

Of course we profit and thats horrible but to say we deserve shit seems like swinging the pendulum back the other way? Perhaps direct economic reparations aren't the most ideal but I think its a topic worth discussing. But to say we don't all deserve better is rather cold hearted.

Edit; On reread it seems like you meant we deserve no reparations at all which makes more sense.

 

[DragonSworne]

You're white, and I'm white. None of us whites really don't deserve any fucking reparations. We are the reason why blacks and other minorities are treated like shit in America. In a fair and just world all of us whites would be doing everything in our power to help minorities. As it remains whites still profit off the blood and sweat of minorities. Don't matter if rich or poor, we're all equally guilty of profiting off this corrupt system at their expense. So no, we don't deserve shit.

Plenty of whites have been treated like shit in America, Immigrants. But again, this compares to nothing that black people have and continue to go through in America. But you can't treat whites as a homogenous group.

 

[AlimNassor]

Of course we profit and thats horrible but to say we deserve shit seems like swinging the pendulum back the other way? Perhaps direct economic reparations aren't the most ideal but I think its a topic worth discussing. But to say we don't all deserve better is rather cold hearted.

Edit; On reread it seems like you meant we deserve no reparations at all which makes more sense.

Which is what I meant. I'm not very eloquent.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

You can't fix racism in America. Racism is America. You can however lesson the effects it has on some people, but this ultimately requires the majority losing something, which of course will always be opposed. Large-scale reparations of any kind will never happen and it's kind of pointless to expect a presidential candidate to talk about it because the average US citizen of any stripe knows it's duck tales.

 

[excelsiorlef]

When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.

"we're out compensation for our slaves being taken away!"

They already got that....

On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this law came 8 1/2 months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought to a conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called “the national shame” of slavery in the nation’s capital. It provided for immediate emancipation, compensation to former owners who were loyal to the Union of up to $300 for each freed slave, voluntary colonization of former slaves to locations outside the United States, and payments of up to $100 for each person choosing emigration.

Over the next 9 months, the Board of Commissioners appointed to administer the act approved 930 petitions, completely or in part, from former owners for the freedom of 2,989 former slaves.

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

 

[User 73706]

Told you!

 

[Battersea Power Station]

They already got that....



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

And I'm sure some people still consider Lincoln a "great President." Geeze, every day you find out something horrific about the nation's historic leaders.

 

[lednerg]

You can't fix racism in America. Racism is America. You can however lesson the effects it has on some people, but this ultimately requires the majority losing something, which of course will always be opposed. Large-scale reparations of any kind will never happen and it's kind of pointless to expect a presidential candidate to talk about it because the average US citizen of any stripe knows it's duck tales.

The most realistic course of action is to disguise it as something else. I think that government funding for cooperative businesses is one of the best ways to go. With those, you get the most community-minded people at the forefront. They're in charge, rather than it being one person's get rich quick scheme that drains the economy. We get to hear their inspiring stories of collective bootstrapping, Something which lacks the tinge of "handouts" that the racists so despise. On top of that, it ends up being a community-centric way of building and maintaining wealth within a neighborhood. The employee-owners aren't going to outsource their own jobs, for example. At the same time, say there's a local vegetable farmer making, I dunno, lettuce, then that lettuce is getting top billing on the store shelves. This model can and would help maintain communities far better than the "let's try to get Walmart to make a store here" model. It's all about keeping the profits and wealth local instead of leeching it out to venture capitalists.

 

[mAcOdIn]

You're white, and I'm white. None of us whites really don't deserve any fucking reparations. We are the reason why blacks and other minorities are treated like shit in America. In a fair and just world all of us whites would be doing everything in our power to help minorities. As it remains whites still profit off the blood and sweat of minorities. Don't matter if rich or poor, we're all equally guilty of profiting off this corrupt system at their expense. So no, we don't deserve shit.

Eh, I think the concept of guilt is problematic here. I'm also white, I don't think I'm "guilty" of shit. I do recognize the problem, I want solutions but none of it is my fault.

Guilt's a weird thing though, emotionally I could accept guilt for it and it wouldn't affect me in the slightest. I have a mindset where I don't sweat the things I have no control of, I don't fault myself for mistakes made when the information that would have led me to a different decisions were not available to me. So even if I subscribed to the idea of me being guilty myself it wouldn't have an effect on me. That said, I imagine there's a lot of people who recoil at the concept of being blamed for a system that was in place before their birth. Attempting to classify them as the problem, the reason, guilty, I don't think is a good way of trying to gain favor, I think most people's basic reaction to being called guilty of something, especially as nasty as this, is denial and to fight back.

Now, guilt or no, the fact racial discrimination still exists is a fact. Guilt or no, the fact white people benefit the most from it is a fact. And guilt or no, it's true that we're likely the ones most equipped to actually address the problem, at the very least it can not be done without us.

I'll be honest, I don't hold much respect for a person who when accused of being "guilty" merely by being born into a racist system decides to double down on their "innocence" and instead deny such problems exist at all or that if they do they have no power whatsoever against them. If you're so weak you can't take that small level of attack without going over to the dark side, well, like I said I can't respect that. But at the same time, I don't think assigning guilt is really a good way to change minds or even to convince people who agree but may not be mentally strong enough to fight the system.

All that shit said though, of course I don't think white people need or deserve reparations. My problems with reparations are the same I have with white people wanting reparations, everything's looked at in a personal "me" level within the time frame of "now," if that makes any sense. Giving all black people money today would change the lives of those black people living today for the better and then tomorrow, well, probably back to where we started from. Not because I think something stupid like all the black people would misuse it but because I think the country would just siphon it all back after a generation or two because the system's racist. Not giving a white family money might hinder that family against a black family of the same generation but at the end of the day I don't think the white trajectory will change much, one generation might lose but the next one or the one after will probably be back on top again. To me, actual cash reparations looks like just buying votes.

This is the same position I have when it comes to things like taxes. Many of these proposals look to break me financially if they come to pass. Don't make enough to just weather shit financially but am not poor enough to get anything from the government. Too old to probably qualify for any kind of free education any candidate gets passed. In the end though I look forward. What policies will change the trajectory of a country, change the national consciousness of the country enough to where maybe an older me or even the next generation after myself will see a much better life? That's generally how I view things politically.

And in that respect I do think Sanders is lacking, I think all politicians are. I like him better than Hillary but he's still lacking. And I agree that just raising everyone up is not the solution for this problem. I think everyone would be better off, but that's all relative now isn't it?

 

[pigeon]

Dude, you will never get the recognition without political and economical power. You are arguing against a strategic solution in favor of an impossible scenario (without violence).

No, I'm not. I'm explaining that your strategic solution isn't new, and doesn't work.

 

[bishoptl]

When someone is excluded from something because of the color of their skin, regardless of what color it may be, yes, that is upsetting.

Look, for everyone complaining that they don't know how to earn a tag, it's not that hard

 

[LaserBuddha]

Look, for everyone complaining that they don't know how to earn a tag, it's not that hard

Burned by the Eye of Sauron.

 

[Rootbeer]

Look, for everyone complaining that they don't know how to earn a tag, it's not that hard

cystic fibrosis for everybody! Equality for all!

 

[Muppet of a Man]

You're white, and I'm white. None of us whites really don't deserve any fucking reparations. We are the reason why blacks and other minorities are treated like shit in America. In a fair and just world all of us whites would be doing everything in our power to help minorities. As it remains whites still profit off the blood and sweat of minorities. Don't matter if rich or poor, we're all equally guilty of profiting off this corrupt system at their expense. So no, we don't deserve shit.

Although I don't think ethnic groups outside of blacks and Native Americans deserve reparations, it doesn't mean other European ethnic groups did not suffer throughout the building of America. Most of my Irish relatives that came over to the states poor as dirt (their families having been ravaged from the fallout of the potato famine for decades) in the late 1800s (post US civil war) and early 1900s worked as indentured servants for 10 to 20 years of their lives for rich WASPs in the New York City area. My other southern Italian relatives came to the states in the early 1900s, settling in NYC in a poor ethnic neighborhood in the Bronx, and eventually anglicizing their last name to have their children get better education and job opportunities. Today things may be better for these groups I mention, but there's a reason that I don't really consider myself "white". "White" is a misnomer; it is more nuanced than that. If you want to say Northwest European Protestants, sure go ahead say it...it's more accurate, but I get that it doesn't really roll off the tongue. That, of course, does not mean that I don't benefit from being thought of as "white" because obviously I do to a certain extent. But please do not lump everyone who has European heritage as being from the same place because they are most definitely not.

 

[Valhelm]

Since American class is primarily about race, that means that those programs do nothing to advance the class struggle.

I'm not a fan of this line of thinking at all. While you're obviously right that race and class are tightly correlated in this country, this kind of essentialist language ignores the complex reality of America's class struggle. Most poor Americans are white, and while whites are obviously less likely to be poor, white poverty is a significant issue that needs to be addressed. Even at the height of slavery, most white Southerners were quite poor, but supported slavery due to the social capital it allowed them to have over African Americans. In this way, race was used by rich whites to maintain their dominance over all Southerners, essentially tricking poor whites into supporting white supremacy even though poor whites reaped few of its benefits.

By suggesting that class in America is "actually about race", you're putting forward a false narrative that hurts poor people, especially poor people who are black. White Americans by and large don't wish to use their capital to help black Americans. Because the popular narrative is that "whites are rich and blacks are poor", white voters (even those who are poor) are unwilling to pass the kind of social welfare reform that this country quite desperately needs. Legislation of class reform which does not address our gaping racial disparity is incomplete, in that way you're correct. But race and class are and have been separate issues. Poor white people and rich black people are both oppressed, but happen to be oppressed in very different ways. Race and class have traditionally been tightly correlated not because they are the same problem, but because so much of our white supremacist system has been passed with the expressed purpose of locking African Americans into poverty. When slaveholders and slave-supporters lost the ability to legally deprive black people of all social capitol, the best way to prevent them from achieving political parity with whites was to keep them in economic bondage.

And race is obviously not a black and white issue. For several years, Asian Americans have been more wealthy than whites, although many still languish in poverty. As Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, their presence is complicating this country's racial hierarchy, and further divorcing race from class. Hispanic people are an even more interesting group. Despite being primarily working-class, a comparative lack of social barriers is allowing Hispanic people to greatly rise in prosperity when compared to black people. This difference in success exhibits the difference between class and race quite well. While Hispanic and black people are both victims of economic oppression, Hispanic people are collectively escaping this poverty because the racial barriers are not present. If class hierarchy was truly equatable with white supremacy, this would be impossible. Please reconsider these kinds of broad and essentialist statements, because they're both false and quite harmful. If we want to address racism and poverty, we need to recognize that they are separate issues usually requiring separate solutions.

 

[Bornstellar]

Look, for everyone complaining that they don't know how to earn a tag, it's not that hard

In hindsight, that content of that post was not what I was actually responding to. My intention was to say racial prejudice = bad. I don't want reparations.

And here we are.

You're white, and I'm white. None of us whites really don't deserve any fucking reparations. We are the reason why blacks and other minorities are treated like shit in America. In a fair and just world all of us whites would be doing everything in our power to help minorities. As it remains whites still profit off the blood and sweat of minorities. Don't matter if rich or poor, we're all equally guilty of profiting off this corrupt system at their expense. So no, we don't deserve shit.

Bullshit. Speak for yourself. Assigning guilt by race is the most cruely ironic thing.

 

[User 73706]

Look, for everyone complaining that they don't know how to earn a tag, it's not that hard

Not the tag I was expecting, but at this rate it'll probably happen soon enough.

 

[astroturfing]

man, to an outsider (from Finland) the fact that blacks were subjugated for almost 400 years in America is just staggering. hard to even comprehend. to me it seems completely unforgivable, so many generations of people just wasted.. their human potential gone forever. no way to ever make it right. i mean i get angry when i think about how us Finns were treated by Swedes during our history together but it's laughably tame compared to slavery and lynchings etc..

so reparations seem like a joke to me. in a just world the roles should be switched for the next 400 years. white Americans should be truly greatful that modest reparations are all some are asking for..

 

[El Topo]

There are never going to be reparations. That is a legal precedent no politician wants to set.

 

[DerangedHermit]

so reparations seem like a joke to me. in a just world the roles should be switched for the next 400 years. white Americans should be truly greatful that modest reparations are all some are asking for..

That would require empathy and not being a shitty human being though.

 

[Clefargle]

No living white people are responsible for slavery, but plenty of white people are guilty of perpetuating systemic inequality that is a direct result of slavery. That we have to own and try to fix.

 

[Another48Hours]

Both parties have rejected this in broadaylight for decades outside Nixon who if I recall brought it up for 10 seconds.

Why is this surprising?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

They already got that....



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

that was just for the slave owners in dc(not that i agree with), which was less than a tenth of a percent of slaves/slave owners in the us(3,000 out of 4 million). nevertheless, it was still a tenth of a percent too much.
editnly bumped because someone linked to it directly in a new thread

 

[teruterubozu]

Wow, we're bumping threads now?

Make that 3 Bernie reparations threads. South Carolina blanketing in full force.