It's (finally) time for reparations. It's time for the US to pay its debt.
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Anonymous
Oh wow, I didn't know I got under your skin so much. Go ahead and call me a deplorable and a racist, people like you are big on labels but come up shy in content. Enjoy your time in the shallow end of the pool. |
Anonymous
It wasn’t relevant to the OP at all. You are welcome to start your own thread. |
Anonymous
DP, yes it was. But you have a very strange idea of what discussion means do not surprised. |
Anonymous
Hmm, you are right, should not have assumed. My fault. |
Anonymous
I think there are some problems in the black community that only the black community can fix. But, it's probably not for white people to make too much of those problems. Too often that's an excuse white people use for doing nothing. That said, there might be more comfort among reluctant whites to take something like reparations seriously if it was part of a two pronged approach where the black community was making efforts to address those issues internally. (And, for all I know, there is such an effort - prioritize education, long-term saving, self-policing to reduce criminal activity or whatever they view the internal problems as being.) |
Anonymous
Democrat was the party of slavery? How many Democrats were there in the 17th and 18th century? |
Anonymous
Just as you are welcome to create a thread whose title is relevant to the discussion you want to lead. If you create a thread titled "It's time for reparations" you'd better be prepared to discuss exactly that. |
Anonymous
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I absolutely agree that systemic racism in nearly all aspects of society have put African Americans at a significant disadvantage in life. And I think I agree with the essay's assertion that the wealth gap is a fairly large part of why it is hard for public policies to break free of the vicious cycle we're in.
The article spent a lot of time arguing why reparations are important (and perhaps "fair") but didn't make much of an argument that particular types of reparations (such as the cash payments it calls for) would actually help. If anything, the article's assertion that much of this comes down to a wealth gap makes me think that cash payments *wouldn't* help. I don't think it's realistic to think that lump sum payments on that scale would be: 1) politically or financially feasible, or 2) particularly likely to have a long-term impact. |
Anonymous
Not very well. |
Anonymous
His mom is multi-generational American White, and his dad was born in Kenya so he was never subject to slavery. Obama is therefore the beneficiary of past slavery against African Americans, as the logic goes. |
Anonymous
+1. The author says only that "Congress" will pay. There's no real suggestion for how Congress should structure the taxes to obtain that money, how much would be sufficient, or how long the payments should be made. Also, it glosses over the global problem of wealth inequality generally. If we give astronomical wealth to 100 black families and then give the rest of the black population the same meager levels (but admittedly better than many black families enjoy) of wealth white people generally have, is that sufficient? |
Anonymous
Different Chinese poster. Back in China, we don't have the same sort of social services you see here. You can't go any work anywhere you want, purchase property or have your kids go to public school anywhere you want legally, you are actually tied to a certain area via the Hukuo, or residency system. This has lead to a huge problem of urban poverty as the government was trying not to let everyone move to the cities, and massive abuse of migrants who do move. Average classroom size in China is usually well over 50 kids, though many of my classes as a child had 80+ kids. The government didn't provide us with free lunch, IEPs etc. In the college system you have to test into your major and school. You can't easily change majors. Corruption is much higher on all levels. If you grow up in this country, you've hit the global lottery. There are huge advantages that many should take advantage of here, but don't. This is why we sign up for every eligble program we can once we come here, so our kids are well fed and taken care of so they can focus on academics. |
Anonymous
White women are a marginalized group, so.... 
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Anonymous
It’s a freaking manifesto that’s way TLDR. |
Anonymous
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Instead of saying no and being paralyzed with the enormous undertaking reparations would be, focus on the how.
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