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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No one should atone for someone else’s crime. We should learn from the past, but not dwell on it. Instead we should focus on the present and future. How should we as individuals, as a society, and in electing our governments, SLTT and Federal, address inherent bias and socio-economic disadvantage going forward?  It is not a “they” problem, it is a “we” problem. I argue that a “hand up” is better than a “hand out”. What philosophy do you believe in? Revenge? Reparations? Unjustified privilege for any group? Keeping things the same because it’s easy and comfortable? [/quote]
How do you address things like inherent bias if you believe in not dwelling on the past?

People don’t need to atone for someone else’s crime, but trying to right the wrongs that allow some of us to benefit, today, from prior generations’ crimes is work we should all be doing. There are people who continue to benefit from institutional racism. Before they can even begin to address it, they have to recognize that institutional racism exists. We still have lawmakers, and a sizable portion of white citizens who deny that there is institutional racism.

“A ‘hand up’ is better than a ‘handout’” is a nice slogan, but what does it mean? What sorts of concrete, real world policies illustrate the difference between the two to you?[/quote]

One problem is that the benefits of institutional racism are distributed so unevenly while the approaches to combating institutional racism don't seem to be very nuanced in accounting for those disparate benefits. Yes, you can make the case that poor white people enjoy "white privilege," but the poor white person's lived experience is that their white privilege is swamped by the deficits caused by poverty. Subjecting the poor white person to the same remedial approaches one uses for rich white people simply isn't equitable. [/quote]

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