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Anonymous wrote:How about Asian people? Do I owe? What if my cousin, who is half black, half white? Does he get 50% off? What about white people who have ancestors who paid with their lives in the Union Army to end slavery? That seems like a large payment.

What if I'm white and recently immigrated? Do I owe? What if your family immigrated after slavery ended? What if you were oppressed in the country where you were born? What if? What if? I can't see a cash transfer proposal gaining traction when all is said and done. But there are probably other changes that would.

Recent immigrants, and those whose families came to the US after the Civil War, cannot opt out.

People in those categories benefited from undeserved privilege and racist societal structures regardless of when their families came to this country.

Black people benefit from affirmative action, which is a racist policy. They also benefit from the the racist college admissions process so you will have to subtract that from the amount we owe you. For Asians, make that X 2.

Affirmative action is NOT a racist policy.

It is an ongoing effort to counteract the privilege and racism baked into societal structures, and has absolutely nothing to do with the coming reparations.

"Coming reparations." Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Dream on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And have Asians and Hispanics for for it? No thanks! Why do black people think they should get special treatment?

Why don’t you think black people should get “special treatment”? They got “special treatment” for 400 years, so...

Anonymous wrote:And have Asians and Hispanics for for it? No thanks! Why do black people think they should get special treatment?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Asian people? Do I owe? What if my cousin, who is half black, half white? Does he get 50% off? What about white people who have ancestors who paid with their lives in the Union Army to end slavery? That seems like a large payment.

What if I'm white and recently immigrated? Do I owe? What if your family immigrated after slavery ended? What if you were oppressed in the country where you were born? What if? What if? I can't see a cash transfer proposal gaining traction when all is said and done. But there are probably other changes that would.

Recent immigrants, and those whose families came to the US after the Civil War, cannot opt out.

People in those categories benefited from undeserved privilege and racist societal structures regardless of when their families came to this country.

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Asian people? Do I owe? What if my cousin, who is half black, half white? Does he get 50% off? What about white people who have ancestors who paid with their lives in the Union Army to end slavery? That seems like a large payment.

What if I'm white and recently immigrated? Do I owe? What if your family immigrated after slavery ended? What if you were oppressed in the country where you were born? What if? What if? I can't see a cash transfer proposal gaining traction when all is said and done. But there are probably other changes that would.

Recent immigrants, and those whose families came to the US after the Civil War, cannot opt out.

People in those categories benefited from undeserved privilege and racist societal structures regardless of when their families came to this country.

Black people benefit from affirmative action, which is a racist policy. They also benefit from the the racist college admissions process so you will have to subtract that from the amount we owe you. For Asians, make that X 2.

Affirmative action is NOT a racist policy.

It is an ongoing effort to counteract the privilege and racism baked into societal structures, and has absolutely nothing to do with the coming reparations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Asian people? Do I owe? What if my cousin, who is half black, half white? Does he get 50% off? What about white people who have ancestors who paid with their lives in the Union Army to end slavery? That seems like a large payment.

What if I'm white and recently immigrated? Do I owe? What if your family immigrated after slavery ended? What if you were oppressed in the country where you were born? What if? What if? I can't see a cash transfer proposal gaining traction when all is said and done. But there are probably other changes that would.

Recent immigrants, and those whose families came to the US after the Civil War, cannot opt out.

People in those categories benefited from undeserved privilege and racist societal structures regardless of when their families came to this country.

Black people benefit from affirmative action, which is a racist policy. They also benefit from the the racist college admissions process so you will have to subtract that from the amount we owe you. For Asians, make that X 2.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Asian people? Do I owe? What if my cousin, who is half black, half white? Does he get 50% off? What about white people who have ancestors who paid with their lives in the Union Army to end slavery? That seems like a large payment.

What if I'm white and recently immigrated? Do I owe? What if your family immigrated after slavery ended? What if you were oppressed in the country where you were born? What if? What if? I can't see a cash transfer proposal gaining traction when all is said and done. But there are probably other changes that would.

Recent immigrants, and those whose families came to the US after the Civil War, cannot opt out.

People in those categories benefited from undeserved privilege and racist societal structures regardless of when their families came to this country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about Asian people? Do I owe? What if my cousin, who is half black, half white? Does he get 50% off? What about white people who have ancestors who paid with their lives in the Union Army to end slavery? That seems like a large payment.

What if I'm white and recently immigrated? Do I owe? What if your family immigrated after slavery ended? What if you were oppressed in the country where you were born? What if? What if? I can't see a cash transfer proposal gaining traction when all is said and done. But there are probably other changes that would.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's shocking that anyone is so clueless to think that reparations for black Americans is something that is actually going to happen. Some sad sacks have even written long winded responses

I think it is hysterical how so many people seem to be losing their minds at the thought that it could happen. The posts from all of the folks with the up by the bootstraps stories, my father came to this country with 2 nickels in his pocket and he worked for 40 years in a hot dog cart, all so I could be somebody! It just slays me... lol. Right out of the 80s Republican playbook.

Oh or the I’m from X suffering group and, the history of my people’s struggles were epic... and Oh yeah remember that one guy who got lynched and then all the Jewish people left town, but his ancestor isn’t asking for money. I would never ask for s handout.

Or how about the pat old, well worn, welfare queen, who could forget about her I. If Black woman would stop having babies they can’t afford then they wouldn’t be poor. If they had any drive they could just do what my mom did and start a brothel, oops I mean massage parlor and staff it with underaged sex slaves smuggled in from some far away place, but it’s okay because mom scrimped and saved, she was a hard working entrepreneur, and her sacrifices put me through med school.

I just find it all so extremely amusing. People are so ignorant and uniformed.

Or how about all of my people are voting for Trump, because he won’t pay reparations, and my people are so much better under Trump. I mean he reminds me of the totally dysfunctional leadership I left behind, but hey at least he’s white.

Hilarious I tell you. Like Hell in a handbag... wa wa what about me me me.

Anonymous wrote:It's shocking that anyone is so clueless to think that reparations for black Americans is something that is actually going to happen. Some sad sacks have even written long winded responses

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Anonymous wrote:I'm Irish and my family was discriminated for almost a century... wheres my money?

Some SJW here will tell you that they benefitted from “white privilege.” I would just love for my Sicilian ancestors to come back from the dead and have some piss ant SJW tell them to their faces that they were privileged in any way. Now that would be entertainment!

Racist trash like you have had enough privilege. Sit TF down.

DP: you, you, YOU, are pure racist trash. Sit TF down.

How exactly am I racist trash?

Your comments show the racist trash you are.

DP here. Why? Because Sicilian immigrants 100 years ago had such a great life?

My great grandfather came over from Italy in 1901 and was a manual laborer scraping by for the rest of his life. He had it rough too. But he traveled here of his own free will. And he was able to live with his family. His kids weren’t sold off like property. He didn’t lose his name, language, religion, or culture. His kids were able to go to school and get better jobs. Those kids moved around. None got lynched. There were no US policies limiting his options for housing & banking. So he had it tough, but it wasn’t really comparable.

That doesn’t change the fact that PP is racist and should sit TF down.

Sicilians were lynched too, genius. And if you want to pay up for slavery despite the facts that your relatives came here 50 years after slavery ended, then by all means, sell your house and your land and put the money in the coffer so that it can be paid to people were never slaves and whose great-great grandparents were probably not even slaves. Why don’t you also give up your lucrative high paying job to a black person to make up for the past sins of discrimination and oppression that you didn’t commit? If you want to throw your hard earned money away for something you didn’t do, then go right ahead. I refuse because it is stupid, unfair, probably unconstitutional, and ultimately won’t improve or change anything. And if having common sense, logic and reason now makes one “racist trash,” then this country has taken a real turn toward the radical and we are all in real trouble. Luckily, though, reparations will never happen.

Italy weeps for your ignorance, truly. Sacco was from Apuglia (not Sicily) and Vanzetti was from Northern Italy. My Sicilian and Calabrian relatives experienced a lot of discrimination in Italy and in the United States where they were not considered white enough. However, they always ended every conversation with, but nobody has been treated worse in this country than Native Americans. There was no Trail of Tears for Italians in this country. Italian bodies were not the “strange fruit hanging from Southern trees,” by and large. My Italian grandparents taught me empathy. Apparently yours failed you.

Italians were not only lynched, they were also put in internment camps. Where is our money? Where is the Native Americans money? Where is the Latinos’ money? Or the money for the Chinese whose ancestors were also interned? You better pay up because your great “empathy” isn’t getting anyone sh!t!

Please prove examples of more than two Italians who were lynched. Italians were not actually put in internment camps in this country, Boris-bot. Neither were the Chinese. They were not systematically raped, had their children kidnapped and sold away from them, etc. Please get some perspective, Boris-bot.

All of that and more happened to Native Americans. Where's their money? A very wealthy black man calculated that each black person is owed $350,000. Don't ask how that was calculated, that's racist. I calculate that each Native American is owed $3 million.

I have not yet calculated our debt to Mexico for talking half their country, but I am sure it is quite substantial.

One Jew was lynched im Georgia in 1914 and thousands of Jews fled the state in fear. I calculate that each of their descendants is owed $35,000. Don't ask how I got that, that's racist.

Dear Racist:

Please do not misuse the memory of Leo Frank for your racist agenda. Thousands of Jews did not flee the state of Georgia. There were not thousands of Jews in Georgia at that point in history, Boris-bot.

Dear anti-Semite. Please do not use the memory of any lynching for your racist agenda. There were 3000 Jews in Georgia. Look it up.

Leonid.

Dear angry guy you spit on the graves of many civic minded and no noble Jews who believed in and died for the cause. Goodman and Schwerner are turning over in their graves. The history and suffering of one group of people isn’t diminished by acknowledging and seeking redress for the historic and ongoing systemic harms committed against another.

Dear angry guy who projects and reads into things:

You don't get the point.

You spit on the grave of everyone who has ever suffered by asking for blood money on their behalf.

You spit on the graves of anti-racists everywhere by turning down assistance for your children in order to repay an unpayable debt to the dead.

You spit on yourself by diminishing the indignities heaped upon yourself and demanding payment for the much worse indignities heaped on your grandparents.

You spit on your fellow Americans who cry with you about the past and want to end systemic racism today just because it is happening today.

You spit on the cradles of your grandchildren and as you keep looking to the past rather than the future.

You spit on the present because in trying to loose the shackles of the past, you bind yourself tighter to it.

You spit on poor people because you demand money from them to pay rich people.

You let rich people spit on you as they tell you that you deserve a few pennies for your grandparents while racists will hate you even more for trying to take pennies from them.

You spit on everyone who disagrees with you and call them angry racists and Boris-bots when you yourself are angry. It's okay to be angry. It's not okay to spit on other people and tell them it's raining.

You spit on me, as I do not demand anything for my own parents, but I do want things for my children and yours.

But you don't care about all this spit, because you see a way to make profit. Enjoy your blood money. I hope it helps your children, but I am pretty sure it won't.

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And we should invest in a portfolio of programs that help close the gap on homeownership, wealth, and education. Focus on areas impacted more by Jim Crow, redlining, etc. I do think a liquid asset should be part of that.

Three guesses on how soon these liquid assets will be siphoned off, whether by theft, fake charities, predatory "financial advisors", not to mention frivolous spending by people not used to financial discipline.

Certainly a lot of care should go into preventing abuses.

How much did you fret over abuses of PPP? I’m sure that resulted in billions of dollars abused.

So do it again, even assuming the truth of your assertion?

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Example: Black children do not do as well in school as white children. There are many reasons for this. We need to look at those reasons and fix it. One reason is that poor black children don't go to preschool. So they came up with Head Start. It worked, but only covered a small number of children. So let's have Head Start for all poor children. I don't know what this costs. The improvement in school and job performance down the road is big social economic benefit, so we don't need any other justification.

I began my career teaching very, very poor Black children along with a handful of whites who were also very poor.
I would not say that the Black kids did not do as well as the white children I taught at that time. Economics was the driver more than the color of the skin.

Now, for the reasons that these kids did so poorly:
Home environment. When kids are poor, and it is systemic, there are lots of issues in the home. I am absolutely convinced that this has nothing to do with lack of love--but lack of knowing how to raise them. This is the systemic issue--not systemic racism. The following are generalizations, but indications of the problems. And, again, this is true for Black and white, but in this case, my classes for these years were primarily Black with a handful of white kids.
1. Lack of books and reading material in the home.
2. Lack of respect for the value of education. If the parents had a bad school experience, this is also systemic. They frequently do not show up for conferences or school events. Sometimes it is because of work, but sometimes, it is just the lack of interest.
3. Drugs and alcohol. If mom is passed out on the couch, the kids are not getting lots of attention. (This can also be a factor in affluent homes, but it is pretty common in poor families.)
4. Yelling at kids rather than talking to them--poor parenting skills. Poor discipline in the home.
5. Behavior of kids--I broke up fights every day, and these were first graders.

I taught one little girl whose 19 year old brother was charged with a vicious and violent rape of a stranger. I felt very bad for the mom because she was a parent who did try very hard to do the right thing.

I taught another child whose dad was killed in a knife fight in a bar. She had frequently talked about her dad affectionately.

This same child passed a tapeworm in the restroom one day at school. Kind of explained her stomachaches.

One boy didn't come to school because he had no shoes. Our social worker took him to get shoes.
This child was extremely bright and had been to Head Start. No question that Head Start is helpful to these kids.

Do you think it is easy for kids to learn in these circumstances? But, just handing out money won't fix it---again, drugs and alcohol.

I don't have the answers. Schools with poor kids get lots more federal money than the more affluent ones. The problem is that the money does not get to the classroom or kids--it is siphoned off at every level of the bureaucracy. We did have a teacher write up a grant for extra teachers that succeeded. Too long to go into detail here, but we had a very successful, simple program that was quite effective for math. But, it was a grassroots program that was developed by an extremely talented and creative teacher (not me, but I was proud to be a part of the program.)
The problem with the money is that people try to make complicated programs that end up spending money on materials and programs rather than teachers who work directly with kids. Our program was simple. It had a basic premise: take the kids where they are and push and pull them as far as you can.

Money in education is frequently wasted. Just check out the contracts for technology and textbooks. Follow the money.

Suggestions:

Parenting classes starting at birth--in the hospital.
Head Start is helpful. Get all the poor kids into it.
Smaller classes
Simple, basic academic programs--expand as kids get older.
Afterschool tutoring and activities in the school
Access to technology--but not total reliance on it, nor too much of it
Community schools--make it convenient for the parents to get there, and try to offer parenting classes or interest classes of some kind. Encourage parents to volunteer,

What does not work
Busing--I taught in a bused school. The more affluent left (white flight). When kids are bused in, it makes it harder to get parental support.

Later, I taught in schools that were a cross section of American demographics--without the extreme poverty. But, the skin color was the cross section. There was absolutely no difference in the achievement of Black, white, or Hispanic. So, it is not race. The difference? All kids had at least one parent with a decent job. Definitely not affluent, but working.

I am the PP you are responding to and I agree with almost all of this. I think it's true the racial gap is really a poverty gap. What we are calling systemic racism is really just the fact that black children is more likely to be born into poverty and less likely to get access to the educational and other resources they would need to do better than their parents. That's why I brought up Head Start as an example and I appreciate that you've filled in the picture more fully.

The whole point is that black people face economic inequality caused by systemic racism. This has resulted in a disproportionate number of impoverished black families. And then the disproportionate poverty reinforces biases and causes more systemic racism. It’s a brutal cycle.