Zone1 Broad-brush reparations to all blacks is unconstituional

[AZrailwhale]

Because Foxy doesn't think I am reading all her ramblings.



You miss the point entirely. It's not that the descendants had anything to do with slavery; it's that they have benefited from the results. Or do use an analogy, I didn't kill the Cow, but I enjoyed the hamburger.



Actually, slavery in the form of Debt Peonage, continued in this country until 1942. The problem is that the damage is generational. No, no one today had to pick cotton for no money or had to ride on the back of the bus, but the effect of generations of institutionalized racism can be seen in this society.



Except the government hasn't done all it can do. Nowhere near, as a matter of fact. And frankly, it's not the existence of the rules, it's the application. A cop can pull you over for any pretense, but how they treat black people and how they treat white people during traffic stops is the difference between night and day.



Again, every black person is effected by the racial inequities of this country.
And every white person has benefited from them.

You may have enjoyed the hamburger, but your great grand kids won't.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Yes, because they were interred!! Imprisoned!!

That is a far cry from blacks living in northern states, who went to movies with whites, and public school with whites, and sat at the same drugstore counters as whites, who got FREE college educations from generous taxpayers, and MIGHT have been subject to Jim Crowe laws for a week if the went down South.

And what if they didn‘t? What if their parents and grandparents were all from New York, and they had no reason to go down there? You want blacks who received government-funded college educations, and went on to live successful lives as a result, to get money from whites* for something that hypothetically COULD have happened 70 years ago, but not necessarily?

*Most revenues come from whites, which means the burden for the wealth transfer will come from them in one form or another.

Blacks who lived in the South chose to do so. During WWI and WWII many southern blacks moved to the cities of the North to get wartime production jobs,

 

[IM2]

Only those who lived under Jim Crow and can demonstrate physical or material damages should even have their case heard. Not all who lived under Jim Crow laws were physically or materially damaged in any way. I encourage you to read what great minds like Walter E Williams PhD and Thomas Sowell PhD, both who grew up with and were educated during the time of Jim Crow laws, have to say about that. Both were able to get first class educations and have very successful professional careers. They would laugh in your face if you suggested they were entitled to reparations of any kind.

Sowell and Williams are not the only 2 blacks in America and I get tired of whites who use these selllout defenders of white racism in arguments. Both these men are idiots and I can say that since I am college educated as nearly much as they are. Both men have been funded by right wing foundations so they are literally slaves doing their masters bidding. If you want to discuss this matter, I suggest you read William Darity who has done extensive research on reparations and who is not paid to pander to the right wing.

There are @48 milllion blacks in America. If I cited Daviid Duke and Tom Metzger then told you that based on them I bellieve all whites are racist, you would whine about how racist that is, how all whites should not be lumped into the same category and how Duke and Metzger don't speak for alll white people. So appply this same thinking to Sowell and Williams then recognize that I don't GAD what they think.

What history shows is that whites have been given a shitload of economic assistance from the government ONLY because of their race that nobody else got. And they got it even after the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment was ratified. You cannot fix damage caused by race conscious policies favoring whites by policies providing equal opportunity based on race because all that does is maintain white advantage, it does not create equal opportunity.

 

[IM2]

The United States is again at a crossroads of racial reckoning. The death of George Floyd and the 2020 summer of protests for racial justice added new urgency to ongoing discussions about the legacy of slavery and its contemporary implications for the lives of Black Americans. A key question at the root of this discussion is: how do we repair the harm – economic, physical, and psychological — caused to Black lives by slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, police brutality, and other manifestations of systemic racism?


The United States has used reparations—targeted initiatives intended to concretely repair a harm against a person or persons resulting from the collective action of others—as a means of acknowledging and atoning for its role in other atrocities, including the internment of Japanese Americans and the forced removal and destruction of six indigenous communities: the Ottawas of Michigan, the Chippewas of Wisconsin, the Seminoles of Florida, the Sioux of South Dakota, the Klamaths of Oregon, and the Alaska Natives. However, the descendants of Africans enslaved on U.S. soil have been notably absent from this history of reparative actions. While the task of reparations seems daunting to many Americans considering the scale of injustice presented by slavery and its aftermath, we believe this is a conversation the country needs to have.

How we repair it: White Americans’ attitudes toward reparations

Ashley V. Reichelmann and Matthew O. Hunt explore white Americans’ attitudes toward reparative policies and social factors affecting their views.

www.brookings.edu

 

[IM2]

A legal basis for reparations could rest in the concept of unjust enrichment, an idea traditionally associated with relationships between individuals. Unjust enrichment involves circumstances that “give rise to the obligation of restitution, that is, the receiving and retention of property, money, or benefits which in justice and equity belong to another,” according to Ballentine’s Law Dictionary. One can extend the idea of restitution for unjust enrichment to the conditions of large-scale group oppression.

Implicit in the idea of unjust enrichment is the counterpart idea of unjust impoverishment, the condition of those suffering at the hands of those unfairly enriched. From the 1700s to the mid-1800s, white families and communities were enriched directly, or by means of economic multiplier effects, by slave plantations and related economic enterprises. Economist James Marketti once estimated that the labor stolen from enslaved African Americans from 1790 to 1860 was worth in the range of $2.1 to $4.7 trillion (in 1983 dollars), after taking into account lost interest.

Those who have attacked the idea of owing back wages to African Americans, arguing those are too-distant debts, ignore the huge damages done to African Americans during the century of near-slavery during Jim Crow segregation. Millions alive today suffered severe losses under Jim Crow and can actually name who did much of that discrimination and unjust impoverishing. The current worth of all black labor stolen by whites through the means of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination (plus interest) is estimated by some economists in the range of $6 to $24 trillion. And this figure doesn’t include compensation for great physical and mental suffering and millions of untimely deaths.

A Legal and Moral Basis for Reparations

Unjust enrichment, and its counterpart, unjust impoverishment, give rise to the idea of restitution.

time.com

 

[IM2]

And instead of telling people to read black idiots.

3. Reparations for slavery

Discussions about atonement for the enslavement of Black Americans has a long history in the United States. Most famously, General William T. Sherman

www.pewresearch.org

 

[IM2]

10 Things We Get Wrong About Reparations​

The federal government alone is capable of paying the bill. And, as the entity that created and maintains the black-white wealth gap, it should pay the debt

Federal policies produced and sustain the racial wealth gap. Starting with the legalization of slavery, itself, tantamount to a de facto “affirmative action” program for white Americans with massive potential for profiteering, and continuing with the Homestead Act of 1862, which enabled whites to build wealth through the acquisition of 160-acre land grants in the western territories — land that had been occupied by indigenous people, completing the nation’s colonial settler project. At almost the same time, recently emancipated blacks were promised and then denied 40-acre land grants, starting with the 30-mile-wide band stretching from the Sea Islands of South Carolina, through Georgia, to the St. Johns River in Florida, property that could have been made available for exclusive use of black families for homesteads. That land was returned to the Confederates. In the 20th century, the federal government advantaged whites with the G.I. Bill — subsidies for home mortgages and business enterprises while actively disadvantaging blacks. Political scientist Ira Katznelson observed, “Of the 3,229 GI Bill guaranteed loans for homes, businesses and farms made in 1947 Mississippi, for example, only two were offered to black veterans.” And in a partnership with municipalities and banking institutions, the federal government introduced redlining and restrictive covenants, and authorized funds for interstate highways that decimated black residential and business districts while connecting white suburbs to new parks and commercial centers.

Many Americans are under the mistaken impression that racial equity initiatives and reparations are equivalent. Plans like the housing voucher program Evanston, Illinois, recently approved with a total budget of $10 million to provide $25,000 grants to black residents for home maintenance expenses or for the down payment on a house in the city, and Asheville, North Carolina’s program aimed at increasing “minority” participation in the business of the city, are mislabeled “reparations” and will not have much effect on the enormous racial wealth gap.

Nor are affirmative action programs reparations. They were designed to address discrimination in the workplace, not to increase individual wealth. Any governmental act that reverses harmful policies without also providing adequate compensation for their effects is not reparations. Reparations — recompense for the cumulative effects of white supremacy — are direct payments from the federal government to American descendants of U. S. slavery calibrated to eliminate the gulf in black-white wealth, now estimated at $11 trillion. This is not necessarily a cash payment. It could be a trust account, an annuity, endowment or some other form of investment — all designed to improve black well-being.

10 Things We Get Wrong About Reparations

The federal government is capable of paying the bill. And, as the entity that created the black-white wealth gap, it should pay the debt.

www.rollingstone.com

 

[Foxfyre]

Sowell and Williams are not the only 2 blacks in America and I get tired of whites who use these selllout defenders of white racism in arguments. Both these men are idiots and I can say that since I am college educated as nearly much as they are. Both men have been funded by right wing foundations so they are literally slaves doing their masters bidding. If you want to discuss this matter, I suggest you read William Darity who has done extensive research on reparations and who is not paid to pander to the right wing.

There are @48 milllion blacks in America. If I cited Daviid Duke and Tom Metzger then told you that based on them I bellieve all whites are racist, you would whine about how racist that is, how all whites should not be lumped into the same category and how Duke and Metzger don't speak for alll white people. So appply this same thinking to Sowell and Williams then recognize that I don't GAD what they think.

What history shows is that whites have been given a shitload of economic assistance from the government ONLY because of their race that nobody else got. And they got it even after the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment was ratified. You cannot fix damage caused by race conscious policies favoring whites by policies providing equal opportunity based on race because all that does is maintain white advantage, it does not create equal opportunity.

Of course those who want nanny government and think they should be paid just because their skin is dark would absolutely hate both Williams, Sowell or any number of other scholars who teach common sense instead of racism. I accept that it is your opinion that all who don't think like you are racist or sell outs as you call them. It is really sad though because black people are people of the Earth and just as capable as any other people on Earth if they aren't hamstrung with attitudes like yours. But have a pleasant rest of your day.

 

[Coyote]

Yes, because they were interred!! Imprisoned!!

You do not need to be physically imprisoned to have your Constitutional rights violated or your life degraded or your income reduced, your right to vote removed, or your life taken. Laws were put in place that did all that and more. How do you monetize those kinds of damages? Are they less valid to you? They must be because you keep minimizing it drinking fountains and buses.

That is a far cry from blacks living in northern states, who went to movies with whites, and public school with whites, and sat at the same drugstore counters as whites, who got FREE college educations from generous taxpayers, and MIGHT have been subject to Jim Crowe laws for a week if the went down South.

Really. And that’s all you think it is Lisa? You (and I) are speaking from a position of priveledge. Freedom of movement is a right we take for granted. Equal protection under the law is a right we take for granted. But it did not exist for a group of people under Jim Crowe solely because of skin color. And people like YOU and ME could freely travel from New York to Florida, without a single concern. Maybe you should read some first person accounts of what was like? I did. I also took the time to read accounts from Holocaust survivors and people who survived the siege of Leningrad. It puts a human face on suffering.

Here is an account of a family who lived in Los Angeles and had to drive back home to Louisiana, through Texas, for a dying family member. There are tons more if you actually have the desire to learn what it was like.

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/jimcrow/narrative_holloway.html

And what if they didn‘t? What if their parents and grandparents were all from New York, and they had no reason to go down there? You want blacks who received government-funded college educations, and went on to live successful lives as a result, to get money from whites* for something that hypothetically COULD have happened 70 years ago, but not necessarily?

Ok…so you, a person with complete freedom to travel safely anywhere in the US (who’s parents enjoyed that same freedom) are now splitting hairs on who should and should not get reparations under Jim Crowe. Over a third of the US was under Jim Crowe. About another quarter had some form of segregation: parks, schools, beaches, housing.

And what’s with this free college education crap? Does the fact that anyone in NY was entitled to take advantage of it negate all civil rights violations?

Should Japanese Americans internees have been removed from reparation if they got a free college education?

*Most revenues come from whites, which means the burden for the wealth transfer will come from them in one form or another.

Which is irrelevant. Black taxpayers will be paying as well.

 

[Foxfyre]

Both were able to INSPITE of Jim Crowe. Not all Japanese Americans who were interred were physically or materially damaged, yet they were not parsed for reparations. Their Constitutional rights were grossly violated and not all damage can be monetized.

All Japanese Americans interred were deprived of their liberty.

Again there is probably no human who has ever lived who hasn't been disappointed or thwarted in some way in what he/she wanted or wanted to do. And there are countless millions--COUNTLESS millions--of people on Earth who accomplished much in spite of the handicaps or road blocks in their paths. That speaks to the character of the people themselves. Do you suggest all black people don't have such character just because some don't?

Some people are blessed with great unearned fortune and take advantage of it. Does that make them lesser people than those who have to work for everything they have? I was a battered and neglected child as well as a child of alcoholics and had maybe half or less the material advantages of most of my schoolmates. I could blame everything I failed to accomplish or every disappointment or every dumb decision or choice on that. But it wouldn't be true.

The one handicap I didn't have, however, was people telling me that anybody owed me anything or that I deserved to get paid by others because my life was not as good as theirs. I was blessed with good role models outside my family and do not feel I was in any way permanently disadvantaged by my childhood because I chose not to be. Many doors were closed to me but I chose to take advantage of what opportunities I had.

And I admit to feel pretty strong contempt for attitudes of people now who suggest that black people are incapable of making choices like that, who discourage black people from making such choices by brainwashing them that they are oppressed victims in an unjust world so that they demand reparations, restitution, a nanny state government to take care of them. That is a sure prescription for never knowing what it is to aspire and succeed on one's own merits.

 

[Coyote]

All Japanese Americans interred were deprived of their liberty.

Again there is probably no human who has ever lived who hasn't been disappointed or thwarted in some way in what he/she wanted or wanted to do. And there are countless millions--COUNTLESS millions--of people on Earth who accomplished much in spite of the handicaps or road blocks in their paths. That speaks to the character of the people themselves. Do you suggest all black people don't have such character just because some don't?

Here is part of the problem, as I see it. What you are labeling “disappointed”, “thwarted”, “road blocks” was a system of laws that deprived them of their Constitutional rights based solely on skin color. Liberty is not the only right.

The fact that Blacks, created work arounds and were able to succeed (and avoid being killed) by keeping their heads down is testement to that character but in no way mitigates that violation of their rights. Many Japanese Americans were able to build successful lives after internment….does that mitigate what was done to them? Some did not…is that a lack of character?

Some people are blessed with great unearned fortune and take advantage of it. Does that make them lesser people than those who have to work for everything they have? I was a battered and neglected child as well as a child of alcoholics and had maybe half or less the material advantages of most of my schoolmates. I could blame everything I failed to accomplish or every disappointment or every dumb decision or choice on that. But it wouldn't be true.

The one handicap I didn't have, however, was people telling me that anybody owed me anything or that I deserved to get paid by others because my life was not as good as theirs. I was blessed with good role models outside my family and do not feel I was in any way permanently disadvantaged by my childhood because I chose not to be. Many doors were closed to me but I chose to take advantage of what opportunities I had.

As someone who also grew up a child of an alcoholic, I admire you. And while many people in adverse circumstances are able to get beyond them, some are not, (and I would never denigrate them). But I guess where I differ on this is I don’t see the concept of reparations as having anything to do with that. Sure there are some that will say so and so owes me blah blah blah…in any group, race, culture, class. And that’s ok. It’s their right and freedom to feel that. But it has nothing to do with reparation because reparations are independent of that.

The definition of reparations: the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury

It has nothing to do with the character, strength, failings or likeability of the recipient, or gratitude - it’s about redress. If a wrong was committed, it’s about righting that wrong, regardless of whether you feel the subject is deserving.

And I admit to feel pretty strong contempt for attitudes of people now who suggest that black people are incapable of making choices like that, who discourage black people from making such choices by brainwashing them that they are oppressed victims in an unjust world so that they demand reparations, restitution, a nanny state government to take care of them. That is a sure prescription for never knowing what it is to aspire and succeed on one's own merits.

Again….it isn’t about character or whether or not Black peop,e are capable of making choices (they most certainly are) it is about redressing a specific wrong that was done through legislsting laws that deprived them of their civil and Constitutional rights.

 

[Foxfyre]

Here is part of the problem, as I see it. What you are labeling “disappointed”, “thwarted”, “road blocks” was a system of laws that deprived them of their Constitutional rights based solely on skin color. Liberty is not the only right.

The fact that Blacks, created work arounds and were able to succeed (and avoid being killed) by keeping their heads down is testement to that character but in no way mitigates that violation of their rights. Many Japanese Americans were able to build successful lives after internment….does that mitigate what was done to them? Some did not…is that a lack of character?




As someone who also grew up a child of an alcoholic, I admire you. And while many people in adverse circumstances are able to get beyond them, some are not, (and I would never denigrate them). But I guess where I differ on this is I don’t see the concept of reparations as having anything to do with that. Sure there are some that will say so and so owes me blah blah blah…in any group, race, culture, class. And that’s ok. It’s their right and freedom to feel that. But it has nothing to do with reparation because reparations are independent of that.

The definition of reparations: the act of making amends, offering expiation, or giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury

It has nothing to do with the character, strength, failings or likeability of the recipient, or gratitude - it’s about redress. If a wrong was committed, it’s about righting that wrong, regardless of whether you feel the subject is deserving.


Again….it isn’t about character or whether or not Black peop,e are capable of making choices (they most certainly are) it is about redressing a specific wrong that was done through legislsting laws that deprived them of their civil and Constitutional rights.

There are many many MANY wrongs that simply cannot be made right. As often as not, the best we can do is stop doing wrong. To give black people reparations for something that cannot be shown to have materially or physically harmed them would be to replace a perceived wrong with a very real one because you are forcing those who had no part in the wrong to be the ones to make restitution for it.

If you can find those who did the wrong and punish them go for it. Make them pay reparations. But it not reasonable, wise, profitable, or common sense to intentionally punish people for a wrong they had no part of and sets a terrible precedent that will be exploited by opportunists for generations to come.

 

[Coyote]

There are many many MANY wrongs that simply cannot be made right. As often as not, the best we can do is stop doing wrong. To give black people reparations for something that cannot be shown to have materially or physically harmed them would be to replace on perceived wrong with a very real one because you are forcing those who had no part in the wrong to be the ones to make restitution for it.

I take exception to that.

If you can find those who did the wrong and punish them go for it. Make them pay reparations. But it not reasonable, wise, profitable, or common sense to intentionally punish people for a wrong they had no part of and sets a terrible precedent that will be exploited by opportunists for generations to come.

Who is being punished?

Who was punished when we gave reparations to Japanese Americans?

 

[Foxfyre]

I take exception to that.



Who is being punished?

Who was punished when we gave reparations to Japanese Americans?

Reparations to interred Japanese Americans was a legitimate compensation because those people were wrongly deprived of their liberty and as such were due compensation for that harm.

I have no quibble with any black person who can demonstrate that Jim Crow laws imposed by the federal government caused him or her physical or material harm. I doubt such a person exists actually. But the vast majority of black people now living never experienced or suffered harm from Jim Crow laws. And the very few who were have a quarrel with the state or local authorities who did the harm and not the federal government. There were no federal Jim Crow laws

And you can take whatever exception you want, but you don't have an argument for why innocent people should be forced to pay restitution for something they had no part in. And you don't have an argument for how those unaffected by Jim Crow laws are entitled to reparations.

 

[Coyote]

Reparations to interred Japanese Americans was a legitimate compensation because those people were wrongly deprived of their liberty and as such were due compensation for that harm.

Liberty is not the only right that matters. There is a host of other rights. How about equal protection?

I have no quibble with any black person who can demonstrate that Jim Crow laws imposed by the federal government caused him or her physical or material harm. But the vast majority of black people now living never experienced or suffered harm from Jim Crow laws. And the very few who were have a quarrel with the state or local authorities who did the harm and not the federal government. There were no federal Jim Crow laws

Well, I have consistently limited my argument to only those alive during Jim Crowe.

 

[Foxfyre]

Liberty is not the only right that matters. There is a host of other rights. How about equal protection?



Well, I have consistently limited my argument to only those alive during Jim Crowe.

Most black people living during the time of Jim Crow laws suffered no harm whatsoever from those Jim Crow laws.

Jim Crow laws specified separate but equal which satisfied the equal protection clause so far as the courts at that time were concerned. That does not mean there were not injustices. Of course there were. Still are. Always will be. But again it is morally and practically wrong to require innocent and uninvolved people to pay restitution for the wrongs that others are accused of when no damages can be proved.

Go after those who did the wrong. Don't put their sins on everybody.

 

[Coyote]

Most black people living during the time of Jim Crow laws suffered no harm whatsoever from those Jim Crow laws.

And you know that how?

 

[Lisa558]

Most black people living during the time of Jim Crow laws suffered no harm whatsoever from those Jim Crow laws.

Jim Crow laws specified separate but equal which satisfied the equal protection clause so far as the courts at that time were concerned.

Especially the northern blacks, who went to public schools, movie theaters, drugstore counters, etc., the same as whites - AND the especially bright, studious ones won free college educations. Many never ventured south of the Mason-Dixon line. To say they deserve reparations, based on nothing more than their skin color without having to demonstrate damages is what makes it unconstitutional.

 

[Foxfyre]

And you know that how?

Because they were not alive at the time, they didn't live in the states where Jim Crow laws were enforced, they weren't old enough to be physically or materially harmed by them, they chose to remain in Jim Crow states when they could have left or any number of reasons. Or they found ways to achieve and succeed and reach for
the American dream in spite of Jim Crow laws.

 

[Foxfyre]

Especially the northern blacks, who went to public schools, movie theaters, drugstore counters, etc., the same as whites - AND the especially bright, studious ones won free college educations. Many never ventured south of the Mason-Dixon line. To say they deserve reparations, based on nothing more than their skin color without having to demonstrate damages is what makes it unconstitutional.

The one thing the bleeding hearts will not address is all the truly amazing black people who did not allow Jim Crow laws to hold them back, who accomplished great things, who rose above discrimination and prejudice to succeed. Such black people are insulted to think they are in any way due reparations for injustices that happened sixty or more years ago.

And those of the left/progressives/'woke' group etc. will not admit or even see their own prejudices and biases and that they would deny unalienable rights, opportunity, and choices to people who disagree with them unless those people are in some designated victim class the leftists use as pawns in their own agenda. Not to mention that they are demanding those they don't like to pay restitution to those they have designated victims.

They cannot see how unreasonable and hypocritical their views and too often their actions are.