Debate Now The Case for Reparations Goes Beyond Slavery....Pt.2

[IM2]

You look for every excuse to deny racism. I attended a school with one of the best engineering programs in the country. One of my childhood friends got a degree in Arch E. The engineering field for years discriminated against blacks. So why would a black person get into great debt to earn a degree in a field where we won't get a job?

Discrimination TODAY is against white Americans in Engineering.. Schools are FULL of "full pay:" foreign students and professors... Schools would rather take rich Saudis and Indian students, then deal with grants, loans, discounts.. So BOTH races have competition there.. Also because American kids lost interest in Engineering when the space program died and they got everything they ever wanted in one cell phone.. They have no idea of how much there is yet to be designed...

As far as your friend -- what DECADE was that? NOW companies CLAMOR to hire minorities into engineering jobs,.. That problem is FIXED.. The NEW problem is they cant GET black engineering students so they have to fill H.R., Accounting, Legal and other cubbies with black employees..

What does this really have to do reparations for PAST injustices???

Bullshit. It doesn't matter when I went to college. I live in a college town. Everywhere I have lived has had at least 1 university.


Employed black scientists and engineers, as a percentage of selected occupations: 2015

Occupation	Percent
Computer system analysts	7.8
Engineers	4.3
Physical and related scientists	3.9
Life scientists	2.5

nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/occupation/blacks.cfm

73.9% of Civil engineers are White (Non-Hispanic), making that the most common race or ethnicity in the occupation. Representing 10.3% of Civil engineers, Asian (Non-Hispanic) is the second most common race or ethnicity in this occupation.

Civil engineers | Data USA

Civil engineers are most often employed by the Architectural, engineering & related services industry. The average yearly wage for Civil engineers was $91,360 in 2016. The top 3 most similar occupations to Civil engineers by wage are Computer programmers, Industrial production managers, and...

datausa.io

.

You are not being discriminated against when you are 74 percent of the workforce.

As for whites filling Civil Engineering, that's NOT really why Saudis, Asians, fill the engineering schools. They are here for the cutting edge RESEARCH and knowledge in OTHER areas, their kids cant get at home.. Go look at the faculty names for an Electrical or Biomedical Engineering dept at a University that specializes in Engineering..

The numbers speak for themselves and so does the H1B visa program created by whites in the federal government.

 

[OldLady]

Congressional plans aren't what I am referring to. I'm talking about plans from individuals and groups in the black community. Black boomers are not opposed to reparations and many white boomers, especially on the right, have been race pimped by people like Limbaugh into believing it's free money and how they didn't own slaves. This is why people like Ta Nehisi Coates and others have taken a more expansive view due to the fact that the end of slavery didn't really end human rights violations against blacks.

Okay. But you ain't getting 15 trillion dollars until Congress approves a plan and the President signs it. And for forty years, they haven't even agreed to do a study on it. That was disappointing to learn.

 

[IM2]

Congressional plans aren't what I am referring to. I'm talking about plans from individuals and groups in the black community. Black boomers are not opposed to reparations and many white boomers, especially on the right, have been race pimped by people like Limbaugh into believing it's free money and how they didn't own slaves. This is why people like Ta Nehisi Coates and others have taken a more expansive view due to the fact that the end of slavery didn't really end human rights violations against blacks.

Okay. But you ain't getting 15 trillion dollars until Congress approves a plan and the President signs it. And for forty years, they haven't even agreed to do a study on it. That was disappointing to learn.

It is sad. And the years of excuses since Conyers first proposed this is sad. Again, I will point to Cobell v. Salazar and the reparations paid to descendants of confederate soldiers to support my disgust in this runaround blacks have been getting relative to this issue.

 

[flacaltenn]

These are long term goals. The articles we've seen that show improvements in employment, education, etc. compare the situation from the 1960's to now. You and I will be long gone by the time real "evidence" is shown that these investments work. I predict there will be regular bitch fests about how "this isn't helping" every couple of years. But think about it. Getting a good enough K-12 education to prepare you for engineering degrees in college take how long? 12 years. Then your 4-5 years in college for engineering (or is it longer). Accumulating wealth involves one generation handing on a nest egg to the next generation. That also takes time.

That's all true about the delay to MEASURE results.. But EVERY program is supposedly started BECAUSE there are numbers, projections, expert opinion, and past experiences to PROJECT what the results will be in 10, 20, 40 years.. All those Federal budgeting offices and DOZENS of think tanks and interest orgs do that analysis all the time..

When you ask for investment in a business idea or a charitable goal -- you HAVE TO PROJECT outcomes.. And let the experts VET those projections..

 

[flacaltenn]

I think we have enough "evidence" of what programs, generally, do to improve the quality of life for our people. It's almost "common knowledge" at this point. So I'm not sure your #4 is necessary on an in-depth level, anyway. People who are opposed to reparations will just use it to argue endlessly. Like we hear when the battling economists "predict" the outcomes of tax changes to the budget.

REALLY? What did those $2400 checks mailed to every one on the IRS/Soc Sec DO? Any evidence that it saved any lives, families, businesses? NEVER should have included retired folks, because they were NOT the ones losing the income and jobs.. So --- how much did NOTHING to offset actual COVID losses?

I don't think providing a VISION and specifics on what improvements to expect, will end up in ENDLESS arguments.. Since we're in endless argument territory RIGHT HERE.. Not knowing what form or what amounts or what time duration is NECESSARY to reparate properly..

No opinions gonna get changed. Not really about the JUSTIFICATION for reparations. We can all accept that.. But it IS about efficacy, fairness, and THE FUTURE.. And we ought to talk about GOALS for reparations in terms of how it's DESIGNED -- so FUTURE stuff gets fixed..

Like I said, 50 years of Great Society programs and $trillions -- initially REDUCE poverty, but never came even CLOSE to DEFEATING poverty and we're still doing it...

 

[flacaltenn]

So why today considering that King bought up the issue of reparations before he was murdered and blacks have been trying to get a reparations bill passed in congress since 1989, that there is no one on ready with a plan?

From the NYT, last month (good article, if you have access):

Representative John Conyers, who died in 2019, was a long-serving Democrat from Michigan and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He introduced a bill on the study of reparations every year beginning in 1989 and said he would “do so until it’s passed into law.” (He did, until he resigned in 2017.) For years, the prospect of the bill becoming law seemed quite distant. Gallup polling has shown that more than two-thirds of Americans oppose reparations. President Barack Obama said in 2016 that he considered the idea impractical.

Slowly, though, the notion has gained political traction. Sheila Jackson Lee, the Democratic congresswoman from Texas, reintroduced Mr. Conyers’s bill that would establish a commission to study the impact of slavery and make recommendations for its “apology and compensation” in 2019, and Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, introduced companion legislation in the Senate. Last year on Juneteenth, an annual holiday commemorating the ending of slavery, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a first-of-its-kind hearing on reparations...

While the political push has long come from veteran black lawmakers, white candidates are discussing the issue of reparations too. At a recent Senate primary debate between Senator Ed Markey and Representative Joe Kennedy, both the Massachusetts Democrats said they were open to the idea. Mr. Kennedy said in an interview that the conversation should “go beyond debate over a study” of the issue, where the legislative focus has remained for decades.
How Reparations for Slavery Became a 2020 Campaign Issue

It sounds, IM, as though Congress has no plan yet. They can't seem to get support for even a study, which is step one. Although--a glimmer of light--there was a hearing last year about having a study, on June 19, 2019:

Wednesday’s historic hearing, the first time Congress has considered a bill, H.R. 40, that would create a commission to develop proposals to address the lingering effects of slavery and consider a “national apology” for the harm it has caused.
The sometimes raucous session before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee lasted nearly three and a half hours and dug into the darkest corners of the nation’s history, exposing the bitter cultural and ideological divides in Washington and beyond.

At Historic Hearing, House Panel Explores Reparations

Hundreds of mostly black spectators descended on Capitol Hill for a hearing that exposed Washington’s cultural and ideological divides.

www.nytimes.com

Politically, this issue doesn't fly, yet. The recent "George Floyd" Protests have caused a handful of Democratic politicians to voice their support for taking a look at it, anyway. And with progressives pushing the Democratic party HARD to the left, that number may grow. Another factor: Boomers are opposed to the concept of reparations 4 out of 5. But more than half of millenials are supportive of the idea, or at least willing to learn more about it. So when us Boomers are gone, the day may come for a reparations plan.

Congressional plans aren't what I am referring to. I'm talking about plans from individuals and groups in the black community. Black boomers are not opposed to reparations and many white boomers, especially on the right, have been race pimped by people like Limbaugh into believing it's free money and how they didn't own slaves. This is why people like Ta Nehisi Coates and others have taken a more expansive view due to the fact that the end of slavery didn't really end human rights violations against blacks.

Congress appropriates the money.,. Needs amounts and addresses.. If it's NOT targeted to victims of slavery and subsequent racism and to actions that WILL produce results, it's never gonna be a bill.

The idea of tossing $trillion to "individuals and groups in the black community" is no better than driving a truck down the middle of black Baltimore and raining money onto the street.. The DISCORD and arguments about HOW that money is spent could start all-out wars in between "black individuals and groups" laying CLAIM to it..

We need those 4 items to get past "go" here.. More FUTURE vision and a lot less looking back..

 

[flacaltenn]

Congressional plans aren't what I am referring to. I'm talking about plans from individuals and groups in the black community. Black boomers are not opposed to reparations and many white boomers, especially on the right, have been race pimped by people like Limbaugh into believing it's free money and how they didn't own slaves. This is why people like Ta Nehisi Coates and others have taken a more expansive view due to the fact that the end of slavery didn't really end human rights violations against blacks.

Okay. But you ain't getting 15 trillion dollars until Congress approves a plan and the President signs it. And for forty years, they haven't even agreed to do a study on it. That was disappointing to learn.

It is sad. And the years of excuses since Conyers first proposed this is sad. Again, I will point to Cobell v. Salazar and the reparations paid to descendants of confederate soldiers to support my disgust in this runaround blacks have been getting relative to this issue.

That payment to Confederate soldiers and their IMMEDIATE DESCENDENTS, starting petering out by about the early 1900s.. And the LAST payment was to a daughter of a Confederate soldier who lived into her 100s several decades back.. The AMOUNTS were trivial and had no real effect on the lives of the people after the first 10 years or so of the program..

You were never forced to pay even a penny into that program...

 

[flacaltenn]

You look for every excuse to deny racism. I attended a school with one of the best engineering programs in the country. One of my childhood friends got a degree in Arch E. The engineering field for years discriminated against blacks. So why would a black person get into great debt to earn a degree in a field where we won't get a job?

Discrimination TODAY is against white Americans in Engineering.. Schools are FULL of "full pay:" foreign students and professors... Schools would rather take rich Saudis and Indian students, then deal with grants, loans, discounts.. So BOTH races have competition there.. Also because American kids lost interest in Engineering when the space program died and they got everything they ever wanted in one cell phone.. They have no idea of how much there is yet to be designed...

As far as your friend -- what DECADE was that? NOW companies CLAMOR to hire minorities into engineering jobs,.. That problem is FIXED.. The NEW problem is they cant GET black engineering students so they have to fill H.R., Accounting, Legal and other cubbies with black employees..

What does this really have to do reparations for PAST injustices???

Bullshit. It doesn't matter when I went to college. I live in a college town. Everywhere I have lived has had at least 1 university.


Employed black scientists and engineers, as a percentage of selected occupations: 2015

Occupation	Percent
Computer system analysts	7.8
Engineers	4.3
Physical and related scientists	3.9
Life scientists	2.5

nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/occupation/blacks.cfm

73.9% of Civil engineers are White (Non-Hispanic), making that the most common race or ethnicity in the occupation. Representing 10.3% of Civil engineers, Asian (Non-Hispanic) is the second most common race or ethnicity in this occupation.

Civil engineers | Data USA

Civil engineers are most often employed by the Architectural, engineering & related services industry. The average yearly wage for Civil engineers was $91,360 in 2016. The top 3 most similar occupations to Civil engineers by wage are Computer programmers, Industrial production managers, and...

datausa.io

.

You are not being discriminated against when you are 74 percent of the workforce.

As for whites filling Civil Engineering, that's NOT really why Saudis, Asians, fill the engineering schools. They are here for the cutting edge RESEARCH and knowledge in OTHER areas, their kids cant get at home.. Go look at the faculty names for an Electrical or Biomedical Engineering dept at a University that specializes in Engineering..

The numbers speak for themselves and so does the H1B visa program created by whites in the federal government.

WHY and HOW could you justify an H1B program if WHITES were dominating engineering? Disney pushed HARD to expand H1B and the result was they FORCED largely white CAREER ENGINEERS to TRAIN immigrant engineers and then forced THEM into severance and early retirement deals.. Something like 125,000 of them that weren't even STARTING to consider retirement.

Here's a better statistic to argue over, When you count federal, state, local employees ---
Almost 60% of black Americans work for the government or for organizations supported FULLY by government.. They are 30% OVER-represented in even being DIRECT employees of govt.

Most of those are NOT career advancing with equitable pay to the private sector. Arguably better benefits maybe.. But the over-representation is because kids don't WANT to prepare or aren't motivated to PURSUE the better paying jobs..

 

[flacaltenn]

It is sad. And the years of excuses since Conyers first proposed this is sad.

Conyers was a hero of mine.. One of last TRUE liberals in Congress. Knew that Civil Rights was dependent on Civil Liberties as a whole and fought for things like ending asset forfeiture, eminent domain, abuses of the Drug War, ect..

 

[flacaltenn]

Too many of you have labored under the delusion that welfare was a wealth building program for blacks. The biggest hold up on reparations is the still general ignorance in the beliefs whites have about black on both sides.

Oh HELL no.. Aint a rational person not a vegetable that confuses welfare with wealth building.. Unfortunately, too many folks have a multi-generational history of ignoring the "wealth building" part..

I should not have to sell anything. The evidence sits in your face as to the damage created and what a 14 trillion dollar investment will do.

Good luck with the $14Trillion number.. The total national DEBT wasn't $14Trill when we were born or probably DECADES AFTER... And YES -- you NEED A PLAN. And then you sell it.. Thats how stuff gets done.. You paint a picture of happy, healthy, safe and educated black families, with a SELF RELIANCE that brings them THEIR OWN salaries and wealth, and it's a no brainer..

BECAUSE -- the savings from welfare expenditures would go a long way to offset the cost.. ESPECIALLY accumulating over DECADES... And a properly designed plan, that INTUITIVELY is fair, simple and projected to get GREAT results -- will sell it itself..

If you DON'T have the plan, aren't LOOKING AT THE FUTURE and not the past -- there's really nothing to look forward or DISCUSS on reparations... You don't have leaders like Conyers who could make that happen and the race pimps are NOT ACTUALLY gonna work themselves OUT of jobs voluntarily by SUPPORTING reparations that would be effective.. BLM aint gonna do the work.. They have a whole government REVOLUTION to figure out...

What da hell would YOU DO if there was race reconciliation and economic parity in this country??? Take up a hobby maybe???

That's why I think you dont WANT to look more at the future or actually fix anything.. You're pretty much stick in the "justifications" ditch of a couple years of history...

 

[OldLady]

These are long term goals. The articles we've seen that show improvements in employment, education, etc. compare the situation from the 1960's to now. You and I will be long gone by the time real "evidence" is shown that these investments work. I predict there will be regular bitch fests about how "this isn't helping" every couple of years. But think about it. Getting a good enough K-12 education to prepare you for engineering degrees in college take how long? 12 years. Then your 4-5 years in college for engineering (or is it longer). Accumulating wealth involves one generation handing on a nest egg to the next generation. That also takes time.

That's all true about the delay to MEASURE results.. But EVERY program is supposedly started BECAUSE there are numbers, projections, expert opinion, and past experiences to PROJECT what the results will be in 10, 20, 40 years.. All those Federal budgeting offices and DOZENS of think tanks and interest orgs do that analysis all the time..

When you ask for investment in a business idea or a charitable goal -- you HAVE TO PROJECT outcomes.. And let the experts VET those projections..

Okay, you're right. Of course Congress isn't going to approve a big expensive program without some projections on what good it will do. I just don't want it to be an endless sticking point over predictions that can't be "proven" for decades, over which formula the economists should have used, etc.

 

[flacaltenn]

These are long term goals. The articles we've seen that show improvements in employment, education, etc. compare the situation from the 1960's to now. You and I will be long gone by the time real "evidence" is shown that these investments work. I predict there will be regular bitch fests about how "this isn't helping" every couple of years. But think about it. Getting a good enough K-12 education to prepare you for engineering degrees in college take how long? 12 years. Then your 4-5 years in college for engineering (or is it longer). Accumulating wealth involves one generation handing on a nest egg to the next generation. That also takes time.

That's all true about the delay to MEASURE results.. But EVERY program is supposedly started BECAUSE there are numbers, projections, expert opinion, and past experiences to PROJECT what the results will be in 10, 20, 40 years.. All those Federal budgeting offices and DOZENS of think tanks and interest orgs do that analysis all the time..

When you ask for investment in a business idea or a charitable goal -- you HAVE TO PROJECT outcomes.. And let the experts VET those projections..

Okay, you're right. Of course Congress isn't going to approve a big expensive program without some projections on what good it will do. I just don't want it to be an endless sticking point over predictions that can't be "proven" for decades, over which formula the economists should have used, etc.

EVERything is a "sticky point" in Congress because Congress is drunk on amassing and preserving the POWER the parties have chosen to lust for.. Wouldn't BE because WE'RE not interested, or the Congress is racist..

If a Repub or Libertarian think tank TODAY announced a brilliant and fair reparations plan, the Dems would reject it if they could NOT take credit for it.. Toss-up on what "power calculation" would be made if it came from an actual Lefty think tank, because it would PASS (maybe) under our "racist" president and a Repub Senate..

Politics just fails on everything, when everything is about the next election...

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Rich people of ANY color dont need reparations. They've navigated the system and USED IT to get there. Through talent and education and persistence.. Successful and rich are NOT the hallmarks of a systemically racist society..

Reparations are not about "need". They are about recompense for harms created/allowed/perpetuated by our government.

Plenty of rich people sue others for harms that have been done to them. And they're entitled to the money damages they are awarded if they have successfully proven 1) that they suffered the harm alleged, 2) that the harm was caused by a prohibited act, 3) that the defendant(s) (here substitute our governement) was the proximate cause of the the harm done by the prohibited act, and 4) the money damages caused by the harm that the defendants caused by their engagement in the prohibited act.

There are certain cases where the harm caused by a defendant does not have to be proven and the damages are presumed. I would imagine that because so many of the economical damages caused by the systemic racism which was built into the laws, policies and social practices of the United States, are quantifiable that the psychological and other harm caused by these practices could be presumed as well.

This is not an impossible task, it's not even difficult.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

And women are black also.. They get extra bonus points for "minority intersectionality"....

We get discriminated against for both.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

My mind is not entirely made up on this because there are a number of severely disadvantaged groups in this country who would not be owed reparations yet are stuck in dangerous, run down communities with crap schools and limited options, along with black people. IMO, at this point, this should be something seperate from reparation.

When it comes to reparations to provide economic equality to black Americans, though, it seems clear that a rising tide does not lift all boats, at least not to an equal level. As I see it, reparations are partly an acknowledgement of wrongs, and partly an attempt to put blacks on an equal footing, economically. Unemployment for blacks was the lowest it had ever been prior to the Covid shutdowns, but it was still double that of white Americans. Although blacks have achieved a lot of gains in education, white Americans still on average have 10 times the wealth of black Americans. While grants and programs to alleviate poverty for all are a great idea, they will not take care of that stubborn problem of economic inequality. Only investment specifically in black communities can do that. Or so the economists say.

Here's a couple of articles that kick around different ideas for what reparations might look like and how they might work. Just for general information.

Why we need reparations for Black Americans

Rashawn Ray and Andre Perry outline the history of reparations in the United States, missed opportunities to redress the racial wealth gap, and specific details for a viable reparations package for Black Americans.

www.brookings.edu

What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019 (Published 2019)

The idea of economic amends for past injustices and persistent disparities is getting renewed attention. Here are some formulas for achieving the aim.

www.nytimes.com

Good articles! I recognize one from what IM2 quoted from. I have to think about this.

I thought that Brookings article sounded familiar.....lol
There are a lot of ideas.
I'm one of those people who keeps looking around the corner, saying "okay--how, specifically, do we do this?" and so far I'm full of questions because enough particulars haven't been provided. We haven't zeroed in on a plan.
I'm guessing IM is focused on persuading people that reparations, as a general concept, is a good idea. I'm already convinced, so maybe I don't need to be here. To me, the question is HOW. Because if I can't see how it is going to work on the ground, I can't really get behind a plan. And I don't think we've gotten that far yet.

Hey OldLady, it's good to see you again. I was afraid you had left.

One way is to return a percentage of taxes paid by black people during all the years that racism and segregation was legal in the U.S. We know that the government can use federal income tax records to indentify specific individuals because they just sent out stimulus checks to everyone whose tax filings in 2018/2019 were below a certain threshold so I know they can make a determination of income tax payments prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which effectively ended the 2nd class status of blacks in America on paper if not in application.

Our government also has property records which they can use. If the taxes of black parents went into the kitty for schools but the black students were provided with sub par schools, equipment, educations, etc. or as in the case of one of the Virginia school districts where they shut down the entire district for 5 years rather than comply with the landmark SCOTU Brown v Board of Education decision to integrate their schools, those are quantifiable damages.

Maybe because my primary career is as a software developer I understand how to query databases in order to come up with the target set of individuals that can then be used to pull data from other systems. It's not a difficult thing to do and as I've always said, any problem can be solved with sufficient time and resources. I suspect our government as another impediment, doesn't want to spend the money, but I would bet that they could crowd source a solution, heck I could probably design something for them, but I'm loathe to spend my time working for free these days other than for a very specific set of individuals, particularly for people who are already so resistent to the results.

 

[Coyote]

My mind is not entirely made up on this because there are a number of severely disadvantaged groups in this country who would not be owed reparations yet are stuck in dangerous, run down communities with crap schools and limited options, along with black people. IMO, at this point, this should be something seperate from reparation.

When it comes to reparations to provide economic equality to black Americans, though, it seems clear that a rising tide does not lift all boats, at least not to an equal level. As I see it, reparations are partly an acknowledgement of wrongs, and partly an attempt to put blacks on an equal footing, economically. Unemployment for blacks was the lowest it had ever been prior to the Covid shutdowns, but it was still double that of white Americans. Although blacks have achieved a lot of gains in education, white Americans still on average have 10 times the wealth of black Americans. While grants and programs to alleviate poverty for all are a great idea, they will not take care of that stubborn problem of economic inequality. Only investment specifically in black communities can do that. Or so the economists say.

Here's a couple of articles that kick around different ideas for what reparations might look like and how they might work. Just for general information.

Why we need reparations for Black Americans

Rashawn Ray and Andre Perry outline the history of reparations in the United States, missed opportunities to redress the racial wealth gap, and specific details for a viable reparations package for Black Americans.

www.brookings.edu

What Reparations for Slavery Might Look Like in 2019 (Published 2019)

The idea of economic amends for past injustices and persistent disparities is getting renewed attention. Here are some formulas for achieving the aim.

www.nytimes.com

Good articles! I recognize one from what IM2 quoted from. I have to think about this.

I thought that Brookings article sounded familiar.....lol
There are a lot of ideas.
I'm one of those people who keeps looking around the corner, saying "okay--how, specifically, do we do this?" and so far I'm full of questions because enough particulars haven't been provided. We haven't zeroed in on a plan.
I'm guessing IM is focused on persuading people that reparations, as a general concept, is a good idea. I'm already convinced, so maybe I don't need to be here. To me, the question is HOW. Because if I can't see how it is going to work on the ground, I can't really get behind a plan. And I don't think we've gotten that far yet.

Hey OldLady, it's good to see you again. I was afraid you had left.

One way is to return a percentage of taxes paid by black people during all the years that racism and segregation was legal in the U.S. We know that the government can use federal income tax records to indentify specific individuals because they just sent out stimulus checks to everyone whose tax filings in 2018/2019 were below a certain threshold so I know they can make a determination of income tax payments prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which effectively ended the 2nd class status of blacks in America on paper if not in application.

Our government also has property records which they can use. If the taxes of black parents went into the kitty for schools but the black students were provided with sub par schools, equipment, educations, etc. or as in the case of one of the Virginia school districts where they shut down the entire district for 5 years rather than comply with the landmark SCOTU Brown v Board of Education decision to integrate their schools, those are quantifiable damages.

Maybe because my primary career is as a software developer I understand how to query databases in order to come up with the target set of individuals that can then be used to pull data from other systems. It's not a difficult thing to do and as I've always said, any problem can be solved with sufficient time and resources. I suspect our government as another impediment, doesn't want to spend the money, but I would bet that they could crowd source a solution, heck I could probably design something for them, but I'm loathe to spend my time working for free these days other than for a very specific set of individuals, particularly for people who are already so resistent to the results.

The idea of returning taxes is an interesting one. But...too many black families do own homes and pay property taxes.

I think similar with schools..too many sub par schools are so for reasons not necessarily due to race but a combination of problems that include a poor taxbase.

 

[Coyote]

Rich people of ANY color dont need reparations. They've navigated the system and USED IT to get there. Through talent and education and persistence.. Successful and rich are NOT the hallmarks of a systemically racist society..

Reparations are not about "need". They are about recompense for harms created/allowed/perpetuated by our government.

Plenty of rich people sue others for harms that have been done to them. And they're entitled to the money damages they are awarded if they have successfully proven 1) that they suffered the harm alleged, 2) that the harm was caused by a prohibited act, 3) that the defendant(s) (here substitute our governement) was the proximate cause of the the harm done by the prohibited act, and 4) the money damages caused by the harm that the defendants caused by their engagement in the prohibited act.

There are certain cases where the harm caused by a defendant does not have to be proven and the damages are presumed. I would imagine that because so many of the economical damages caused by the systemic racism which was built into the laws, policies and social practices of the United States, are quantifiable that the psychological and other harm caused by these practices could be presumed as well.

This is not an impossible task, it's not even difficult.

Unless I am misunderstanding this...that strikes me as wrong and unjust.

 

[Coyote]

One potential avenue for reparations could be in increasing home ownership, but not through outrageous mortgages. Gentrification drives many low income families out...they can’t afford to buy, and rents go up or become non rentals. Seems there ought to be a way for black families to buy into this.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

You look for every excuse to deny racism. I attended a school with one of the best engineering programs in the country. One of my childhood friends got a degree in Arch E. The engineering field for years discriminated against blacks. So why would a black person get into great debt to earn a degree in a field where we won't get a job?

Discrimination TODAY is against white Americans in Engineering.. Schools are FULL of "full pay:" foreign students and professors... Schools would rather take rich Saudis and Indian students, then deal with grants, loans, discounts.. So BOTH races have competition there.. Also because American kids lost interest in Engineering when the space program died and they got everything they ever wanted in one cell phone.. They have no idea of how much there is yet to be designed...

As far as your friend -- what DECADE was that? NOW companies CLAMOR to hire minorities into engineering jobs,.. That problem is FIXED.. The NEW problem is they cant GET black engineering students so they have to fill H.R., Accounting, Legal and other cubbies with black employees..

What does this really have to do reparations for PAST injustices???

Bullshit. It doesn't matter when I went to college. I live in a college town. Everywhere I have lived has had at least 1 university.


Employed black scientists and engineers, as a percentage of selected occupations: 2015

Occupation	Percent
Computer system analysts	7.8
Engineers	4.3
Physical and related scientists	3.9
Life scientists	2.5

nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/occupation/blacks.cfm

73.9% of Civil engineers are White (Non-Hispanic), making that the most common race or ethnicity in the occupation. Representing 10.3% of Civil engineers, Asian (Non-Hispanic) is the second most common race or ethnicity in this occupation.

Civil engineers | Data USA

Civil engineers are most often employed by the Architectural, engineering & related services industry. The average yearly wage for Civil engineers was $91,360 in 2016. The top 3 most similar occupations to Civil engineers by wage are Computer programmers, Industrial production managers, and...

datausa.io

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You are not being discriminated against when you are 74 percent of the workforce.

You can't GET A JOB in engineering without COMMITTING to STUDYING and interning in engineering.. Those numbers mean NOTHING in terms of racism...

Jesse Jackson came to Silicon THREE TIMES while I was there to shake down deep pockets for guilt money about being "so white"... He SHOULD have been shaking down the UNIVERSITIES TO PROVIDE engineers.. Told him twice in Op Eds while he was there I would GUARANTEE placing a train load of them..

Well as you know, you can't just BE an engineer, you have to lay the ground work, preferrable while in high school. And ideally those students would have an aptitude for the skills needed and preferably an affinity for the work. I can't recall any of my high school career counselors suggesting or pointing me towards any of the STEM fields in spite of my having fairly good grades in math and science.

I have a former classmate who was recruited by Boeing while he was still in college and he's the person I think of most frequently when the discussion turns to engineering. Not everyone likes math, let alone enough to pursue a degree program that requires calculus and above, but I have never heard of anyone having to be an intern in order to become an engineer, are you speaking of a particular type of engineer?

 

[flacaltenn]

And women are black also.. They get extra bonus points for "minority intersectionality"....

We get discriminated against for both.

Sure.. That's why you get "extra points" from SBA and other diversity programs..