Why I support reparations — and all conservatives should

[Flash]

This speaks for itself.

Why I support reparations — and all conservatives should

Like most conservatives, I’ve scoffed at the idea of reparations or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why would I support my government using my tax dollars for reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why are Black people today owed anything more than the same freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?

I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy. We’ll come back to that. But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and — crucially — will continue to do so for generations to come.

When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The government even reneged on its “40 acres and a mule” pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.

The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances showed that median Black household net worth averaged $17,600 — a little more than one-tenth of median White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, “white parents, on average, can provide their children with wealth-related intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their own lifetimes.”

Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that even laws such as those on affirmative action “will never close the economic gap. This gap is structural. … blacks, even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they’re only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs, because … they’ve had nothing to hand down from generation to generation because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, which were based in law until recently.”

In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy generational associations in the business world, where who you know often counts more than what you know — a reality based not so much on overt racism as on employment and promotion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/22/why-i-support-reparations-all-conservatives-should/

Moron!

 

[Canon Shooter]

I love how IM2 runs away from an argument like a sniveling little bitch when he knows he's been owned...

 

[irosie91]

I love how IM2 runs away from an argument like a sniveling little bitch when he knows he's been owned...

sit tight------the filth will end soon-----but not easily

 

[Man of Ethics]

Blacks have already been paid reparations many times over.

NO! There has been no Reparations for African Americans.

In Russia and East Europe, peasants got reparations from nobles after Socialist Revolutions. I am proud of my great-grandparents who worked for and built Soviet Russia in 1917 to 1920s and 1930s.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Blacks have already been paid reparations many times over.

NO! There has been no Reparations for African Americans.

In Russia and East Europe, peasants got reparations from nobles after Socialist Revolutions. I am proud of my great-grandparents who worked for and built Soviet Russia in 1917 to 1920s and 1930s.

In Russia and East Europe, peasants got reparations from nobles after Socialist Revolutions.

I wouldn't call gulags and 70+ years of enslavement....reparations.

I am proud of my great-grandparents who worked for and built Soviet Russia in 1917 to 1920s and 1930s.

When did your family escape Soviet Russia?

 

[Man of Ethics]

I am proud of my great-grandparents who worked for and built Soviet Russia in 1917 to 1920s and 1930s.

When did your family escape Soviet Russia?

We left in 1983.

Original Socialism by Leon Trotsky was not Totalitarian.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

We left in 1983.

Why would you leave? Reparations run out?

 

[Man of Ethics]

We left in 1983.

Why would you leave? Reparations run out?

Communism turned Totalitarian in 1930s. This was not what Lenin and Trotsky intended.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

We left in 1983.

Why would you leave? Reparations run out?

Communism turned Totalitarian in 1930s. This was not what Lenin and Trotsky intended.

Yeah, Lenin was a real softy.

 

[Bojingles]

I wouldn't deny that there's a certain amount of historical racism that has set black America back. But racism isn't an adequate answer that explains the extent to which they continue to fall behind today.

Is there any country in which black Americans believe that blacks are truly thriving? Is there any country in which black Americans believe that blacks can live free of racism and that's conducive to their success? Or is every country they reside in either racist or not conducive to their succeeding, or both? How much responsibility do they believe they bear for their current social and economic well-being?

 

[yidnar]

We left in 1983.

Why would you leave? Reparations run out?

Communism turned Totalitarian in 1930s. This was not what Lenin and Trotsky intended.

and it didnt take long for it to turn either did it ?? communism is totalitarian in nature ...

 

[Man of Ethics]

and it didnt take long for it to turn either did it ?? communism is totalitarian in nature ...

I do not know. In Scandinavia, they have built a successful Welfare State.

 

[Winco]

P.S...I'm not a republican, knuckle dragger.

That's funny, because whenever I say i'm a moderate, I get called out as a liberal.
Say what you want.

 

[KissMy]

 

[MizMolly]

Piss poor excuses. Many blacks were not free, very few got rich, the first black millionaire came years after slavery ended and the government paid reparations to descendants of the people that seceeded from the unupn and waged war against the US. Blacks bought their enslaved spouses and children. Blacks did not support the south during the civil war. Slaves were made to work labor for the confederacy. That is not support.

Your opinion is full of lies and is ignorant of history.

I have a college degree. I built or helped to develop 3 separate businesses. I have committed no crimes. The simple truth is the government enacted policies that were detrimental to blacks and still does. We are owed money and the government of this country owes it to us.

You pay native americans every year and you will pay them for as long as this is a country. Your argument is weak, do some research and try again.

If you can be a successful black person, why can’t everyone else? Quit making excuses.

 

[MizMolly]

Yeah, that's why whites have 15 times the wealth we do. Stop lying all kinds of studies and analysis shows that your comment is untrue. But that is irrelevant to the discussion because we are talking about government policy. It is the same policies that have you paying native americans reparations for as long as you live, your kids will pay as long as they live and so will everygeneration here until the end of days.

There are many blacks and whites richer than me. Your comment is moot.

 

[Thunderbird]

This speaks for itself.

Why I support reparations — and all conservatives should

Like most conservatives, I’ve scoffed at the idea of reparations or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why would I support my government using my tax dollars for reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why are Black people today owed anything more than the same freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?

I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy. We’ll come back to that. But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and — crucially — will continue to do so for generations to come.

When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The government even reneged on its “40 acres and a mule” pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.

The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances showed that median Black household net worth averaged $17,600 — a little more than one-tenth of median White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, “white parents, on average, can provide their children with wealth-related intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their own lifetimes.”

Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that even laws such as those on affirmative action “will never close the economic gap. This gap is structural. … blacks, even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they’re only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs, because … they’ve had nothing to hand down from generation to generation because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, which were based in law until recently.”

In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy generational associations in the business world, where who you know often counts more than what you know — a reality based not so much on overt racism as on employment and promotion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/22/why-i-support-reparations-all-conservatives-should/

If you give large sums of cash to any ethnic group do you think they’ll study hard or work hard? Do you think they’ll save money or instead lobby for more reparations?

Reparations will impoverish African Americans.

 

[marvin martian]

This speaks for itself.

Why I support reparations — and all conservatives should

Like most conservatives, I’ve scoffed at the idea of reparations or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why would I support my government using my tax dollars for reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why are Black people today owed anything more than the same freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?

I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy. We’ll come back to that. But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and — crucially — will continue to do so for generations to come.

When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The government even reneged on its “40 acres and a mule” pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.

The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances showed that median Black household net worth averaged $17,600 — a little more than one-tenth of median White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, “white parents, on average, can provide their children with wealth-related intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their own lifetimes.”

Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that even laws such as those on affirmative action “will never close the economic gap. This gap is structural. … blacks, even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they’re only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs, because … they’ve had nothing to hand down from generation to generation because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, which were based in law until recently.”

In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy generational associations in the business world, where who you know often counts more than what you know — a reality based not so much on overt racism as on employment and promotion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/22/why-i-support-reparations-all-conservatives-should/

You voted for the guy who said he didn't want his kids to grow up in a "racial jungle", right? You don't deserve any reparations.

 

[JoeBlow]

This speaks for itself.

Why I support reparations — and all conservatives should

Like most conservatives, I’ve scoffed at the idea of reparations or a formal apology for slavery. I did not own slaves, so why would I support my government using my tax dollars for reparations or issuing an apology? Further, no one in the United States has been legally enslaved since 1865, so why are Black people today owed anything more than the same freedoms and opportunities that I enjoy?

I remain unconvinced that an apology would have much real value, but the more substantive notion of reparations is worth discussing. In fact, it could be argued that the idea fits within the conservative philosophy. We’ll come back to that. But it is undeniable that White people have disproportionately benefitted from both the labor and the legacy of slavery, and — crucially — will continue to do so for generations to come.

When slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war, African Americans were dispersed into a world that was overtly hostile to them. Reconstruction efforts were bitterly resisted by most Southern Whites, and attempts to educate and employ former slaves happened only in fits and starts. The government even reneged on its “40 acres and a mule” pledge. After slavery, prejudice and indifference continued to fuel social and economic disparity.

The result is unsurprising. As noted by scholars A. Kirsten Mullen and William A. Darity Jr., co-authors of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” data from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances showed that median Black household net worth averaged $17,600 — a little more than one-tenth of median White net worth. As Mullen and Darity write, “white parents, on average, can provide their children with wealth-related intergenerational advantages to a far greater degree than black parents. When parents offer gifts to help children buy a home, avoid student debt, or start a business, those children are more able to retain and build on their wealth over their own lifetimes.”

Black author and activist Randall Robinson has argued that even laws such as those on affirmative action “will never close the economic gap. This gap is structural. … blacks, even middle-class blacks, have no paper assets to speak of. They may be salaried, but they’re only a few months away from poverty if they should lose those jobs, because … they’ve had nothing to hand down from generation to generation because of the ravages of discrimination and segregation, which were based in law until recently.”

In addition to the discrepancy in inherited wealth, even conservatives should be able to acknowledge that Whites enjoy generational associations in the business world, where who you know often counts more than what you know — a reality based not so much on overt racism as on employment and promotion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/22/why-i-support-reparations-all-conservatives-should/

Your people are already getting reparations, except that now they call it food stamps and welfare.

 

[IM2]

Your people are already getting reparations, except that now they call it food stamps and welfare.

Wrong again.