The case for reparations

[augolf1716 21,939]

While I generally try to avoid this forum like the plague it mostly is, the article makes some excellent points....in mortgage banking in particular...AF/AMs tried to play the American dream game in the proscribed dominant culture way and were at times often denied access to that due to many circumstances of dubious value and per chance a few of actual value.

The article can be discussed without feeling as if one must endorse reparations, unless, of course, you are 8 years old.

Exactly.

I was struck by just how pervasive the issues were. I tried to imagine what my family and others like me would look like if for 250+ of the last 300 years, my ancestors had been systematically undermined, robbed, excluded from even being able to move up in society. How does that impact a group under such oppression? How does the inability to create and pass on wealth from generation to generation impact people now?

I agree completely.

I made the same point to my family at Thanksgiving. Only in our case I was reflecting the other side of the issue - the inherent privilege of being white.

My father grew up in very poor circumstances in the 30's and 40's. He and his father worked as itinerant saw mill operators. He remembers waking up some mornings with snow on his bed. He joined the Army before graduating high school and later got his GED by sending the paperwork to a girlfriend to do.

He was hired by the telephone company after leaving the army and took advantage of every opportunity to learn and advance. Long story short, he worked his way up through management (no longer possible without a college degree) and eventually sent all four kids to college.

While this is mostly a story about someone who was hard working and determined to improve their lot in life, there is not a single opportunity he took advantage of on the way up that would have been available to him had he not been white. No living white person should kid themselves and assume they would be where they are today had they been born black. Poverty itself is a handicapper, but being poor and black throughout our history has been a double whammy.

I am not suggesting reparations are appropriate, but there is certainly room for affirmative action as long as need (wealth) and history is considered at the same time.

I do think there is a general insensitivity or maybe just ignorance, about how race has affected the potential of people in this country. One of my favorite stories is how black WWII veterans were forced to evacuate their nice Pullman cars in the south to move to segregated cars only to have German POW's take their place. I am still amazed we didn't avoid a racial war in the 60's. Martin Luther King is one of our greatest American hero's for that reason alone.

Frankly, I don't think racism will disappear in this country until there is some critical number of multi-racial families.

Racism will never disappear we have dicks in all areas in some form or fashion. Lord knows I wish it would. Thom Gossom was one of my best friends at AU. His girl friend was white at the time and the crap they went thru was hard and we had a few fights to prove it. But deep down I do think its better now then at that time. God I hope so. Ok I seldom post here but I had to this time. I went thru integration in the 7th grade best thing to ever happen to Russellville, Al. And I do agree with you that MLK is one of the greatest Americans. Sorry ramble over..................... Start throwing the arrows

[channonc 466]

First, I want to thank you Titan for posting an article that was not full of partisan one liners, but rather something well written that challenges our thinking and (hopefully) sparks some good discussion. I appreciate that you are trying to keep this thread on topic and not the usual partisan back and forth, so again, big kudos. Now on to my thoughts...

I am not sure where to begin, but first, I will say I had never really given much thought to the idea of reparations, really because it seemed unnecessary, especially when put in the context of just cutting people checks. However, I never really thought about reparations in a broader sense like investing more in programs and services that at least helps to close the large gap.

I will admit that I am young enough to have not had to witness some of what is described in the article but one thing that stood out to me. While there was plenty of overt, violent racism in the south, there was indirect racism in the north and both ended up having the same effect on African Americans in this country. I also have to say that I had never really thought of white supremacy as being ingrained in the culture, but taking a step back and really walking through it... yeah, it's definitely there and it's definitely something we as a country should start discussing. Like Homer and others have pointed out, poverty is already incredibly difficult to overcome, but poverty and being black, well the odds are stacked against you.

The biggest question is, how do we effectively have a conversation about it? The article seems to suggest that the Conyers bill to study the effect of slavery would be a great start. I am not convinced it would ever actually be productive to go that route, as I think the political polarization (even if it passed) would taint any of the study's findings and simply be dismissed. However, an academic study on the issue I think would be a great start.

Finally, reparations in terms of services and programs would have to be data driven approaches that actually did help close the gaps and also be something the African American community at large supported. Let's be honest, if a solution comes about that by and large is not supported by that community than it ends up being fruitless.

I just hope our country one day has the courage to really face this issue and have real discussions around it.

[autigeremt 7,133]

I will not support something that I didn't create, don't believe in, or directly involve myself with. It only divides us even more. I guess since I had to fight through poverty, abandonment, and life on a mill hill and escape it through my own hard work I see it much differently than you do. Me being born white doesn't have a thing to do with my own improvements.....I did that myself.

Once again, the best way to help those less fortunate isn't always a hand down, but providing an environment to succeed for everyone. Regardless of their skin color.

[Weegle777 78]

I agree with the author in that no amount of money would ever come close to repairing what was broken many years ago, and that their would be no way to determine an "amount". I also agree with the author that the change should be fundamental, and many of us, including me have been making this change for as long as we have been on this planet.

[TitanTiger 21,068]

I will not support something that I didn't create, don't believe in, or directly involve myself with. It only divides us even more. I guess since I had to fight through poverty, abandonment, and life on a mill hill and escape it through my own hard work I see it much differently than you do. Me being born white doesn't have a thing to do with my own improvements.....I did that myself.

Once again, the best way to help those less fortunate isn't always a hand down, but providing an environment to succeed for everyone. Regardless of their skin color.

Even if you didn't create it and don't believe in what was done, what was done put you far ahead of black people from similar circumstances. The comparison isn't between you and Dr. Carson. The comparison is between you, a lower economic class white in bad family circumstances with a black man from the same economic and family circumstances. When you control for those factors, you as a white male had a leg up on virtually any black guy with the same set of obstacles and that leg up was due to this systematic oppression and really stealing from black people for the benefit of whites for another century even after slavery was over. You don't feel any need to try and mitigate some of that gap of what our forebears did systemically to another race? I'm just asking questions here for discussion and still forming what I think but it seems like something valid to at least ponder.

I don't think we should be doing handouts either. But a ladder up? An attempt to level the playing field at least so far as race has played into it? Maybe that's something that could be looked at.

[Weegle777 78]

Found this interesting:

Following from They Were White and They Were Slaves)

There is a history of White people that has never been told in any coherent form, largely because most modern historians have, for reasons of politics or psychology, refused to recognize White slaves in America as just that. Today, not a tear is shed for the sufferings of millions of our enslaved forefathers. 200 years of White slavery in America have been almost completely obliterated from the collective memory of the American people. Writer Elaine Kendall asks "Who wants to be reminded that half - perhaps as many as two-thirds - of the original American colonists came here, not of their own free will, but kidnapped, shanghaied, impressed, duped, beguiled, and yes, in chains -?...we tend to gloss over it... we'd prefer to forget the whole sorry chapter." A correct understanding of the authentic history of the enslavement of Whites in America could have profound consequences for the future. Most of the books on White labor in early America use words like "White indentured servitude," "White bondservants," White servants," etc. Few are now aware that the majority of these so-called "servants" were bound to a condition more properly called permanent chattel slavery unto death. The papers legally allowing the enslavement, called indentures, were often forged by kidnappers and press-gangs; and in cases where these papers did not literally specify a life term of servitude, the slave-owner had the legal right to unilaterally increase the length of the term on the flimsiest pretexts. The so-called "apprentices" or "indentured servants" had no say in the matter. These enslaved White people are, however, never called slaves by establishment academics and media spokesmen. To do so would destroy the myth of unique Black victimhood and universal White guilt. Today, with the massive concentration of educational and media resources on the Black experience of slavery, the unspoken assumption has been that only Blacks have been enslaved to any degree or magnitude worthy of study or memorial. The historical record reveals that this is not the case, however. The word "slave" itself is derived from the word "slav," a reference to the Eastern European White people who, among others, were enslaved by their fellow Whites, by the Mongols, and by the Arabs over a period of many centuries. According to Thomas Burton's Parliamentary Diary 1656-1659, in 1659 the English parliament debated the practice of selling British Whites into slavery in the New World. In the debate, these Whites were referred to not as "indentured servants" but as "slaves." In the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies of 1701, we read of a protest over the "encouragement to the spiriting away of Englishmen without their consent and selling them for slaves, which hath been a practice very frequent and known by the name of kidnapping." In the British West Indies, plantation slavery was instituted as early as 1627. In Barbados by the 1640s there were an estimated 25,000 slaves, of whom 21,700 were White. This document records that while White slaves were worked to death, as they cost next to nothing, there were Caribbean Indians brought from Guiana to help propagate native foodstuffs who were well-treated and received as free persons by the wealthy planters. The Englishman William Eddis, after observing White slaves in America in the 1770s wrote: "Generally speaking, they groan beneath a worse than Egyptian bondage." Governor Sharpe of the Maryland colony compared the property interest of the planters in their White slaves, with the estate of an English farmer consisting of a "Multitude of Cattle." Lay historian Col. A. B. Ellis, writing in the British Newspaper Argosy for May 6, 1893, said: "Few, but readers of old colonial state papers and records, are aware that between the years 1649 to 1690 a lively trade was carried on between England and the plantations, as the colonies were then called, [a trade] in political prisoners... they were sold at auction... for various terms of years, sometimes for life, as slaves." Sir George Sandys' 1618 plan for Virginia referred to bound Whites assigned to the treasurer's office to "belong to said office forever." The service of Whites bound to Berkeley's Hundred was deemed "perpetual." Numerous documents from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and even nineteenth centuries reveal that these Whites in bondage certainly referred to themselves as slaves, and there are even records of Blacks referring to them as "White slaves." Did you know that the expression "kidnapping," (originally kid-nabbing) had its origin in the abduction of poor White children to be sold into factory slavery in Britain or plantation slavery in America? Did you know that the expression "spirited away" likewise originated with the White slavers, who were also called "spirits"? The White slavery in America was but an extension of the White slavery in the mother country, Britain, where the legal form of contracted indentured servitude and apprenticeship was maintained as a spurious cover for plain and simple lifetime chattel slavery. Particularly shocking was the enslavement of White children for factory labor. Children were openly seized from orphanages and workhouses and placed in the factories. In Brian Inglis' Poverty and the Industrial Revolution we read: "Here then was a ready source of labor - and a very welcome one. The children were formally indentured as apprentices... What happened to them was nobody's concern. A parish in London, having got rid of a batch of unwanted pauper children, was unlikely to interest itself in their subsequent fate... The term 'apprenticeship' was in any case a misnomer...." In Marjorie Cruikshank's Children and Industry: "many employers imported child apprentices, parish orphans from workhouses far and near. Clearly, overseers of the poor were only too keen to get rid of the orphans... children were brought (to the factories) like 'cartloads of live lumber' and abandoned to their fate... poor children, taken from workhouses or kidnapped in the streets of the metropolis, used to be brought down by... coach to Manchester and slid into a cellar in Mosley Street as if they had been stones or any other inanimate substance." White children worked up to sixteen hours a day and during that period the doors were locked. Children -and most of the mill workers were children - were allowed out only to 'go to the necessary.' In some factories it was forbidden to open the windows... The child 'apprentices' who were on night shift might have to stay on it for as long as four or five years. They were lucky if they were given a half penny an hour. This was labor without any breaks - unceasing labor. When the children fell asleep at the machines,they were lashed into wakefulness with a whip. If they arrived late to the factory, talked to another child, or committed some other infraction they were beaten with an iron bar known as a "billy-roller," eight feet long and one inch and a half in diameter. Many were thus murdered, often for trifling offenses such as calling out names to the next child. Thousands of children were mangled or mutilated by the primitive factory machinery every year. They were often disfigured or disabled for life, then abandoned, receiving no compensation of any kind. Similar conditions obtained for enslaved White children on this side of the Atlantic, as what William Blake called "these Satanic Mills" spread to our shores. Historian Oscar Handlin writes that in colonial America, White servants could be bartered for a profit, sold to the highest bidder for the unpaid debts of their masters, and otherwise transferred like moveable goods or chattels... The controlled media focus exclusively on the enslavement of Blacks. The impression is given that only Whites bear responsibility for enslaving Blacks and that only Blacks were slaves. In fact, Blacks in Africa engaged in extensive enslavement of their own kind. Slavery was endemic in Africa, with entire tribes being enslaved through conquest on a regular basis. When Arabic, Jewish and White slave traders arrived on the coast of sub-Saharan Africa, they seldom if ever had to travel inland and fight or pursue their quarry. They were met on the coast by Africans more than willing to sell slaves to them by the thousands. And in America, records show that Black slaves were owned, not just by a few wealthy Whites, but by free Blacks and by Cherokee Indians. In some cases, these Blacks and Indians even owned White slaves. White slaves were actually owned by Blacks and Indians in the South to such an extent that the Virginia Assembly passed the following law in 1670: "It is enacted that no negro or Indian though baptized and enjoying their own freedom shall be capable of any such purchase of Christians." The records of the time reveal that free Blacks often owned Black slaves themselves. In 1717, it was proposed that a qualification for election to the South Carolina Assembly was to be "the ownership of one White man." From 1609 until the early 1800s, between one half and two thirds of all the White colonists who came to the New World came as slaves. White slaves cleared the forests, drained the swamps, built the roads, sweated in the fields, and died like flies in hellish factories. Owned like property, they had no rights nor recourse to the law. Fugitive slave laws applied to them just as to Blacks if they should flee their masters. Black slaves were expensive, and though at times cruelly used, were not often used beyond the limits of human endurance. That would have been a waste of a costly investment. White slaves, however, consisting of the poor and unwanted "surplus population" of Britain, were available for nearly nothing, just a few pence for a thug to billyclub them and shanghai them aboard a westward-bound vessel. Thus they were expendable. Both psychologically and materially Whites in modern times are called upon to bear burdens of guilt and monetary reparation for Black slavery. This position is based entirely on enforced ignorance and the deliberate suppression of the record of White slavery in North America. Reparations? Welfare and affirmative action as compensation for past slavery? Leaving aside for the moment the very questionable idea of punishing the great-grandson for the sins of the great-grandfather, let us consider the principles involved. Far more Whites in America are descendants of White slaves than are descendants of slave owners. And considering the endemic nature of slavery in Black Africa, it is quite likely that a large proportion of Blacks in America have ancestors who were themselves slave owners. So let us hear no more of White guilt and endless payments and "affirmative action" to atone for the sin of the enslavement of Blacks. These endless payments themselves are a form of slavery. For the good of all races and peoples, let us rid ourselves of slavery for all time.

[homersapien 12,172]

What's your point Weegle?

Surely you are not suggesting there is no racial basis to our history of slavery - and discrimination?

[Weegle777 78]

There is a racial basis. It's called human racial bias by other humans. On all sides in every race. What are your thoughts on the above passage?

[homersapien 12,172]

There is a racial basis. It's called human racial bias by other humans. On all sides in every race. What are your thoughts on the above passage?

I find it pretty much irrelevant. No one has suggested that slavery is necessarily tied to race but any examples of (random) white slavery are pretty much trivial in the total picture.

Now if we had a similar history associating slavery to white people with brown eyes or red hair (for example) you might be on to something.

[Weegle777 78]

Why is it irrelevant? Slavery is slavery, no matter the skin color.

[homersapien 12,172]

Why is it irrelevant? Slavery is slavery, no matter the skin color.

But no one is arguing that.

The subject of the thread concerns effect of slavery and discrimination on a specific racial class. The few incidental instances of slavery involving white people is hardly equivalent to the history of blacks and is therefore irrelevant.

[aubearcat 2,153]

There is no plausible reason for reparations at all. There have been avenues created for minorities to succeed and thrive and if those that fall into those categories refuse to use said avenues, that's their shortcomings, not mine. All a suggestion like reparations does is cause discord. Enough of my tax dollars are taken for entitlements. I don't need any more taken for something neither me nor it's recipients participated in. If, goodness forbid, reparations ever came to fruition, native Americans should be paid and Jewish people should ask Germany and eastern Europe for some type of reparations. It's just such an asinine slippery slope.

[channonc 466]

There is no plausible reason for reparations at all. There have been avenues created for minorities to succeed and thrive and if those that fall into those categories refuse to use said avenues, that's their shortcomings, not mine. All a suggestion like reparations does is cause discord. Enough of my tax dollars are taken for entitlements. I don't need any more taken for something neither me nor it's recipients participated in. If, goodness forbid, reparations ever came to fruition, native Americans should be paid and Jewish people should ask Germany and eastern Europe for some type of reparations. It's just such an asinine slippery slope.

Did you actually read the article? Your comments sound like a knee jerk reaction to the thread title rather than a thoughtful response to the authors points.

[TitanTiger 21,068]

There is no plausible reason for reparations at all. There have been avenues created for minorities to succeed and thrive and if those that fall into those categories refuse to use said avenues, that's their shortcomings, not mine. All a suggestion like reparations does is cause discord. Enough of my tax dollars are taken for entitlements. I don't need any more taken for something neither me nor it's recipients participated in. If, goodness forbid, reparations ever came to fruition, native Americans should be paid and Jewish people should ask Germany and eastern Europe for some type of reparations. It's just such an asinine slippery slope.

How much of the article did you read?

[Weegle777 78]

Titan, do you think that like the author said, that the change has to be a fundamental change in people, or do you think it should be monetary? And if monetary, how do you determine how much, to whom it goes, who pays, and how it is disbursed?

[aubearcat 2,153]

After reading the article, (and yes the first comment was based on having read it) my opinion remains the same. Reparations and the like are ridiculous on ANY level. Like I said the first time, there are plenty of opportunities for every person of every socioeconomic status that are willing to work. I had a great friend from Kenya when I went to AUburn and it infuriated him when the subject of reparations came up. HIS opinion was that most of the "poor" and minorities in this country did not want a hand up but a hand out. He felt if he came to America and earned his way that those who were blessed enough to live here from birth should be willing to work as hard as he did.

[japantiger 4,104]

It looks like the only thing he missed was the German reparations...which were actually reparations, since they were paid by the perpetrators during the lifetime of the victims...basically a class action law suit. As for Indians, the US paid $5m in 1975 to Indian tribes for property owned by Indians in 1865. Legal title had to be proved to qualify for payment (not "aboriginal title); so basically a class action suit on behalf of the wronged by the descendants. An interesting point is that any Indians that were awarded $$ for their ancestors, had their Federal benefits withheld as a result of these "compensatory" payments until those payments were amortized.

Mr. Coates article is approx 20,000 words. It has to be hard to spew that many words and not even trip across a single original thought. Just think, the US Constitution is about 5,000 words...the declaration of independence 1500 words.... more words than in all but 3 books of the New Testament ...more words than in the book of Proverbs. Not a single original thought..plus a handful of factual errors and more errors in logic than I can sum up; but I guess that is to be expected from a guy that only has an HS degree. But I would think MIT would expect more from someone they named a "visiting scholar"; a program by the way that my white children would be excluded from because, well, duh, they're white. Oh wait, maybe the Cherokee blood from my wife's side would qualify them. For example, he ignores other "inherited disadvantages" and thinks only black inherited disadvantages are worth redress. He doesn't think of the obvious and likely reaction of those that wind up paying for the "redress" ; and he doesn't think that the inevitable outcome of something like this would be more racial polarization; the opposite of the "liberal progressive" goal of a more perfect union...There's more; but these are kind of big deals and he should have been able to address them in 20,000 words.

This is a basic ad hominem argument that tries to use the emotion of 5 anecdotes to sway you into believing 1) that what is being proposed is really what reparations are (which they are not;so again, even the title of the article is invalid) 2) us white folk should be guilty enough for the past sins of people we didn't know to turn the current justice system into a system of racial apportionment (not my original thought; but one that has been made in the past when simpletons have proposed this kind of thing) and finally 3) individuals no longer matter under the law...it only matters what "tribe" you belong to....sort of the opposite of a government that is blind to your race, creed, color. Yeah, I can see how he'd want to ignore that.

The only solution to this in the end is sustained economic growth; from the Reagan admin thru 2000; black incomes grew at 2x the rate of white incomes...had this continued; the difference in black v white AGI would have been eliminated by 2030. But alas, the policies of the last 14 years have reversed this trend...dependence on government vs the free market is not good for blacks. Under liberal policies; blacks become more dependent and fall further behind. There is not a single black economic stat that has improved under current liberal policies (those enacted under Bush 2 and accelerated by Obama); and they won't because they incent the wrong things.

You want to level the playing field; then enact policies that encourage hard work, jobs and economic growth. Encourage marriage, fidelity, responsibility. Dismantle HHS, the Dept of Ed and probably Commerce as they currently exist and spend that money on the above. Reagan and Clinton both said "the best social program is a job". they had the numbers behind them to prove their point. I think Mr. Coates should write less, go to college and read some history and maybe get an economics degree.

[aubearcat 2,153]

It looks like the only thing he missed was the German reparations...which were actually reparations, since they were paid by the perpetrators during the lifetime of the victims...basically a class action law suit. As for Indians, the US paid $5m in 1975 to Indian tribes for property owned by Indians in 1865. Legal title had to be proved to qualify for payment (not "aboriginal title); so basically a class action suit on behalf of the wronged by the descendants. An interesting point is that any Indians that were awarded $$ for their ancestors, had their Federal benefits withheld as a result of these "compensatory" payments until those payments were amortized.

Mr. Coates article is approx 20,000 words. It has to be hard to spew that many words and not even trip across a single original thought. Just think, the US Constitution is about 5,000 words...the declaration of independence 1500 words.... more words than in all but 3 books of the New Testament ...more words than in the book of Proverbs. Not a single original thought..plus a handful of factual errors and more errors in logic than I can sum up; but I guess that is to be expected from a guy that only has an HS degree. But I would think MIT would expect more from someone they named a "visiting scholar"; a program by the way that my white children would be excluded from because, well, duh, they're white. Oh wait, maybe the Cherokee blood from my wife's side would qualify them. For example, he ignores other "inherited disadvantages" and thinks only black inherited disadvantages are worth redress. He doesn't think of the obvious and likely reaction of those that wind up paying for the "redress" ; and he doesn't think that the inevitable outcome of something like this would be more racial polarization; the opposite of the "liberal progressive" goal of a more perfect union...There's more; but these are kind of big deals and he should have been able to address them in 20,000 words.

This is a basic ad hominem argument that tries to use the emotion of 5 anecdotes to sway you into believing 1) that what is being proposed is really what reparations are (which they are not;so again, even the title of the article is invalid) 2) us white folk should be guilty enough for the past sins of people we didn't know to turn the current justice system into a system of racial apportionment (not my original thought; but one that has been made in the past when simpletons have proposed this kind of thing) and finally 3) individuals no longer matter under the law...it only matters what "tribe" you belong to....sort of the opposite of a government that is blind to your race, creed, color. Yeah, I can see how he'd want to ignore that.

The only solution to this in the end is sustained economic growth; from the Reagan admin thru 2000; black incomes grew at 2x the rate of white incomes...had this continued; the difference in black v white AGI would have been eliminated by 2030. But alas, the policies of the last 14 years have reversed this trend...dependence on government vs the free market is not good for blacks. Under liberal policies; blacks become more dependent and fall further behind. There is not a single black economic stat that has improved under current liberal policies (those enacted under Bush 2 and accelerated by Obama); and they won't because they incent the wrong things.

You want to level the playing field; then enact policies that encourage hard work, jobs and economic growth. Encourage marriage, fidelity, responsibility. Dismantle HHS, the Dept of Ed and probably Commerce as they currently exist and spend that money on the above. Reagan and Clinton both said "the best social program is a job". they had the numbers behind them to prove their point. I think Mr. Coates should write less, go to college and read some history and maybe get an economics degree.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. I didn't articulate my example of the Jewish people and Native Americans very well. For the native Americans, while they received lands and monies from the government, they still have a disproportionate amount of their people that suffer from poverty and social disorders. My point to that was, I've never heard a discussion about trying to help them overcome the damage done to them by our government that still seems to affect them to this day. As for the example of the Jewish people, they overcame their oppression and flourished. And yes, the article is more about stirring "white guilt" than anything else.