Robert E. Lee Descendant: Reparations Are Necessary If People 'Want To Fix Racism'

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

The Rev. Robert W. Lee IV, the general’s distant nephew, recently appeared on “CNN Tonight” after the House held a hearing on reparations for slavery. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had come under fire for saying he didn’t think reparations “for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea.”

Lee disagreed with the majority leader.
“It’s going to take both people of color and white people to fix the mess that white people have made, Lee said. “I’m a white man, I’ve got a lot of privilege .... How can we use our privilege to literally put our money where our mouth is. If people are saying they want to fix racism or ... fix this issue in our country, then they need to put their money where their mouth is, and that comes in the form of reparations.”

To read more:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-e-lee-descendant-reparations_n_5d127074e4b07ae90da51cc4?guccounter=1

Slavery in the US involved buying and selling black people. And these people were treated as literal commodities. And this commodification continued for most of American history. Even a civil war was not enough to overcome 240 years of prior slavery.

And the rich whites in the entire country benefited from slavery. Even today, 400 years after the first African slaves were shipped to this country, black wealth is far less than white wealth.

Reparations are one way to partially redress the horrors of slavery.

[Cary]

1. I am not opposed to reparations but I fail to see why I should care about Robert E. Lee's descndants

Unless, of course, the descendant has earned some actual right to claim some authority on the particular subject.

[guillaumeb]

3. But this descendant shows awareness of what is needed. eom

[Cary]

5. I find "the descendant" to be irrelevant

His ancestor was a traitor. The "descendant" should be ashamed.

[Tech]

7. Read up on him

He seems very stand up. Does not like adulation for his ancestors, wants confederate statues taken down, stands up for black lives matter. I had never heard of him so looked him up.

[Cary]

11. All fine and good but as far as I am concerned his status as descendant

...is irrelevant. He is not guilty of his ancestor' crimes. Nor can he speak with any authority.

[ProudLib72]

17. I tend to agree with you that being a descendant is irrelevant

Unless it carries weight with the racists. That's the only way I would regard his distant affiliation as anything more than a footnote.

[Cary]

21. I doubt that a significant number of the morons can recover

The only hope is that fewer of their progeny follow the racists down their rabbit holes.

[Cary]

22. By the way I am ashamed of his ancestor

So I ask of Re. Lee only what I ask of everyone else including myself, and I have nothing against him.

[wasupaloopa]

30. You don't pick your ancestors and you don't feel

ashamed for something you have no control over.

[Mariana]

9. Rev. Robert Wright Lee

publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement. The congregation at his church, the Bethany United Church of Christ near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, were so offended by his comments against racism and white supremacy that he felt he had to resign as pastor.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/robert-e-lee-descendant-resigns-pastor-over-racial-justice-comment-n799106

[Cary]

12. Good for him

He is a decent human being.

[ck4829]

24. Good to know

[nycbos]

2. You can't "fix racism"

There has never been nor will there be any society that is free of racism.

[guillaumeb]

4. True. But we can, or could, use repararations

as partial atonement, and as belated recognition of how much was stolen from the slaves, and their descendants.

[nycbos]

10. No argument there.

[ck4829]

25. But the terms of what "race" is can be changed

It's a social construct, play with it.

[grumpyduck]

6. What kind of reparations?

Give so much money to descendants of the slaves? How much, and where does it come from?

It's a rhetorical question right now, but it'll need to be addressed.

[guillaumeb]

13. Yes it will.

And that is beyond the scope of this post, which addresses the concept itself.

[Ron Obvious]

8. I can't think of anything more divisive or likely to inflame racism than "reparations"

The bloodlines and historical narratives are far too tangled and complicated for such a simplistic solution.

A sure-fire vote loser for Democrats, IMO.

[guillaumeb]

14. The name itself is inflammatory for some.

But how do we, how can we, make whole those who still suffer from the effects of slavery?

[RobinA]

18. I Could Not Agree More

I’m not saying it would be a disaster, it just won’t work and will cause more problems than we already have.

[ck4829]

26. Reparations is just a label we can and should play with

Maybe we should start saying the Trump presidency was a "reparation" to the "forgotten man"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212220303

[Blue_true]

15. I may have written on this issue before.

I believe that reparations is the wrong solution to the problem that has plagued the country since the end of the civil war.

The problem that we have is racism and racist actions are either glossed over or swept under a rug. If you look at any employment related material from all US companies large and small, including job application forms, you will see the phrase "Company X is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer". The words are basically meaningless because none of those companies put vast weight behind insuring that every annual or semi-annual performance appraisal fairly measures a person's accomplishments. A White manager with hidden racial motives CAN make a top performing Black employee look like a weak employee on performance. All it takes are weasel words that craftily downgrade the person's performance. Personnel departments are as useful as breasts on a bull at routing out discrimination in performance appraisals, in most cases, they are actively forcing the appraisal down the Black person's throat.

Companies hire a minority "diversity" VP, there too is a useless function. Like that VP is going to standup to a chairman, or the board of directors and say that racial equality in the company is fucked up. More than likely that person does PR bullshit, being the non-White face of the company on race issues. So, the company hires a Black diversity VP, of a Hispanic male or female, or the holy grail, a Black female, all to circle jerk around grinding and profitability sapping problems that are taking place at the plant and division levels.

What should happen? CEOs and the board must aggressively examine the performance appraisal system, study performance appraisals that were given to Black or other POC employees, especially if the company is sued class action for job discrimination. Now instead of deeply studying what went wrong, companies put full weight behind corporate legal and outside counsel fighting the lawsuit, trying to victimize POC employees who likely WERE discriminated against a second time.

Managers should understand that their evaluations of employees under their direction will be thoroughly monitored and if they are found to be discriminating, they will be fired and the reason why they were fired would be made available to any inquiries that meet legal muster. Secondly, anyone who overlooked or circumvented company procedures that are there to insure equal opportunity will also be fired and like the manager, why they were fired will be made available to inquiries.

Police should be held accountable for racist jokes on the job and their affiliations outside of the job should be backgrounded, any found to be members of a racial animus group or to even show sympathies should be terminated immediately and the reason put into a national database.

I am sure there will be the DU people that will claim my prescription is too heavy handed, but I have seen enough to have concluded that the only way that racism in society will be cured is to make racist pay a stiff price, like never being able to get a job again if they are found to have discriminated against someone due to race.

[guillaumeb]

16. Very well said.

One issue that I would have with this, and speaking as a retired union representative who handled EEO complaints, is that as currently written, the law requires proof of intent to discriminate. The presence of discriminatory action is itself not sufficient to prevail in an EEO complaint.

But yes, as your argument states far better than I have, racism is deeply ingrained into the entire system.

[RobinA]

19. Well, If Your Going

to open the performance appraisal hornet’s nest, potential racism is just one lurking inequity in that mess of a system.

[Blue_true]

20. True. And all that is wrong should be rooted out.

The problems costs us tens, even hundreds of billions per year in lost productivity.

[Mopar151]

31. My collar will always be BLUE

And I've been a working supervisor responsible for "Reviews".

The first thing that messes up the entire process, is that the primary concern of "management" is keeping wages artifically depressed. Personell likes compliance - and quiet. "Blues" aren't supposed to have a mind to speak. Neither are engineers, if "Personell" gets their way.

The root problem, really, is pretty simple. Weakling "managers" get kinda bug-eyed when they deal with accomplished craftsmen, particularly when the "Senior R&D Machinist" is A) 20+ IQ points smarter B) Fully in posession of their life, outside work. C) "Bulletproof" on productivity, quality, and tradecraft.

[ck4829]

23. K&R

[YOHABLO]

28. Education and Job training should be a large part of reparations.

[Honeycombe8]

33. It's not reparations specifically, but the U.S. did give minorities a leg up for a while...

with a quota system and then affirmative action systems for employment and higher education for some years. So that applies to "education" and employment. I think many universities maintain a diversity program, whether made to or not by the govt.

The quota system applied to minorities but not women specifically, as I recall, but affirmative action systems including all minorities and women.

So we can look at those programs and see if they changed the needle. I don't think they did, but maybe things would be worse w/o them.

[guillaumeb]

39. And even with these programs, racism itself was not affected.

And these programs are/were far too limited to erase the totality of racist attitudes and how they affect the lives of non-whites.

[Honeycombe8]

40. That's a hearts and minds things that "programs" cannot change, I suppose.

It's not necessary for everyone to love each other. Just respect each other and treat each other equally. That's what a sensitivity training expert said at a seminar at my workplace. I thought that was probably true. Hearts and minds changing comes later for some. It comes after working on teams with each other, working for a supervisor who is a non-white or non-male, etc.

Things like that take time. You can't read someone else's mind, anyway. All that you can do is make sure behavior is equal.

The quota and affirmative action programs were successful to a point, I guess. For those who got hired, it made a difference, I'm sure. And workplaces became more diverse.

[guillaumeb]

37. Essential parts in my view.

Education to overcome centuries of separate and unequal.

[Honeycombe8]

32. Black wealth is 14% of white wealth in America. Female wealth is also a fraction of male wealth.

I found one article that says black wealth in America is about 14% of white wealth, collectively. (4/9/19) https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/04/06/the-black-white-wealth-gap-is-unchanged-after-half-a-century

American history is replete with horrific episodes that prevented the accumulation of black wealth for centuries: first slavery, then indentured servitude under Jim Crow, segregated housing and schooling, seizure of property and racial discrimination. The result was that in 1962, two years before the passage of landmark civil-rights legislation and the Great Society programme, the average wealth of white households was seven times greater than that of black households. Yet after decades of declining discrimination and the construction of a modern welfare state, that ratio remains the same. The mean of black household wealth is $138,200—for whites, that number is $933,700.

Female wealth is a fraction of male wealth in America

Gender Wealth Gaps
Most inequality analysis focuses on income (the wages earned from a job or from capital gains) rather than wealth (the sum of one’s assets minus debts). Income inequality, while stark, pales in comparison to wealth inequality. The divides become even more dramatic when viewed through a gender lens.

One important component of wealth, retirement savings, shows an even wider gap between men and women. According to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, American women in 2017 held $42,000 in median retirement savings, compared to $123,000 for men. Some 21 percent of women and 12 percent of men have less than $10,000 in retirement accounts. Both pension plan and Social Security payouts reflect in part past earnings. The gender pay gap means women end up with fewer post-retirement resources. In 2017, the $15,000 average annual Social Security benefit for women lagged the benefit for men by $4,000. The smaller retirement nest eggs of women also have to stretch further than male retirement savings, simply because women have longer life expectancies.

Gender Poverty Gaps
The gender poverty gap widened over the past 50 years. In 1968, 10.8 percent of women aged 18-64 (6.1 million women) and 7.2 percent of men (3.7 million) in this age group lived below the poverty line. In 2016, 13.4 percent of women in this age group (13.4 million women) were living in poverty, compared to 9.7 percent of adult men (9.4 million men). The poverty threshold for a single person in 2016: $11,880 in annual income. Households led by single women with children had a poverty rate of 35.6 percent, more than twice the 17.3 percent rate for households led by single men with children, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

Poverty is a particularly acute problem for women of color, affecting 21.4 percent of Black women, 18.7 percent of Latinas, and 22.8 percent of Native American women, compared to the national poverty rate for white men of 7.0 percent.

https://inequality.org/gender-inequality/

[Honeycombe8]

34. I don't see how it could be legitimately and fairly applied...

enough to make a difference, and particularly fair to all who are descendents of American slaves. How does one go about showing he's a descendant of a slave here?

I particularly don't like what Harris has suggested: giving to "communities." When she says that, she's speaking of favored communities...favored by politicians, IMO. Millions of AAs living in areas not in whatever communities she is thinking of. Millions would live in those communities who are not descendents of slaves. That sounds more like a giveaway to communities to get votes, than an attempt at real reparations. Would she include the numerous small communities in rural areas that are Republican? A lot of AAs live such areas.

Reparations has been tried before. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/us/reparations-slavery.html (you may have to delete NYT cookies to read that article)

In 2013, North Carolina became the first state in the country to pass a law intended to compensate the surviving victims among the 7,600 people who were sterilized under a decades-long eugenics program. The victims were largely poor, disabled or African-American. State lawmakers set up a $10 million fund to compensate them.

Conflicts arose over who was eligible. A state commission and state courts denied claims from relatives of victims who had died. Others were deemed ineligible because they had been sterilized by county welfare offices and not the state eugenics program, said Bob Bollinger, a lawyer who represented some of those victims.

“They got left out,” Mr. Bollinger said. “You’ve got to draw your reparations law broadly enough that you don’t leave out the people you’re trying to help.”

Defining the wrong done to Japanese-Americans was fairly straightforward.
A store in Oakland, Calif., the day after the Pearl Harbor attack. The store was closed and the owner was housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war.

On separate occasions 40 years apart, Congress awarded payments to Japanese-Americans who were taken from their homes during World War II and sent to internment camps.

The Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 offered compensation for real and personal property they had lost. About $37 million was paid to 26,000 claimants. But no provision was made for lost freedom or violated rights.

That came in 1988, when Congress voted to extend an apology and pay $20,000 to each Japanese-American survivor of the internment. More than $1.6 billion was paid to 82,219 eligible claimants. (snip)

The injustice began and ended on known dates, most victims could be readily identified through official records, and more than half were still alive when the compensation was awarded. The situation would be much more complicated and challenging for African-American claimants seeking reparations over slavery.

Counseling and education was part of making amends for police abuses in Chicago.

The men who survived brutal treatment by a Chicago police commander and his “midnight crew” of detectives wanted more than money.

As part of a $5.5 million reparations measure enacted by the city in 2015, Chicago agreed to compensate 57 victims — nearly all African-American men from the city’s South Side — who said the police had beaten, shocked, suffocated and psychologically tortured them to obtain confessions.

But the city also agreed to finance a Torture Justice Center to provide counseling to scores of victims of the commander, Jon Burge, and to other survivors of police brutality. The city supported building a public memorial, and agreed to weave lessons about the legacy of nearly 20 years of abuse into the public school curriculum. Students in Chicago now learn about police torture in history class.

Also, Georgetown University, which had sold some slaves long ago to ensure its financial solvency, agreed to give admissions preference to the descendants of the 272 slaves it had sold, formally apologize, renamed two of its buildings to acknowledge the lives of enslaved people, and raised its tuition by $27.20 (to represent the 272 slaves) to go into a fund for the benefit of the descendants of the 272 slaves (the increased tuition raises about $380,000 a year).

[guillaumeb]

38. I appreciate your two excellent responses.

Taking the second first, the WWII experiences of Japanese Americans represent a far smaller group, and a much shorter time period.

So for that group, the financial burden of segregation in internment camps would have been easier to determine. The psychological damage is another matter.

But chattel slavery lasted from 1618 until 1865. And effectively lasted longer than that as prison replaced the plantation.

As to how the reparations would be administered, or what exactly that would entail, that is another matter, but it seems to me that resistance to the idea that reparations might actually be owed to the victims of centuries of chattel slavery is at the heart of the matter.

Poor or working class whites do not see themselves as benefitting from their whiteness, but this view reduces the total benefit of whiteness to a purely financial matter.

[Honeycombe8]

41. +1. I agree. nt