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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's rare I outright implore people to read an article
But I am right now. If you haven't yet read Ta-Nehisi Coates's "the case for reparations", you need to stop what you are doing, and read it now. This is a once-in-a-generation piece of journalism and literature. Think Hunter S. Thompson's "Hell's Angels", or Capote's "In Cold Blood". (Though by the nature of the times, it's a shorter form than both.)
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
If you follow his blog (and you should), you know he's been building up to this for about two years. This argument deserves a hearing.
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Supersedeas
(20,630 posts)Negro poverty is not white poverty.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)
mike_c
(36,281 posts)Wow. I agree. Awesome article.
aikoaiko
(34,174 posts)Its obviously well-written with its sensitive portrayal of the American black experience, but we know about the slavery and discrimination.
Germany and Israel is a strange analogy unless he thinks we need to send money to Liberia.
And I'm not sure it really addresses the biggest issue which has to do with people paying for other people's sins from long ago.
It was a good read. And I'm anxious to see how other DUers digest it. Maybe I learn something from them as they "unpack" the article.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Only applies if you believe that the sins are not currently present, negatively for Black folks (as a group) and positively for white folks (as a group).
Further, the sins were not just perpetrated by individuals, long ago, but the government, both Federal and local, that continue as entities, to this day. That is how the German/Jewish discussion is relevant.
aikoaiko
(34,174 posts)In the case of Germany, the agreement for reparations were conducted within 10 years of the holocaust (people in the present negotiating redress for themselves).
I see the analogy, but I its still difficult for me, I will admit, to agree that people today have the same moral debt as the people who acted hundreds of years ago. Again, if its in the present, then there is recourse.
Like I said, I welcome reading more.
M0rpheus
(885 posts)40 years from the end of forced sterilizations in North Carolina to receive reparations.
Just 2 examples of many. Neither of these approach the scope of slavery and yet, it was done.
Currently, we're only 50 years out from becoming "Equal" citizens. That's just barely outside my lifetime.
The effects are real and continue to be felt. There may not be many (any) people left who were directly responsible for things as they were, but there are plenty who benefit from it's result.
We're slow to fix what we've broken here in the US.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)and that doesn't even address the fact that it was governments that presented the means for the sin. And governments are continuing entities.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)I am for reparations for all victims of such massive crimes against them, no matter how long ago they happened. Because it takes generations for an oppressed people to recover, if ever, from these crimes against them.
Maybe we could redirect some of the money we are spending victimizing even more people, see Iraq to whom we should also pay reparations, to begin to pay the debt owed to African Americans and to Native Americans. Instead we are running up more debt all over the world.
Perhaps if it cost those who oppress others, they would hesitate before launching any more campaigns against entire populations of human beings. That alone is a good reason to demand it.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)You got that right.
Perhaps if it cost those who oppress others, they would hesitate before launching any more campaigns against entire populations of human beings.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)that a price would be paid. It rarely happens sadly, but I hope that changes in the future.
treestar
(82,383 posts)There is a statute of limitations on all crimes except murder.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)is not a crime?
Okay then ... 
treestar
(82,383 posts)And even that has one - the death of the murderer.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)doesn't run out until reparations are made to the victims and their descendants.
See Latin America. The old dictators may be gone, but their crimes against humanity are now being dealt with.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)he'd committed as a rebel warlord. I was just giving an example.
malaise
(269,087 posts)Only applies if you believe that the sins are not currently present, negatively for Black folks (as a group) and positively for white folks (as a group)
+1,000
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Tell that to all the people still living who grew up in the Jim Crow south and were deprived of a decent education because of generational and structural poverty and segregated schools. Tell it to the people who got targeted for subprime loans at higher rates of interest that went underwater in the 2008 crash. I think that one thing that Coates manages to do is to show that the effects of systemic and institutional racism have been far-reaching and are to some extent wired into the American financial and social structure in ways that affect American blacks very disproportionately; this systemic racial bias is partly the result of conscious policy choices on the part of the Federal government and partly the result of conscious policies enacted by private-sector mortgage lenders and countless others. Pretending that the debt side of the ledger the USA is keeping with its black population stopped being written in in 1865 seems like wilful blindness, really.
aikoaiko
(34,174 posts)...people, companies, and government entities should seek recourse from those entities.
I am interested in talking about this, but if not agreeing completely with the article or you is willful blindness than I suppose there's no point to discussion. I'm sure you'll find other who will agree with you completely.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)My Maternal Great Grand owned title to 75+ acres of farm land outside of Montgomery (Montgomery Proper, now). Sometime in early 1920s, that land was "foreclosed on" by a Court of Law, despite the land being held mortgage free, and the family was "encouraged" to leave town. The land was then sold off in 15 acre blocks (the block with the stand of woods and stream running through it was bought by the Sheriff for fifteen cents).
It would be another 50 years before any Alabama Court would have been the least bit sympathetic, as to hear the case, before dismissing it as stale.
Had that land gone unmolested, it would have passed to my Mother or her Brother (or both) and my families net worth would have increased significantly; instead, the Courts increased the net worth of the families that purchased the land ... some of whom still hold the land.
aikoaiko
(34,174 posts)I'll just listen for a while.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)BTW, on an emotional level, it really pisses me off that this shit happened. And that is holding myself back.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)someone, somewhere, along my family holding might have sold the land for drinking money ... but the acquisition and holding of land, has always been the foundation of wealth in this nation.
For anyone to discuss racial wealth gaps of today, without giving full attention to the fact that PoC were systematically, and by force of law, denied access to the acquisition of land, and once acquired, denied the protection of the law to keep it, is akin to discussing an arson fire, without acknowledging the guy with the torch and gas can, standing next to you.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)comfortable lives (not cushy, but ok) because their first homes were built on land given to them by their parents. While their parents may not have had a lot of money, that land was a jumping off point that I, and most others did not have.
First, they don't need to buy the land. And secondly, the land is security for a building loan to buy materials for home construction.
So even if a tiny portion of that land had filtered down to you or your siblings it might get you into your own home 10 or 20 years earlier than if you had to save up the resources from weekly paychecks (while paying rent to someone else).
It is a big deal.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Many years ago, I had a couple enlightening experiences ...
The first was attending a wedding. It was held in a co-worker's home and the reception was potluck. The parents' of the Bride and Groom's present to the newly weds ... a check for $50,000 (the amount that the parents said they would have spent on the wedding) for the down payment on a house. Compare that to the couple whose parents mortgaged they home to throw a huge wedding. Which couple do you think is farther ahead, today?
The second was a guy I new in college. He had all the toys (new car, big apartment, TVs and all the electronics). His parents were working class; but on the day of his birth, his grand-parents took out a life insurance policy on themselves, naming him beneficiary. When they passed, he became a millionaire.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)no one should encourage them to expend those kinds of resources on something so short lived. Just my opinion.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)any newer mortgage with little down payment went under water. My sister's half million dollar house is under water.
And those of us who had saved for a couple decades to purchase a house outright, and then spent what was left of our savings fixing it up, now can only sell at a huge loss if at all. So if your job leaves the area, you're stuck unemployed or taking huge losses from your savings or leaving the house behind to sit empty and rot or try to rent it out to somebody who doesn't pay or trashes it or both.
Every 99% homeowner was injured by the crash; not just the people targeted by the subprime market. It's just that for the 1% it become a write-off one way or another, and/or they can make up any losses by picking up a few dozen bankruptcy homes and flipping them.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)There are significant racial/ethnic disparities here. See this:
Among recent borrowers, we estimate that nearly 8% of both African Americans and Latinos have lost their homes to foreclosures, compared to 4.5% of whites.
http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/research-analysis/foreclosures-by-race-and-ethnicity.pdf
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I'm saying the housing crash hurt every homeowner. Including those who didn't lose their homes. Everybody except, of course, the 1%ers who robbed all of us.
I haven't lost my home yet. I've come close, twice. And I don't expect to ever be out of the woods until I am either able to sell or win the lottery.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)between being stuck with a loan on a home that was overvalued because of a bubble, and between having gone into foreclosure because of predatory lending practices. See THIS, for instance: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/Mortgages/Dashboard1?:showVizHome=no#1
There is a very significant disparity in higher-rate mortgages to creditworthy borrowers along racial lines; only 6.2% for white borrowers, and 21.4% for black borrowers (and 19.3% for Hispanic). Whether the housing crash "hurt every homeowner" is neither here nor there; it was a bubble, and housing was overvalued, so yes, a lot of people are stuck with loans for property not worth as much as they owe on it. But ethnic minorities were very disproportionately affected by certain lending practices.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I disagree. I think it is a point of leverage. I had to think this through while digging in my garden.
The housing crash was caused by mass fraud.
If full reparations are made to the people who were directly injured -- e.g., those targeted for fraudulent loans -- it will not only help to restore them (i.e. to make them "whole" again, or as close to it as possible, from a legal point of view), but it will help put a floor back under real estate, which will help people (such as me) who are "collateral damage."
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)It was caused by something else entirely. Bubble markets don't happen because of mass fraud, they happen because of collective behaviour in driving up house prices (in this case it was historically low interest rates combined with deregulation in banking that allowed commercial banks to function as investment banks, and the packaging of mortgage loans into derivative securities).
And further, the 2007-08 mortgage crisis (and the economic crisis that accompanied it) wasn't caused by "mass fraud", either. What caused it? One thing. Oil prices, which hit $140 a barrel at their peak--conventional oil production peaked c. 2004-05, demand didn't slacken, the inexorable law of supply and demand saw the price steadily increase. A lot of people with subprime mortgages (by definition the riskiest loans) suddenly found themselves faced with a decision: put gas in the tank to get to work, and put food on the table (food and other commodity prices also rising because of oil prices) or pay the mortgage....which led to widespread defaults and the writedown on mortgage-backed securities.
Number23
(24,544 posts)Jesus Christ.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)He barely mentions slavery or Jim Crow.
aikoaiko
(34,174 posts)And I didn't get the impression he was saying we should start our discussion of reparations with actions after WWII.
I'm happy for minorities to seek justice under civil rights laws.
treestar
(82,383 posts)for people who suffered regarding that housing policy?
treestar
(82,383 posts)She actually did get a pension out of the estate of the man who enslaved her, in Massachusetts.
chervilant
(8,267 posts)essential article, with your critical thinking skills fully engaged. Every time you feel discomfited -- or any other form of denial -- recognize the merit of contemplating those provocative passages. You just might experience an epiphany. You might even understand how defensive is your specious response to Coates' eloquent discussion of our nation's embarrassing legacy of virulent racism.
Racism is damaging to all, but infinitely more so to the power-less whose lives are irrevocably defined by the boundless hubris of the power-overs.
aikoaiko
(34,174 posts)I will reread this article because I recognize that people who I admire on DU think this it is important.
And yes I recognize that I am defensive, but lets face it that the author is not concerned with my interests.
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)Thanks for posting it anyway, for those who are interested. I mean that. 
K&R
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)other nations were involved in slave trading.
If someone I consider credible were to try to make an argument in favor, I'd listen. But I'm not going to entertain the discussion from just anyone.
Peace.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Okay ... whom do you consider "credible"?
closeupready
(29,503 posts)who is educated and has some accomplishments under his/her belt. Or some combination of those factors.
M0rpheus
(885 posts)
http://beta.congress.gov/member/john-conyers/229
http://beta.congress.gov/member/john-lewis/688
They seem educated enough... and they have 1 or 2 accomplishments under their belt.
Not really sure why Ta-Nehisi Coates wouldn't qualify, but whatever.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)I would read what they have to say (or watch an interview).
M0rpheus
(885 posts)One of the biggest challenges in discussing the issue of reparations in a political context is deciding how to have a national discussion without allowing the issue to polarize our party or our nation. The approach that I have advocated for over a decade has been for the federal government to undertake an official study of the impact of slavery on the social, political and economic life of our nation.
Over 4 million Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and its colonies from 1619 to 1865, and as a result, the United States was able to begin its grand place as the most prosperous country in the free world.
It is un-controverted that African slaves were not compensated for their labor. More unclear however, is what the effects and remnants of this relationship have had on African-Americans and our nation from the time of emancipation through today.
**snip**
you can read the rest at the link.
And here's the link to hr 40. http://www.opencongress.org/bill/hr40-111/text
Recursion
(56,582 posts)It's about the Federal, state and local governments funneling money from black homebuyers to the newly created white middle class over the past 60 years.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)centuries have not passed (read post #48)... this article talks of things not that long ago; in my lifetime and maybe yours....
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)I only caught bits and pieces though.
malaise
(269,087 posts)To celebrate freedom and democracy while forgetting America’s origins in a slavery economy is patriotism à la carte.
Chris Hayes will have the author on tonight
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)If any former slaves wish to come forwards, provide proof that they are a century a half old, and claim reparations for slavery, they should certainly be entitled to them.
Compensation for victims of segregation - of whom there are still plenty around - is an issue worthy of serious consideration, but the moment an author brings up slavery in this context I start taking them less seriously.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)both, the unpaid labor that the slave would have earned/accumulated (and passed on), but for slavery; and the value of that labor that the slave owner gained?
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)I think that a hundred and fifty years is well past any sane statute of limitations on such things.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)It was a hundred and fifty years ago. That wealth has changed hands legitimately many times since then.
Shandris
(3,447 posts)There are many cases to be made that the wealth (some portion of which should have belonged to black Americans) has changed hands quite ILlegitimately many, many times (and in fact, that illegitimacy is one of the prevailing issues in the current state of inequality today).
I don't necessarily agree with the solutions or all of the reasoning in the article, but I think on this one the author has it right.
whathehell
(29,067 posts)and anyone who's studied psychology and/or sociology knows that.
Other groups have gotten some form of reparation from countries who
oppressed their ancestors. Native Americans got private lands and have
used them to make money via casinos. Germany has given regular compensation
to Holocaust Survivors and even, I believe, to their children*.
African Americans are absolutely as entitled as either of these groups for the centuries of slave
labor (a most mild interpretation could be called 'wage theft') and discrimination.
*Psychologists have found that even the children of Holocaust survivors were have been
negatively affected by that horrible genocide.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Doesn't that lead to an absurd result in terms of justice ... If I steal from you and hide out (even in plain sight) with the aid of local and the Federal government, until the S0oL runs, then I am free to pass the bounty to me heirs, unmolested?
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)The slave owners are all dead; they are no longer benefiting from their misdeeds. Their victims are also all dead, and are no longer suffering.
The whole idea of inherited wealth is inherently unjust, but it's also necessary to make society work.
And the idea that wealth acquired legitimately from someone who acquired it legitimately from someone who (about six links here on average, I think) who acquired it legally but unethically 150 years ago should be confiscated would result in a hell of a lot of property changing hands.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)I think you need to read some history, as you clearly know nothing about Jim Crow, or Reconstruction, or segregation in housing and education and job opportunities.
As a point of reference, my mother-in-law grew up in entire segregated circumstances, in inferior segregated schools her entire life until she reached grad school. This is current history, not ancient history. My wife was the first to desegregate a white school when she entered kindergarten.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)TNC's piece is almost entirely about housing policy after World War 2. This is not some "long ago far away" thing; this was how the white middle class that exists today was created, by taking money from the black working class through Federal, state, and local housing policies (in addition to legal and extralegal violence).
Coates was actually pretty much exactly where you are two years ago when he started this project. Give his piece a chance and read it (you say you have, but the fact that you talk about "centuries ago" seems to belie that, because it wasn't about slavery except for a few comments in passing).
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)Some people's minds are made up...without reading a word in that article.
panader0
(25,816 posts)The monies that could have been earned by slaves if they didn't have to work for free would certainly have become some kind of wealth, a piece of property, a bank account.
Stolen, burnt down, run out of town.
KitSileya
(4,035 posts)Say, a Monet that was stolen from a Jewish family during WWII, and found its way to the US by way of an American GI? Would you accept that it should be taken from the descendants of that soldier and given back to the descendants of the Jewish family?
How about land? Like in 1StrongBlackMan's case, where the land was taken from his family, and because they were black, they had no legal redress?
The money for reparations would come from the government, not from individuals, so no white families would be tossed out of their homes in the middle of the night to give those homes to black families. For every dollar of net worth of white persons in the US, African Americans have a nickel. The average net worth of African Americans, including retirement savings, is $200. This is the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, the housing bubble. We're not talking 150 years ago. It may have started 150 years ago (more like 500 years ago,) but it continues to the present day. Demanding that the government do something to mitigate this injustice seems eminently fair to me, even if we're not talking about objects other than Benjamin Franklins.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Sorry to shout.
It's not about slavery. Coates barely even mentions that. It's about mid-to-late 20th-century funneling of money from the black working class to the white middle class through a variety of legal and extralegal means. It's about Federal laws and regulations that specifically prevented black wealth formation at the time that the postwar white middle class was being created.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Official US policy in place for 34 years that actively supported segregation and the creation of black ghettos.
what do you think you are responding to?
mstinamotorcity2
(1,451 posts)I will blow my nose now!! Now I know why I feel it!!
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)Last edited Sat May 24, 2014, 10:59 AM - Edit history (1)
I read the article in-full, and am not impressed. Ta-Nehisi Coates plays fast and loose with time scales, conflating German reparations in the decade following WW2 (just one example of this among many) with a call for American reparations more than a century and a half after slavery ended.
Also, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes as if the oppression of African Americans was the only oppression perpetrated by the US government during the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries. But of course that was not the case. While slavery was indeed a "peculiar institution" and it and institutionalized racism are particularly horrible ones at that, during the post-emancipation years of the 19th, 20th, & 21st Centuries, American oligarchs exploited the poor and vulnerable of all races as much as they could. Often, the oligarchs have gotten their way by playing poor whites against blacks, blacks against Jews, natives against immigrants, absolutely everybody they could against unions, etc., etc.
Worst of all, Ta-Nehisi Coates seems willfully blind to the destruction of 99% solidarity that a call for reparations will bring about. You want to see white union members, Hmong immigrant communities, Latino activists, and many other essential allies in the 99% distance themselves from the African American community? A call for reparations will do that. Even Ta-Nehisi Coates tacitly acknowledges this when he mentions how the ACA Medicare expansion has been tarred by haters such as Limbaugh as a special favor to the blacks. If a colorblind, mildly-progressive program such as that can be denigrated as such, imagine the fury that an actual reparations program would engender. Meanwhile, too many potential allies in solidarity will abandon a movement that focuses on reparations towards one race, for one subset of exploitation and oppression. At this point in time, we need solidarity and ideas that build common cause, not fractional identity politics.
There are many other ways that we could 'lift all boats.' Racism is a real issue in America, and deserves to be confronted head-on as a part of any reform and progress. But there is a big difference between necessary anti-racist actions and the needless kicking of multiple hornets' nests and alienation of essential allies at once.
-app
RainDog
(28,784 posts)This covers everyone. IN ADDITION to this - the issue of reparations can be addressed. Also - Jubilee for student loan debt. Banks were bailed out. Hedge fund managers make money being able to call "first" by seconds on transactions - they don't deserve to make more money than a teacher, btw, in my opinion.
Traders really do NOTHING to add to the quality of life in this nation while teachers serve an essential function. Same for police and firefighters. Let our taxes be used to pay professions and expect professionals to do them. That's how to attract talent and retain it - not attacking teachers, etc.
Let the richest in this nation deal with the reality that they're better off moving toward such policies rather than living with their current fear that the 99% are talking, metaphorically, about guillotines (including me.)
The current situation is SO out of balance. Something must be done - and it can be done willingly, or it can be done by other means.
I encourage other nations to take similar actions - for instance, the wealth among the few in the middle east due to oil.
We need to overthrow the mindset of the oil barons and move on to communities building infrastructure for their own energy, water and food needs. It's time for a change. Those who would hold others back by insisting on special treatment for their industry should, if a god existed, drop dead with such statements.
If those in positions of power cannot feel the push back coming - they're out of touch and out of time.
Part of this change, btw, is legalization of hemp (and marijuana) because of the symbolic issue, and b/c of the reality of biomass as better than petrol for products, etc.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)You claim you read it, but you then go on to talk about slavery, which is only a minor part of the article (and only used by TNC as an analogy).
treestar
(82,383 posts)It was actually done, but it was the actual slaveowner and slave.
A few slaveowners freed slaves and gave them land or other things as reparations. Good for them, but obviously not the norm.
There is a whole section on it actually, with a lot of interesting stuff. I debate with a racist who claims the south was a lot wealthier than the North (and thus the North only wanted the south's money and did not care about slavery in the Civil War). I wonder if he was counting the slaves.
Pretty creepy, actually. I always thought the South had a lot of nerve claiming they should get more representatives by partially counting slaves too. If you can't vote, you aren't being represented, and you are treated as property, why should your "owner" get more votes because you are, suddenly, partially a person?
whathehell
(29,067 posts)it probably has a lesser chance than that of a snowball in hell.
Much of this country was BUILT on slave labor and helped make it rich -- It's only fair.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)It is a spectacular piece.
ancianita
(36,110 posts)This article is a must-read for those who think they know African American history. How wrong are those who believe that affirmative action has been some successful form of 'reparations.'
As a former teacher in all African American schools, I've witnessed the effects of this history. Very glad to read this.
Number23
(24,544 posts)If people just simply READ and absorb the wealth of historical knowledge and if it changes their ideas about wealth, privilege and the pining for the Good Old Days that were only good for certain segments of America, I'd be happy.
The fact that threads on this article have been so ignored here is exactly one of the reasons that I have long since stopped thinking of DU as a place that represents Democrats or has a fucking clue.
Raine1967
(11,589 posts)So much information I was tangentially aware of smacked me frontally in the face with this article. It was like reading a real history book. For anyone to deny the thesis is (to me) not willing to take the challenge the author asked. The case was made, the request to have this discussion was made. Instead I am seeing blinders put up.
I can see clearly by some responses that people did not read this.
Number23
(24,544 posts)thread that talks about Republican racism, guffawing up a storm about THEM (Republicans, conservatives, Southerners whatever group they are not a member of) while doing FUCK ALL to get rid of the beam in their own eyes.
THIS is why this shit WILL NOT DIE.
Read the posts from this person in this thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024993421#post25 Not only doesn't agree with Coates but BLAMES BLACK PEOPLE for being the victims of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco and I'm sure alot of other shit too that he won't come right out and say.
So not only are people, "left" and right, all to happy to continue to deny this information, they are happy pretending that all is well, racism is over and dead and if black folks are struggling/dying/being incarcerated/being oppressed more than any other group of Americans, then it's OUR FAULT.
Raine1967
(11,589 posts)Why is it so hard for people of my skin color to understand that this was institutional?
It's a reality.
My family came here in the 19-teens, and even I can see that this nation was built on slave labor. The article was so clear and concise, it was like peeling away at an onion. We should just at the very base of it all, acknowledge this. It's truth, and history.
It's ugly. It needs acknowledgement.
Sometimes, I truly feel as tho white people are afraid of admitting the things brought up in this article. (once again, proving t5he point of the article)
Admit the past, I say. just learn history, it might make us a better nation moving forward.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)I found this painful to read. Coates makes a persuasive argument for reparations, which I support.
Hekate
(90,733 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)
DebJ
(7,699 posts)"Brooks has since moved away from Chicago’s West Side. But he is still working in North Lawndale. If “you got a nice house, you live in a nice neighborhood, then you are less prone to violence, because your space is not deprived,” Brooks said. “You got a security point. You don’t need no protection.” But if “you grow up in a place like this, housing sucks. When they tore down the projects here, they left the high-rises and came to the neighborhood with that gang mentality. You don’t have nothing, so you going to take something, even if it’s not real. You don’t have no street, but in your mind it’s yours.”"
Leme
(1,092 posts)I didn't read the piece. Doubt if I will. I do not do that type reading anymore.
-
That said, it does not mean I do not think a great injustice did not exist, and it's effect still linger today. I just do not see a just or fair way to deal with it. Understanding is appropriate, but I see no appropriate resolution other than to have an understanding that it existed, had ongoing effects, and still has current effects.
--------------------------------------------
Similar could be said about the original habitants of this continent. They too are "owed".
-
But, if that is true...wouldn't the victors of their wars ( pre-Columbian) also might be deemed to owe reparations?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)This isn't a piece about slavery.
Leme
(1,092 posts)stated: "the case for reparations"
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Leme
(1,092 posts)He includes slavery as part of his underlying basis for his thesis that remedial action now or pro active action now or things be done now to mediate that prolonged imbalance; and future actions take this imbalance into account.
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He could have just said, if born poor, it is set up that one remains poor...current and past practices have worked to keep that in place for the black population especially. Rectify the imbalance.
Leme
(1,092 posts)The Case for Reparations
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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Remove slavery and what is there?
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Reparation for Jim Crow laws and actions?
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That would make it quite a different thesis.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)for the whole history of the US, where African Americans have had labor, property, wealth, everything stolen from them. It's about everything, and how it builds on itself and will continue to until there is some kind of solution.
Imagine if African American families had never had thier labor, property, and wealth stolen from them. And if they'd always had the educational opportunities of white Americans throughout history.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)This is a good example. If you read the ****ing piece you'll see his entire argument is about housing and agriculture policy in the mid-20th century. His only sections about slavery are either:
1. Analogies,
2. Examples of previous attempts at reparations, and
3. Making the point that the discrimination he is talking about is part of a long history of white supermacy as a US policy.
Leme
(1,092 posts)His title is misleading. Fine stuff, just not what title proclaims.
Leme
(1,092 posts)I scrolled through it.. it is various examples of racism. Way less than what I have read elsewhere. Not much about reparations to be made today in the USA. I have read a few books with same or similar examples and many articles (100 ?) for a course I took.
*slow clap*
Now, care to leave the conversation to people who have read the piece and realize it's about mid-20th century housing policy?
Leme
(1,092 posts)written well enough, sources not annotated. not of much value to me.
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Sort of shallow for me
Recursion
(56,582 posts)A pretty good non-scholarly introduction to the research you can see on his blog.
Leme
(1,092 posts)the Op implored people to read. I had a higher regard for DU members I guess. I am "newer".
treestar
(82,383 posts)How would it be calculated as to what they are owed? That is very old - if you are trying to prove facts from that time, fifty years ago, yes, that is a very old case. A lot of those who suffered are dead.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Much closer to the time of the occurrences.
There is a lot about slavery. This was interesting:
As the historian Roy E. Finkenbine has documented, at the dawn of this country, black reparations were actively considered and often effected. Quakers in New York, New England, and Baltimore went so far as to make “membership contingent upon compensating one’s former slaves.” In 1782, the Quaker Robert Pleasants emancipated his 78 slaves, granted them 350 acres, and later built a school on their property and provided for their education. “The doing of this justice to the injured Africans,” wrote Pleasants, “would be an acceptable offering to him who ‘Rules in the kingdom of men.’?”
gollygee
(22,336 posts)If you defer it long enough, you can use "it's been to long" as an excuse to do nothing.
Practically, there's no way to do it. Many people are descendants of both sides. Many white people's ancestors weren't here yet at the time. Hispanics, Asians, are owed, Native Americans. Some white people are owed - the Irish, both by America and the English. I can get the point and agree but also realize there's no way to do it. We can only move forward and try for equality for present future generations.
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)reparations. I am shocked. 
Leme
(1,092 posts)apparently the author has shifted his position on reparation.
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I guess he is doing a series
Leme
(1,092 posts)it probably fits with what I know, although I just skimmed it.
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I guess I require it to have footnotes and such. It is not a scholarly article without them.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)Leme
(1,092 posts)and that does not mean their articles are good or bad.
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Seems this article was hyped .. does not deliver what title states.
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Nice read...just wrong title
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and perhaps the OP hyped it too.
Raine1967
(11,589 posts)I started reading it about and hour ago, and it is one of the most eloquent things I have read about this subject.
I have believe for a long time that the subject of reparation need a full clear conversation on a national scale. After reading this, and seeing people actually say it is not a case to be made, says to me that it wasn't fully read from beginning to end.
It is fair to say that white people in America don't want to acknowledge this fully. It is easy to say that I personally am not responsible, but at a certain point, is it willfully ignorant to deny what this article is saying.
White America has a lot to learn about or real history. It isn't always pretty that is for sure, but coming to terms with what has been done would go a long way, IMO.
Once again, Thank you for imploring. This was an amazing and eye opening article.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)To actual slaves, or their children? Or to living victims of Jim Crow? HELL NO! It never happened, and will never happen because white Americans overwhelming oppose paying reparations, which would be an acknowledgement that wrongs were committed against American citizens...who are Black. That some of those continue today is simply fodder for the GOP to manipulate some whites. Reparations are due, but will never be paid. Just more excuses, resentment, and abuse of power.
treestar
(82,383 posts)“The Jim Crow South,” writes Ira Katznelson, a history and political-science professor at Columbia, “was the one collaborator America’s democracy could not do without.” The marks of that collaboration are all over the New Deal. The omnibus programs passed under the Social Security Act in 1935 were crafted in such a way as to protect the southern way of life. Old-age insurance (Social Security proper) and unemployment insurance excluded farmworkers and domestics—jobs heavily occupied by blacks. When President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, 65 percent of African Americans nationally and between 70 and 80 percent in the South were ineligible. The NAACP protested, calling the new American safety net “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through.”
