Reparations for Jim Crow makes much more sense than does reparations for slavery.
The same holds true for Tusla riot victims and Rosewood victims.
My mother is still alive. Her social security "income" is based on her salary, which was retarded most of her working life because of Jim Crow, segregation and legal discrimination. In turn, money is coming out of my pocket because it is my honor to help my mother out.
That's generational affects of discrimination and Jim Crow.
I agree. There should be some reparations for the decades of discrimination that impeded educational attainment and capital accumulation for blacks.
But...in what ways can these reperations be brought to bear? In my opinion, we have tried in some ways by the Great Society policies. They did not work.
I think what is needed, is not reparations--but "repairations", such that the TOTAL system can be repaired, redone, and reconstituted.
This would mean changes not just for blacks, but for any person who has been denied opportunities because they were born poor or black.
In short, the ability of Americans to inherit capital and use that capital to give unfair advantages to their progeny is simly unfair. This injustice is further exacerbated by the fact that in this present world, where neoliberalism rules, the past mechanisms of income redistribution (in the form of increase minimum wages, taxation, and social safety nets) are rapidly becoming passe.
I know it is almost taboo to say this, but if we do not create some type of ownership by the people of the means of production, then whoever is at the bottom presently, will stay that way. That means the blacks who are at the bottom, will stay at the bottom (this does mean, however, that those blacks in the middle class will be fine) and any other person or group will also stay at the bottom.
If we are to truly address inequality, we must address a system where inequality is not only inherent in that system, but the most important aspect of it. Jim Crow, as we knew it, was just a nastier, more obvious form of the inequality we see now.
We have to repair the system.
Posted by: champagnesupernova at June 23, 2005 10:40 PMI will simply ask for an explanation as to how reparations for Jim Crow, etc. makes more sense than reparations for slavery? Feel free to be comprehensive - you'll need to be.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 24, 2005 08:35 AMROTFLMBAO!!!!
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Posted by: cnulan at June 24, 2005 10:24 AMReparations for Jim Crow makes much more sense than does reparations for slavery.Been saying that for years.
I will simply ask for an explanation as to how reparations for Jim Crow, etc. makes more sense than reparations for slavery? Feel free to be comprehensive - you'll need to be.Basically, it removes the single rational objection that can be mustered...that those affected are all dead.
Comprehensively, I offer this:
Originally called "Startin' Stuff Week," this is a discussion of the justification for reparations, not the value or means of delivery.
...none of which addresses the fact that the objections to reparations are NOT rational.
The objections to reparations are entirely rational and purely self-interested, whether you consider that expression of self-interest enlightened, or not.
Here's what it boils down to. Black folks were deemed a conquered people generations ago. I'm not aware of anything we've done to disprove that mostly unspoken assertion. We can't provide for ourselves infrastructurally and we don't even protect our own women and children in our own communities. When Murka had the material surplus to give, it said phukku - or tell me that 40 acres and a mule happened.
Two generations ago, when we had the social capital, cohesion, and political leverage in the context of the global cold war to seek equality under the law and a settling of accounts, all we went for was equality under the law, naive to the fact that even then, that was a fiction. We shot our wad without demanding a settling of accounts. In so doing, we gave up cohesion and the political leverage of that moment has long since been dissipated.
Now that Murka no longer has the material surplus to even consider such a settling, and is desperately fighting to hold onto its own grip, it is an entirely moot point to seek domestic reparations.
The ONLY item on the table today for black folks is whether or not we will accept an enlarged role in Pax Murkana and its imperial adventure of conquering the Islamic world and African worlds in the War on Terra for the purpose of securing petroleum and other strategic material reserves.
If not, we're the enemy within>/b> and will be dealt with accordingly. Mexicans are already being sought out as the mercenaries of choice upon whom citizenship in the empire will be conferred in return for putting in work in the Murkan imperial boondoggle. The powers that be are confident based on their prior experience with colorstruck governance in the Latin world, that Mexicans and others are far more amenable to the Murkan way.
As a practical matter then, the issue of Reparations is moot. By extension, so is that of Affirmative Action. What we basically have secured it the legal machinery for blacks to be billionaires and entitlement to the entire legal apparat that keeps property in the hands of capitalists.
So while it's clear that non-black political self-interest is going to stand up and vote down Reparations as a *reason* for black wealth (which taxpayers have the right to do), they cannot vote down or otherwise use the legal system to keep blacks from Getting Paid.
If it's all about securing resources that allow us to take care of us and ours, then 'Any Means Necessary' allows us many degrees of freedom to get what we can get.
Posted by: Cobb at June 24, 2005 01:33 PM'Any Means Necessary'
presumes a level of voluntary, self-organized interpersonal communion with legally and extra-legally binding trust subsystems required to `put in work' necessary to sustain and protect ourselves in the pending new order.
The intentionally obscure historical precedent of Wagontrain-charters and the culture these spawned is particularly fascinating in this context as much for the extra-legal as legal binding of participants into the roles and responsibilities contractually undertaken in the enterprise.
No one is compelled to sign on, but once you do...,
Posted by: cnulan at June 24, 2005 01:55 PMYou seem to be suggesting that the Buffalo Soldiers didn't have a community pot to piss in outside of the Army. Thus, the reason there are no blacks in Montana has to do with an historical lack of cohesion - the black Church didn't pack up and fit inside the wagontrain so well as goldrush fever, and whatever grit whitefolks had back then.
Posted by: Cobb at June 24, 2005 02:58 PMI'll readily accord as much verisimilitude to Sargeant Rutledge and what it depicts as you do to GTA and what it depicts.
The black church obviously should've taken an alternative history view from the Mormons, gotten it's own Buck and Preacher groove on, and the afrofuture would be infinitely better assurred. But hey, you don't come out of chattel slavery a freebooting rifleman and adventurer unless you have some truly exceptional pluck, and the masses of any people have never had it like that.
Too much preacher, not enough Buck....,
Posted by: cnulan at June 24, 2005 03:23 PMI will simply ask for an explanation as to how reparations for Jim Crow, etc. makes more sense than reparations for slavery? Feel free to be comprehensive - you'll need to be.
P6 nailed it.
Reparations oponents state that there are no living victims. That's not true for Jim Crow victims. So that pushes that legal opposition off the table.
The objections to reparations are entirely rational and purely self-interested, whether you consider that expression of self-interest enlightened, or not.I think the objections are pre-rational...all thought goes toward justifying what was already decided.
Black folks were deemed a conquered people generations ago. I'm not aware of anything we've done to disprove that mostly unspoken assertion.You know what? I'm not going to dispute that at all.
So while it's clear that non-black political self-interest is going to stand up and vote down Reparations as a *reason* for black wealth (which taxpayers have the right to do), they cannot vote down or otherwise use the legal system to keep blacks from Getting Paid.And I'm not disputing that either. Not that they aren't trying, though.
It's problematic that we must resort to legalisms, but the fact is, we can.
Reparations oponents state that there are no living victims. That's not true for Jim Crow victims. So that pushes that legal opposition off the table.Best case for reparations is for Black veterans of WW II over federal redlining. Posted by: P6 at June 25, 2005 03:40 PM
There are a number of arguments against paying reparations for slavery - it's bizarre to hear these arguments embraced by members of the "class of people" or group or collective who would have had love, labor and life appropriated through collective action. Some of you might have escaped the shackles of slavery, but not one of you would have been able to maximize your capacity in the realms of finance, politics or security. Okay, actually, it's not bizarre - it's kinda funny.
Anyway, here are a few more arguments against reparations for slavery.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1153
To my mind, these arguments are largely absurd and intellectual parlor games played by a conservative cat with little under the cap on this issue. Nonetheless, it represents the prevailing opposition to the reparations argument. I guess my intuitive rejection of the "living victims" argument is simply that slavery was not a question of whether you were ALIVE or DEAD or UNBORN...Africans in the US were regarded as property in each of these three conditions - and individual Africans only rarely escaped bondage - and even if they were free - enjoyed very little freedom...there was physical safety in this nation if the only thing between you and the end of a rope was a piece of paper.
I guess the "living victims" kool-aid is pretty tasty. I'll pass on this round.
There are a number of arguments against paying reparations for slavery - it's bizarre to hear these arguments embraced by members of the "class of people" or group or collective who would have had love, labor and life appropriated through collective action.What you've heard is a statement that reparations for Jim Crow is more supportable because one of the arguments against reparations for slavery simply doesn't apply.
Totally different thing...especially when you consider that those to whom Jim Crow reparations would apply coincides almost precisely with those to whom reparations for slavery would apply.
I try to be more attached to the result than the description.
Posted by: P6 at June 26, 2005 04:27 PMI guess for me it's as simple as "more supportable" is not based on an objective position, but a positioning resulting from the event...people feel as they do about reparations, generally, based on what has accrued to their families since 1865...I don't disagree that the argument is stronger to "white ears," but I don't see the value in pulling the demand for slavery-era reparations of the table - especially when a negotiation has not even begun.
Moreover, with the popularity of shows like the Antique Roadshow, you won't convince me that a proper and full accounting can't be made.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 26, 2005 09:23 PMAnd by extension, there will be no need for reparations of any kind after the immediate victims of Jim Crow laws? Does that mean this question, four centuries in the making, is only fifty years away from resolution? Hallelujah - for someone.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 27, 2005 01:49 PMI guess for me it's as simple as "more supportable" is not based on an objective position, but a positioning resulting from the event...Yup.
people feel as they do about reparations, generally, based on what has accrued to their families since 1865...Pre-rational. Yup.
I don't disagree that the argument is stronger to "white ears," but I don't see the value in pulling the demand for slavery-era reparations off the table - especially when a negotiation has not even begun.As regards white ears, who do you think has to be convinced of the validity of our claims? Assume every Black person in the country rises up in support of reparations. You think that means it's forthcoming?
Nope.
Keep it real.
Me, I picks my positions according to my values and act to achieve them using the material laying at hand. And I never confuse my motivation with my material.
For the most part though, I see the reparations discussion used as a motivational tool for Black folks.
Posted by: P6 at June 28, 2005 07:12 AMP6:
I think we have arrived at the center of our fork in the road. We are in agreement up to the point at which the question of audience is considered. I would argue that it is MORE important for Black people to agree that Reparations are in order - at least a critical mass of Black people. At this juncture, the number in agreement (combined with some level of committed action) is negligible. There are very few things we've been unable to accomplish when we had a collective accord.
White folks "agreeing" to this appeal is really secondary to galvanizing the community around the nation that not a single nation on this earth has "blown up" unless it met one of the following conditions: inheriting nature resources beneath their feet; conquest; buffer/satellite for a larger interest.
The historical cases of Rome, Carthage, Spain, post-war Germany and Japan, Israel and South Korea serve to illustrate the importance of these development patterns.
If Black folks were serious about reparations - doing the work of rebuilding our history, taking account of where our dollars go and actively redirecting them, many a "white mind" would change - and in a hurry. The precedent has been set throughout our history. None of our great gains were achieved because white folks agreed to something before a CRITICAL MASS of BLACK FOLK set out the terms. The end result may not have always been what we thought best, but our quantum leaps in America have been the result of our own initiative.
Posted by: Temple3 at June 28, 2005 08:37 AMI would argue that it is MORE important for Black people to agree that Reparations are in order - at least a critical mass of Black people.Motivational tool.
Keep in mind that'sa a different thing than the actual process one must go through to get reparations. You have your critical mass of belief in the righteousness of the cause. What you're missing is a critical mass that believes in a technique that will work.
We have no substantial difference, only a difference in tactics. I have no problem with "We deserve reparations because of slavery...now this is how we will pursue it."
Posted by: P6 at June 28, 2005 01:50 PM
Agreed. But is it any more actionable?
Posted by: memer at June 23, 2005 10:38 PM