Plan B Forum

I'll have to get back to this over the weekend when I have more time. But for a start:

Will America ever be ready for a Congressional commission to study reparations?

By Emily Badger
May 22 at 1:48 pm



If you have a quiet hour over the long weekend, read Ta-Nehisi Coates' epic new Atlantic cover story on the case for reparations, even if (especially if) you're put off by the headline.

Coates, who won a National Magazine Award last year for his essay on race in the Obama era -- "Fear of a Black President" -- looks back much further into history in this one. But the most compelling parts of his argument don't come out of the antebellum chapters of American history (although you will find few writers who describe them more beautifully). They come out of the 20th century, and even more recent times, and out of the North Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago's West Side today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... parations/

yrs,
rubato

I've been meaning to read that article, even started it once but just couldn't get into it; maybe I'll give it another try over the weekend. From what I've seen, his data on redlining and residential segregation in Chicago is pretty accurate.

But....

The questions I have, for which which I'll be looking for Coates' answers, are:
(1) exactly who should GET "reparations" (and why)? and
(2) exactly who should PAY FOR "reparations" (and why)?

I'm all for repatriations! First 'plane out for me!

The whole concept is utterly absurd...

It's amazing to me that someone could actually be ignorant enough to not realize how ridiculous the whole idea is....

Econoline wrote:I've been meaning to read that article, even started it once but just couldn't get into it; maybe I'll give it another try over the weekend. From what I've seen, his data on redlining and residential segregation in Chicago is pretty accurate.

But....

The questions I have, for which which I'll be looking for Coates' answers, are:
(1) exactly who should GET "reparations" (and why)? and
(2) exactly who should PAY FOR "reparations" (and why)?

I think you have to read the article. Coate's points out very compellingly that the exploitation of Black America has been a continuum up to the present; Well's Fargo, and others, used exploitive lending practices during the sub-prime boom and bust preferentially in Black neighborhoods. And there was a shocking article a few years ago titled "Torn from the Land" about how blacks had their homes and farms stolen by whites right up to the present.

And his conclusion is very mild, we ought to study the problem.

Coates also mentions something I have said here before; that the difference between Germany's admission of its own collective guilt and payment of reparations to the Jews who were their victims distinguishes it from the Jim Crow south and from the systematic raping of blacks elsewhere in the U.S. by our government and financial institutions. Their actions make it possible to go forward and hold their heads up as a moral country. something we cannot do.

The steps which a moral person, a community, or a state is obliged to go though when they have done wrong are the same. 1. Admission of the wrong. 2. Unqualified apology to the victim(s) 3. Payment of reparations. 4. Atonement. You have to try to 'make it right'. And if the harm is great then the cost of 'making it right' has to be proportionate.

If you do not do those things you are immoral. A disgrace. If you refuse to even try you are beyond redemption, you are evil.

We have never done any of these things. All we have done is said "well someone way back when did something wrong but that was in the paaaaaast". Instead we have states which continue to fly the flag used to celebrate the murderers of Emmit TIll and call it 'heritage'.

yrs,
rubato

Well, duh.

Of course we've continued to exploit black America as much as possible every day since the Emancipation Proclamation.

Living in 1960s America these past two years in rural Montana , I finally understand just why progress in social thinking is so slow. Ignorance is embraced with pride by too many in our country.

But anyway, let's set aside controversial arguments like whether we should ever have 'reparations', and instead just pass a living minimum wage. People with enough money to live comfortably would have no anger toward the super rich. Why don't they get that??

"Ta-Nehisi Coates' magisterial survey of American racism is already the most important magazine piece published this year. It's the kind of piece, in fact, that may end up mattering in American life many years from now. "

A short clip where Coates lays out the arithmetic:

http://www.vox.com/2014/6/2/5771720/ta- ... them-to-be


And a longer interview about the article as a whole:

http://www.vox.com/videos/2014/6/2/5771 ... nversation


The original article is a remarkable achievement and well worth the time to read it.

yrs,
rubato